Well, I suppose a name like "Junk In The Box" leaves me plenty of leeway when it comes to quality posting.  But due to my previous failed jaunts into the blogging universe, I suppose I can't complain when Moki sets the bar this low.  Most of all, I guess I'm just happy to have a spot on a page with such a varied selection of literary works.   To run alongside columns like Daddy Day Care, Kickin' It With Kevin and Whatnot...my mother would be so proud!  I was once thisclose to publishing an article in the Washington Post.  Alas, young Jon Tota's dreams did not materialize as planned...and The Junk Box is my consolation prize.

So, where to begin my soon-to-be illustrious blogging career?  Considering you've taken the trip to visit Edulence's Daily Cup, I'll start by explaining why we're all forcing you to read our admittedly marginal drivel (except, of course, for Kevin, our token Ivy Leaguer and thus, far smarter than the rest of us.)  At Edulence, we help our clients reach their respective audiences through online digital media.  That is, of course, when we're not playing video games, debating the virtues of Lost vs. Damages or producing videos that add very little value to society (see above).  The remaining 4 ½ hours each week provides ample time for us to devise new ways to communicate and collaborate online and have some fun doing it.  And that brings us to the Daily Cup...

We've preached this line for many years, so it seemed logical that we should get our own act together and start practicing it.  You'll find regularly updated postings from many of us, weekly videos on all kinds of topics and live broadcasts so you can keep tabs on us if you're so inclined.  The idea is to have some fun and demonstrate how effective a little good-humored honesty can be. 

We hope you enjoy the Daily Cup...come back for more, we brew it fresh every day (DISCLAIMER: this statement is not a guarantee of past or future performance.)  Reach me directly at jtota@edulence.com or join our newsletter and we'll let you know when new content is available and make sure you stay current on everything Edulence.  Enjoy!

Hello from the sauna that is the FROG. Temperature outside the FROG? A perfect spring day at 71 degrees fahrenheit with a dew point of 42 degrees. Relative humidity? Again, perfect at 35%. I'm not really sure what all that means except I do get the temperature part.

Now, let's check the readings inside the FROG. We don't have a weather station set up in here at this point. Perhaps the Edulence procurement team may dig one up and send it. We can hook up the live data to NYDailyCup.com and our faithful FrogBlog readers can check in on the dew point of the FROG at will....anytime from anywhere. I digress.

I'm not sure of the technical term so I'll just say, "It's hot as hell in here!!!". Condensation is forming on the one window we have and is blocking the view to the mailbox which keeps getting smashed by vandals or bad drivers. One lady actually showed up at the door the other day at 7am, holding the mailbox in her hand saying, "Sorry I'm such a shi**y driver". I was too tired to care. I'm digressing again. Dammit.

I think the cooling fans on the PCs are about to loose some bearings. They are whining louder than Red Sox Nation whining about Papi's swing mechanics. Personally, I'm happy that Papi lost his stroke. Hopefully he can keep it up until late September. What is the actual definition of digression?

So, the HVAC guy is coming first thing in the morning to give the central air unit the once over. On the phone he surmised we're probably out of freon. Either we have a leak or some unscrupulous college students have been stopping by and huffing all the freon...again. Pick another AC unit you heathens. Leave us alone.

The good news is...I've perspired all my extra water weight over the last two days and am finally approaching true fighting weight. I'm off to go fry some eggs on the desk for lunch...gotta keep the protein flowing. After that I'll climb into a tub of ice water to get the body temp back down below 100.

As they say here in NC, "Y'all have a nice day and keep it cool".    

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I don’t know about other cities but in New York, the frustration of trying to get a reservation at a decent restaurant can have some serious side effects starting with diminishing social skills, an unimpressed girlfriend, and a diet consisting mostly of Chinese food and pizza (you don’t think that I can actually cook, do you?) Terrifying, I know but have no fear, weary diner! Opentable.com is about to save your day. Covering all 50 states as well as several countries in Europe and Asia, OpenTable is the number one choice for online reservations. Shouting your last name over the phone to a confused hostess in a noisy restaurant is now a thing of the past! At OpenTable you can search a database of thousands of local restaurants based on cuisine, location, and price to help you find the kind of place you want for the exact time you need. Other outstanding features include user reviews, e-mail reservation reminders, and best of all: Diner’s Points. That’s right, every reservation you make earns you 100 to 1,000 Diner’s Points and for every thousand points you receive, you get ten dollars off of a future reservation. User friendly AND recession friendly!  

Blogging is hard business. No one has ever claimed otherwise, but it's worth restating.

I think the problem is that bloggers want to produce material that they're proud of. That's a mistake. To succeed as a blogger you must be willing to excrete defective conjectures out for everyone to see. The more typpos the better. And then you must defend those thoughts as if you actually believe them.

Only by moving the bar so low that it's scraping the floor will you be able to blog consistently. The goal for a blogger, then, is to make the act of writing take up less brainpower than any other of your daily responsibilities.

Water only runs one way: down. A blog should be no different.

The Twitter Leap Year

Look around your digital world.  Have you noticed the sudden addition of an entire library of vocabulary with either 'twit' or 'tweet' in it?  Twitter, Tweets, Twittering, Twitterati, Twitterzine, Twoosh, Twitterrhea, Legend of Twetda, Lord of the Tweets, Star Twits...  Okay, I made some of those up but in all honesty, it hasn't been THAT sudden.  Twitter was started in 2006 and has spread rapidly, but I've noticed that very recently, it has achieved an exponential growth unlike anything I've ever seen.  So fast, in fact, that it has blown apart some well-seated notions regarding technology and the people who use it.

For instance, my father left me a voicemail today asking me what all this twitter nonsense was all about.  He's a well-read Dean at a college down in Florida.  But still, he beat my 22 year-old cousin to it.  I think she barely knows what it is.  But she's not the only one.  I've run into plenty of young people who still don't use it or even fully know what it is despite it's Skynet-like omnipresence.  Don't the locusts come next?

Any trend that causes a complete undoing of the technology continuum where young people always rule the roost is not something I would easily shake a stick at.  (On a side note, if anyone knows anyone getting anywhere by merely shaking a stick at it, please have them email me at moki@edulence.com.  We want to replace our portrait of Roosevelt with someone more current.) 

Even the media has gotten involved in an attempt to stay current and avoid any further bleeding.  They are actually covering the fact that Ashton Kutcher, the renaissance man that he is, was gunning to become the first person in the world with a million people following him.  Well, news flash, he did it and weirdly enough, my coffee still tastes the same.  I guess life isn't that different after all.  But, believe it or not, he actually did manage to get an even further ego boost from this.  I guess he doesn't share Brittany's opinion on the matter from episode 2.

In any case, The twitter trend is fascinating to watch and learn from, even if you are up in the nosebleeds.  Just don't ignore it, after all, ignorance is what led Ashton to where he is today.

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