Mississippi Braves Manager Phillip Wellman went nuts…bonkers…crazy. Period. Definitely not a “well man”. (Sorry…it was there. I took it.) Well, yesterday he was handed down a 3-game suspension by the Atlanta Braves organization for his antics. And while his actions are totally uncalled for, this video is hilarious! What a moron.

A little over a month ago, I decided to sell my beloved Nissan Maxima and explore my inner hippie. I loved that Maxima. Attractive, reliable…though not so easy on the pocketbook. It requires premium gasoline and the gas tank has about a 21-gallon capacity. And I drive a ton, so I was fueling up often. So, I bought a Toyota Camry Hybrid. Makes sense…well, a little despite the increased car payment. Just doing my part to be a good stewart. Anyway, before I move further away from the point of the story and offer a full-blown review of my new car…it seems there are more benefits to owning a hybrid than just MPGs.

It appears that some stores across the U.S. are rewarding hybrid drivers with choice parking spaces. According to this article in the Houston Chronicle…better known as “the Chron”…stores such as Ikea, Office Depot, and Home Depot are offering the beloved spaces for their enviro-friendly patrons.

Courtesy of Curbed Los Angeles

Keep your space. Better yet, how about converting it to a “pregnant parking” or “elderly without a HC tag parking”? The idea is noble. Thanks, but no thanks. Besides…I need the exercise.

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It seems every year, someone remixes a popular rap song to include the Spurs and their quest for the championship. Well, although the Spurs collective effort tonight resulted in a Western Conference Finals Championship, they still have to face either a tough Detroit Pistons team or a young and eager Cleveland Cavaliers team to get its 4th ring in 8 years. Anyway, this year’s song is Reppin’ My Block by Rob G…and the remix is actually done by the original artist instead of some guy in his makeshift garage studio.

Reppin My Block — Spurs remix by Rob G. (Right click, Save Target As to download)

If you’re looking for a straight forward, no nonsense TV…this is it. I’m an “open box” junkie. So when I noticed the price on this TV, I thought for sure it was included in that category. But the Toshiba 37AV500U is a new TV, not ready for the OB shelf.

Toshiba 37AV500U: not just a pretty face

Before purchasing a TV, I like to see them in action…side by side…mano a mano. I compared this one to a 37″ Regza and a 37″ LG (both also new). The Regza was about $100 more and the only difference I could find was an extra HDMI slot. The LG was also impressive, but it was almost $300 more.

Aside from being aesthetically pleasing with its glossy black thin bezel, the Toshiba’s picture is sharp…crisp. Black screens are black instead of gray. And you’d never know it was only 720p without reading it on the specs first. But given that it’s only 37 inches, the resolution is sufficient. So far, I’ve watched everything from CNBC (moving tickers) to movies to San Antonio Spurs games…all in HD. Videophiles worried about response times and lag commonly associated with LCDs will be pleased (I’m using the HDMI connection). And the SD channels actually come through really nice compared to other HDTVs. Finally, the SoundStrip speakers actually provide clear and rich sound up to a certain volume. I expected it to sound like an alarm clock. But for a home theater setup, you’ll want to add speakers.

I’d rate this TV is a solid 8.0 out of 10.0. What the 37AV500U does lack in features, it definitely makes up for in picture quality and overall value! Like I said…this TV is easy to use, easy to hook up, and easy on the eyes!

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Ive been following the rather appalling story of former Wal-Mart marketing executive Julie Roehm, who was fired for "having an improper romantic relationship with a subordinate, accepting gifts from suppliers and misusing her company expense account" [ref: Walmart Fires Roehm]

In her own defense, Roehm has now countersued Wal-Mart -- surprise, surprise -- accusing Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr. and other top executives of "accepting sweetheart deals, travel and concert tickets from suppliers and engaging in improper relationships." [ref: Roehm Countersues]

But what would it have looked like if they both blogged? I kind of envision it going like this...

My friend and colleague Joel Comm has been on the cutting edge of Internet marketing for a long time -- and sometimes a bit over the edge! -- but his new idea about an Internet marketing reality show is a great one. Called The Next Internet Millionaire, its modeled after Survivor and The Apprentice, among other reality TV shows.

Hes still accepting audition videos from potential contestants if you think itd be fun. I know Ill have fun: Im a celebrity judge so Im perhaps just a bit biased.

Joel recently answered some of my questions about the program and heres his Q&A.

I am proud to be a mentor for the Colorado TechStars program, and this evening we had our first mixer, a typical geeky mixup with poor acoustics and a male:female ratio of about 30:1. The mix was young entrepreneurs who won the TechStars competition and are now seed funded through the summer (along with gaining access to an array of very sharp advisors and mentors), the mentors, and other folk in the community who are focused on startups and business development.

A nice group and it was a good opportunity to both visit with some of my Denver-based friends and meet the young turks who are hopefully going to be building the next YouTube or Flickr in our proverbial garage.

Except for one glaring problem...

Im about as far into the world of blogging as you can get, with over 170 feeds in my news reader (which as of a week ago is now Google Reader, btw) and three active blogs of my own, but I still read the newspaper. I was reading three papers (albeit online) on a daily basis, but recently stopped reading the New York Times as it felt too redundant with the other two: the local Daily Camera and the Wall Street Journal.

I have quite a few other newsfeeds in my RSS reader, including the BBC and Reuters, but those are the two newspapers that I check every day, along with Google News, a smart news aggregator. Why those? Because I believe that its very important to keep up with local, business, and world news.

And yet, arent newspapers becoming irrelevant? Well, surprisingly, no. The local paper, the Daily Camera, has figured out the secret to staying relevant and it offers something that no local Boulder Colorado citizen blogger could offer...

I received an thought-provoking query from a graduate student at my alma mater, Purdue (where I earned my Masters in Education) that I thought would be interesting to discuss here on my blog and especially to open up for your thoughts:

"The scenario for our assignment is as follows: I am a VP of a major company. Said company gives me a list with 60 names of non-managerial positions (making up about 10% of "my" employees). These people will not have a job in 6 months. We are told June 1st, and thus no more positions as of January 1st.

"I need to write a paper telling exactly what date I would tell my employees, and reasons for why I chose the date."

Theres more to the situation than this simplistic scenario, but its a good jumping off point. Heres how I would handle this situation...

Over on my Ask Dave Taylor blog, I have an area where people can ask questions and, if theyre dying for an answer, pay for a "priority answer". In practice, its a $99 payment via PayPal to ensure that Ill respond within 24-48 hours or their money cheerfully refunded.

This afternoon, however, someone ostensibly came to the site, submitted a question, paid the fee and then about twenty minutes later filed an "unauthorized transaction" report with PayPal, which froze the transaction. The notice I received said "Recently, PayPal received a notification from a user regarding unauthorized access to his PayPal account. As a result, one of the payments credited to your PayPal account has been placed in a temporary hold while we investigate the claim."

Problem was, it was almost impossible for me to tell if it was real or a savvy phishing attempt.

Ive been jealous of my Windows friends running Roboform for a long time, so when I first bumped into 1Passwd and started to use it, I was delighted. A lightweight, secure password storage utility that let me easily switch between Safari and Firefox on my Mac with nary a glitch? Excellent!

In the last few weeks, however, I was a bit dismayed to find out that the developer, Roustem Karimov, had completely changed his license scheme and actually forced me to reregister the software and get a completely different kind of registration key: a JPEG graphic with the reg data embedded in the comments (see right).

Curious what had prompted this change, I sent off some questions to Roustem and received back the following interesting information from him...

First off, a disclosure: Im a StomperNet faculty member. That means that I produce videos and audio material for our resource library, do one-on-one and group webinar coaching calls and participate actively in the online forums. In addition, we produce four in-person live conferences each year and I speak at them (unless, like last time, I was on a cruise to Mexico!) The main reason Im involved with this group is because Im learning a ton both from the other faculty and the Stompernet members (hundreds of em) and enjoy the convivial atmosphere of the community. Most importantly, every week I gain new insight into how to grow my own online business efficiently.

If youre a long-time reader of my blog, you know that while Ive been involved with the Internet for almost thirty years, Ive only been involved in the world of Internet marketing and seminars for about 18 months. During that time Ive experienced both the best and the worst. Ive sat through 90 minute presentations that were 20 minutes of mediocre content and 70 minutes of breathless hype and pitching / selling products that I felt were astonishingly overpriced. On the other hand, Ive also sat through talks of the same length that were 85 minutes of excellent content, well presented, and a few minutes of how you can learn more and engage with them if appropriate.

The fact that I am involved with Stompernet is a strong testament to the overall value of organization, and should assure you that becoming part of our entrepreneurial community, even if just for a few months, will be a major step towards achieving your own business and personal success goals.

The problem has been that Stompernet has been closed to new members for months.

Until today. Today, for the first time in quite a while, you can join me in StomperNet. Even better, were running a $1.00 "sampler" membership, which I explain later in this posting, so you can even dip your toe into the water before you jump in and join us!

Have you directly invested in very early stage startup companies in the past? At the time, did you have a net worth of under a million dollars and earn less than $200,000 annually?

If so, Dr. Scott Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, is looking to interview you for a new book hes working on that aims to debunk many of the myths of angel investors and angel investing.

Heres an email message he sent me describing his project and what he seeks: If youd like to contact him and possibly help with the book, youll also find his email address below too.

Congratulations to my friend Brad Fallon and his team for the launch of something truly new in the world of online marketing, Internet marketing, and entrepreneurship: FreeIQ.com.

In some sense, its like an entrepreneurial channel on popular video site YouTube except, well, its a whole lot more too. Imagine a site you can go where you can find hundreds of informative videos and ebooks on a wide variety of business and entrepreneurial topics.

To be fair, though, some of what youll find in this first iteration is what I would consider the worst snake-oil salesman marketing "opportunity" information, but really, thats no different to the junk that predominates on YouTube, Google Video and other multimedia content sites, is it? One of the fundamental challenges in any business space is winnowing out the quality material from the questionable, whether youre in a Chamber of Commerce party or an Internet Marketing workshop advertised through hype-mad radio spots.

A better comparison is against eBay. eBay isnt an auction site, its a venue for auctions to transpire online. A subtle but very important difference. Further, just as eBay shouldnt be rated by the lame auctions it sometimes hosts and the rip-offs that are interspersed with the legit buyers and sellers, so FreeIQ.com should be recognized as an underlying infrastructure toolkit for the Internet marketing community, not just a nicely organized repository.

Let me explain...

Recently answered a query from a journalist about blogging and thought that my response would make good fodder for a discussion here too. In a nutshell, she was curious about blogging and seemed not to really get the concept. Her questions were rudimentary, but then again, sometimes its invaluable to ask those basic questions anyway.

Her first question was one of those classic ones: How many bloggers are there?

My answer: "The key to remember with this story is that a blog is just a tool. Theres nothing special about it, no requirements for any particular features or capabilities. Common usage has it be diary-like and allow comments from readers to be included, but theyre not required and theres no group that determines if something is or isnt a blog. This means that its basically impossible to estimate how many blogs or bloggers are out there, unfortunately."

If youre running Movable Type youll want to stop what youre doing right now and fly over to Patrick Bennys Web site where hes just released a new version of his terrific [freeware] AutoSave plugin for Movable Type.

Previous versions worked with Firefox and IE, but this latest version (with a bit of help from my own blog, actually) is now completely compatible with Apples Safari Web browser too. This means that you should be able to get this up and running with just about any Web browser, whether youre running Mac, Windows or even Linux.

Well, the tempest in a teapot of Kathy Sierra versus Chris Locke and the general incivility of the blogosphere has finally bubbled over to the point where industry luminaries like Tim OReilly are proposing a Bloggers Code of Conduct. Agree to the terms and you too can have the swanky graphic shown on the left, or reject it and you get the goofy dynamite cartoon on the right:

Code Enforced	No Code of Conduct

But Im not going to sign up for it, nor would I recommend anyone else in the blogosphere sign up, though I have the utmost respect for Tim. Further, I say that without having actually read the proposed Code. Heres why...

Some colleagues of mine have been engaged in a very interesting discussion thats worth exploring if youre a blogger: should you allow HTML in the comments left by other people? For that matter, should you automatically make URLs clickable?

I believe that the answer is related to where along the continuum of moderation and editorial control you place yourself. If youre a strict control nut and axe any comment thats not favorable or complimentary, well, then youre fine allowing HTML in comments because you are already keeping a close eye on things anyway (youre also missing the point of engaging in an open dialog with your weblog, but thats another issue entirely). If youre a laissez-faire free speech fanatic and allow anything that isnt overly crass spam or pornography, then you are going to have your work cut out for you if you allow people to add HTML.

Before I go further, though, let me explain what I mean by HTML comments.

Todays Wall Street Journal is reporting [paid sub required] that beleaguered retailer Circuit City (NYSE: CC) is firing almost 3500 employees with the intent of replacing them with less skilled workers. As the WSJ explains:

"Circuit City Stores Inc. announced a new wave of cost-cutting efforts as it battles larger, more efficient retailers amid intense competition for sales of flat-screen TVs and other electronics. The Richmond, Va., retailer said it will replace 3,400 mostly store-level employees with lower-paid workers..."

This is a phenomenally stupid move for the company, I must say. Think about it...

The ugliest productive player. Chris Birck/Getty Images

The Spurs have benefitted from the big play of its big man from Argentina, Fabricio Oberto. In this series against the Jazz, he’s averaging 11.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, and is shooting 72.0% from the field…and Coach Popovich thinks “he’s the ugliest productive player I’ve ever been around”. I couldn’t agree more. But if the Spurs want to win tonight, Manu the “X-Factor” Ginobili will have to come through with another big game performance.

The Jazz will make every attempt to quell its frustrations after dropping its first home game in the playoffs to the Spurs since…awhile. Apparently the injured foot of Deron Williams has left him questionable for tonight’s matchup. But NBA fans have quickly discovered what Jazz fans knew all along: this guy is no sloutch, and he can play some basketball. And Derek Fisher is back in New York as his daughter has yet another surgery on her eye. Speaking of x-factors…emotion runs through that man’s veins to his advantage. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Fish, but we still want to beat your team.

GO SPURS!!!