A question that was raised last year with the Benghazi attack was what is terrorism? Was it a terrorist attack? The bombs in Boston hit close to home for me (literally) since I live and work in the Boston area. Reading the news stories following attack in Boston raised the question again. Some stories labeled it terrorism, some just say bombings. The white house called it a terrorist attack quickly after the attack took place.

This got me thinking, what is terrorism? When is it a terrorist attack and when is it not? People today seem to like to use the word as political ammo to push a particular agenda. This has clouded the public’s perspective of what is terrorism and what isn’t.

To find the answer to the question we don’t even need to open a dictionary. The word itself tells us what it means. It’s an act with the purpose of instilling terror. Some times there can be a political or religious motives, but the motives can also be personal.

So what makes an action terrorism? By looking at the definition I stated above we can see that it’s the intention of the act that makes it terrorism and not the act itself. So to know if it was terrorism we need to know the intention of the perpetrators. The intention of a terrorist is usually obvious because of where and how they attacked. So it usually doesn’t take long to figure out whether it was a terrorist attack or not.

Using this definition we can see that even governments can perform terrorist attacks. For instance many of the bombing runs done by both the allies and the axis powers in WWII were terrorist attacks. The goal was often to terrorize and demoralize the enemy. School shootings today, may or may not be terrorist attacks. If it’s kids lashing out at society who want to go down in infamy than it’s not terrorism. We can see that Benghazi was terrorism.

This bombing in Boston was almost certainly terrorism, although it’s not confirmed yet. It has the hallmarks: done on Patriot’s Day, in Boston the city of patriots, attacking the Boston marathon (arguably the biggest well known marathon in the world) and at the exact moment when the largest number of people usually finish the race. Based on this I would say that the attacker is trying to make a point against the United States and is some how related to its military presence abroad.

The rise, and fall of the mmorpg.

Reading the topic. Someone might say “Wait, that’s not right. There are plenty of mmorpgs! In fact it seems like a dozen new MMORPG’s pop up every day.” Which I would have to say is true. However, they are not of the same grade as the generations before them. It’s sad to say, but the world of mmorpg’s is in decline.

To get a good idea of the point I’m trying to get across, you need to know some of the history of the genre. The MMORPG was born as a graphical version of a type of online text game called a “M.U.D” or “Multi User Dungeon”. MMORPG’s like EverQuest adopted the class, leveling, and race systems of MUD’s almost exactly. At the time though the MMORPG’s game play, and content paled in comparison next to their text counter parts. Many MUD’s had hundreds of zones, dozens of player usable classes, and races. Slowly as MMORPG’s progressed, both by expansion releases and new games with more features, they managed to catch up in these areas. Unfortunately, they never did introduce the advanced multiclass systems that exist in text MUD’s. MMORPG’s even started to introduce new concepts, such as wars, raiding, etc… where hundreds of people could work together at once to achieve a goal.

So… what happened? Well I personally think it was the “flood effect”. People saw success and they wanted in on the money. The market got flooded with graphically pretty MMORPG’s that had very little substance. To compete, they started to make novelty MMORPG’s, and “free to play” versions, most of which had maybe a dozen zones, one race, and a small handful classes. This in effect “lowered the bar”. Then there is the addition of “features” that are designed to limit the players progress, rather then expand the game play have become common. You can see this in items wearing out, de-leveling, and required quests before players can expand beyond particular levels.

It’s sad to see an entire genre stagnate, with each successive generation. The games get smaller and more limited while focusing too much on the graphics and novelty. Rather then depth of game play and social interaction. There are still a few good MMORPG’s out there. Most of them have a been around awhile, however, unless someone breaths new life into a declining genre then I’m afraid we have seen the end of the golden age of MMORPG’s.

There are still some good online games to play though like Party Bingo.

Leave a comment and let us know what online games you like to play!

We just can’t resist the on-trend bright shades of this season, but let’s be honest – but if you find yourself spending your Sunday night on the couch watching the big game, chances are you’ll be ready for a more low-maintenance ensemble. Dressing-down doesn’t mean you don’t have to compromise on your look. The trick is to cut down on fuss with multi-tasking products that enhance your natural features.

Here is one product that will keep you looking fresh and is easy to use.

KICK OFF: TouchBack Plus Leave-In Conditioner

Be sure to get ahead as soon as the game’s on with the TouchBack Plus Leave-In Conditioner. Use this when you get out of the shower to maximize on moisture and shine to get that initial breakaway play – without the use of harsh chemicals like ammonia, peroxide or sulfates. Best of all, you won’t fumble with excess sprays or serums because this leave-in conditioner has double as an advanced styling treatment. The TouchBack Plus Color Leave-In Conditioner deposits color back into your hair to replenish a weary dye job – or keep it simple with the TouchBack Plus Clear Leave-In Conditioner.

TouchBack Plus CLEAR Leave-In Conditioner, $24.95

TouchBack Plus COLOR Leave-In Conditioner, $29.95

(available in Rich Black, Dark Brown, Medium Brown, Light Brown, Ash Blonde, Golden Blonde, Light Auburn and Dark Auburn)

Today I am wearing Lee Vintage Slim Leg Jeans in Diablo (retail $58) with a vintage tee my wife bought me. I’m just hanging around getting some yard work done, so nothin’ fancy here…

These jeans are from Lee’s Fall 2012 line. You can get these jeans on Lee.com and on Amazon.com.

Lee is gearing up for Lee National Denim Day – a movement that encourages people to go casual for a cause during the month of October. You can join the Denim Day movement any day of the month by wearing your jeans and donating $5 to the American Cancer Society to help those living with breast cancer.

Lee National Denim Day is proud to partner with the American Cancer Society for the first time this year! All donations will help the American Cancer Society support life-saving screenings in communities nationwide, bring hope and care to those traveling for cancer treatment and invest in groundbreaking cancer research.

It is estimated that 229,000 people will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year alone. We’re inviting you to help decrease this number by joining us in supporting Lee National Denim Day.

For more information on how you can get involved, visit http://www.denimday.com/

I’m also wearing some comfortable boat shoes from Energie. I like these because they are easy to slip on and they are comfortable. I can wear them with or without socks and a variety of different pants or jeans.

These boating shoes also come in a rich cobalt blue color I’d love to try out. Visit energiefootwear.com for more info on where to buy these.

My Outfit

Shirt: Fender Logo T-Shirt
Jeans: Lee Men’s Dungarees Vintage Slim Belted Straight Leg Jean in Diablo ($58)
Shoes: Energie Footwear – Pope Boat Shoes in black
Watch: Kenneth Cole New York Men’s KC3903 Digital Tech Quartz Multi-Function Touch Screen Stainless Steel Watch ($175)

* Some products in this post were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of product testing. This does not effect our opinion of the products in any way. We only write about products we personally like and use, regardless of how they were acquired.

Today is the first Anniversary of this blog going live! I should probably post on it more often…

These shoes look trashed right? Well they should since my husband has been wearing them almost non stop since he got them to review about a month ago! He even went into the woods with these on last weekend…

These are the Crocs Men’s Santa Cruz Lounger – a fuzzy lined slipon shoe that is so comfortable, you will think you are wearing slippers!

My hubby has been living in these things; wearing them to work, church, around the house, outside, inside and everywhere! I can’t get him to take them off!!!! He says they are warm, soft, lightweight, comfortable and easy to get on and off. “They are good. I like them. What more can I say?!” he told me.

So there you have it. They are good. He likes them. What more do you need to know?! lol

Retail: $59.99

Availability:

Zappos.com – $60.00 + free shipping/returns

Endless.com – $37.99 + free shipping/returns

Piperlime.com – $60.00 + free shipping/returns

Shoebuy.com – $59.99 + free shipping/returns

Amazon.com – $28.99 – $60.00 + free shipping

Happy 4th of July!

The TV is pretty ubiquitous today. Growing up, my family always had a TV. It seems like almost every household in most of the western world has one. However I think TV’s days are numbered.

I’m noticing with the younger generation, and even up into the middle aged generation, that the TV is losing favor for on demand services like You Tube, Net Flix, and Hulu. I’m pretty much the only person in the office at work who watches TV regularly. Most of my coworkers go to places like Net Flix to watch movies and TV shows. Almost all of them only have the most basic cable you can get, or no cable at all. They use their TVs as giant screens to stream movies from their computers.

Compared to the internet, TV is too rigid to compete. As bandwidth increases the TV will become more and more useless. More and more TV channels are streaming online, and some TV shows, and TV stations are online only, like OnlyOne TV, and GBTV. TV won’t be able to keep up. Even if TVs are able to connect to all these services they still won’t be able to compete with the flexibility of computers.

I’m not saying you won’t see media centers, but TV as we no it will cease to exist. They will basically lose the functions that separate TVs from computer screens. At that point the “TV” will essentially be nothing more than a screen where the family can sit to watch downloaded, on demand streaming programs, or use other family center media applications. How long will this take to happen? I don’t know exactly, but I think the TV as we know it will be almost completely gone by the time our grand kids are growing up. So another 20 to 30 years.

So many people seem to be ignoring the debt that the US and many countries have. In the US, it’s so bad the US has to take loans to pay it’s loans. That would be like you being so deep in debt that you mortgage your house to pay on your debt. Most of us today know this is unsustainable. Eventually the money you borrowed will run out, you will have no more collateral and you will have to default. Well the US has no collateral, but people still trust they will pay the money back. So they don’t have to worry about defaulting. In theory at least.

Today the us debt is over 14 trillion, that over 45 grand for every American. Half of Americans don’t make enough money to pay taxes so that’s almost 100 grand for every tax payer in the US. People say “well we can borrow a lot more, after all we haven’t reach 100% of GDP yet.” The problem with the GDP calculations is they include government spending (excluding debt). Also GDP doesn’t really tell you how much people are earning just how much money is going through the economy. In my opinion the National Net Income is a better number to compare debt to. It measures all the money earned in a country, including government. The National Net Income of the US is about 9.7 trillion. That means if all the money earned by every person, every business and government in the US was used to pay the debt, it would take over a year to pay it off.

This wouldn’t be a large deal if our population was increasing at a high rate allowing us to make more income to cover the new debt. However the population growth in the US is just slightly above replacement. Which means we are piling even more debt on the same number of people. At the end of the day we can’t borrow forever. On the current path there are two solutions. You could do what was done in the past by some governments and just print our way out of debt. Essentially making your money worthless so your debt is very small. Or we can pay it off some how. If this isn’t done default will eventually happen. On top of which, option number one is essentially default, not only does it steal from every american making our money worth less, but it steals from the people who lent us the money as well. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out which one the US government will eventually choose.

Welcome to the first full day of Summer!