For those of you that have been following my saga as a reluctant dog whisperer, I have a bit of a holiday update.

As you may know, about two weeks ago now we took in a runaway beagle.  We put up signs, took her around the neighborhood to find her owners, took her to the vet to check for an electronic tag, called the animal shelter and then waited.  She was a house trained dog and the vet thought she was about two years old.  All in all a good dog as these things go.

Well we had plans to go out of town for a late Christmas and no one to watch the beagle or our other two dogs (one acquired a few days after the beagle).  So we took all three dogs packed in a van with our three kids.

We arrived at my wife's parents house where they have a dog and were babysitting another.  My wife's sister brought their two dogs as well, this brought the total to seven dogs home for the holidays, and through a couple different parties two other dogs showed up as visitors from time to time as well.

Jacking Up the Beagle

So anyway, my sister-in-law has a Jack Russell Terrier puppy that is about 6 months old.  He's a cute little dog and as we soon came to learn very  . .. . frisky.  The beagle is not fixed.  Since we took it in as stray, it didn't seem right to fix it when we hoped to get her home in a few days.  Maybe she's a show dog or a breeder or something.

The Jack Russell is just getting old enough and developed enough to get fixed, but isn't fixed yet.  As these things go, the Jack Russell of course is giving us great cause for concern as he sets out to prove the cycle of life is still working in the canine breed.

Now we are worried that our temporary pack of three dogs, might become a permanent pack of three and that the Beagle may have been Jacked Up by the terrier, which may stick us with a herd of Jack Beagles puppies in a few months. 

* Sponsored Article *

Harry's site has picked up a new sponsored this month, and we are proud to help  Hayfield Dental Care of Alexandria, Virginia get the message and buzz out about their practice and one of their dentists.

Hayfield Dental has provided a release regarding one of their dentists charles brown dds pc, who has served Hayfield Dental Care for over a decade with an excellent record and no complaints.

He has received multiple awards over his tenure and is listed as one of Washington's top dentists by the Washington Area Consumer Council. He is also a member of the ADA.  He has performed thousands of surgical procedures, root canals and crowns and Hayfield Dental Care hopes Washington residents will consider their services in the future.

Hayfield Dental Care serves Alexandria, Virginia.  They have many dentists in their practice.  Most of their team covers many advanced and specialized areas of dental medicine.  This enables Hayfield Dental to provide onsite services to their patients so that outside referrals to other practices are not required.

That's the headline I will be providing later this year!  I am in the midst of remodeling my consulting business and pushing it more directly towards professional blogging services, marketing 2.0 services, promotion, buzz generation, grass roots campaigns, web development, feed maximization and a dozen other worthwhile keywords.

My wife and I went and looked at a few houses this week in the Gastonia area.  Both homes were lake front homes with at least an acre of land and 2500 - 4000 square feet of space.  I liked both homes quite a bit, even though these were older than some of the homes we have viewed recently.

As I continue to ramp up my business and my professional blogging services, I intend to make a splash after I earn enough to pay with the profits from these services.  Won't this be an interesting ride!

Call me naive but I never heard about the concept of stretch marks until I joined the army.  As a guy, the topic had just never come up.

Then I met some dude, that was an ex-body builder and he was complaining about all the weight he had lost going into the army and how he had stretch marks.  I just smiled and nodded, didn't look, didn't ask and thought it was peculiar of him to tell.

It wasn't until about 8 years later that I figured out what they were after my wife had our first child.  She took some precautions to prevent stretch marks but still gained a few.

These days the topic is much more public and many natural remedies and preventative aids are available mostly pushed towards expectant mothers as opposed to body builders entering the military, but that won't stop even a guy if it works!

Mother's Intuition offers some excellent information and products on stretch marks.  They offer Tummy Honey to prevent stretch marks and Stretch Out to fade existing stretch marks.

At the end of the day we are talking about dermatology, but a little preventive care can go a long long way in helping people that have the foresight to know they are going to put on weight and will decrease in size later.  For those that don't know, then there are some after the fact solutions as well.

This article brought to you by our Sponsor, Mother's Intuition.

I provide a lot of blogging advice to new bloggers on different ways to tackle a topic, how to jazz up their blog, and how to optimize their site.

I typically give more advice than I apply, or in other words I'm a better reviewer than I am an applier.  I try to practice what I preach, but I'm better at investigating and writing.

One of the tips I often give new bloggers is that they should include more pictures to highlight their topic and really bring it home for their readers.

Fortunately, for you my reader, I am not following my own advice, this time.

We have three dogs in the family again and year after year it never fails that one of our dogs will take a fancy to tinsel, the long stringy unattached form of garland that gets draped from the branches of Christmas trees.  Its glittery and made out of a thin stringy type of plastic.

Of course there is a hard and fast rule of biology that Newton would have summed up nicely if he'd continued his experiments with dogs instead of turning towards the heavens to track the progress of the sun to the point that he almost burnt out his eyes.  He might have said, "What goes in, Must Come Out."

That is basically a hard and fast rule with all dogs.  If it goes in, its going to come out and its just the same with tinsel.

Tinsel is kind of your pets way of getting into the Christmas spirit.  They get to eat part of the Christmas tree, which all animals fantasize about throughout the year.  Then they get to decorate their pooh!

Now every animal knows that its just a Grinch of an animal that doesn't show some real Christmas spirit by decorating.  Aside from ripping up wrapping paper, pooh decorating is probably the preferred option for most pets. 

They eat the tinsel or garland of their choice and then make a nice christmas decorative pooh.  Some cats and even dogs will even attempt puky wreaths with tinsel but the tinsel pooh is that necessary item that all pets must have.

This year was no different for our pets, but fortunately the decorations were kept outside!

Sponsored Article

Well I am not moving to Las Vegas yet, but looking at preparations for a trip there in two weeks.  Each time I go I think it would be an interesting place to live.

Las Vegas has some of the most conducive laws to protecting business interests and saving money on taxes compared to almost any other state in the US.  Plus, its a fun city.

It is not for everyone and that is a good reason for a person to consider renting there for a short time before you make the full decision to make a permanent move.  Test the waters, learn the real estate market and then make your play as opposed to packing and moving and buying right from go.

If you know the town and you are ready you can find real estate information from listings to rental information at MLS Las Vegas.

MillionSaver.com provides a wide range of information and data to help make your search easier and get you up to speed with Las Vegas and its real estate market quickly. There may be good investment opportunities to be made in Vegas, but you do not want to waste your time or money in a long drawn out shopping search. Get it done ahead of time as much as possible!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope Santa Claus treated everyone nicely this year and hopefully no coal anywwhere.

I've got lots to write about and can't wait to get started on the New Year!

We often times hear about victims of identity theft that have their credit ruined or their bank accounts depleted or a number of other things typically related to finance.

So its some what bizarre to hear about Annapolis attorney Amanda Sprehn, who apparently was the victim of identity theft. 

Police recently charged Tiffany Gwen Weaver with seven counts related to an event where she stole Sprehn's identity, forged a pass into a prison, and went into the prison and attempted to have sex in front of video monitors with an inmate.

Sprehn did not learn of the theft until she received a letter from the prison indicating that her security pass had been canceled due to the incident.  Prison officials later learned that it was not actually Sprehn that they had observed on tape and stopped from completing the act.

The whole thing sounds like a plot for a sequel to Single White Female.

Here's a quick Press Release that you can listen to about Donald Trump's recent announcement that he intends to marry Miss USA, Tara Conner.

Press Release from Satyre Wire December 22, 2006

The Donal To Marry Miss USA

Donald Trump announced today that he intends to marry Miss USA Tara Conner. 

He stated that he originally considered dismissing her from her role as Miss USA as he owns the company and didn't feel it would be appropriate to marry an employee and encourage nepotism.  Close friend and Larry King, who has been married 5 times, told Trump, "You already encourage nepotism by employing your kids.  Get real you Schmuck your a billionaire and look like a quack what do you care?" Said Donald when asked about his decision.

Early in the week the press had speculated that Donald was considering stripping Tara's crown after learning of lurid details about her personal life in New York City and viewing pictures from private investigators hired by NBC co owner of the Miss USA pageant.

Donald later stated, "I wanted to strip her alright, but I wouldn't start with her crown.  I could care less about the crown, I have a closet full of them.  How do you think I landed my last wife?"

If you haven't figured it out yet, that's my entry into a Razz Mixer contest to win $250 for creating a fake news release.

This Razz online recording service has definitely gotten better over the last few months and I like where they are going with it. You should take it for a spin, You could be the next RAZZ Idol  So check it out and let us know what you think about it!

Here's what the mixer looks like

After finally finding the dog of my wife's dreams, we are now busy racing around the house trying to get everything packed up for the holidays.

We have to:

1. Get packed
2. Clean the house
3. fold the laundry, pack clothes for trip
4. finish Christmas shopping, back gifts for trip
5. clean out the chinchilla cage - done
6. pack the dogs
7. get dog leashes, colors, name tags for the new dogs
8. Get the kids and all their stuff ready
9. Get all my computer and podcast gear packed and the 20 newspapers that I still need to gather stories from and another dozen magazines packed
10. Go celebrate the holidays, drink a little booze, play lots of cards, watch the kids have fun, potty train the new puppy and teach the baby how to walk
11. Come back and get back to work

Oh and write lots of stories about the whole thing during the entire shebang.  :)

Happy Holidays!

For those of you that can not make it home for the holidays, connections to your loved ones, friends and family via the phone is essential.

Pingo provides International calling cards online and has helped people save a lot of money on long distance and international calls.  I regularly make calls to Canada and there are times when VoiP quality just doesn't cut it and you need a land line.  See for yourself by looking at the Canada calling card rates Pingo offers.  Their rates are almost as low as VoiP but you get land line service quality from your normal phone.

Or check out Brazil calling card rates or any of their other countries to get a better idea of how much money you can save with Pingo calling cards.

Sponsored Article

I signed up for an account with SecondLife in August only to rapidly learn that my IBM thinkpad was deficient in the graphics card department. After reading Snow Crash many years ago, I do want to check it out and find out if it can be a useful medium or not.

I've met several people that are actually doing business in SecondLife and keep hearing about more and more entertainers that are performing there. I have a feeling that it could be very useful. I think that I will work on getting a new laptop after the holidays, maybe in the middle of January and put this on my things to do list.

Not so much a New Years resolution to go virtual but more of a learning experience. I might find out that its just a big waste of time, but suspect that it will probably be entertaining.

There are many things in this world that can wear a man down. Too many wars, not enough love, to many things breaking around us, and too many things to list in a blog.

This year my wife wanted a dog for Christmas. She didn't want just any old dog. She didn't want a lab or a dachshund or a Chihuahua or a poodle. She wanted a Lonnnnnng Dog.

Now for some a wiener dog or a dachshund would bring lots of joy, but that's not they type of lonnnnnng dog that my wife can enjoy.

She needed a dog with ears that hang down almost to his paws, and paws as big soft squishy baseballs. She wanted droopy eyes and droopy jowls and really droopy everything, even a tail.

Our quest to find a lonnnnnng Dog led us far and wide, many an hour spent combing the country side. We traveled around in our mini van in tow, with our youngest baby daughter Mya strapped in to her seat in search of a lonnnnnng Dog to warm my wife's feet.

This story has a happy ending, but maybe not for me. I'll give you a hint, my wife is now happy but that happiness came at a price because lonnnnnng Dog joy cannot be found on the cheap.

I'm not talking about dollars, or pesos or pounds, I'm talking about commitment and patience and time, things not to easy to be bought with a dime.

You see on our journey, you might call it a campaign, we picked up something else, something we hadn't entertained. It started last weekend on one of our trips to find a lonnnnnng Dog. We came up short, last Saturday on our search. We'd missed a lonnnnnng Dog by just a few hours, a lonnnnnng Dog named Marty that tugged at my wife's heart.

Dejected and tired we came home that night, no lonnnnnng Dog for my wife, no puppy for the kids. The very next day my wife took a drive with our kids and came home two hours later with a surprise in the van. It wasn't a lonnnnnng Dog, but it was a dog. It was a Beagle and the Beagle was lost.

We shelter dogs in our neighborhood, usually for a few hours and sometimes over night, when they get lost, they arrive at our door. Sometimes hungry, sometimes thirsty, sometimes excited and sometimes scared, usually bewildered and a little nervous.

We live near a busy road and our house is one of the la st, homes in line before reaching that road. If we don't bring them inside, they'll face the gauntlet of fast moving traffic, which isn't a good thing.

So we took the Beagle in hoping to return it to some hopeful family looking for their dog. But no one came looking, no one hung up signs and the poor little Beagle it seemed may have been deserted. We checked with the vet, no chip in its skin, no dog tags, and no word from animal control about calls from worried owners.

My wife got a sad look in her face, one that said, "she's a cute beagle but I want a lonnnnnng Dog instead."

So she kept looking for a lonnnnnng Dog and finally today. She found that lonnnnnng Dog and brought him home to stay. His name was Neville but, we'll call him Ruben. He's a Bassett Hound puppy about a year old. Saved by the Basset Hound Rescue league and now adopted by our family.

We have cheese dogs and Rubens a cheese. We have a dog named Cheddar, a Corgy-dachshund mutt that belongs to my son. Cheddars the spitting image of my son's grandfather's dog, and his name is Colby, and he's a Yellow Bassador with a great big large head.

Now we have Ruben and Cheddar but we have more than we thought for we also have Bleu, the lost Beagle pup and that makes three. And you see that's where my lament begins as I have three wonderful kids, Zoe, Corbin and Mya, but now I have three dogs as well.

Three and Three makes six and that's a lot of small ones to care for throughout the year. But they are all cute as can be and the Beagle too, she's a smart little dog that fit right in from her first hour here.

I'd like to get her back to her family if she has one, but she may have roamed to far or been abandoned and so we'll look out for her as long as it takes.

But three dogs is a lot, and now my home office is full. Of dogs playing with toys, and balls and chew toys, squeaking and all.

I am taking pictures to paste in this blog, but my camera is dying its old and worn hard. It came as a freebie, when I bought my wife a Christmas present several years ago. I bought her a camera for her photography work and the shop threw in a rebate card for a $100, which went to a small digital camera that was two seasons out of date back then.

It has served me well, but it takes shaky pictures on a good day let alone on days when I've typed too much and drank too much caffeine at which point, its all but hopeless for me to get in a good shot.

Not long ago, I made a video with the camera for a PayPerPost op that needed at least 60 seconds of my mug on screen. But my poor old dying camera, just couldn't manage to record more than 57 seconds and so my effort, went without reward. I created the write up but it just wasn't enough.

Some day I hope to get a better digital camera to help me aspire to creating great digital photography. You see I need the help, of good technology and more features and clarity and time on the card. All those things that help you do more with the moment, more with your time, because now I have six little souls that need my attention and every second counts.

I need the picture right, "Right Now Daddy!" my daughter will say. I need it quick and fast and without missing a shot! I need a new camera and I write this you see in part because I would write it anyway, but in part because HP is sponsoring an opportunity for me to win a new camera, which would be fantastic.

With it I can capture and record everything with my 3 kids and three dogs throughout the weeks and months and years to come. Fifty seven seconds will be too short and shaky pictures are never a good last resort. So this gift will keep on giving, just as Ruben's gift of a family from my wife and my gift to her of a Lonnnnnng Dog and our gift to our family of many great moments to come.

I want something clear and crisp and sharp to share with my loved ones, my friends and my readers to help everyone see this wonderful growing family, complete now with my Wife's lonnnnnng Dog, his head resting in her lap, living his own dream come true. Rescued and adopted in to a loving family with plenty of playmates and company and hands to rub ears, and backs and bellies the perfect cure for The lonnnnnng Dog Blues.

Thanksgiving

One Thanksgiving I was asleep.

My mom said "get up".

I got up and asked her "why"?

"Beause it is Thanksgiving!" she said. "It's the time of year when hunters come and eat you". "Remember".

"Oh yeah" I said. I heard a gun shot.

"Shhh" my mom said.

We heard footsteps.

"Crack crack crck crack".

I thought the hunter left. "Few" I said.

"Shhh remember what happened to dad" said mom.

"Oh yeah he died".

"Shhhh". she said again.

I shivered.

"BAM"!

We saw a turkey slide toward the hunter.

"Gurrrr", my tummy growled. "I'm hungry" I said.

My mom said, "I guess the hunter is gone," and my Mom went outside.

"BAM!"

I shivered. Then I peeked outside. I saw my mom laying on the ground dead.

"Oh no" I said. "Are you o.k."?

She did'nt respond.

"BAM BAM BAM"!

I turned arond. The hunter was still there.

"BUGOCK!" I said.

I flew up in the hunters hair.

"AAAAAAAA" the hunter screamed like a girl.

I grabbed the hunter's hair and flew up.

"AAAAAAWWW"!

Then the hunter ran awaway leaving my mom and the other turkey. Then I went inside sadly and went to sleep.

The End.

This time of year many people have a happy stressful holiday as they rack up credit card debt to give the temporary gift of cheer to a loved one.

To often those gifts are not needed and rapidly tossed out, but the credit card debt becomes the gift that keeps on giving, to the credit card companies.  More and more people are waking up to the problems of credit card debt and its potential for abuse.

Many people have the wisdom not to take a credit card out on a shopping binge and max it out in one fantastic spree.  However, many more of us lack the wisdom to keep from slowly running that same card up to its limit over a couple dozen months, dropping a thousand dollars a year on Christmas here, a thousand on home improvements there, a thousand on clothes over two years, a thousand on emergency car repairs, and $200 a month on fuel and eating out adds up to $4,800 over the course of two years, for a grand total of $9,800 and all of a sudden the card is $200 away from a $10k limit!

We may not be binge shoppers in one go, but we are binging throughout the year, not swallowing the whale hole, but one bite at a time.

The issue is becoming a world wide problem as credit card usage spreads around the world.  Consumers can find advice on the subject in most countries these days from Canada, to the US to sites on credit cards UK.

Its not hard to find credt card news or in the news and is becoming easier to find credit card advice but the information is out there.

The question becomes "Do you have the will power to learn and act on your new found wisdom?"

Monty Python may have made the Brits famous for their love / hate relationship with spam, but new immigrants to the island are awaking a new love of carp, but this love solely focused on eating the fish.

Many Brits no longer eat carp, seeing the bottom eating fish as inedible.  This is a cultural shift that has taken place over many hundreds of years and probably has a lot to do with better access to wealth and other food sources.  That doesn't mean they do not love their carp.  In fact many Brits do love the fish, and more precisely they love to angle for the fish, catch it and release it.

Recent immigrants from Poland however have different traditions and tastes.  They do eat carp and see it as a center piece dish for the holidays, such as fish head soup.

The problem is that many a British fish monger has stopped touting carp.  So people have taken to the lakes and ponds of the British aisles fishing, even hunting for carp to stew up for the holidays.  According to the WSJ, they even are going after these fish in wet suits aiming spear guns at the 50lb fish.

This has local sporting fishermen flopping mad as fish that have survived many an angling battle are now getting scooped up in nets and sported into a big boiling pot.

Its a problem of culture clash and not one to be settled quickly.  Who will win out?  Conservationists?  Sporting Fishermen?  Hungry Immigrants?  or maybe even the Fish?

Many of us come to expect a surprise or two at work during the holidays.  Typically, we hope for a holiday bonus in the form of a check.  So what are you to do if that surprise comes in the form of a new opportunity?  Specifically, what do you do if you are given the responsibility of taking control of a team as the new software project manager?

This is the subject of Bas de Baar's new book Surprise!  Now You're a Software Project Manager.  Bas helps people walk through this quagmire some of us love and hate called project management.

This project management book tackles the issue in a day in the life of sort of way and walks readers through the process easily and readily showing them how to get started in the role in a practical way without having to go out and read their four hundred and fifty-third dummies book on something. Sometimes we all need a little fresh perspective.

I have worked as a project manager for many years and as a project manager mind mapping trainer for the last three years.  Its been a long time since I took on my first project.  For those of you new to role this can be a great place to start.  Sometimes its important to get a taste of things and feel the water before you jump in all the way.  Maybe this will be your first step along the path of becoming a full fledged project manager.

You might just be a natural!

Here I go again on day 13 of Exodus3000.  I didn't get attacked last night so that's a good thing.  I'm going to try and play this round as fast as possible as I'm pushed for time. 

I'm hoping to earn at least 1500 MD, which would be 600 more than I have ever earned in a single sitting.  Do not know if that is possible or not, but we will find out real soon.

The Actual Game

So I played, finished the game in about 6 minutes, which was pretty much continuous clicking through on a mostly straight course.

I had a mixed day getting a little more than a half dozen double digit earnings from attacks and mining operations, but I had a lot of very low single digits as well.  So I came up far short of my goal.  Looks like I'll just have to play some more. 

Question

I need to explore what the benefits of joining a settlement are to the person that joins.  It helps the governor, but doesn't seem to help me.  Will explore the forums on this topic a little more soon.

For the last thirteen days DealsVista has been giving away prizes as part of their promotion every day.  Today is the last day of their promotion and your last chance to win a free iPod Nano 8GB from our sponsor DealsVista.com.

Its real easy to try and win, simply go to their site and find a good deal.  Share the deal with as many of your friends and family as possible via email, instant messenger, discussion forums, MySpace where ever you talk to your friends.  The more invitations you send that are responded to the more chances you get to win!

Check it out and maybe you will win a free iPod Nano today!

We are going on our second night and tomorrow will be our second day with The Puppy.

The dog is cute and all, but usually we find the owners of strays by now.  So tomorrow we are putting up signs in some areas further outside of our immediate neighborhood. 

My wife took the pooch to the vet today where we learned that

1. Said pooch doesn't have a fancy micro chip to identify its owners
2. Said pooch is not fixed yet
3. Forgot to ask if said pooch is already pregnant

My poor wife is starting to get a little manic about the possibility that we might get stuck with said pooch if the owners don't show up.  Not such a bad dog, but she still has her heart set on a Bassador.  We'll see what happens next.

Its been just over nine years now since I first started wrote about the emergence of TiVo as a medium that would change the world of marketing and advertising.

On a personal note today I had an interesting dialogue with a gentleman at a company that has been a partner of mine in one form or fashion for almost three years now.  The conversation was the benefits of using the services of Web 2.0 Marketing firms.

One of those firms provided a very useful release about the best way to increase link popularity for a website, service or product.

Its a relative and timely release as it covers the tangible benefits of this type of marketing.  They build links, improve page rank but do so in a way that builds the links around highly dense articles that are on topic and point about the relative links and sites included.

Many sites and forums can bring a company together with a website that will sell a hyperlink on their home page for $10 per month even $100 or a $1,000 for top sites.  Just putting a hyperlink on a page brings significantly less benefit than building that link up contextually.

All of these benefits are also separate from the benefit of generating marketing buzz, focusing more attention from other bloggers that frequent blogs and might network the article or post around the blogosphere.  Sometimes a single article becomes the seed that grows and spreads across the internet.

A single seed my eventually create a field, but advertisers that plant a crop of seeds are much more likely to reap a harvest not only in the power of the page rank improvements for particular keywords but also for for the extra development of buzz generation created by bringing a good idea to the surface and allowing it a little positive attention.  This is the leverage benefit of Web 2.0 marketing a service that brings together some of the best aspects of print marketing and combines it in technology.  Both components are worth the some of their parts and together their synergy makes their value worth more than their parts alone.

Plus, the very real benefit comes from the long tail value of an advertising campaign that can live on line perpetually.  The original radio and TV broadcasts are still traveling through space away from the planet Earth.  Some of those advertisements were paid for almost a century ago and they are not generating much useful buzz today because they are off planet.  However, some of the ad campaigns online have the potential to build a foundational marketing campaign that could grow and stretch out over not just a month but a year or possibly even several decades.  This is just an aspect of the Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy that can be exercised by Companies today if they know where to turn for help, management and campaign strategy.

That's right I'm talking about Exodus3000 again.  No one attacked me in this daily chess game I'm playing.  So I start today's chess moves with a decent bankroll, maybe my increase in security fended people off, or maybe others are marshalling their forces for an attack.

Either way it pays to stay on top of things and so I am off to the races today.  At some point I need to make a sprint to the end of the month and see how much real money I can earn from the game play, but I'm still learning the ropes.

People often say that 'If I had known that when I started, I could have done it in half the time...'  I'm working on the same principle here.  I suspect that the basic lessons in movement and strategy will help me work more effectively in my next version once I have a better holistic image of the entire potential battle picture.

So today I start with the basics and hopefully will learn something new!

I went through the game today and had a poor earnings run, pulling in less than 400 MD.  It seemed like prices had gone up and earnings dropped today, so maybe that means more people have been active in the game, or its just an off day, or I chose a poor strategy.

I have had other slow days and they were usually followed by very very good days.  We'll see!

I spent sometime reviewing ServLance today.  They have come a long ways since they originally opened their site and I was eager to witness their progress.

ServLance is a Social website that brings freelance workers together with companies looking for Freelance Services.

Freelancers can list their skills and rates, or they can list service package offerings and prices.

Companies can provide their project requirements.

Then the two groups can come together and meet up much the same way that people network and meet up through a service like MySpace for Comedians or Bands.  This would be the more professional equivalent.

The site has a distinct Web 2.0 look and feel and supports up to 10 different locations with opportunities, projects and professionals from all around the world.

From a Freelancer's perspective they can join for free and list their services.  If they take a job, they will see 10% withheld from the escrow payment.  They can also opt for a Gold or Silver monthly listing at rates of $19.95 and $9.95 respectively with reduced commission withholdings of 6% and 8%.  The paid listings also enable links to their own websites and other perks.

Employers can list projects for free.  ServLance functions as the payment intermediary, accepts and receives an escrow payment for the services, withholds their commission and pays the freelancer the remainder.  For free listings this is a great deal and commission rates range from 6-10%.

Alternatively, Employers can pay a flat job listing advertisement fee of $50 and work directly with any freelancer.  This might make sense if a job were to cost over $500.

Over the weekend we went out looking for a Bassador and came up short.

Yesterday, my wife took my son to soccer practice and came back home only to find a beagle pup running loose in the neighborhood.

She brought her home and we have been trying to find its owner.  We often attract strays as we have a dog (formerly dogs) ourselves and we are known for returning wayward dogs to their owners when they get lost.

We put up signs last night, but haven't received a call yet.  Something tells me that this particular pooch may have been dumped.

That means we may be on the hook to decide if we are going to keep this one.  We won't make that decision anytime soon, hopefully the owners will come forward, but that's the deal so far.

Is it possible that Americans (North, South and Central) may move more than most other people in the world?  Did the explorer genes from the peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe get focused into the descendants that live in the Americas today?

I was reading a release from Moving.bz that made me reflect on this as they offer a number of moving options that make it even easier for us to follow the trails of our predecessors and just pick up and move.  My ancestors never had it this easy, with the ability to put their things in portable storage and have a pod shipped on down the road, or surf the internet to find 'movers' to help them pack, move, unpack, setup etc.

And for those lucky few that could afford storage a few hundred years ago, finding insurance or any service to actually trust with your belongings was probably even more rare.

Where and how will we move our things in another 100 years?

I didn't actually play Exodus3000 yesterday, but here I am today, watching football, eating barbecue and starting Day 11.

I picked up another referral this weekend, but haven't gotten the bonus yet as a new player has to move 250 moves before the referral is official.  (I get fifty additional moves for a referral.)

I can see that I was attacked 3 times in the last 2 days and one of those was successful. 

I did pick up about 800 Martian dollars so it was a good day.  I also learned a little more about the boundaries.  I'm going to boost my security some more, then focus on getting some radar I think.

I enjoy artists that tickle your mind and make you think. Salvador Dali definitely fits that mold for me. Many artists can make you think, some almost like a law school professor grilling you to death with ancient historic facts or popular cult knowledge.

Salvador Dali tickles your brain and makes you think in ways that most of us are not accustomed to thinking. His pictures can always be interpreted slightly differently depending on your perspective and this is what makes them so fresh to look at no matter how many times you have seen them.

One of my recent favorites of Dali's work is the Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus.

If you look at this from a distance it appears to be two people in silhouette, these would be the figures from Millet's painting The Angelus(A painting of two french farmers or peasants praying. this rendering in abstract of that painting shows the man(left) and the woman (right) in the forms of two decayed buildings), look a little closer and it looks like to other figures looking at two building ruins in silhouette and that's just the beginning of your journey with this image from Dali.

Here's a quick picture of Marty.  he's about 7 months old and apparently a chocolate bassador.

If anyone happens to know of anyone offering puppy bassador's for adoption in the NorthEastern section of Atlanta, preferably Gwinnett County or somewhere Northeast on I85, please let me know.

I need to make sure that my wife has a Merry Christmas!

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This morning I read a nice little history lesson or version of history about the character named Bishop Nicholas, who was later renamed St. Nicholas and rolled into the character of Santa Claus.

Gorumet Gift Baskets.com provided the history lesson in a recent release and as part of their effort to spread good cheer this holiday season with great christmas gift baskets.

As this tale goes, the concept and practice of celebrating St Nicholas's day was almost wiped out in the protestant reformation in England but later resurrected by Dutch colonists in New York where the New York Historical Society founded by John Pintard focussed to keep the saint in the public eye.  Just over a dozen years after the founding of the society, the poem 'The Night Before Christmas" was published and the tale grew a life of its own.

Yesterday, my wife and I were supposed to start and finish are Christmas shopping. Instead we embarked on a while dog chase, searching after the elusive, but wildly popular bassador.

My wife grew up with Basset Hounds and had a particular fondness for a Bassador. Over the last few weeks with Christmas approaching she has been coming around to the conclusion that she needs a bassador in her life once again.

She searched several local shelters and heard about a Bassador pup named Marty of the Chocolate Bassador variety. Marty's shelter was scheduled to bring some pooches to the petsmart in Roswell Georgia and so we made plans to get up early and see the pooch in the morning.

We drove about an hour and a half, the dogs were 30 minutes late and Marty was a no show. :( He had been promised to someone else already, but the lady with the pooches mentioned that a different Petsmart about 5 miles down the road might have more dogs. We drove the 5 miles and it turned into 12. We got there and saw some very cute hound dogs, but no bassadors or basset hounds for that matter.

We ended up driving back towards are home. We arrived to our town about 80 minutes later and did most of our Christmas shopping, checked out a local Petsmart, but no luck. So it would appear that our hunt for the Bassador will continue. :)

In the meantime I was searching Wikipedia and realized there was no page for a Bassador so I signed up for an account and set up a Bassador Page.

I never caught the video for Suffer Well from Depeche Mode until today.  I love their album Playing the Angel, one of their best since Enjoy the Silence and the 101 compilation.

It starts in typcial Depeche Mode style, walking.

Found it extra clever from the perspective of following the time travelling life of their lead singer through his various different styles, musical, hair, clothing etc.

Even chasing him through his fight with heroin.  Even adding tatoos throughout the video.

Love this song, and the album and most of their music throughout the years.  (Something ironic about the cross dressing bride holding things together.  :)

If there were ever a logical location for a conference its got to be the Social Networking Conference schedule to be held in Miami. This is sometimes referred to as the internet dating conference and the next one will be in San Francisco next year. 

Can you just picture all those people turning out representing the dating sites and other Web 2.0 groups hitting the clubs, streets and beaches of Miami Beach for a conference?

The conference is scheduled for Januar 15-17th.  It also covers Community networking sites in addition to the social networking sites.  The actual event will be at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

OK, its day 10 of Exodus 3000.  As I logged into my account I saw that there had been one successful attack on me overnight and that I had lost about 6 dollars.  Fortunately, I had quit early yesterday with out using any of my anytime moves and had only stopped with about 15 MD in the bank, so I didn't have much to lose!

Now, I'm going out with a higher weapons level to kick some butt!  lol

Its just a game.

But I had several very good finds.  25md and then 48 and then 98 plus all the little 5's and 10's and things.  I had gotten up to 299MD with only 70 moves!

But it was 3:40 am and my wife had gotten up to get a drink of water an texted me a message, saying why are you still up.  Fortunately I didn't get any prank text messages this time.

Of course the answer is, I'm almost done working . . . . (truth be told I had written several dozen articles and just wanted to finish on a lighter note)

I kept going, winning several more 20's and a 40.  I used all my moves for the day and started to tap my anytime moves and then I got 150 dollars!

I had made my earnings goal, and now just wanted an outpost to buy another upgrade, but that took 15 more moves.  Finally got to it, got my upgrade and stopped for the day, after earning 931 MD!  Best day so far on Exodus3000 where you get paid real money to play a strategy game.

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Sometimes we have to search high, and sometimes we have to buy low to find a silver lining in the blogosphere.  Lucky for you I came across Monex Deposit Company (MDC) recent press release.  MDC provides people with the ability to make investments in precious metals as a way to further diversify a persons holdings. 

They provide a host of silver products can be purchased in many different forms from bars and ingots and coins.   They can even arrange for delivery of their products to customers or to have items stored in an independent bank or depository where they might be safer than being held in your own home. 

Regardless, Investors should always review their options and their risk exposure to find the best deal and investors.  Art collectors should take special precautions not to mix their trade with investors and vice versa, unless they are specifically trained to do so.

Well for right or for wrong, I chat back and talk to the people like I know them.  Its there nickel I guess.

Here's a chat I received tonight around 11 pm EST , shortly after . . . .

Unknown Texter: Come!

Me: Too late!

Unknown Texter: Say what?

Me:  crashing now

Unknown Texter: (15 minutes later) You coming?

Me:  Where are you at?

Unknown Texter: Living room.

Me: (walking upstairs into the living room) no kidding so am I & I don't see you.  Are you wearing a Scary Movie mask?

5 minutes no response

Me:  Maybe we should take this a little slower, since I'm married and you are invisible!  :)

Unknown Texter: Sorry wrong number.  Tell your wife sorry.

Me:  :) no problem took me a second to figure out if this was a prank.  Have a good evening and thanks for a laugh.  I needed it.  :)

I can't wait to show it to my wife tomorrow.  She was already asleep when it came in.

You've pimped your car, your house, your girl friend, and you may have even pimped your dog.  But you haven't lived until you pimped your auto plates.

 CustomEuroplates.com helps you do just that.  You can get authentic German made custom license plates to pimp out your European car.

Add a little more bling to your custom plates with a custom European license plate holder.

 You can enter in your text at Euro Plates to have your Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, Porsche or any car pimped out with a little Eurostyle.

You don't even have to stand in line at a European DMV.

Just order online and you will be on your way to big pimp ze auto plates.

All day, I've been running around fretting because I thought it was Friday, the end of the week and I hadn't gotten as much done this week as I wanted to get done.

I've been racing around like a fool to 'catch up' and stressing and just realized about half an hour ago, that its not FRiday.

I looked at my phone calendar wrong early today, and confused myself into thinking that it was Friday and its been all down hill from there.

I guess that's one of the perils of working from home, especially on those days that are extra full of work.  You miss that interaction with someone and before you know it, its Not Friday.

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There is something that we all need a reminder of from time to time and that is that we are human. We often get caught up in the rush of everyday life, zooming back and forth to work and forget that there is a greater planet and ecosystem all around us. Hurricane Katrina helped to demonstrate to all of us the hard way that we need to take action ourselves to save our own skin sometimes.

For many of us Tornados and thunderstorms are actually a more likely risk on a month to month or yearly basis. In a tornado, the main thing we need is a place to go for emergency shelter.

FamilySafeShelterms.com recently provided a press release describing how they have been working for many years to provide some of the best storm shelters made out of steal construction. Their goal is not to provide the lowest price at any cost but to provide the safest product and protection.

OK, so I think I'm going into day 9 of Exodus3000.

As I started off the day, I can see that I haven't been attacked over night again, so my defenses are holding up nicely.

Today my goal is to get a big gun!  So that means I have to go earn some martian dollars, enough to buy a big gun.  I need to reclaim the settlement that I lost in a fight.

The more settlements you have the more you earn when you are out and about.

So I cruised through the game, my son even played about 80 rounds or so for me, so I only spent about 4 minutes.

My son liked the game, so I'll probably let him sign up and play with his own character soon too.

 I did earn enough to buy a weapons upgrade so that's good, now I just need to get a settlement again!

If you are looking for a great deal on a prepaid phone, you can get a Motorola C139 Cingular Go Phone with no contract for free after a $20 rebate.  This offer is coming available at dealking.com.  This deal comes with free shipping and is limited to 1 phone on and order but a customer can place up to a second order separately for the same deal.

Dealking has many other great cash back offers as well with Cingular and T-Mobile and many other non-cellular products to boot!

Here's a hear warming story or maybe belly warming at least.  The Royal Jidi Ocean World Aquarium recently recruited the assistance of the World's tallest man, Bao Xishun.  Bao is a Mongolian herdsman that stands Seven foot nine inches tall and has arms that are almost 42 inches long.

Bao is fifty four years old and reached into the mouths of two dolphins and pulled out some plastic the dolphins had eaten.  The plastic threatened their lives and surgical attempts to remove it had failed.

Many Americans and now possibly people in Turkey that belong to Peta suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrom (IBS).  LivingRemedies.com now offers DigestiSolve an all natural remedy that can work very quickly to relieve IBS possibly within a day or two.

Like all all-natural remedies its important to research the product and talk with your doctor about your alternatives. If you have friends, family or loved ones that have IBS, as I do, you may want to pass on this tip and let them know about Digestisolve, they can learn more about this product and about irritable bowel syndrome and its symptoms.

It could help make their life a little easier and more enjoyable, but it won't help the camel in the previous article.

The airline unions work a little differently in Istanbul.  There union stewards will be busy this week defending airport workers and their boss after a work crew celebrate a job well done.

The problem at issue here is that the workers celebrated their success by committing camelcide.  That's right they sacrificed a camel at the airport.

Turkish news carried pictures of the beast known for millennia as a source of transportation across the deserts, being deserted by man to sacrifice him at the airports, whose airplanes have taken many camel jobs.

The pictures also showed the meat resulting from the camelcide being distributed amongst the workers.

Maybe in another couple hundred years when we all stop flying the friendly skies in airplanes and start teleporting around, we'll see people sacrificing jumbo jets.

Peta was not on hand for the camelcide but unconfirmed sources were almost quoted as saying, "Those rotten bastards!  Its not good enough for them to provide meat during the on flight dinner, now they have to chop it up and serve it on the tarmac!"

This week I am finally starting something that I have been meaning to do for almost ten years.  When I went to college the first time I double majored in Finance and Accounting.  When I first started school I intended to become a personal finance writer.  I instead went into corporate finance and got a little side tracked.

This week I am starting to write for a Personal Finance website and I'm enjoying every minute of it.  As I've been doing research I came across a useful resource called The Thrifty Scot.

The Thrifty Scot provides advice, news and information on many different personal finance products including rates and tips on credit cards.

They also do a good job of offering loan rates and information for secured loans or loans that require some form of collateral.  This includes mortgages, which are a specialized type of secured loan where a house, building, land or condominium is typically used as the specific form of collateral to secure the loan.

In their comprehensive style, they of course offer tips and information on home insurance as it is typically required in order to take out a mortgage.

Finally, they offer a number of excellent sources for earning the most from your savings including savings accounts that are paying out interest of 6.1% fixed until December 31, 2007, which is by far an excellent rate of return.  Plus it only requires a deposit of £1!

This week I started writing as a guest writer for my friend Raj Dash.  Raj manages several sites and blogs, but one of his primary sites is The Poker Blog.

I like to play Texas Hold 'em and a lot of other card games gambling related or not and occasionally have dropped an article on my blog here or on my blog at Maven Mapper's but the articles weren't always the best of fits.

Now I have a more appropriate outlet for my gaming side.  I love writing, but after too much time composing I need to take a break and exercise my analytical and strategic side.

This week I started off writing an intro and then jumping into some basics about Texas Hold 'em with an article titled Card Dealing Terminology: The Burning Cards Flopping in Your Pocket. 

Feel Free to Stop by some time and check it out if you are interested in Poker.  Raj has some excellent articles there on Poker, Hold 'em and much more!

For the last several years it has seemed as if the Republican Leadership has been lost at sea.  It could be possible that they were simply missing or failed to pack and install a chartplotter in their yacht.

Seriously, chartplotters are excellent tools, much like a GPS device but designed for plotting courses and tracking those courses for ocean going vessels.

I just read a release from  Northeast Marine Electronics and they offer Chartplotters for about the cost of a gps system for a car. 
Fortunately, the Republican leadership has departed congress and it will not be necessary to collectively send them a few hundred chartplotters for Christmas, but for those that are smart enough to navigate the ocean wisely, it would make an excellent gift!

Well I start out day 8 of Exoduss3000 (still getting paid to play ;) with 580 MD (Martian dollars) in my pocket and I can see that I wasn't attacked last night so that's a good thing.  Maybe my defense build up and other areas of build up are paying off.

By the end of the day today, I will have made 2297 moves and I've joined 52 settlements so far.  My scouting missions are successful about 60% of the time, so either that or my weapons will be my next area of build up I think.  Today I'm heading South West.  I went northwest yesterday and had a poor and boring day.

I typically gamble once per game and today, I tried attacking a settlement  even though my intelligence had failed, which should have told me something.  I lost 94 MD, so that kind of sucked, but it made me realize that I'm advancing to the point where I should move out of this experimental phase and look at myself more as an intermediate player and less of a newbie.

So feeling a little down for the dumb move I went through about a hundred moves and then struck it rich winning 128 MD in a ruin.  I wish I hadn't lost the 94, but at least I had some good luck today too!

All in all I had a good game today, it took aobut 9 minutes to play.  I earned about 750 MD and that's net after the 94 I lost, so that's a pretty good day really.  I picked up a new upgrade too.

I just dropped in on Episode 3 of RockStartup. I am struck by two things immediately.

1. Ted's been too busy to clean the brake dust of his truck wheels (Same thing happens to me, its just not a priority sometimes, especially when you are traveling and busy.)
2. Ted needs to start name dropping on his show.

One of the benefits of reality tv is the power to drop names and get things done. Put your contractors on the spot. They have a chance to get some good press from doing a good job. But at the same time, seems like PPP might need to hold just a couple feet to the fire sometimes.

There's got to be some drama going on behind the scenes so let's see the Drama!

Check it out for yourself and let us know what You Think.

Day 6

I lost my settlement in Exodus3000!

Someone attacked me and stole I lost the settlement that I won on day 2 or 3.  :)

Easy come easy go, not sure what it was doing for me yet.

Well I learned a few things in the game today.

First if you go to the edge of the coordinates 1e it will flip to 1w if you go east one more move.  I was curious what would happen and now I know.

I confirmed that you always get sent to your home base.  Early on I was concerned that if I didn't get back to it, I might not be able to defend it.

As it turns out, you get to stay out and about if you pay for the member upgrade.  I haven't done that yet, and probably won't until I cash out a little bit.

Have to see what happens tomorrow I am noticing a distinct rise in my earnings due to the continue push to put all my cash into more stuff.  At some point, I'll probably just go through the game picking up money. 

Day 7

Day 7 went by uneventfully, I apparently took a trajectory that led me to very little success, indicating my potential need to upgrade to radar.  I earned a little and did not lose any battles and was not attacked overnight, but all in not to interesting of a day.

It only took me about 4 minutes to play though and I was also playing moola at the same time, where I managed to break even. :)

All right this one is just too funny.  You can make Santa get down and dance.  You pick the music, the moves, you can even upload your own face over top of Santa's.

Here's a verision that I put together for Santa (Sugar Daddy, Bust it, Sprinkler, MC HO-HO, Thrilla, Chimney Shimney)  I did unlock the Pulp Fiction option, but couldn't find the other secret option.

If you want to build one of these yourself, check it out at this great site from OfficeMax.

I'm having more fun with these silly flash sites than is right especially this one North pole dancing. If you put together a good version yourself, drop the html link in the comments.

We took the kids to get their picture taken with Santa Claus this weekend and got more than we bargained for.

We had checked times for Santa's availability (outlook calendar options don't make it to the North Pole).  We saw that on Sunday's he started work at noon.  We made plans to get there a little early and get a good spot in line.  Unfortunately, we ended up getting there right at noon and ended up being about the 30th people in line.

That normally wouldn't mean a wait of more than 100 minutes, but Santa apparently had other plans that day.

Santa was previously scheduled to be knighted at Medieval Times and so the photo production paused at 1:30.  A nice project manager working for the Santa Clause Photo Production Unit came to us and the 20 people behind us in line and told us that Santa would be shutting down photo production until 3PM.  He was going to be knighted at 2pm and we were invited to watch.  We would be given a number and could then come back at 3PM to get the pictures with Santa.  (mental head slap with a Candy Cain!)

So after waiting with the kids(who were all dressed in their best duds, and had amazingly not gotten dirty waiting in line, nor shat in their pants or puked on the floor, or thrown a tantrum or anything that had normally happened in years pasts when we had gone to visit Santa, we now had to wait another hour and a half before we could get back in line!

We thought it over and needed to do some shopping so we agreed.  The nice project manager wrote a big number 3 on my hand with a permanent marker (this went well with my jeans, sweater and sports jacket) and we headed out.  Now this is a 'Mills' variety of mall.  Kind of an outlet mall on extreme steroids.  It has a mile long track around the mall lined with stores.  The track is a circle.

We took off at a sprinting pace for my daughter Zoe, which is a brisk walk.  We checked in to a few stores, made the obligatory stop to see the puppies at the shelter, view the Bass Pro Shop fish tank, and half way around we ended up at Medieval Times.

We hadn't been there before so we ventured in(it was free) and the kids got to make a decorated crown and take pictures with the knights.  After 20 minutes we were getting kind of board and it was only 1:50, so we decided to pass on watching Santa get knighted.

We continued the circuit and eventually came to the bounce house (moonwalk) place.  We are platinum club members of the bounce house place and took the kids in to bounce.

Forty minutes later we walk out with three nicely dressed little kids that are very sweaty and dirty from bouncing around.  We continue the journey and eventually make it back to the Santa line at 10 minutes till 3.

We mill around hoping not to start a riot when other people learn that we and 20 other people get to cut in front of them.

The project manager lady comes back and starts asking for numbers, and you can see the oh' Shit look ripple through the faces of people that had come to stand in line awaiting Santa's return from an unknown break.

Santa strolled in around 3:10 after having his supper break too.  We were three, but one and two were no shows, so we were first.  None of the other parents burned us at the stake with flaming candy canes, which was good.  I hate the smell of burnt peppermint and hair.

The pictures took all of about 3 minutes.

All three kids smiled (a first) the kids got their coloring books, we paid the $28 for 3 pictures and had our digital versions on our own cameras and then went out through Bass Pro Shop buying a big bass pillow for Grandpa.

We came home and slept for 2 hours and that was that!

Well I start day 5 of Exodus3000 (the game that pays you money for playing - basically they give their game players a share of the advertising money at the end of the month based on how much you have accumulated and want to cash in) and happy me, I picked up a referral and earned 50 extra moves.  I didn't know that was possible.  :)

Overnight, I've apparently had 2 attacks on me of which 1 was successful.  I didn't lose much money just a few bucks.

I'm starting the day out with 300 moves, weapons at 4 and we'll see what happens next.

then right in the middle of my game play (this is at about 3am A strange car pulls up in front of my house, loud muffler.  I go to the window to check it out, the last loud muffler car that pulled up this time of night was a stolen car so we don't take this stuff lightly.

I call 911, its 3am and the police chastised us for not calling fast enough last time.  They get my info and say they will send an officer out.

I head downstairs, the only place where I have any visibility on the car.  Can't quite make it out through the bushes, but its white.

I stand in the garage shivering, its in the 20's outside.  Then I see two people walking back to the car.  I phone 911 again and say they are leaving,  The car drives away and its a chopped down BMW or Honda or something(still looking through he bushes and trees might even be a Mitsubishi had the lights) or something with a loud muffler.  Likely kids I tell the cops and they ask do you want someone to come out, and I say do you have anyone close already, they aren't likely to be up to any thing good.

They say they will send someone, and I'm thinking why didn't they earlier.

So I go back inside and continue playing the game.  The whole time, I'm hearing loud mufflers driving all around the sub division now like these guys are driving around in circles up and down the streets.

I end the game with 290MD after making a defense upgrade.  I had one failed attack where I gambled and lost 24 bucks, but my success rate is 78 out of 87.

If you want to try this game out, it is free no weird sign ups or anything.  Its a nice diversion and when people aren't dropping stolen cars off around your house it doesn't take long to finish a round. 

Next I need to improve my scouts and then my security or weapons again.

You ain't got a nub on your forehead if you can't win Reindeer Arm Wrestling .

Check out this fast little flash game and see if you have what it takes to take on one of Santa's reindeer in arm wrestling. This is a game provided by OfficeMax and they have a couple dozen more like it that you can scroll through at the bottom of the site.

Basically, you use your spacebar to fight off the muscle bound reindeer, and if you hit it at the right time you will get a power boost and might win.

Drinking the eggnog is a choice that each of us must make on our own. I can not guide you my students in this choice. I only point out that the carton has the image of holly berries on it, the holiday symbol equivalency of the skull and cross bones.

This fun little holiday site is brought to you on behalf of our sponsor OfficeMax.

I spent another Martian Day playing Exodus 3000, actual time spent about 8 minutes my computer was going slow.  Its not a highly graphical game, just something with my wireless router getting old maybe.

Its such a simple game, but I am getting into it.  Its definitely a nice diversion from blogging and other work. 

I picked up a light sabre at a cost of 525 martian dollars

with 26 moves left I got my earnings back up to just over 325 so that I could by more security (plasma cannon) to defend off enemy scouts.

I was attacked overnight twice, lost once and lost 12 martian dollars.

Then with one move left and now an accumulation of 375 martian dollars, I clicked and hit an outpost, where I could afford to buy the Plasma Cannon for 325.

Part of my strategy is to end the game each day with as little money as possible so that the money can not be taken from me during attacks overnight.  Plus, I invest the money in items that can earn me more or capture me more or protect me more.

Stats Changes

• Total Attacks: 56
• Successful Attacks: 48
• Mars Dollars from attacks: 280
• Lost during attacks: 47
• Lost during attacks on me: 12
• Gained during attacks on me: 2
• total moves used: 1247