Followers

Sunday, June 29, 2008

How Digg Got Me On ESPN and Fox News


What is Digg? For those who do not know, I will use the description right off their web site:

“Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.”

I will not go into all the ins and outs of Digg. You can read a good article about it here. You basically submit content you find interesting to the Digg Community. The community votes it up or down. If enough people vote it up and not too many vote it down or “bury it”, your submission makes it to the “Front Page” which can generate thousands of hits to the submission.

Is Digg beneficial to the “obscure bloggers” of which I count myself? It can be if you remember the key phrase coined by Viacom movie mogul Sumner Redstone “CONTENT IS KING!”. I actually thought my brother Mark Cuban coined the phrase until I read about Redstone. This is the golden rule that drives the Digg community.

What is your blog about? Is your blog about getting traffic from front page postings regardless of quality of the content because you are ad supported? I see a lot of that on Digg. That kind of content in my opinion is not king when it comes to blogging because it is almost always content generated by someone else. Why not spend some time building a loyal readership base with quality and or original content? If you don’t people are not going to come back until you have another popular submission. I want reader loyalty. I want people to stick around and look at my multiple posts. The only way they are going to do that is if they enjoyed the initial post I submitted to Digg. When a Digg submission of mine hits front page, it is just as or more important to me how many other of my articles are clicked.

There is nothing wrong with writing about other people’s news. Unless you are writing an original screenplay it makes sense to write about the world happening around you. The key for me at least is to take an event, even if 500 other people have written on it, and make it mine with original ideas, thoughts and viewpoints. If I can not add something new (at least new to me) to an event, I tend to stay away from it.

The tendency of some Diggers is to read only the lead-in when they digg. I try to create a lead-in that encourages readers to click on the link to my blog rather than simply digg and comment off of the lead-in. A bad lead-in can get an article buried as quickly as a bad article itself. The art of writing a good lead-in can be compared to a a teaser for a Hollywood movie. You want to capture the interest of your audience quickly without giving to much information. You want them to be curious enough to go see the movie.(your blog) It is a continuous learning process.

Do not be afraid of the comments. When a submission goes front page there can be hundreds of comments. Many of them are hateful and tough to read but if you shrug those off and find the meaningful ones you can learn a lot about ways to improve your writing and content selection skills. I routinely got tortured for my grammar before I started working harder on it. I still get tortured to a degree but the complaints have reduced dramatically.

Here is an example of how Digg recently worked for me resulting in two ESPN interviews and an appearance on The Fox News Channel.(video below).

On June 6 2008 I wrote an article entitled “Why Athletes Go Broke“. It went popular and generated 814 Diggs. This is a fairly modest number for a front page submission. In contrast, the actual article on my blog received 30 thousand hits. This is again, not an unusually large number of hits from a front page submission. The real benefit is the other search engines and blogs that pick up on this large number of hits. This process got my post noticed by the New York Times. The Times linked to the my blog in their Freakonomics Section in a post entitled: Why Do So Many Celebrities Go Broke. It was also posted in their “Whats Online” section. The Times postings resulted in my submission being picked up by news blogs all over the world. This resulted in two ESPN interviews and a national appearance on the Fox News Channel.(video below) I have also received several offers to write for publications.

What lessons can be learned from this? There are some that will say that this only happened because my last name is Cuban. I dispute that assertion. I have written many blogs that have gone front page and not generated any interest beyond Digg. It proves that Digg does work for bloggers even in the face of any disdain by the Digg community towards the blogging community. I have no idea if this disdain actually exists but I read about it frequently. It proves that regardless of any Digg variables, content will always be king. If you have content that is timely, interesting and hits a “public nerve” Digg will work for you. Digg is not just for distributing hard news around the internet. Digg can work to distribute your thoughts on that news as well. You just have to have something worth saying. Digg can pull back the curtain but the audience still has to like the show. Be original-Be timely-Be bold as a blogger. The Digg community will stand up and take notice.

Original here


The Douchiest Phone Message In History



Douchebag Phone Message - Watch more free videos

In all my years of studying douchebaggery, never have i encountered anything like this. It’s such pure and unadulterated douche that I wish I could bottle it and use just a drop of it at a time.

The back story on this is that a girl named Olga was out with her friends in the Marina district of San Francisco (known for being a popular hang out for douches), and she talked to this guy named Dmitri for all of two minutes. Then she gave him her card and said “give me a call.” The above is the messages he left. Listen to the whole thing, it just keeps getting better and better. I won’t even tell you my favorite parts because i don’t want to ruin anything. Just listen.

Original here

Nine-year-old girl finds black widow spider in red grapes bought at Waitrose

By Daily Mail Reporter

Supermarket bosses have recalled red Mexican grapes from all their stores after a deadly black widow spider was found in a bunch.

Waitrose pulled the fruit from shelves in case other spiders had entered the country in the same consignment.

The black widow - the world's fifth most poisonous spider - was found by nine-year-old Harriet Barron in a fruit bowl at her home.

Minutes earlier, her brother Elliot had been eating from the same bunch while watching television.

The black widow is the world's fifth most poisonous spider

Their mother, Susanne, a 53-year-old nurse, had bought the grapes at her local Waitrose in Northampton.

She said: 'Harriet went to get a grape and started screaming, "There's a spider in there."'

' My husband Columbus recognised the hour-glass-shaped orange and red markings, covered it with paper and walked out of the room.'

The couple, who have four children, put the spider in a jar before contacting Waitrose and the Department for Food.

Mrs Barron said she has not asked for a refund. ' Our thoughts were about safety because there was likely to be more than one in the consignment,' she added.

Black widow spiders come from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Females can grow to about 1.5inches, including leg-span, but males are much smaller.

A store spokesman said: 'This is an isolated incident and our fruit undergoes stringent checks during packing.'

Original here

Stilt-walker completes 830 miles across Michigan

IRONWOOD, Mich. - A 24-year-old man has completed an 830-mile trek on aluminum stilts across Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas to make people aware of cerebral palsy.

United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan reports that Neil Sauter ended his eight-week journey Friday in Ironwood, Mich., on the Upper Peninsula border with Wisconsin. He began walking in early May from southeast Michigan.

Sauter has raised $16,000 for United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan. A 3-to-1 matching federal grant pushes that total to $64,000.

Sauter has mild cerebral palsy and used three pairs of stilts on the walk.

Original here

Alabama's Nut Job Attorney General Wants To Ban Sex Toys And Sing With Dead People


Have you heard the one about the Southern politician who wants to arrest women for dildo possession?

Unfortunately, it's not a joke, so there's no punchline. There's a real live attorney general in Alabama who actually wants to enforce the sex toy ban enacted by the fundamentalist-dominated state legislature a few years ago. Troy King is serious about this -- he will bust your ass for a vibrator.

Sure, there are other states, especially in the South, that have some pretty ridiculous laws on the books. In Mississippi, for instance, it's illegal -- even for married couples! -- to have oral sex. The law's still on the books, presumably because none of the good-old-boy legislators there wants to become known as the guy who legalized blow jobs.

But Troy King is cut from a different cloth. AG King, widely known as a thin skinned, vindictive (that from the Alabama District Attorneys Association!) and spiteful little man and a "hateful punk," believes that sex toys are immoral and that he should be concerned with arresting those who use them.

With all the real crime that takes place in Alabama -- including a whole passel of shady dealings in politics, corruption, and graft, much of it involving King himself -- Troy's more concerned that the wimmen folk might let their lustful urges get out of control once they learn that "men" and "orgasms" don't always have to be in the same room.


Mobile Press Register political cartoonist J.D. Crowe's take on Troy King's sex toy phobia


My friend, fellow blogger and former Alabama gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall gets the credit for originally alerting me to the outrageous sex-phobic shenanigans of Troy King last year. Loretta got some coverage from Dame Magazine on her "Sex Toys For Troy King" campaign, in which Loretta encouraged everyone to send the Attorney General a sex toy of their choice -- a brilliant bit of political theater.

I want to join Loretta in encouraging everyone to send sex toys to Troy King. Here's his address:

Office of the Attorney General
Alabama State House
11 South Union Street, Third Floor
Montgomery, AL 36130

Loretta also blogged about Troy's laughable, pathetically bad posthumous duet with a non-consenting Johnny Cash, and I was galvanized into action. When some idiot who never even met Johnny Cash starts screwing with the memory of The Man In Black, it is ON, homie.

In January of this year, I obtained online a 30-second sample of the King/Cash duet, which Troy had distributed to about 25 friends and supporters as Christmas "gifts," and I slapped together a little slide show video to go with it, which I then put on YouTube.

video

Next thing I know, I'm being interviewed by leading Alabama newspaper The Tuscaloosa News, and as I told them, as a native Alabamian myself, I really hate when some ignorant, pea-brained yokel like King makes the state a laughingstock.

Almost immediately, the video gets 1,500 views online. And Troy made a rookie mistake: His press officer ran his mouth to the press (Rule #1: If you're a public official, you never respond to a crank). To quote the Tuscaloosa News story, "King spokesman Chris Bence said the West Coast is a good fit for Elliott. 'Outside the state is the best place for him,' Bence said."

Within a few weeks, King pulled some strings and had the video pulled from YouTube; to do so he went through his friends at the John R. Cash Trust, who spooked YouTube into pulling the video with a spurious "copyright infringement" claim. (The claim is patently ridiculous, because a 30-second clip falls well within "Fair Use" doctrine, and in any event, the Cash version of the song on which King overdubbed his god-awful vocals has never been officially released.)

So I started wondering. What's up with a guy so vindictive, so petty, so insecure that he has to have his press agent answer some crackpot 2,500 miles away when I put a 30-second video showing him in a less than flattering light? And when he feels to need to discredit me, he feels that he can do it based on where I choose to live?

Now, here's where the shit gets deep.

If having dildo-phobia, a thinly-disguised fear of feminine sexuality and delusions of country stardom (even to the extent of desecrating the dead) aren't enough to convince you that Troy King is a nut job a and a dirt bag, there's plenty more, folks.


Cartoon by JD Crowe


Among Troy's, other, um, "accomplishments":

The selective prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman -- mostly for being the most popular and successful Democrat in the state -- was aided by King's office, and Troy's fingerprints, along with those of Bush operative Karl Rove, are all over the case. "Mr. King is an ambitious man who appears ruthless and vindictive," wrote the Decatur Daily. "That makes Mr. King a dangerous man who unfortunately wields extraordinary power over people’s lives."

King blew up when, as state chairman of John McCain's presidential campaign, he was passed over to give McCain's introduction. Rumor initially had it that Alabama Gov. Bob Riley would attend the event. King didn't want Riley stealing "his" spotlight, and undoubtedly making it sting even more for the man who would be King, a film crew was on hand -- our insecure but vain hero wanted to be filmed speaking to a large and adoring crowd (for future campaign ads?) U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus ended up giving the introduction, while a furious King's tantrums had worn out those around him. "Would all this be a factor in King’s unusual demeanor on stage behind McCain?" asked Alabama blog Doc's Political Parlor, which added, "People on both sides of the aisle noted how King rarely smiled... while he continually scanned the crowd like he was looking for someone or something. I would not have mentioned it here except that others also particularly noticed it and said how odd it was."

• Perhaps the paranoid King was scanning the crowd for an assassin. His megalomania and paranoia are becoming legendary; King wears a flak jacket everywhere, according to widely published accounts. King's sense of self-importance is gargantuan. Said a witness to one public appearance: "First, he comes right in and parks right up front in the spot marked off for the Governor. The man always wants front row parking. He won’t walk anywhere. It’s like he’s the president. And he’s wearing his flak jacket. He acted like there was a sniper on every roof." And this was in Elba, his hometown, where he is supposed to be widely popular.

• King is known for his adversarial relationship with local district attorneys in Alabama. He goaded district attorneys around the state by sending out critical press releases naming individual DAs who took a public stance opposing him on a widely publicized death penalty murder case. According to the Mobile Press Register, 15 district attorneys around the state were targeted with customized press releases. Newspapers throughout Alabama strongly criticized King for has ham-handed hot-dogging. "When it comes to political grandstanding, Alabama Attorney General Troy King is usually right up there with the best - or worst - of them, depending on your point of view," said the Florence Times-Daily. "Even King may have outdone himself with his latest effort, an attack on the Shelby County district attorney [Robby Owens] for his handling of a death penalty case." The Alabama District Attorneys Association questioned King's fitness for his job, noting that he has no real experience in trial law. "We think the association is right on point," the Times Daily editorialized. "His time in office has been marked by ethical and judgment lapses as well as a continual disinterest in taking the high road." It has been suggested that King’s takeover of the Gamble murder case was at least partially due to DA Owens, a fellow Republican, supporting and endorsing King’s 2006 opponent for Attorney General, Democrat John Tyson.

• King holds a grudge in the most unprofessional way. Troy was still so mad at Shelby County DA Robby Owens that, incredibly, he tried to get a judge to bar Owens' testimony in another, unrelated court hearing -- despite the fact that this time, Owens supported King's position!

Harper's Magazine has anointed Troy "The King of Political Prosecutions." "Alabamians are waking up to the realization that their Attorney General has been playing political games with prosecution for some time," political writer Scott Horton wrote in the magazine last year. According to the article, King "played a very curious role in installing his former client, Congressman Bob Riley, as Governor in the face of mounting evidence of election fraud in Baldwin County."

According to Mobile's Lagniappe magazine, an investigator working for King described how King pushed him for dirt on a former district attorney who was prepared to challenge King for the position of Attorney General: Asked to divulge details of those investigations, Anthony "Tony" Castaldo declined elaboration, saying that an investigator does not talk about the specifics of cases. But in October 2005, Castaldo was in Birmingham in a vehicle with King and one other staff member. Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson, Castaldo’s former boss, had recently announced his intention to challenge King for the state’s top prosecutor slot, and King was reading a newspaper story about it in the vehicle. “I can still see it,” Castaldo described, “King said, ‘Looks like Tyson’s throwing his hat in the ring now.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘You used to work for him. You got anything we can use on him?’ I just looked at him and said, ‘I’ve worked for politicians and never spoke out of school about any of them and would afford you the same respect should the opportunity present itself.’” That wasn't the answer Troy King wanted. In the next months, Castaldo found his office lock was forced, his papers rifled and his timesheets examined. He has become a target of a Troy King vendetta, according to Harper's.

King then initiated the perjury trial of the afore-mentioned Anthony Castaldo by forwarding "evidence" to the Jefferson County district attorney. Castaldo claims that the trial was pushed by King as political payback for refusing “to do political things” for the Attorney General, including helping attack John Tyson, King’s Democratic opponent in the 2006 general election. Castaldo was acquitted after only 45 minutes of jury deliberation. "It seems just a little odd that King would pro-actively foward a case to a district attorney so that he can charge one of his special prosecutors," noted Daily Dixie. "It’s also pretty telling that King gave the case to David Barber, who is one of only a handful of Republican District Attornies in Alabama, when the alleged perjury occurred in Bessemer which has its own DA who happens to be Democrat."

King conducted a “year long vindictive witch hunt” in an effort to find "anything - old campaign records, finance records" to get Circuit Judge Dan King (no relation) “off the bench,” according to a sworn statement by the above mentioned Castaldo. The affidavit alleges that the prosecution of the judge was selectively based on Troy King’s disapproval of Judge King’s ruling on certain gambling machines in 2004.

• King admitted to the Birmingham News that he had asked Roy Johnson, former chancellor of the state’s two-year college system, to find a job for the mother of a friend — while King’s office was carrying out an investigation of the system and of Johnson. "It was a huge error in ethical judgment for the attorney general to seek a favor from the subject of a criminal probe," wrote algop.net. "But King’s ethical lapse goes even deeper than that," wrote the Montgomery Advertiser. "He didn’t ask for just any favor; he asked Johnson to hire someone when such widespread hiring of friends and relatives by officials in the two-year college system could turn out to be a part of the investigation." King announced that he was removing himself from the investigation -- but only after only after severe public reaction and criticism from around the state -- and proceeded to ignore subsequent calls for his resignation.

King accepted luxury box seats at Atlanta Braves games from Alabama Power, the utility which has a monopoly on most electrical power in the state. The "gift" was not reported to the Alabama Ethics Commission. Bear in mind that King is supposed to be representing the customers of Alabama Power at the Public Service Commission. King claimed it wasn't a conflict of interest, and was "no different than a campaign contribution, which politicians get all the time." Except a campaign contribution would have to have been reported. The value of the gift was in the thousands of dollars. The boxes rent for more than $2,000 a day, and the food bill for King's party came to more than $1,262, according to the Tuscaloosa News. "Someone needs to have a long, heart-to-heart talk about high ethics with Attorney General Troy King," the News wrote. "He either fails to grasp the concept or scoffs at it. Either failing is especially critical for a man in his position." According to Daily Dixie, King reimbursed Alabama Power $436 for the food consumed by himself and his family only after the utility company "educated" the attorney general about ethics law. Power company officials explained to him that they could not pay for it since they were not physically present at the meals (isn't it nice to know that the Attorney General of Alabama is getting ethics advice from a lobbyist?). Notorious cheapskate King wouldn't spring for the other $826 in edibles consumed by the rest of his party.

• King's particular zeal for killing people has given pause to more than a few. "Attorney General Troy King can be criticized for many things. But nobody's ever called him a death penalty sissy," wrote the Birmingham News. "Indeed, King is so gung-ho about putting people to death that it's more than a little scary. His viewpoint on executions seems to be the more, the merrier." "To people like Troy King, courts are nothing but an annoyance," noted Alablawg. "All they do is protect 'the rights of criminals.' Troy King despises the Bill of Rights, because, in his mind, there are only two kinds of people: Good People and criminals... Like it or not, people lie, make mistakes and do stupid things. That includes cops, prosecutors, eyewitnesses, experts, and attorneys general. People are people even when they are state officials or crime victims. Because people are people, we limit their power to take away another person’s freedom," Alablawg continues. "Crime is serious, but so is executing someone. The balance struck between penalizing crime and protecting freedom is what Troy King derisively calls 'the rights of criminals.' No, they are not. They are your rights, and my rights." Beautifully put.

King had his opinion on payments to indigent defense lawyers unanimously overturned by the Alabama Supreme Court. Under King's, er, "leadership," indigent public defenders were being paid an average of $4.98 an hour to defend capital murder cases, when possibly innocent people's lives were in the balance. "Attorney General Troy King maintains Alabama's capital punishment system is as good as any in the world," noted the Birmingham News. "Yet, considering its built-in flaws, King's assurances cannot be sustained with even a modest degree of confidence. Clearly, the best hope for somebody charged with a death penalty offense is a vigorous, thorough defense at the initial trial in circuit court. But the system in Alabama works hard against that obvious and basic premise."

King forced the State of Alabama into a frivolous lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior after the Department ruled in favor of a Native American tribe in an electronic bingo games case. The Department of the Interior saw through King's attempt to choose the interests of wealthy racetrack owners, who also operate the electronic bingo games, over an Indian Tribe. As with seemingly everything King does, this became personal and in a last ditch, doomed attempt to save face in a losing argument, he sued the federal government, using the tax dollars of the citizens of Alabama.


King gets his ankle bracelet removed -- photo opportunity!

King dramatically wore an GPS tracking ankle bracelet for several days to "push" the Alabama Legislature to pass a law requiring some repeat sex offenders to wear the devices after release from prison. The law passed both houses unanimously, as expected, confirming that King's “push” was unnecessary and was actually yet another case of his callow ambition and political grandstanding.

• As a law student at the University of Alabama, King wrote nastily homophobic letters to the Crimson White, the student newspaper. King decried the tolerance exhibited towards gay students on campus: "The existence of the Gay/Lesbian alliance on this campus is an affront to the state of Alabama, its citizenry, this diversity and its students... One has but to look at the forces which the controversy has united--from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Organization of Women to the Queer Nation just to name a few--to clearly see how corrupt a cause this truly is." When asked by current Crimson White staffers if his opinion had changed, King granted only that now he'd use "more judicioius language."

The people of Alabama deserve a better Attorney General than Troy King. Unfortunately, the next election for AG isn't until 2010.

Original here

A Quick Note From Idaho (And Why I Hate Wal-Mart)

Hey everyone, been on the road for two days now and I'm about to pull out of Idaho Falls, ID and head north and then east into Montana.

The drive has been beautiful so far. Eastern Oregon is incredible. I had driven through there in the past, but it was night time and I didn't know what I was missing, but wow, one of the most colorful places I've ever been.

My travel was delayed a bit, however, when I stopped to get my oil changed, and I thought the story was worth passing along.

Now, I ordinarily avoid Wal-Mart like the plague, but I needed a change and I was about to hit a piece of road with no services for over 100 miles, so I figured I better get it done while I had the chance.

Sadly, the ONLY place in town to change my oil was at the local Wal-Mart. So as sick as it made my stomach, I pulled up and did it.

The girl (yes, not a woman) who took my information seemed friendly at first. She politely inquired about the full car load of stuff and said "you must be going somewhere cool."

"Chicago" I said with a smile.

I handed her the keys to the car and stepped out. She told me it would be a 20-minute wait, so I grabbed the iPod and the paper I had and went into the waiting room.

By the way, the one thing I was happy about was that at least this oil change was going to be cheap. Under $25.

About 25 minutes later the girl came into the waiting room and told me the car was ready. I paid, took back my keys and jumped in, ready to hit the open road again.

But when I turned on my car the oil monitoring system said I was still at 10% of my oil's life.

That was weird.

I got out of the car and asked the girl if she was sure that the oil change had in fact been done. She said "Yep, I know it was, cause I did it myself."

"Can you explain why my car is telling me it hasn't been?"

"Well we don't reset the meter in any of those Japanese cars" was her response.

I thought maybe she was right. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if this was something that had to be reset myself or if the car automatically did it upon an oil change.

The only way to find out was to check for myself. So I headed back to the car, popped the hood, and stuck in the dipstick.

Sure enough, it was almost empty.

Unreal. They had just charged me $24 and told me they had changed the oil, but it was never done! They knew they were the only place for miles and miles, this could cause serious problems for people without the monitoring system to alert them it wasn't done.

If it wasn't for that I never would have thought to double check. In the future I will.

Anyhow, at this point I wasn't Wal-mart's happiest customer ever. So I went back in and told the girl what I found.

She called in the mechanic and IN FRONT OF ME said to him "why didn't you change the oil?" Clearly she either forgot, or just didn't care that she had already told me that SHE had done it.

His response was "You told me to just pull it into the lot, you didn't say anything about an oil change."

I was on the mechanic's side for a minute until he looked at me and said "When we get these foreign cars in here, sometimes it gets confusing."

Now I was just livid.

First of all, my car being foreign was 100%, fully and completely irrelevant to the fact that they had just charged me $24 to allow my car to sit in their garage for 24 minutes before pulling it into their parking lot. A dollar a minute. Wow.

On top of that, the disdain for my foreign car was becoming very apparent now. Which was also irritating. My bet is that neither of these people knew that while their own American cars were built by foreign workers for next-to-nothing wages, all of my Honda Civic (with the exception of the engine) was assembled in Ohio by well paid, and highly skilled Americans.

The parts were also produced in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, once again, by American workers.

Long story short, I thought about getting a manager and demanding my money back. And in retrospect, I should have. But I wanted to get back to the road and try to keep my blood pressure low. So I waited a few more minutes while the mechanic replaced the oil in my ever-so-complex Civic and instead of getting my money back I'll just blog about what a rotten, evil and horrible place Wal-Mart is.

I hate Wal-Mart.

Ok, so now it's time for me to hit the road, so much for this being a quick note.

Original here

Twenty-five Signs You Have Grown Up

1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.

2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.

3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.

5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.

6. You watch the Weather Channel.

7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “breakup.”

8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.

9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”

10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.

11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.

13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.

14. You feed your dog “Science Diet” instead of McDonald’s leftovers.

15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

16. You take naps.

17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at three in the morning would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.

19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

20. A four dollar bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good shit.”

21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.

22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”

23. Ninety percent of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking “Oh shit what the hell happened?”

Original here