Jason Clarke

Xmas lights 2006,
originally uploaded by jgclarke.

The second annual shot of our house on Thanksgiving eve, immediately after the Xmas lighting ceremony for 2006. Unlike last year, it’s not snowing, but we still have much to be thankful for. Here’s to your own traditions, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, wherever you are.

Today, we’ve got a special episode of Maine Impact up in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Three Mainers- State Rep Emily Cain, author Jim Baumer, and blogger Michelle Souliere- were kind enough to call in to the Maine Impact public voice-mail line to submit exclusive audio essays on the topic of “being thankful for Maine.” Their 3 segments are a perfect pre-meal discussion-starter for wherever you may be tomorrow.

From our end, we’re thankful that Maine Impact has made it to episode #10. Thanks to all those who’ve listened, linked, and told friends.

Here we are again- it’s time for this week’s NFL Pool wrap-up and preview.

Last week: 9-7

Summary: Yay, I did much better last week. If only Washington had won and I had picked Jacksonville like I should have. Ahh well. No word on whether or not I won for the first time last week- the judges will ring in tomorrow during Thanksgiving festivities. But I was above .500, and at this point that’s good enough for me, as I’m currently 11 games back of the overall season lead (but still in 2nd place).

Season to date: 80-62 - Good for 57%

This week, I’m playing it safe again. My picks below in BOLD. Leave yours in the comments!

Mia at Det - Det
TB at Dal - Dal
Den at KC - Den

Cin at Cle - Cle
Jax at Buf - Jax
Pit at Balt - Balt
NO at Atl - Atl
Car at Was - Car
SF at STL - STL
Ari at Min - Ari
Hou at NYJ - NYJ
Oak at SD - SD
Chi at NE - NE
NYG at Ten - NYG
Phi at Ind - IND

GB at Sea - GB (30)

Via MSNBC, I just learned that my former publisher, ReganBooks, is putting out a book by O.J. Simpson titled “If I Did It.” According to news reports, the book will describe how Simpson “would have” killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, murders he was aquitted of in 1995.

Although I value free speech, I also value appropriate restraint, and in this case I think ReganBooks has gone beyond the pale in their effort to publish sensational material. More than that- I’m truly disgusted and thoroughly embarrassed to be associated with a publisher who is stooping to such a disgraceful act.

UPDATE: Gratefully, ReganBooks parent NewsCorp has decided to junk both the book, as well as TV special created to accompany it.

Here we are again- it’s time for this week’s NFL Pool wrap-up and preview.

Last week: 7-9

Summary: Yet another bad week. Not much else to say on that one.

Season to date: 71-55 - Good for 61%

This week, I’m playing it safe pretty much across the board. My picks below in BOLD. Leave yours in the comments!

Pit at Cle - Pit
New at GB - NE
Oak at KC - KC
Min at Mia - Mia
Cin at NO - NO
Chi at NYJ - Chi
Ten at Phi - Phi
Was at TB - Was
Stl at Car - Car
Atl at Bal - Bal
Buf at Hou - Hou
Det at Ari - Ari
Sea at SF - Sea
Ind at Dal - IND
San at Den - San
NYG at Jax - NYG (30)

As initially reported by TechCrunch on Friday, jasonclarke.org can now confirm from a source with knowledge of the situation that Amazon.com will soon begin selling the Xbox 360 gaming system for just $100 in time for the holiday shopping rush. The move drops the price of the “Core”, or base model, of Microsoft’s popular gaming platform 66%, down from its current price of $300.

The source, who declined to be identified, confirmed the rumor via an instant messaging conversation just moments ago. The source did not confirm any details regarding time frame or whether any other products would be discounted along with the Xbox 360.

The move comes just a week after retail giant Wal-Mart announced slashed prices on many electronics in time for the holiday buying season. Competition for the Xbox 360 from a new Nintendo gaming system, the Wii, is another potential motivation behind the agreement. Nintendo recently announced a more than $200 million advertising blitz for its new system.

Although we’ve heard no specific time frame for the announcement, one party indicated it was likely to take effect “very soon.”

Keep an eye on jasonclarke.org as this story develops.

UPDATE: This past Thursday, the news broke on this. Online retailer Amazon.com has announced it will put up “deals” for customers to vote on once a week until Christmas. Each week, product with the most votes will be discounted. The Xbox 360 core system is included in the first week’s round of products, and if it wins, 1,000 units of the system will be offered at $100 each. Although my post clearly avoided specifying any time frame, my post is still not completely accurate in light of the news that Amazon.com customers must vote on the Xbox 360 discount (rather than it being provided immediately by the retailer). In any case, I apologize to the readers of this site for publishing information which did not accurately represent the actual situation.

In today’s 9th episode of Maine Impact, we break down the election that was and outline some possible next steps for Maine’s losing candidates. Head over and take a listen!

Here we are again- it’s time for this week’s NFL Pool wrap-up and preview.

Last week: 6-8

Summary: Yipes, another bad week. Worse, I finished 5 games worse than the leader, meaning I’m now a total of 11 games out first place in the overal yearly standings. That’s still good for second, but a gap of only 3 games separates me from 3rd.

Season to date: 65-46 - Good for 59%

This is a tough week- a few toss-ups- so it’s a combination of skill plus luck if I’m going to see my first win. My picks below in BOLD. Leave yours in the comments!

Cleveland at Atlanta
San Diego at Cincinnati
San Fransisco at Detroit
Baltimore at Tennessee
Buffalo at Indianapolis
Kansas City at Miami
Green Bay at Minnesota
New York Jets at New England
Washington at Philadelphia
Houston at Jacksonville
Denver at Oakland
Dallas at Arizona
New Orleans at Pittsburgh
St. Louis at Seattle
Chicago at New York Giants
Tampa Bay at Carolina

Today is an important day- so get out and vote! And if you’re living in Maine and haven’t voted yet, head over to Maine Impact, where Lance Dutson and I interview Maine House candidate Bob Walker. The three of us talk over the sad state of healthcare in Maine and Walker talks about what he’ll do to change it if elected.

Today I received some announcement spam from Work.com, a new portal for businesses. Unfortunately, Work.com’s PR department didn’t exactly utilize the utmost care when sending out the announcement. Here’s the opening of the email they sent me:

Hi Jason Clarke’s,

As a website of valuable information for business, we wanted to tell you about our recently launched site designed to help business owners and entrepreneurs quickly find solutions to key business challenges like marketing your business and finding a payroll processing service.

Besides the fact that their automated email bot couldn’t distinguish between a person’s name and company name, check out that first sentence and bask in its grammatical insanity:

As a website of valuable information for business, we wanted to tell you about our recently launched site

Email can be hard to get right, and tempting to use on too large a scale, but despite those factors, companies who care still set the bar high for themselves.

Related items note: Previously, I’ve written about corporate email and mail foibles from the terribly awful Adholes and the only moderately annoying Audible.