The Top Ten Best Selling Books of 2025 so far...

We are fast approaching the halfway point of the year. This being May 1st I thought it would be fun to see what readers are really into this year. In the top five, we have two that fit the self-help genre and two others that are dystopian fiction/romantasy. Finishing up the top ten we have more fiction, and more self-help, and a couple of coloring books.

Who would've guessed a couple of coloring books would be best-sellers.

1. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About Hardcover – December 24, 2024

by Mel Robbins (Author), Sawyer Robbins (Author)

2. Sunrise on the Reaping (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games) Hardcover – March 18, 2025

by Suzanne Collins (Author)

3. Forgotten Home Apothecary : 250 Powerful Remedies at Your Fingertips Paperback – Big Book, October 8, 2024

by Dr. Nicole Apelian (Author)

4. Onyx Storm (Deluxe Limited Edition) (The Empyrean, 3) Hardcover – January 21, 2025

by Rebecca Yarros (Author)

5.INNER EXCELLENCE: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible life Paperback – May 1, 2020

by JIM MURPHY (Author)

6. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones Hardcover – October 16, 2018

by James Clear (Author)

7. The Housemaid Paperback – August 23, 2022

by Freida McFadden (Author)

8. Girl Moments: Coloring Book for Adults and Teens Featuring Cute Cozy Daily Activities for Relaxation (Cozy Spaces Coloring) Paperback – October 26, 2024

by Coco Wyo (Author)

9. Cozy Friends: Coloring Book for Adults and Teens Featuring Super Cute Animal Characters with Easy and Simple Designs for Relaxation Paperback – May 22, 2024

by Coco Wyo (Author)

10. The Frozen River: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel Paperback – November 5, 2024

by Ariel Lawhon (Author)

This Top 10 reflects what is published on Amazon today.
None of these are my cup of tea, so I can't say whether they are good or bad or just blah.

We live in an interesting period and who knows what might catch the interest of others in a mass market sort of way next week or next month or whenever. That's why checking lists like this can be informative and also quite entertaining in their own way.

Madden Covers from 2000-2025

Madden Football, everyone knows all about it, and many have played and purchased this video game since the very beginning. Every year there's a new version of the game with a new face on the cover, and what everyone wants to know about first is who is in the newest version of the 99 Club.

So far all of the players featured on the cover have been offensive superstars with the only exceptions being two defensive players, Ray Lewis in Madden 2005 and Richard Sherman in Madden 2015.

Madden is the most popular NFL football video game. There have been others, but none more popular.

The game did have some controversy with an ongoing superstitious belief in a "Madden Curse". The curse meant that whoever made the cover would then have a bad season, or even worse suffer an injury. For sure though if you made the cover, you would not go on to make it to the Super Bowl. What fueled the belief in this so-called curse was that 15 of the players who were featured on the cover did have some kind of injury that either ended their season or they didn't measure up to expected standards. This curse has been more or less dismissed in recent years with Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes both winning Super Bowls and having extremely successful seasons.

The game has continually evolved and improved with in-depth player analytics, and amazing graphics.

The players featured on the cover never fear the so-called curse, they are instead very honored to be chosen for the cover.

Below is a list of who has been on the cover of the game from 2000-2025.

 Year Cover

2000 John Madden

2001 Eddie George

2002 Daunte Culpepper

2003 Marshall Faulk

2004 Michael Vick

2005 Ray Lewis

2006 Donovan McNabb

2007 Shaun Alexander

2008 Vince Young

2009 Brett Favre

2010 Troy Polamalu & Larry Fitzgerald

2011 Drew Brees

2012 Peyton Hillis

2013 Calvin Johnson

2014 Barry Sanders

2014 Adrian Peterson

2015 Richard Sherman

2016 Odell Beckham Jr.

2017 Rob Gronkowski

2018 Tom Brady

2019 Antonio Brown

2020 Patrick Mahomes

2021 Lamar Jackson

2022 Patrick Mahomes & Tom Brady

2023 John Madden

2024 Josh Allen

2025 Christian McCaffrey

Madden 2025 99 Club: Here's a short list of every NFL player with a 99 rating in this year's version

• WR Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins
• RB Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers
• OT Trent Williams, San Francisco 49ers
• TE Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chiefs
• QB Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs

Thanks for reading hopefully you'll follow me on blogger or twitter/x and leave a nice comment.

https://twitter.com/RKSimpkins

https://www.facebook.com/rushkeith.simpkins

https://www.facebook.com/RKSimpkins/

https://flickr.com/photos/rksimpkins/

https://outriderr.blogspot.com/

Thanks again, and have a great day!

How to Download YouTube Videos 4 FREE

This is a quick post with short and sweet info. How to download YouTube videos for free. It's simple and here is what you need to do.

Go to clipgrab.org and click the Free Download button. Install and run this application. ClipGrab is a free downloader and converter for YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and many other online video sites.

It converts downloaded videos to MPEG4, MP3, and other formats in just a few steps.

• Once you've installed the program, open it up.
• In another tab open YouTube, and select the video you wish to download and click the video.
• Copy the running url address.
• In the open ClipGrab you'll see a blinking verticle line, paste your video url address here, and wait a few seconds, and then select Grab this clip!

There are other ways as well, but none easier than this. Good Luck!

Thanks for reading hopefully you'll follow me on blogger or twitter/x and leave a nice comment.

https://twitter.com/RKSimpkins

https://www.facebook.com/rushkeith.simpkins

https://www.facebook.com/RKSimpkins/

https://flickr.com/photos/rksimpkins/

https://outriderr.blogspot.com/

Thanks again, and have a great day!

How to get a FREE Carfax report

How to get a FREE Carfax report. It's very easy and I will tell

you right away. Just keep in mind and always remember that Carfax reports don't always tell you everything. They only tell you what has been reported. Many times though services are done to vehicles and they don't get reported. The same goes for minor fender bender accidents, they may get repaired without being reported.

Getting a real Carfax report will usually cost you $$. If you are shopping for a new car, you can get a real Carfax report simply by going to Cars.com. Almost every car listed on their website includes a Carfax report that you can look at now for free. Some other vehicles have a different kind of report attached.

There are Carfax alternatives that you can use as well and they are every bit as good. Most people are just unaware that these reporting sites exist. Below are two sites that you can access for free and get the same information that is on a Carfax report. 

vehiclehistory.com

carsforsale.com

Hope you find this brief article useful and bookmark or save the attached links for future reference.

Best NFL Free Agents 2024

Football season is here! Camps and teams are back at practice again. Getting ready for the new season. High Schoolers are back, College's are back, and if you have kids that play then you are probably already driving them and maybe others to and fro practices. It's that time of year again.

Are you ready for some football!!

I like all football, I've watched the new UFL, I've watched Flag Football, I've watched Arena League Football, and I really love to watch the Canadian Football League. You might come to the conclusion that I'm an all-around football enthusiast! Yep, but the real deal football is the best of the best and that's the grand 'ol NFL.

The rest of this post is focused on the best of the NFL's top remaining 2024 free agents.

Training camps are opening all around the league and there are so many unsigned free agents still hoping to sign with a new team.

There are many more that will become free agents when teams start making roster cuts.

For Fantasy Football purposes I've only included offensive skill position players. For a more comprehensive list that includes all positions check that out with this link below.

Complete NFL Free Agents 2024 list

Of all of these players still available only two are worth picking up. They are Dalvin Cook and Hunter Renfro.

Best Remaining Quarterback Free Agents

• Ryan Tannehill
• Trevor Siemian
• Blaine Gabbert
• A.J. McCarron
• Brian Hoyer
• Kellen Mond
• Ben DiNucci

Best Remaining Running Back Free Agents

• Dalvin Cook
• Cam Akers
• Joshua Kelley
• Latavius Murray
• Kareem Hunt
• Matt Breida
• Jerick McKinnon
• Jakob Johnson
• Kevin Smith
• Melvin Gordon
• Alex Armah
• Brandon Bolden
• Eno Benjamin
• Ke’Shawn Vaughn
• Deon Jackson

Best Remaining Wide Receiver Free Agents

• Michael Thomas
• Hunter Renfrow
• Corey Davis
• Julio Jones
• Russell Gage
• Alex Erickson
• Lynn Bowden
• Randall Cobb
• Robbie Chosen
• Richie James
• Jakeem Grant
• Martavis Bryant
• Quintez Cephus

Best Remaining Tight End Free Agents

• Jimmy Graham
• Trevon Wesco
• Geoff Swaim
• Brycen Hopkins

Most of these players won't get picked up by any team, but it's worth watching. I think there's a new trend emerging with NFL teams, and that is to find a diamond in the rough per se, and take a chance on that unsigned and undrafted talent that is out there. Most of the players I have listed here have all bounced around the league long enough for you to already know what you're getting.

Good luck with all of your football world, the rest of the year sure looks better now!

Google's All Out Assault on Ad-Blockers begins June 3rd

        Google is phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in Chrome, starting in early June 2024, but not as fast as we thought. This change renders your ad blockers useless, and that is the intention despite their claims that Manifest V3 is designed to enhance the security, privacy, performance, and overall trustworthiness of Google Chrome extensions.

       From June 3, 2024, with Chrome version 127, users with active Manifest V2 extensions will see warnings in the Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels. Extensions using Manifest V2 will also lose their "Featured" badge. Currently, my own system is at version 125, so the roll-out will take a little bit more time.

       The stable version of Chrome will gradually disable V2 extensions and suggest V3 alternatives, but users can temporarily re-enable their V2 extensions, but this option will eventually be removed.

       Google says that about 85% of Chrome extensions, including popular ad-blockers like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock Origin, and AdGuard, have migrated or released versions that support Manifest V3.

       So if you thought like many that June 3rd was going to be Doomsday for your web browsing it’s not. The full rollout should occur with Chrome version 127, and our extensions with have new Manifest V3 versions available. Not sure yet if the popular extensions we all use with automatically update to Manifest V3 or if we’ll have to add new ones from Playstore.

       I for one do not believe that Google or YouTube or any of its software products has a right to know what software you have on your system. I feel that it’s an invasion of privacy and an overreach by a greedy corporation whose motto was once “Don’t be evil”.

       It seems like all their efforts to get you to disable or not use ad-blockers is really turning into a game of whack-a-mole, and I don’t see any end in sight.

*For users of the ad-blocking extension Ublock there’s already a MV3 alternative uBO Lite (uBOL). You can find more information at the following link. You may need to customize it, and this link gives you the information needed to do that uBol Lite or uBol.

      Others are using different web browsers and enjoying all that YouTube has to offer without invasive annoying ads. You might consider Brave, Firefox, Opera, and or even DuckDuckGo. You can add ad-blockers to these as well and completely eliminate ads.

      I suppose there’ll always be workarounds to avoid annoying ads until ads become part of the actual content.

*Google's claims that MV3 will help improve overall security is a blatant lie. Read more here at https://bit.ly/4e5iSrG.