Every Wednesday, I gather a collection of blog posts from around the Internet to share with the Beyond the Rhetoric community. Some weeks, there will be a specific theme that I am trying to approach. Other weeks, it will be a random mish-mash of topics to provide the greatest variety possible. This week, you could say it’s a little of both. What do you need for a complete and healthy balance in your life?

Raul Pacheco is ready to do it all over again. He partnered with Isabella Mori for the first Mental Health Camp last year and now he’s seeking sponsorships for the 2010 Mental Health Camp in Vancouver. Seeing how I was a psychology major in university, this topic is near and dear to my hurt. The camp aims to “fight the stigma associated with depression” and other related conditions.

Carl Nelson knows that part of any healthy balance includes a healthy appetite. We all want to eat some good food without having to put a huge dent in our wallets. That’s why he was more than happy to take in a free dinner at Pokka Cafe in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the people at Pokka aren’t very happy about giving out free meals and their service reflected this. At the very least, Carl enjoyed the cup of coffee at the end.

Dragon Blogger looks toward the health of your computer, recognizing that URL shortening services can prove to be a security risk. When you click on a TinyURL link, how can you know that you’re not being directed somewhere malicious? Well, the new Google URL shortening service seems to address this issue, scanning the destination URL before the user is directed there. If the destination URL is flagged as hosted malware or doing other bad things, the user is not sent there.

Ray Ebersole continues with the theme of a healthy computer by describing what to do when Outlook Express won’t delete emails. That can be quite a pain and that’s partly why I’ve decided on a largely online experience instead. On a side note, be sure to check out the new look on Ray’s blog. It’s pretty slick.

Copyblogger has a very revealing post written by James Chartrand. You may know about James from Men with Pens, but it turns out that James Chartrand wears women’s underpants. No, he’s not a cross-dresser; he’s a she. The person behind the keyboard is quite literally a woman and she decided to take on a male pen name to land more clients. Is this a healthy way to expand your business? Pen names are nothing new in the industry.