What a well spoken, thought out, smart man and smart answer. Every state should be so lucky to have a Senator like this. 
9/4/09
We Should All Have Senators like Al Franken
9/1/09
The Summer Set - Chelsea
Check out the newest single from The Summer Set - "Chelsea". If you like it, buy it on iTunes here: Download Chelsea on iTunes
8/18/09
Rep. Gingrey (R-GA) Encourages Guns at Town Halls
I honestly don't get this. Just because you have the RIGHT to bring your gun people think it's necessary to go to these town hall meetings with guns?! Is it a scare tactic?
What are your thoughts on people bringing guns to these town hall health care meetings?
7/21/09
Rules for Good Jewish Living...
Never take a front-row seat at a bris.
If you can't say something nice, say it in Yiddish.
The High Holidays have nothing to do with marijuana.
And what's wrong with dry turkey?
A good Matza-Ball sinks in mercury.
Pork is forbidden, but a pig in a blanket makes a nice hors d'oeuvre.
Guilt is critical to your existence.
One mitzvah can change the world; two will just make you tired.
Never leave a restaurant empty-handed.
The important Jewish holidays are the ones on which alternate side-of-the-street parking is suspended.
A bad matzo ball makes a good paperweight.
Without Jewish mothers, who would need therapy?
According to Jewish dietary law, pork and shellfish may be eaten only in Chinese restaurants.
If you are going to whisper at the movies, make sure it's loud enough for everyone else to hear.
No meal is complete without leftovers.
If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. But if you can, make sure you tell everybody what you paid.
The only good thing more important than a good education is a good parking spot at the mall.
It's not who you know, it's who you know that had a nose job.
After the destruction of the Second Temple, God created Loehmann's.
WASPs leave and never say good-bye. Jews say good-bye and never leave.
Israel is the land of milk and honey; Florida is the land of milk of magnesia.
If you don't eat it, it will kill me.
Anything worth saying is worth repeating a thousand times.
Next year in Jerusalem. The year after, how about a nice cruise?
Spring ahead, fall back, winter in Miami.
Laugh now, but one day you'll be driving a big Cadillac and eating dinner at four in the afternoon
AND LAST, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST:
There comes a time in every man's life when he must stand up and tell
his mother that he is an adult. This usually happens around age 45!
7/15/09
Finally, a Kosher Computer
We've heard that you can now purchase Kosher computers! They are made in Israel by a company called DELL-SHALOM. The price is so low... even with the shipping from Israel! However, before you purchase a kosher computer of your own, you should know that there are some important changes from the typical non-kosher computer you are used to, such as:
1) The "Start" button has been replaced with a "Let's go!! I'm not getting any younger!" button.
2) You hear "Hava Nagila" during startup.
3) The cursor moves from right to left.
4) When Spell-checker finds an error it prompts, "Is this the best you can do?"
5) When you look at erotic images, your computer says, "If your mother knew you did this, she would die."
6) It comes with a "monitor cleaning solution" from Manischewitz that gets rid of all the "schmutz und drek."
7) When running "Scan Disk" it prompts you with a "You want I should fix this?" message.
8) After 20 minutes of no activity, your PC goes, "Schloffen."
9) The PC shuts down automatically at sundown on Friday evenings.
10) It comes with two hard drives - one for fleyshedik (business software) and one for milchedik (games).
11) Instead of getting a "General Protection Fault" error, your PC now gets "Ferklempt."
12) The multimedia player has been renamed to "Nu, so play my music already!"13) When your PC is working too hard, you occasionally hear a loud "Oy Gevalt!"
14) Computer viruses can now be cured with matzo ball soup.
15) When disconnecting external devices from the PC, you are instructed to "Remove the cable from the PC's tuchus."
16) After your computer dies, you have to dispose of it within 24 hours.
17) But best of all, if you have a kosher computer, you can't get SPAM!
6/26/09
RIP Michael Jackson...BurnTees style
Let me start by saying that I LOVE Michael Jackson's music. I'm a big fan of both his solo career and the Jackson 5 and we obviously lost a living legend yesterday. With that said, I have to share 2 great comments I received today regarding Michael Jackson's death:
Unnamed source: "When Farrah Fawcet arrived in heaven god granted her one wish. She wished that all the children on earth would be safe. So God killed Michael Jackson."
Crazy Carl: "let me tell you... you have to be a special person to probably be a child molester....and that not be the first or second sentence in your obituary"
6/23/09
Jon & Kate - Where do they go from here?
We're all very concerned about Jon & Kate Gosselin and where they'll go from here. Divorce isn't easy especially when you have tons of money from exploiting your children. Thank goodness they were able to get one last very expensive freebie before everything came crashing down (Crooked Houses must LOVE the fact that their product was featured on probably the most watched episode ever).
Crazy Carl thinks that from now on, the show should focus on Jon one week and Kate the next week and in each episode they're dating different celebrities. Like one week Kate is dating Lebron James, the next week Jon is dating Megan fox. As Crazy Carl put it, "I mean, what is a divorce really if its not the chance for a spinoff?" Very well said Carl.
My wife and I were wondering last night and we both agreed that Kate probably won't let Jon see a DIME of the money, especially the money she's made from the books. However, Jon looks like he couldn't care less as long as he's no longer married to the nutbag. Seems like a win win to me!
Guess we'll all have to wait and see how this plays out!
6/19/09
Fox caught with its pants down on ABC attacks
Originally found here: http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001852/
I love when stuff like this happens - very Daily Show'esque. Fox News - NOW can we stop taking you seriously?
As Think Progress noted, despite Fox’s whining about ABC’s upcoming special on health care reform which will include a town hall conducted in the White House, it turns out that when George W. Bush was President, Fox did exactly what they are accusing ABC of.
Here’s a video mashup of what Fox is saying now — and what it reported then, including footage from its fawning specials on both Bush and Cheney.
6/10/09
Into The Presence
Go check out Into The Presence - their self titles debut album is awesome:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/intothepresence
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/intothepresence
and follow them on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/intothepresence
5/29/09
I've Been A Bad Boy - But we have new New Jersey t-shirts!
I've completely ignored this blog for a while...and I'm sorry. Been super busy with work, creating t-shirts and getting married and blah blah blah, excuses excuses excuses right?
So, just in time for summer BurnTees has release a whole line of new New Jersey shore t-shirts which you can check out at the Dirty New Jersey section of BurnTees.com. AND we also have a whole bunch of new shirt styles to choose from. New American Apparel organic tees, dark organic tees and more, so go check out BurnTees now!!!!
Check out some of the new designs below!
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3/20/09
Twitter - A Guide for Musicians and Bands
My last post was a pretty in depth look at how musicians and bands can help themselves with twitter. However, it was pointed out to me numerous times that apparently most bands have A.D.D. and I'll need to make this shorter if they're actually going to read it. So, here's pretty much the same How-To Twitter for Bands and Musicians guide in a nice, short, bullet point format:
Twitter for Bands (follow me at @burntees)
· Update your status in 140 characters or less (what are you doing?)
· Make sure your profile is set up with a link to your website, a short bio and a picture
· Make sure to engage with your audience by replying to users (@username to reply) – don’t just post Facebook type status updates all the time.
· Ideas on what to write:
o Anything and everything – fans want to feel connected to the artist and feel like they’re getting an inside look at their lives.
o Updates from the studio when recording
o Updates on the manufacturing process
o Reminders about shows and other band news
o Links to press, pictures, videos, music streams, etc
o Don’t always try to be selling or pushing something. It’s ok to say “new album available on itunes here (with a link), but that should be a small % of your posts.
· How do you get followers?
o Start at http://www.search.twitter.com and search your band name to find fans talking about you.
o Add links and twitter buttons to your MySpace, YouTube, and other websites
o Follow people you’re interested in; there’s a good chance they’ll follow you back
o Best way to get followers is to just engage and interact with other users
· Tools to make twittering easier/better
o For windows desktop: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
o www.Digsby.com – allows you to integrate all your instant messaging platforms with twitter & facebook
o For blackberry: TwitterBerry (http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/)
o Cell Phone: text twitter updates to 40404 and they’ll automatically post to your profile (you have to go to your account settings first and set up your mobile info first). You won’t be able to see replies or other people’s tweets thru here but at least you can post when you’re not in front of a computer.
o For iPhone: Tweetie (here’s a link to some others: http://theappleblog.com/2008/12/03/12-twitter-apps-for-the-iphone/)
o http://twitpic.com/ - allows you to easily post pictures to twitter
o Use these links to see more twitter applications (there are also widgets you can use to easily integrate twitter with your website): http://twitter.com/downloads & http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps
· Good examples to follow of other musicians/bands on twitter:
o http://www.Twitter.com/davebarnesmusic
o http://www.Twitter.com/davejmatthews
o http://www.Twitter.com/snoopdogg
o http://www.Twitter.com/matisyahu
o John Mayer: http://twitter.com/johncmayer/
3/16/09
A Quick Twitter How-To Guide for Musicians and Bands
1) What is Twitter and what should I be doing with it?
The Basics:
Check out this YouTube video – Twitter in Plain English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o
Twitter asks you to update your page with what you’re doing in 140 characters or less
If you want to reply to someone, you type @username and then write your message. That person will see in their replies section that someone is writing to them. To see who is writing directly to you, you can check your replies section. You can also send a private message to someone by sending them a direct message. You can only direct message someone who you are following and who is following you back and that message can only be seen by that person. It isn’t public unlike all other posts on twitter.
Twitter is a tool that artists can use to engage with their fans. Fans are looking for a way to feel connected to artists and twitter can provide that inside look into an artist’s life that the fan may be looking for. Although it may seem odd, people want to hear things such as “going to the gym” just as much as they want to hear “in the studio right now, just finished recording an amazing new song for the new album”. What’s most important is that people know that it’s really you that they’re hearing from, not a manager or an intern at the label, but that what they’re reading is coming from the artist themselves.
It’s also important to remember to not constantly spam your audience with something you’re trying to sell. People can “un-follow” you just as quickly as they can follow you. It’s ok to say “hey, our new album just came out, here’s a link” but that can’t be all you do. If anything, it should be a very small percentage of what you’re twittering about on a normal basis.
Lastly, when you look at your twitter page, is it filled with just announcements? Or are there a lot of @ replies to other people? Hopefully you have a mix of both. Twitter is different from other platforms in that it allows you to interact and engage with fans in a setting that more resembles an open chat room rather than a one way conversation. If a fan writes something to you and you respond directly to that person, it can be a very powerful thing for the fan knowing that they’re actually talking with an artist.
Some things you can twitter about to keep fans interesting:
- Anything and everything – fans want to feel connected to the artist and feel like they’re getting an inside look at their lives.
- Updates from the studio when recording
- Updates on the manufacturing process
- Reminders about shows and other band news
- Links to press, pictures, videos, music streams, etc
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- Some good examples to use as a guide – it would be a good idea to follow these musicians and see how they use twitter.
o http://www.Twitter.com/davebarnesmusic
o http://www.Twitter.com/davejmatthews
o http://www.Twitter.com/snoopdogg
o http://www.Twitter.com/matisyahu
o http://www.Twitter.com/dave_grohl
2) How do you get followers?
It’s important to remember that it’s not JUST about how many followers you can get. 100,000 followers who don’t care what you’re saying won’t do anything. It’s a lot more important and a lot more powerful to have 1,000 followers who read every post and who care about what you’re saying.
Use the “find people” link at the top of the twitter page to search for friends. You can also use the “find on other networks” tab to search for contacts thru gmail, yahoo, aol and hotmail. The “suggested users” tab also provides a few people that twitter thinks are interesting to follow and usually creates a good starting point.
Add links and “follow me” buttons on your MySpace, Facebook and other web pages.
Another great place to start is on search.twitter.com. Enter in your band’s name (you can use quotes – for example, “All That Remains” as opposed to just searching All That Remains) and you can quickly see different people talking about your band. These are your fans and this is your target audience. These are the people who want to connect with you. You can start by following these people and responding to some of the things they’re saying. If someone posted “saw Dead Confederate last night, awesome show”, there’s no reason you can’t directly respond to that person saying “thanks for coming we had an awesome time playing for you guys”. You just gained a follower, engaged with a fan and chances are, that fan will help to spread the word that you’re now on twitter.
It’s also helpful to follow people that you’re interested in. Most people get a notification that a new person is following them and they’ll usually click on the person’s profile to see who they are and they’ll decide if they want to follow that person back. If they look on your page and see that you’re posting, interacting and creating value, it’ll give them more reason to follow you back. So if there’s someone you’d like to have follow you, following them is often a good place to start.
One of the best ways to get followers is just by interacting with other users and engaging in conversation. If user A is talking with user B, people who follow user A are likely to click on user B’s profile and see who that person is talking to. “Well if Dave Grohl is following him and talking with him, maybe I want to follow him too”.
3) What tools can I use to make using twitter easier?
One of the best parts about using twitter are the tools that make it easy to use. You can post and use twitter directly from the website (www.twitter.com) or you can use your cell phone, blackberry or iPhone. Below are some popular apps:
For windows desktop: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
www.Digsby.com – allows you to integrate all your instant messaging platforms with twitter & facebook
For blackberry: TwitterBerry (http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/)
Cell Phone: text twitter updates to 40404 and they’ll automatically post to your profile (you have to go to your account settings first and set up your mobile info first). You won’t be able to see replies or other people’s tweets thru here but at least you can post when you’re not in front of a computer.
For iPhone: Tweetie (here’s a link to some others: http://theappleblog.com/2008/12/03/12-twitter-apps-for-the-iphone/)
Use these links to see more twitter applications (there are also widgets you can use to easily integrate twitter with your website): http://twitter.com/downloads & http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps
Other interesting/useful articles and links:
http://www.bob-baker.com/twitter/music-promotion.html
http://arielpublicity.com/blog/archives/musicians-twitter-roadmap3
Artists and other music industry people on Twitter: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=phtgMLGe8aahYaH0pRs7VHg&gid=0 (use the links on top to see artist, record labels, bloggers and more)
(follow me on twitter @BurnTees)
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