It’s official, one of the most dugg websites, smashingmagazine.com is down. This is what you see when you visit their website:

(Update: 16:11 CST, 23:11 CET) SM’s servers have a problem, possibly an attack. Temporary solution: we are loading a backup on an external server cluster. Please stay tuned.
(Update: 15:59 CST, 22:59 CET) We are working hard to find a solution. Meanwhile, please follow us on Twitter to keep informed about updates.
(Update: 14:58 CST, 21:58 CET) Smashing Magazine is down for maintenance, please check back later, thank you.

First they say they’re down for maintenance, and then they say it’s an attack (maybe a DOS attack). Wonder how long and how severe it is… Hope they’ll be back soon!

OK, the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt from Amazon is now officially viral. Hundreds of useless (yet hilarious) reviews are now posted, and, according to the BBC, its sales are up 2300%, and it’s now in the top 10 of Amazon’s apparel section.

The Mountain, which is the maker of these T-shirts, is not very satisfied with the comments this T-shirt has gathered on Amazon. Well, my answer to them is, you should enjoy it guys, and you’ll see how silliness can end up as money in your bank account.

While you’re at it, and if you’re outsourcing your job and literally have nothing to do, check this guy’s reviews on Amazon.

I guess that there’s no such thing as bad advertisement.

Is it just me, or this whole “We are all blessed because we live in a time where we can enjoy the admirable and wonderful talents of Susan Boyle” thing is getting out of hands. Sooner or later she’s gonna have her own cult of reborn hippies (just search on wordpress.com for these people).

I saw the videos, heard her sing, not impressed. I guess CNN and the likes don’t have real stories to report on so they create this hype and people follow (excluding, of course, the 12 year old Somali pirates being chased by destroyers).

Just to shed a light on the hypocrisy of this whole thing, one of the questions she was asked on CNN was :”Is it right you were never kissed?”, now what does that have to do with the singing? Pure hypocrisy, I tell ya!

My opinion that this whole thing is fabricated, and I have to say that I’m not alone. This, this, and this (sorry couldn’t find a third link) fully agree with me.

I expect this Media Circus will soon be over before you can say Quidditch (If it’s not than I expect women will be dressed as Susan Boyle). Joe the plumber, anyone?

Every once in a while I dream about my past job. Well, it’s more of a nightmare than a dream. I quit my past job almost 4 years ago, but I still have dreams about it, I still dream that instead of quitting after a long vacation I decided to come back. I think the problem was that, in my previous job, I felt that I actually built something.

I loved my previous job and I hated it, I don’t regret leaving as I had no choice. I do miss the people, my friends, the country I was in, and the opportunities I would’ve had had I stayed.

My previous job was hell, but it left something (sweet) inside of me, and, in some ways, I think it made me a better manager and a better man.

I’ve noticed since this morning that the pagerank of every single website disappeared (showing no pagerank information), except for Google’s, who’s still there at a mighty 10.

Let’s see if websites (other than Google) will get their pagerank back. Well, someone at Google once said: “Webmasters are free to do whatever they wanted on their websites, and Google is free to do whatever it wants with its index”.

Here’s a touching little story that happened to me at work a while ago. There was this girl working for us, under me, very loyal, sometimes disobedient, and gifted. She always wanted to follow her dreams and work somewhere else, I wanted to stay with the company.

I was prepared to say anything to convince her to stay, even promise her things that are not within my authority, or I have to beg to get them (that’s how desperate I was to keep this girl on my team). I promised her 3 things, a raise, an office with an excellent view, and that the company pays for her tuition fees.

A short while later she asked for a meeting with me. She told me remember all those promises that you made me? Well I intend to stay, will I have them? I told her of course you can, and I’ll talk to the owners of the company right now. She told me “there’s something I have to tell you”, “what is it?”, I replied.

“I’m Pregnant”.

It was one of those moments where you feel that you’re in a movie and you hear that sound “TA DA DA DUM”. If a woman gets pregnant where I am, she’s entitled for a 1 year leave, paid by the government, and she’s guaranteed to have her place in the company where she was, and she’s guaranteed to be paid her last salary.

I couldn’t hide my disappointment, nevertheless, I told her that I’ll get her what she wants.

The same day I met with the owners of the company, and I told them that she wants these 3 things to stay. Of course they were furious, but I managed to calm them down. Eventually the main person behind the company said, “Look, I have no problem giving her what she wants, unless, of course, she gets pregnant”.

I have no idea why he said this, but at this moment I couldn’t keep pretending anymore, so I yelled, “But She’s Pregnant”. At this point I felt I should be either loyal to her or loyal to the company. I remember the look on their faces, it was a look of both respect and astonishment. I couldn’t take it on my conscience, these people are so good to me that I can’t disappoint them this way.

To make the long story short, she got nothing at all, she hated me for the wrong reasons and I lost her respect.

Have I learned something from all this? Yes, I learned to distance myself from employees, I learned to be cold with them, I learned to show them that if they need affection, then I’m the wrong person to come to. I’ve learned not to promise things I cannot deliver whatever the situation was, I learned to respect myself and to respect my authority. Most of all, I learned that there’s no limit to what employees want, if they can have everything, they’ll ask for everything…

I was just reading off the box of my new Sony Bravia LCD TV (great TV, will review it in a different post), and it says: LCD Digital Color TV. I was wondering if the word color should be there. Are they still making TVs that are not in color, eg. black and white? Why mention the color? Can’t see why anyone would like to buy a TV that is in Black and White. I’m sure black and white TVs can’t be cheaper than the cheapest color TVs: There are some “Color” TVs out there that are sold for less than 50 bucks.

I remember the only black and white TV we had, we used to take it to the beach (it had rabbit ears) and we used to watch TV on it there. I have no idea what happened to it.

Look forward to my Sony Bravia Review!

I remember reading an article somewhere (can’t remember where exactly) a few years ago about oil shooting to $170 and then dropping to $17 a barrel.

At that time, the oil was at $30 a barrel (if I’m not mistaken). I thought it was crazy, how will people be able to buy for nearly $5 a gallon. But that happened, and then it stopped. Why did it happen and why did it stop?

It happened because there was no one to stop it at that time, we live in a free market, controlled by supply and demand, the demand however, increased artificially because of the stock markets, which explained the huge increase of the price of the Oil.

It stopped because of the following:

1. People are not stupid. Anyone thinking the opposite is completely mistaken, when you try to blackmail people for gas, they will notice, and they did, so they used alternatives (public transportation, bikes, etc…).
2. Credit Crunch. The credit crunch in the US had a huge effect, people were paying their mortgages, and they just didn’t have enough money to fill their tanks. They stayed at home instead, or again used alternatives.
3. The growing “I’m going green” sentiment. This is the weakest of the reasons, nevertheless, it’s very sustainable on the long run. People are now buying and driving hybrid cards (with government incentives) and/or using the alternatives.

The Credit Crunch argument will not be valid in the long run. On the other hand, #1 and #3 will always be remembered by people and they will act upon them.

I predict that oil will drop to $17 (you heard it here first, well, as I said, someone mentioned it a few years back), and even if OPEC (who claimed had nothing to do with the soaring prices) keeps on lowering the output. Oil will probably never, ever rise again.

Again, people are not stupid (especially in this day and age), and they’re tired from this blackmail game.

Yesterday we were working very late (which is something I definitely hate), so we went to Subway to have a quick dinner. There was a sticker on my Coke, I opened it, and I read 2 beautiful words: You Won!

Was it a car? Was it $10,000 in my bank account? Was it a trip to the South?

No, it was even better, it was a Subway biscuit, however, to get the biscuit I have to abide by the following terms:

1. Present the coupon before October 19th, 2008.
2. Present the coupon at closing time, when they usually throw all the biscuits in the trash. I might just as well wait by the trash at closing time and get more than 1.

A smart and rewarding promotion indeed!

I bought Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End today, and I have to say that what I find a bit lame about this movie is the repeating jokes: Rum (why is the Rum Gone), the Guy’s wooden eye, the monkey, the bird, the dog with the keys (which I’m starting to think it’s the director’s and that’s why it keeps on showing up in every single movie with no logical explanation), etc… I hate Bloom and the girl (I didn’t really hate commodore Norrigton yet he was killed mercilessly since his role in the last 2 movies was really useless) in this movie and in the Dead Man’s Chest. Hell the girl sucked even in the Curse of Black Pearl, and why does Calypso speak with a Jamaican accent? And who stabbed whose heart near the end? And why can’t Orlando and that girl stay together (not that I really care, actually I wanted them both to drown with Davy Jones), and why did all those crabs carry the Black Pearl back to the sea?

It’s all a big mystery, but nevertheless, there’s one thing I found in the box of the DVD that might cheer someone, it’s THE DISNEY MAGIC CODE (yoohoo!), and here it is: NRWNGF47CR6C. Kindly comment on this post if you use it as I don’t want to waste someone else’s time.

Keep a weather eye open on this blog for more freebies (yeah right!).