• Awesome: Krista’s blog, Margaritas On Friday. If you know Krista, it’s exactly what you’d expect. I highly recommend reading the first post.
• Not-So-Much: Dawgs collapse, finish great season one win short.
• Awesome: I finally got a new phone: The Nokia 5310 (in Bulldog Black and Red, natch). No longer do I have to worry about my camera taking pictures of the insides of my pants! Huzzah!
• Not-So-Much: Scratching your head all the way down to your brain.
• Awesome: If the weather holds, looks like two rounds of golf this weekend. Double-huzzah!
• Not-So-Much: The aftertaste that comes from drinking ginger ale after brushing your teeth.
• Awesome: Bloons, and all of its offspring.
• Awesome and/or Not-So-Much: I just realized that as of one month ago, I’m officially closer to retirement age than my birth.

Update: I just couldn’t let the weekend arrive without dropping one more bit of Awesome.

• The reality is that housing is not an investment. It’s shelter. That is all housing has ever been. Self-serving organizations like the National Association of Realtors like to tell people that buying a home is a good way to build long-term wealth, but this statement couldn’t be further from the truth. (Rent Vs. Buy Myths That Ruined the Housing Market – via Kottke.org)

  As a renter, it’s nice to hear this considering we’re all continuously led to believe that home ownership is a primary determinant in whether you’re a first-class citizen or not. (Full disclosure – the money I’m saving by renting isn’t exactly going towards true investments, so I’m hardly perfect.)

• Basically, the small plastic ball is called a widget. The purpose of the widget is to release CO2 from some of the beer in the can to create the head. It is meant to mimic the texture and head of Guinness on tap.

  I kinda thought everyone knew this. But the scientific explanation is pretty cool, if you’re into that kind of thing.

• Dr. Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters took “grass roots politics” to its ultimate, ridiculous extreme. They brought fun to politics — even if they didn’t see the humor — and the nation’s “Mainstream Media” will always be thankful for the Paul fanatics.

  Dismiss the fanatics (of which every candidate has) at your leisure, but dismiss the message at your peril. Make sure to read the comments from “June Melton” (4:55, March 8th) and “punkpunkbaby” (6:44, March 9th).

• Here’s one for all my buddies who use iTunes: Download Music from Your Friends’ iTunes Libraries Over the Internet with Mojo.
• Now we’re getting into personal territory when it comes to the dollar’s falling value (here’s a hint, guys: STOP BORROWING FROM THE FED AND STOP PRINTING MORE MONEY): This better not screw up my next visit to Amsterdam, because I’m going back to Amsterdam. They have beautiful canals.

I leave you with The Long Johns and a perfect, hilarious explanation of the subprime mortgage crisis…

“The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States. Those ideas are still very much with us. We are all of us imbued with them. They are part of the very fabric of our being. But we have been straying from them. We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good reasons. Fortunately, we are waking up. We are again recognizing the dangers of an overgoverned society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.” — Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

Reason Why I Hate People, #45: Uppity, brain-dead housewives are offended by the depiction of a breast (serving its God-given biological function) on the cover of a magazine.

Attention, nice guys (tragically, this includes me): The problem is you.

Blog snippet of the week, courtesy of Dawg Nation über-blogger T. Kyle King:

By the way, while the N.C.A.A. has been busy wringing its hands over sideline mascots, historic flags, and other time-honored traditions, the following events have taken place in college football: Oklahoma dismissed two starters for accepting payments for work they did not do, Auburn suspended two linebackers over alcohol-related arrests, Tennessee dismissed a player charged with drunken driving after a campus police officer saw him driving on the sidewalk and another Vol was charged with aggravated assault, Miami suspended four players for violating team policies, Utah State dismissed a linebacker for repeated violations after he and four teammates were cited for marijuana possession, Air Force indefinitely suspended its placekicker for an undisclosed violation, a San Jose State football player was charged with robbery, a Southern California defensive back reportedly tested positive for steroids, Cal’s quarterback plead no contest to a misdemeanor arising from his involvement in a bar fight, and an Arkansas running back reportedly was also involved in a bar fight. Way to keep those priorities in order there, guys.

And finally, as if you needed another reason to love Maynard from TooL:

Have a good weekend.