Many people think that runway models get to experience a glamorous life.  They wear the newest styles and always look great right?

Not necessarily so.  Check out the stupid looking uniform that this model had to wear for Jeremy Scott  on a runway in Paris.

This type of fashion might have worked (almost) for Madonna 18 years ago, but this is just stupid.  Halloween costumes do not make good fashion statements.

Maybe after this model wakes up in the morning and sees a picture of how stupid this looks, she'll go out and eat a much needed cheeseburger or two.

I have recently been introduced to a new beta service called FlipTrack.  The service lets you put pictures or slides in a picture format to music that FlipTrack provides for you.

They use a proprietary music file format that enables your pictures to be matched up to transitions in the music.

There are two reasons for this

1. FlipTrack has licensed the music that they provide so the end result is something that does not infringe on copyrights.
2. The file format is specific for the user friendly slide show configuration.

So you could not use say a song from your MP3 or iTunes collection.  As slide show programs go this service works pretty easily.  It is in beta so it will be interesting to see how the service grows.  I suspect that it won't take off too much until people can load up their own music and have it verified for ownership rights and then converted to the proprietary format.

Howeve, if they happen to have the song you are looking for in their library it can be rather interesting.

Yesterday, my garage was half full and today it is half empty.  I haven't experienced some change in mood or perspective or philosophy.

The change was physical.  My wife organized a quick down and dirty garage sale this week, and sold a bunch of our junk.

To all the people that bought our junk,

Thank you!

For all the people missed a chance to buy our junk,

Don't worry there's more where that came from.

We've got 3 kids and that means that we have lots of junk.  Junk multiplies in our house every birthday, every Christmas, and every freaking trip to a fast food place.

Junk Sucks! 

Don't do Junk!

We sold a treadmill an old fax a jogging stroller a backpack, a bunch of baby clothes (but not enough), a crib, an exo-saucer, a bunch of battery powered cars, a non battery powered car, a bicycle, some speakers, a handspring PDA, a 3 foot long x 2 foot tall stuffed dog, a rocking chair in the shape of a frog, a johnny jump up thingy that we never used (our second one, we used the first, sold it at a garage sale, got pregnant again, got another, and never used it)

I told you it was junk!

The thing was we were clearing out junk from our Garage where we have been stacking it all winter waiting for a warm day to sell, but as we pulled it out, we were dumbfounded to learn that there was more junk behind it that we had forgotten about.

I pulled a toy box in the shape of a football out of a back closet in my furnace room.  It was taped shut with packing tape from a move 4 years ago, full of toys my son played with when he was three.  We sorted them and sold the toy box and some of the toys.

I went back in the closet and found another toy box behind that one from 5 years ago.   . . .  (Big head slap!)

Now some of our junk is gone and good riddance. Now we just have to get more organized and sell more junk next time!

I have been running the credit card gauntlet for close to fourteen years now, maybe 17 not sure.  It starts when you start thinking about your future credit needs.  Someday I want to buy my own car, my own house, start my own business.

I might need credit to do that.  Before you know it you have a card or two and then you bounce balances around and then an emergency pops up here and there at a thousand dollars a pop and before you know it, you are maxed out.

I have been there and its ugly.  I know the ins and outs of the industry.  I know the interest calculations like I know the back of my hand.  The truth is that its a lot like Christmas.  Its all a big elaborate decades long practice of charging you for the convenience of buying something. 

You could use cash, the government could just as easily come up with a universal ATM system that costs less than maintaining a currency but they allow Mastercard and Visa to run the show and we all pay for it.

I was reading an article about credit card in the UK. The article pondered the concept that maybe the UK needed to follow the potential US example of cracking down on predatory lenders. I think that is a fine idea, but the truth is that politicians in the states are only paying lip service to the concept and not actually doing anything to crack down.

So that means that people will continue to go back for more 0% balance transfers on both sides of the ocean. Originally because they wanted to, but more and more because they need to.

Thee was a time when 0% credit cards were prevalent back when the real interest rates were hovering at just a few points, now its getting much harder to find those good deals and the real gauntlet for many people is just getting started.

I just stopped by a new funny site to try and find the elephant.

Here's the small version of the image, you have to go check out their site to see the big one, but its worth it as TheFunHunt.blogspot.com has some good stuff!

I intended to point this site out a few nights back when I saw this terribly funny viral email posting.  I wonder if Anna Nicole's Hubby got something similar ???

Here are some excerpts where I was playing around with voice recognition tonight.  I need more practice and so does my computer.  I may even shell out some money for Dragon Naturaly Speaking 9.

Tonight I went through the basics of setting up speech recognition on my computer. I am dictating a quick

Now Using speech recognition this is a Microsoft based speech recognition program and it works OK. But wouldn’t say that it works great.

I’m learning the commands as I go and that’s kind of working.

Here is an excerpt where I attempted to paraphrase the following news story:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/02/16/MNGP6O5S5A1.DTL&type=politics

Thursday showed a house democrats intend to quickly escalate their efforts to confront a republican president over his war policy at to the scheduled vote.

Representative John Murtha, The chairman of the house panel that oversees the military’s standing says that he plans legislation that would force the president to seek authorization from Congress before it’s banding the operation from Iraq to a war with Iran.

Murtha also plans to put conditions on the president’s request for one hundred billion dollars more to pay for the war in Iraq this year. And

I need to learn how to compose well I dictate it is not as easy as composing when I type. I am learning that it takes practice. It is much easier on my hands and typing all day long. And from that perspective it has real potential and seems pretty cool.

A case of it when I give commands it changes the command to a word. I think I will have to do some more training of the computer with this technology before it can continue.

I was busy writing up an article about Trademark litigation for my blog and afterwards I stopped by PPP looking for a sponsor article.  I found one for Remote PC connectivity and clicked on it to take it. 

I knew the product and started my write up.  I was dropping the links in in html form with live writer, and almost didn't catch the link at the end.  I had grabbed the wrong opportunity and I was actually linking to plus sized swimsuits as opposed to remote pc software tools for my technology blog.

Ooops, do over!

For my readers that find themselves in London are find themselves heading to London, you should book mark a useful site for HotelshopUK.  They provide an internet website bookign system for hotes, but its uniquely targeted towards finding a hotel room for a city break.

This type of thing can be very handy in situations where you find youself staying over an extra night or when you are diverted through London, or just need a little extra time.  Its easy to navigate and offers an excellent selection of sharp looking hotel rooms many of which start of at 50 pounds a night. 

 These days its no odd thing to have flights cancelled or delayed whether or not its from an emergency or a strike or something else, and savy travelers need to travel prepared with additional options to take care of themselves successfully or else you might find yourself sleeping in the airport and that can not be good for the back.

After launching a number of websites this week, I have had a very productive week.  It hasn't been easy though.  We have had a number of personal things come up this week on top of all the work and all week long in addition to spending hours in front of the computer, I have been running all over town far more than I normally do.

Its severely messed with my schedule as I work all night, nap, get up and do meetings in the morning, do work in the afternoon, nap, work more etc.

Two nights ago, I crashed and tried to go to bed early with the intention of sleeping in.  I went to bed around 11PM and woke up wide awake at 4:30 am.  Last night I tried again, went to sleep at 9PM woke up with no alarm clock (again) this time at 3:30.

Ugggghhhh!

All of a sudden my body has forgotten how to sleep.  To make matters worse I'm coming down with some sort of stomach virus that is twisting my stomach up in knots.  I am very behind on my writing.  I tried to take another nap this afternoon with mixed success, but I am going to try and get caught up on my writing tonight.

There is a new drink that is sure to entice many people, but I have to warn you the drink is rated X. Its a very Pink Drink and in the spirit of Drinking Pink, I put together my attempt at putting the concepts together.  

I know many of you are wondering why I didn't go into adveritsing or more specifically graphic design. 

The answer is that I was too busy mixing up drink recipes while my wife went to art school.  This is one of her paintings gloriously being utilized for the benefit of our sponsors and Rated X, as

Daucourt Martin's Drink Pink Celebration provides many new recipes that you can mix up pink drinks with. 

This post brought to you on behalf of Daucourt Martin Imports.

I have been working pretty much non stop for the last 7 days as I work to get 3 new websites up (2 that belong to myself and 1 for a client).  I worked all weekend each night working till 6:30 am sleeping for 4-5 hours and going at it again.

Monday I did a repeat, but I had a dire warning come across Monday evening.

My daughter Mya had pink eye and had to stay home on Tuesday.  My wife has used all of her sick days.  So I watched the Baby Tuesday after working all night the night before. 

I took a nap for 3 hours Tuesday night after my wife got home and worked till 3am, got up at 5:30 and took my wife to work so that I could make it back for a meeting at 9am and another at 10am.  I took a 90 minute nap this afternoon, then picked up the girls from day care, my son in tow.  Raced home, fed the kids, took my oldest daughter - rest of kids in tow, to gymnastics, brought them home, went back because we forgot the diaper bag,   ahhhhhh!

I am beat.  But I'm going to take another nap, and get some more work done tonight and then try and get caught up on my sleep tomorrow morning.

For anyone that is stopping by, I am looking to gather together a collective of writers on NoMoreIncumbents.org  if you are interested in blogging against incumbents in your state (and earning some money while you do it)  stop by and check it out.  I am in the very early stages of recruitment, but am hoping to talk to a number of people before I finish building the site out so that it will fit with the future community.  There are more details available ont he No More Incumbents Blog also or in the PPP forum.

Hopefully this message is coherent as I am tired, if its not stop by tomorrow and I will clarify things.  :)

Well would you look at that!  The day has finally arrived.  Today is Swimsuit Issue Day formerly known as Valentine's Day, but after so many years (40+) of swimsuit issues, the debut of great looking models dressed in bikinis is rapidly eclipsing St Valentine and Cupid, (but don't tell my wife!)

Seriously the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition hits the stands today.  Biance is gracing the cover this year marking the first time a girl has made the cover after she became famous.  Typically its always happened in reverse with models like Elle McPherson and Heidi Klum and many others.

There's Something About Harry is happy to have SI Mobile as a sponsor for this blog, but not half as happy as the subscribers to SI who will get their money's worth today.  For everyone else though technology is changing the Swimsuit issue.  You can now download wallpapers and ring tones from SI Mobile to your mobile phone, picking from more than 50 swimsuit models.

If you haven't already picked up a copy of the Swimsuit Issue, don't forget to grab a copy the next time you swing by the store or you will regret it.  In the meantime, you always have the mobile model option at SI mobile.

I have been listening to music by New Order (substance) Moby (I like to Score) a little Phish (no name) and a best of Concrete Blonde (which is basically 5-6 great songs and a bunch of B sides that are better in concert.

I just finished reading book one in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson.  Its a fantasy book inspired by The Hobbit.  I've grown out of these books over the years, but I'm trying to dissect writing styles and this style was referred to me for several reason.

I'm typing away on a wireless keyboard, drinking too much Coke One and generic cookies and will probably be up for another 6 hours.

Southern California is famous for many things from the air conditioned weather to the beaches and the bay in San Diego to its proximity to Tijuana and Los Angeles and more.

I recently came across a forum that focuses on the area and its local news.  The forum provides a good example of how to cover all the local categories effectively to build up a community and attract membes.

Maybe most entertaining was a section titled South Bay News which featured a lady sitting in a bench in court.  Some other lady walks out and lightly smacks her with some papers in the back of the head.  With a 5 second delay the victim screams out and falls to the floor like she was shot with a twinkie gun or something.

Regardless there is some interesting stuff at this sie.  :)

Many people that come to Atlanta or visit often come to know Creative Loafing a local tabloid like paper that is a great source of information for what to do in Atlanta if you are loafing around.

Well, I didn't do any loafing this weekend nor last week.  I setup another new website (in addition to the last one I mentioned).

This one is tech related.  You might call it mega tech related.  First there is a website that I have started its not fully launched but is live.  I'm looking for early feedback on the site and the blog concepts described there so I'm doing a pre-release launch (Yup, I just made that term up!)

The site is called Top10Tech It is starting out with 6 blog subcategories, and I will add 12 more over the next 3 weeks.  Each blog category will focus on its own niche of tech.  I'm gathering together a number of bloggers that have an interest or past experience in covering these niches. 

Blog Promotion of Product Reviews

The blogs will cover and promote product reviews by other bloggers as well.  Bloggers from any tech blog can submit summaries 50-100 words of their product review (don't give away the ending!).  We'll take those review summaries and cover and link to them in our niche blogs.  Our readers will then vote on the products in the reviews to identify the  . . . top 10 Tech items in the niche.

The top 10 list will then go to our front page where it will run, with links to the original review for anywhere from 1 week, to a month to a year.

So far I've mentioned two websites and 7 new blogs!  (includes 7 new databases to support those blogs deep tired sigh)

I've got more going on than that, I'll let you know more soon . . .

I have always been fortunate in being relatively healthy.  I have always been relatively skinny too.  I served in the Army for four years out of highs school and that seemed to help keep my metabolism running high.

I run several miles a week now and try and stay in good shape.

The issue is that I am getting older and my knees are starting to worry me.  I have run, climbed, hiked, rode, jumped, fallen, crashed and experienced many other wear and tear types of activities that I suspect may some day catch up with me in the knees.

My mother-in-law has had two Knee Replacement surgeries and I know from her accounts that it is a difficult experience. Fortunately, the methodologies and treatments are improving all of the time.   As I getolder and wiser I am trying to take better care of my knees and avoid the activities that can harm them.

I have also looked more thoroughly into a site for Gustafson Orthopaedics, one of our sponsors for this articele.  They provide some excellent orthopedic patient education and even some good video explanations of procedures.  With their information and my new found wisdom, I am hoping to take better care of my knees to avoid future joint problems and complications that might require surgery.  However, I also know that very good service is available and I have less anxiety over the treatments necessary to help patients with knee injuries or problems.

I spent a good amount of time this weekend getting my new site organized and ready for business.  I have a long way to go, but its coming along nicely.

If you get a chance stop by and take a look.  I would welcome any reviews, or comments on layout, usability, topics that should be covered.

I am also seeking writers would like to cover their own states efforts at voting out Incumbents.  If you would like to cover the incumbents in your state, and anything screwy they are doing or help promote the candidates running against incumbents stop by our new site NoMoreIncumbents.org.

We can get you set up with a blog in no time!

Now I have to get some work done on 2 other sites.  One for myself and one for a client.

For the most part we have all seen them.  Their kind of droopy and hanging down like two tennis balls in a pair of panty hose, just kind of hanging out and pretty much useless except for attracting attention.

They are everywhere approximately half the population of the world has a pair of nuts, but that's just not enough for some people.

Fortunately, if now if someone tells you, "Why don't you get a pair!?"

You Can!

It is the age of the internet and you knew it was just going to be a matter of time before someone would start selling Your Nutz by the pair.

Hot by nature, this is rapidly becoming hotter, maybe one of the hottest products since the smiley face tshirt or the baby on board signs or maybe, just possibly more popular than the soccer mom soccer magnet. I'm talking about a pair of Nutz for your truck, or car or four wheeler or just to keep in your pocket and jiggle around. Its a free country after all so do what you like with em, They are Your Nutz.

So just what are you waiting for?

Why don't you go out and get yourself a pair!

Warning!  Nuts may lead to itching, scratching, sweating, smelling, stickiness, aching or a blue hue. 

Operations of Use Warning!  This product may induce exaggeration, chest swelling, pounding, dare devil stunts and many other forms of outright ballsy behavior!

This week I have been extremely busy.  I have begun to launch in beta several new websites and blogs designed to enable people to collaborate creatively online while profiting from their venture. 

This is kind of an early phase 1 in preparation for a very big site of enormous proportions later.  These sites will feature a collection of blogs under one domain.  The blogs will often be written by other bloggers and we will set it up so that they can help each other and benefit from that help financially and possibly socially as well.

Regardless I have been up to my eyeballs in databases, PHP, html and lots and lots of FTP uploads as I get things ready to launch.  Currently I have much of the preliminary structure uploaded but no content yet so there is not much to see.

I took a couple days off from writing and now I am jumping back into that as well full swing to make up for down time.   I have been using my own money to invest in these new ventures and now I need to quickly go out and earn some more cash fast to keep pushing things along without having to touch my own savings more than necessary.

So I feel a bit like a hermit, and look like one as well.  I have been working 20-30 hours at a time and sleeping for 3-5 hours and then doing it again.  My electric razor broke 6 days ago, and I haven't had time to go to the store and buy a new one, so I will look like the skinny version of Grizzly Adams in another day or two.

I have been so busy, that I didn't even have time to go buy more Coke Zero when I ran out 2 nights ago!  Who ever heard of programming and writing without a diet coke anywhere in sight????

PS If you have read any of my posts recently (last couple days) you may have noticed that I keep dropping the Uber bomb.  No idea why, the damn word is stuck in my head like a virus.  Might have something to do with Coke withdrawal, but acknowledging the problem here will hopefully help me to stop writing the word!

A quick word from our sponsors . . .

In 2000 I picked up and moved my family and I to South Florida.  We moved to Boca Raton in Palm Beach County to be precise.  We lived a very small block and a half from the beach (in between the intercoastal and the ocean) and it was beautiful there.  Weather was almost always fantastic, everything is that deep luscious green that you get in the tropics.

The sky even felt more beautiful.  Plus you had the constant soft noise of the waves breaking in the distance.  We lived there for almost three years and it was pretty amazing.  I do not think there are too many people that are from South Florida.  Most of our neighbors were from New York City or London or a few from Brazil.  Property in Florida has constantly been appreciating at very high rates since the Army Corp of engineers first began reclaiming the swamps and establishing the canals back in the 1930's.

If you are contemplating the potential of purchasing property in Florida  you will probably find the market ripe right now after a slight correction last year that seems to be ending and will likely be held at bay as the Federal Reserve continues to hold a stance of holding interest rates in place while the economy continues to grow.

While we lived there we saw many properties increase in value  by thousands of dollars per week.  The home we lived in doubled in value in 2 years going from $300,000 to just under $600,000 when we moved. Where else can your property value double in two years? Tip for the wise, buy by the water and buy good insurance too!

I must have picked the wrong week to write less and do more web design as this week has been full of bizarro incidents. This situation with the astronaut that drove from Texas to Florida wearing diapers to avoid having to stop unnecessarily so that she could kidnap or kill some other lady that interested a man that she had the hots for but was not dating is pretty freaking wear. Only its doubly weird since it involves a bunch of astronauts.

I think it surprises everyone the most that NASA apparently no longer does psychological evaluations to insure that their astronauts do not fall victim to space cadet syndrome.

While I'm writing this I'm listening to CSI and they keep cracking jokes about butt implants. I wonder if she had had more time if she would have had some butt implants put in to make the ride a little softer too.

She must have been a girl scout too, because she went prepared. She packed a pellet gun, some rubber tubing (likely to bind as opposed to catheter as she already had that covered), a can of pepper spray, and of course a knife.

Nowak flew as a flight specialist last summer on Discovery. She is a Captain in the Navy and has been in the shuttle program for almost eleven years.

Astronauts live a very stressful life.  Hours of training and study and more training.  They are often very smart and talented people.  Many are even literally rocket scientists.

So it strikes me as very surprising that this weeks famous rocket scientist was not able to find a dating service. 

We even know of a terrific Free Online Dating called JustSayHi.com.

Love will make anyone crazy, but the absence of it is much worse. You might be interested in finding a rocket scientist yourself, but then again maybe the rest of us are better off finding someone that has both feet on the ground. 

In this day and age it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to find a free dating service. In fact there is one looking you right in the face!

I do not typically write too much about celebrity events.  Today is an exception.

Anna Nicole Smith passed away today just a few months after she gave birth to a little girl and after her son of twenty died from some kind of prescription drug cocktail.

She became famous as a model for Playboy and other magazines.  She became rich when she married a billionaire over 80 years old. 

She became infamous when she had to fight for the old guys fortune when he passed away.  Then she became more infamous when she gained a lot of weight and became the subject of a bad reality show.

A man even filed a lawsuit against her for a paternity test of her recent daughter, as he claims he is the real father.

No one knows why she died yet as the circumstances were of course bizarre.  She led a bizarre life with many odd circumstances throughout.  She was suffering from pneumonia, which is a serious ailment and can kill.  She also reportedly was suffering from chest pains and back pains, which are normal when suffering from pneumonia but also insinuate potential other issues.  The company that has recently sponsored her and her weight loss achievements is on the defensive as well. 

Regardless she was unfortunate to have had such a short life and now her daughter's custody will be battled in court for some time to come.

Starting last July I started including sponsored content on a couple of my blogs. I wrote a few of these generally in my spare time. As a consultant and writer, some times I have more spare time than others.

Typically, its worked out that I usually have about 1 week a month where things are slow in my other work. I say all this to put my earnings into perspective.

To date I have earned and been paid $1,903.88 via PayPal. I have earned an additional $289.37 that I am awaiting payment sometime in the next 30 days. For the most part, I have used the money to re-invest in my company, purchasing software, domains, equipment and incidental traveling expenses to trade shows.

PayPerPost is a relatively new company as its less than a year old, but they are the second oldest company in this new industry of buzz management and promotion through blogs. They have made a huge amount of progress since July and I am confident in their ability to keep growing and improving. They are making many of the right steps to fix and improve and refine their operations. Not always in the order I would prioritize them, but progress none the less.

I would and do support them and would not hesitate to refer them to other bloggers looking to monetize their blogs with sponsored articles. If you have any questions about the service, I have been writing with them since the near beginning and can definitely help. The business model is solid on many different fronts and the money is good as well. These days I am working with many web clients in my consulting business to incorporate both the publishing and advertising aspects of their service. The service works.

Many people have heard all the red neck jokes they will ever need to hear thanks to Jeff Foxworthy, he's made the topic an industry and a very funny one.

Not too many people have explored the niche industry of the Nerd Red Neck.  I am referring to that odd twisted soul of the south or the country or maybe even the hills that is all red neck but also all nerd.  Its almost a contradictory combination, you might call it an oxymoron, but your average read neck doesn't know an oxymoron from a moron making love to an ox.  Your average nerdy redneck does!

So here is an example

A nerdy redneck will work on a computer, but take regular brakes to run around the house chasing their pet dogs with a can of air.  The game commences when he gets tired of typing with 2 fingers and notices a booger stuck in between hi letter f and letter U.  The g, h, y keys are all missing and its a pretty big booger.

But being the nerd he is, he goes for his can of air.

Now I know what you are thinking, if he's a red neck why isn't he using a compressor to blow off his computer, especially if the booger is big enough to fill in the gap of three missing keys!

The answer is obvious, the compressor is broken, or actually under repair in the living room, the compressor motor is sitting on the kitchen table.

I also know what your second question is.  What type of redneck nerd goes to the store to buy cans of air?

Well, the answer is no type, or more precisely, they don't.  They save up almost empty cans of WD-40.  When all the oil is gone but there is still some CO2 left in the can, its just blowing air . . .  mostly.

So our hero reaches for his almost empty can of WD-40 to blow the booger out of his ghy key hole, and he fires away.  The booger goes sailing and hits one of his hound dogs in the ass.  The hound dog yelps and starts biting at its ass, thinking a flea just bit him.

But the poor hound actually bites into a large booger, that sticks to the poor dogs mouth so that it starts chomping its gums (no teeth in this dog) like it was just given a spoon full of crunchy peanut butter. 

Who knows what was in that booger, maybe it is peanut butter?

The chattering of a gummy hound dog with peanut butter boogers sticking to the roof of its mouth, is enough to annoy our hero, so he yells at the dog to shut the hell up!

The dog being toothless and deaf doesn't hear.

So our hero grabs the can of WD-Air and sneaks up on the blind hound and sprays the dog in the ass with the air.

The dog yelps again, but knows that wasn't a flea and starts to make a run for it.  Now our hero the nerdy red neck, is getting a little excited, he sprays the other hound lying a little further away.  Same reaction and now there are two dogs in play.

he goes from hound to hound until all 6 dogs are running around the house, howling, barking and snarling at each other as they run into each other.  The blind dog runs right into the leg of the dining room table and knocks the compressor motor off.  It hits two old monitors stacked next to each other that our hero had hope to scrap some wiring out of to make something special for his sweet heart on valentines day.

Our hero chases all the dogs from room to room and through the front yard (no front door), until the WD-Air can is completely empty, and that is that!

Sponsored Article

One of our sponsors today is EncycloCentral.com.  They offere a budding encyclopedia like listing of many different topics such as Eye Care. The site appears rather new and they are still working to fill in the categories such as Churches Roman Catholic. The site has a decent enough layout, but there is much work to be done in the editing department. The site is a great example of one of the ways that money can be made on the internet today, by collecting lots of information about topis, attracting people through search engines to that topic and earning a little money from Google's adsense ads along the way.

So PayPerPost is upgrading their beta system tonight.

I am trying to figure out the good from the bad.  I can't sort on the length of opportunity requirements any longer, however the items I have already taken are no longer visible which is good.

I have to add some javascript to my site, which isn't great for load time nor is it great for people that have java turned off or their IE security at a level that it won't return one of those danger warnings.

I like their new referral programs even though I have lots of questions.  The tool bar also sounds appealing, but I'm not sure if I will use it.

I have been getting a lot of page crashes on their site and server errors, but I think they are still stomping on bugs.

Guess we will see how it shakes out in a day or two . . .

It takes research and experience to become wise about loans.  The truth is that we all have to start somewhere. Our sponsor LoanWize provides many services that can help you search out the loan products you need or build your knowledge and wisdom about some of the products they offer.

In general there is typically a natural progression for people that are building or rebuilding their credit.

Stage One usually works to show a lender that a person is capable and responsible enough to make payments in full and all time.  Its about building payment history.  However, you have to have a loan before you can build a payment history.  So most people end up taking out a secured loan or getting a family member to cosign on a loan - in essence providing their personal credit as security.

Stage two often includes taking out a small unsecured loan or developing a history of paying off several personal loans.  Sometimes this is done with credit cards or department store cards or even a small bank loan.  Sometimes the bank loan might even be used to buy a car that does not use the title as collateral.

This often then allows a person to transition in to Stage Four, where they buy a new or relatively new car.  The car title is used as collateral or security.  These loans are typically for large amounts of money in excess of $5,000 and often times can be as much as $20 or $30,000.  This again helps build a payment history with a much higher payment.

Stage Five is the time when most people prepare to make the largest purchase and possibly largest investment they will ever make.  They buy a home and utilize the home and or property as collateral for a mortgage.  These mortgages can lead to an entirely extra set of stages that include refinancing, home equity loans, business loans and much more. 

Some products for kids are worse than crack such as Happy Meals and the Happy Meal toys.  Some products however are more of a gateway drug like Marijuana, sucking kids in one puff at a time.

I came across a good example of this today in the form of Dannon Dora the Explorer Yogurt.

The yogurt is healthy mostly but its got that must have Dora the Explorer packaging that teaches kids that good for you, good tasting and good cartoon packaging go together.

The kids start with Yogurt in this case and then follow through the gateway and before you know it, they are buying everything that has just the right product packaging.

I was recently invited to review a website by our sponsor Soaps.com a site that does an excellent job of covering Soap Operas.  The site has been up for about 5-6 months and is looking for some constructive feedback.

Right away I noticed that the site is content rich and this is a huge plus.

I also noticed that there are some slightly distracting layout designs about the site that could probably help visitors find that great content giving them more reason to come back and helping the site to earn more money.

Here are my constructive suggestions to make the site even better than it already is (recognizing that accumulating and creating great content is nine tenths of the battle, so my suggestions will only be some of the icing on the cake.)

1. Remove the top most banner from the site, it is detracting from prime content real estate and slows people down from getting stuck or hooked on the site when they visit.
2. Move the editors block and picture to the lower bottom right hand side of the screen.  Its a good thing, but return visitors will want to see new stuff and not the same factual details about the editorial staff
3. Move the surveys, polls and other interactive aspects of the site to the place where the editors block is located.  Use these sections to get people hooked and to get them into the site past the first page -> More impressions per visitor!
4. Throw in a small flash video block somewhere again so that people get that nice hook when they show up and to break up some of the bulletized text link headlines. 
5. Consider pulling in an RSS feed of the latest posts in the Message Forums and scrolling these live on the front page.  This will help people notice the forum and the comments might draw people in to participate in that same forum, thus generating interactivity, stickiness and lots of impressions.

That's my top 5 and I think Soaps.com will get a lot of bang for the buck out of these suggestions. 

What do you think? 

Did I miss something or hit something slightly off center?

This year I am trying to keep the TV off until the actual Super Bowl starts.  I do not want to see 6 hours of pre game / pre ad hype.  To be honest I have been to busy all fall and have missed most of the football season.

I am only really watching because I always watch it, because I used to be a bears fan (most of their games are not televised in Atlanta), and because of the stupid ads.

None of that means that I have to waste my time watching hype about hype though.  So I am purposefully trying to ignore the urge to go flip the TV on because I know I will just watch 5 hours of 500 channels and nothing on.  Fortunately, this super bowl procrastination is pushing me to get some work done, so maybe I will be able to relax just a bit come Monday morning!

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The order information needs to get to the right logistics hand offs to ship the product, and its very useful to have an affiliate capability so that your site can leverage the marketing and selling capability of the other sites on the internet.

Our Sponsor Ashop.com provides shopping cart software that covers all of these bases and many more.  They charge a one time setup fee and a monthly fee after that to cover the expenses relating to these services.

All week the new dogs have been getting stinky-er and stinky-er (assuming that is a word).  The basset hound has decided that he likes to chew up dirty diapers after digging them out of dog proof garbage cans and the beagle has been in heat and almost calmed down and returned to normal.

Both had become stinky as hell and so today was Dog Bath Sunday.  My four year old daughter and I just washed the Beagle, and the puppy basset hound is up next. 

The beagle didn't get to scared about the bath but she didn't exactly enjoy it either.  I'm taking a quick break between baths to write a little before I tackled the ever floppy and easily spooked basset hound.  He'll probably end up peeing on me or something as he spooks that way all the time.

Sports Illustrated is just about ready to launch the 43rd annual Swimsuit Edition on February 14. Possibly as anticipated as the Superbowl the Swimsuit edition will help to kick off Valentine's Day this year.

The Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated is probably one of the most popular special edition magazines ever. Many people subscribe to Sports Illustrated just to get that one edition.

It has a history even of helping to launch some of the hottest super models of all time. This year that next model might even be Marisa Miller.

The times are changing and Sports Illustrated has not lagged behind. These days you can download pictures to your cell phone or get the wall paper for your computer, order the calendar or more. Who knows in a few more years, we will probably see live video chats with the girls during the shoots on location or something.

But all the technology and all the options does not make this special. SI never fails to deliver hot looking girls in great looking swimsuits (assuming they are wearing swimsuits at all). Plus, they even come out with the making of the swimsuit edition video documentary that is typically just as hot as the magazine itself.

In a few more hours the Superbowl will be over, and we'll just have another 10 days to wait for the next big event of the year, the Swimsuit Edition.

I find this one rather ironical even though it probably caused some serious problems for too many people. However, someone hacked the Super Bowl this year.
To be more specific, the hacked the Super Bowl Stadium website.


Apparently this happened about ten days ago and no one noticed it until the Friday before the Super Bowl. They didn't just go in and look around or something either, they loaded the website up with some malicious software so that it would mess with the computers of anyone that came visiting the site.
So don't go visit the site! (haven't heard yet that they fixed it, but this would be one of those nothing to see here types of situations as there is nothing to see there, and if you go it might virus up your computer or something and it just isn't worth it!

Many people in the United States have not heard of Goji Berry Juice.  Goji Berry's are the Tibetan name for Wolfberry's as they are known in Europe.  They are found in Southeast Asia but were not likely originally from that part of Asia, even though they are historical references to them that date back 1300 years.

The berries are very popular in health food stores and provide many good nutrients and vitamins.

If you would like to find out more about them or if you would like to order some berries or juice from our sponsor they have a great deal of information on Goji Juice. They also offer Seeds as well or liquid vitamins. The juice is sweet and can be used to make different flavors of tea as well.

The berries reportedly have many benefits for several of the systems of your body from your digestive system, to your kidneys and even can help with sperm production.  So if you want to find the Goji spot, then this juice could certain help.

Regardless they have long been consumed as a good tasting, sweet berry.  They are good naturally, dried or made into a juice.  If you like Goji Juice, feel free to drop us a comment and tell us how you eat it, drink it or cook with it.

If you have not subscribed or stopped by Scott Ott's website ScrappleFace you are missing out on some funny material.

This week Scott came up with one of the best jokes I have seen yet on the Boston Bomb Scare perpetrated or not by Turner Broadcasting.

You have to read the entire article, but here is a teaser to show you why you should go there and read the hole thing.

Here's the excerpt now go laugh through the whole thing!

An unnamed spokesman for Turner said the company would now review plans for the following guerrilla marketing campaigns designed to “generate buzz” about the cartoon.

– Renting a 747 painted with the show’s name and flying it past skyscrapers in major cities
– Hiring young men to show up in malls, on buses and other heavily-trafficked areas who would suddenly whip open their coats to reveal a special vest with blinking lights, and begin shouting the theme song of the show.

Technorati tags: Funny, Scott Ott, Sarcasm, Boston Bomb Scare, Turner Broadcasting

I wanted to share a simple little concept regarding one of my favorite sponsors, Ebates.  They simply provide a simple service whereby you get a sales commission for anything you sell to yourself.

Putting it a different way, you do not pay a commission to the store where you buy something and instead get paid by Ebates. 

Ebates for example will receive a commission if you sign up with them and buy something from  circuit city.  Not being greedy, Ebates then cuts you a commission like a rebate for 25%!

Now isn't that Ebatedly Beautiful?  or would you like to Debate it with me? 

Go ahead debate it with me, I'm a big push over!

I was scrolling through my mybloglog roll widget thingy and noticed that Amy of Whatever I Feel Like fame had stopped by. 

I have been traveling too much lately and haven't swung in to say hello recently, so that is exactly what I did.  I miss the music quizzes that Amy used to do, but it looks like she has put together a pretty good looking new template, complete with this cool looking flower.

So I just thought I would drop this real quick little note back at Amy saying, "Howdy Stranger!"

OK, every now and then I come across a sponsor that is a real gem of a partner.  Today I found Gaspirtz, which I assume is pronounce (Gas Spurts) which I can only assume is supposed to be pictured as some sort of foul emination that you do not want to smell.

However, their free cartoons are very funny.

Here are some of my favorites:

First there is a cartoon with two birds on a branch over a bird bath.  Only one of the birds is puffed up like he was attacked by the Snuggles fabric softener bear.

Then there are two others featuring a Mama bear preparing Goldilocks Stew and a Priest telling a widow at a funeral that some day this will be a real hoot.

One thing is for sure, these cartoons are funny!

I try not to get caught up in the celebrity scandal d' jour but this thing with Tara Conner, Miss USA from Kentucky keeps catching my attention.

Tara became Miss USA and moved to the big Apple from Kentucky.  While in residence in New York, she started hanging out with super models and other neo celebrities and being 19 years old, she partied.

She apparently partied a great deal.  So much so that Donald Trump pulled her strings and thought about taking her crown.  She apologized and went to rehab.

Now out of rehab she apparently seems much better, in a Robert Downey Jr kind of way.

Tara claims that she is not an alcoholic, but doesn't mention whether or not she has never seen a drink she didn't like.

She also claims she doesn't have a sex problem either.  In fact it would appear that she enjoys sex quite a bit, which is probably a very healthy attribute for Miss USA

She also states that she has used cocaine and first (implying many other tries) tried cocaine when she was 19 or 20, which also implies that the years between 19 and 20 must have been a drunken sex ridden drugged out episode that is hard to recall for someone with the brain the size of a super model and a penchant for the finer things in life.

I suspect that we will be reading about Miss Conner in about 10 years in one of those documentaries on a youth that flamed out of life and met an early demise.

Personally, I do not have any issues with her behavior even though cocaine is very harmful, but it would appear that she does not have the personality, moral strength and possibly intelligence to survive the lifestyle that she has found herself living.

Tara get your shit together if you want to save yourself from yourself!

Sponsored Articles

We have a great sponsor in A. E. Feldman Associates, Inc.a recruiting and placement firm that has been in business for forty years.

A. E. Feldman Associates provides placement services for companies looking to hire employees and candidates looking to find an employer according to a recent release.  They specialize in business placements in areas including finance, risk management, human resources, legal support and more.

Their focus is on the upper tier of the management organization working to place valuable components of talent within organizations from analysts all the way up to managing directors.  Their top quality recruiters can help your organization find a candidate that will become a solid member of the team.

I write a technology blog called Maven Mapper's Information.  This week I have been working to upgrade many of the sites and blogs that I manage for myself and others.  On the personal front I am working to port Maven Mapper's Information into a Wordpress blog.

So I am in this case going to consolidate Maven Mapper's as a sub domain of my business site Softduit Partners.

The new location will be at

http://www.softduit.com/MavenMappersInformation/

And here is a snapshot of the new template.  I need to do a great deal of personalization to the new site, but all of that has to be learned.  My first challenge is to get over 400 articles categorized properly for Word Press!

Now since I write for several Buzz Management groups I will not transition quickly and I will not take down the old blogs anytime soon.  Besides I need to catch up on the Wordpress learning curve as I have only a rudimentary understanding of that tool.  I have done some very interesting things with Blogger Blogs and will continue to work with them and develop them.

Someday I will probably even move There's Something About Harry, but today is not that day.

Sponsored Article

Many people today have many different credit cards and questions like,

"Which of these credit cards should I use?"

or

"Should I use debit or credit?"

Followed by responses of,

"Put it on the credit card."

Its the modern age, but not to different from past ages when people received letters of credit or were beholden to to a benefactor.

For us today we have to balance our obligations.  This means that we need to pay constant attention to our credit card options to insure that we are getting the best possible deals on 0% balance transfers or capitalizing on cash back credit cards to get he ultimate best price.

Its a level of diligence shared by millions of people around the world and growing to include every continent and many many nations.  As the market expands the options will increase and we will soon need to make decisions where we compare credit cards from the UK, the US and maybe even Japan or India as potential options to manage our credit rates as effectively as possible.

I worked until about 6:30 am this morning and crashed sleeping until about noon.  I woke up made breakfast and turned on CNN to see reports of the devastation in Lake County Florida where a tornado had devastated a 20 mile square area with a tornado that is likely to come in at a high f3 or f4.

Unlike the residents of Lake County I was lucky to be awakened by the reports as opposed to the real thing. 

Often times when tornados rip through Florida, people roll their eyes and make bad comments about people living in trailers.  I survived a tornado in a trailer that got knocked over when I was an infant, and an F4 struck my hometown a couple years back one of many to hit Illinois over the years.

It seems to me that many people just do not take some aspects of life seriously, and I am not referring to the people of Lake County but people in general.

 Natural disasters are a real part of life.  We can not let fear rule our lives, but we can live without fear if we are better prepared for the things that nature so often throws our way, even if that is a semi trailer or a cow.

So I ask myself what is a practical level of preparation.  My ancestors built storm cellars hundreds of years ago.  My home sits on a slab.

Were my great great grandparents smarter and more prepared with the right technology?

The F4 pictured above obliterated a Manufacturing plant, while over 100 employees huddled in two bathrooms inside.  No one died but there was nothing else left of the plant besides the people and the bathrooms.

The United Nations has released reports that the planet will see an increase in temperature of 3 degrees over the next 94 years and ocean levels will rise several feet if not more.  Florida sits mostly at about 1 - 10 feet above sea level.

Are we going to lose Florida and many other cities, like Boston and New York?  Is that a doomsday view or a practical application of the information that the United Nations is providing?

The United Nations along with  the US government does not have much credibility in my book, however if I am to learn from the lessons of Hurricane Katrina that only gives me more reasons to prepare myself as opposed to sitting around and watching to see if the Government will do something to fight global warming as quickly as they have worked to do something about Social Security.

Maybe the legends of Atlantis are true.  But maybe Atlantis did not sink quickly but over several hundred if not a thousand years, while people went about their lives supporting the economy.  Maybe the  America coasts and much of Europe and SouthEast Asia will collectively realize The Atlantis Prophecy, because maybe the legend is not a legend at all but a prediction of the future.

Now wouldn't that make an interesting book to write as I hide out in a cabin on a tall mountain somewhere?

There is a new Buzz Marketing company joining the blogosphere called LoudLaunch.  They help companies and websites get the buzz out about their product launces, websites, software or anything else.  They offer advertisers the ability to advertise on blogs around the globe and they pay bloggers to write reviews or sponsored articles and all articles must be disclosed.

LoudLaunch has a pricing plan that is based on the Pagerank of a blog.  The higher the Pagerank the higher the charge for the Advertiser on a blog and higher the payment for a blogger to write about it.

For bloggers concerning about losing a writing opportunity, you can reserve an article through their system to insure the funds will be there by the time you submit the article.

All in all I found the sign up process and blog approval turn around fairly quick taking a little less than a week for approval.  You can list multiple blogs and cover the same item on different blogs. 

One of the unique items about their service is that they provide a direct link to the original press release of their advertisers.  So this enables bloggers to write the reviews without bias, and the reader can still check out the primary source for the review to get additional perspective.

Dear Mae,

I wanted to take a minute to offer my deepest apologies for taking far far too long to write a little bit about your blog Mae's Muse.  I have no excuse for being soo sooo slow.

However, hopefully in some small way this post will be better late than never.

I wanted to thank you for the kind words you offered on your post titled Brett Bumeter from December 10th.  Personally, I happen to know that Brett is a scoundrel, but it was nice of you to give him the benefit of a doubt.

I also wanted to reach out and mention that your profile picture reminds me of someone, but I can not place the connection yet.  I am positive there is some form of synchronicity involved as The Celestine Prophecy is one of my favorite books as well and part of the reason why I am moving to live on the lake in North Carolina.

Maybe possibly the synchronicity might have something to do with a pair of friends of mine that live in Rockford, both school teachers, who I will not name on the internet but suffice it to say they are great teachers and very funny and tend to dress up like elves at Christmas time and sit on their infants lap, the babe dressed as Santa Claus of course.

Not sure what the connection is, but it is very good to know you and my best regards and best wishes towards your future efforts at writing.

I am just an email away if I can help!

I stopped buying sunglasses for myself back in 2001 when I had lasic.  I went out after the surgery and spent several hundred dollars on a great pair of sunglasses and since I am so cheap, I have been extra careful to never loose them. 

But my wife is a different story.  She can lose 3 pairs of sunglasses in the same day!  Every time we go out of town it seems like she first forgets to pack her sunglasses, then buys a pair at a gas station for the road trip.  Then she looses those sunglasses before the trip is over and usually ends up getting another pair or two.

I have half a mind to start buying her sunglasses in bulk!  Costco doesn't offer that kind of thing, but  Wholesale Fashion & Sports Sunglasses are available from CTS Wholesale Sunglasses for prices that are good enough to tempt me even more!  I could buy a dozen pairs of sunglasses for her for $28 and just keep the box in her van.  Then everytime she loses a pair, I'll just pull another set out from the glove box.

Obviously, I'll have to reorder a fresh dozen every month, but think how much money that will save me!  Could be hundreds if not thousands of dollars over the course of a year (not to mention boating season when she continually loses sun glasses in the lake)  I don't know why some people like to tread water or float while wearing sun glasses, but she always loses a pair then too! 

So I should probably get an extra couple dozen for the boat. 

Tonight I had a great amount of fun writing about the prerelease of the new Harry Potter book pre released for sale on Amazon Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.

I've pre orderd several books, possibly even a Harry Potter book. 

But I had a lot more fun writing about Harry Potters anouncement that he will be running for President in 2008 on the Democratic ticket!

Who would of thought that Harry Potter was Bisexual????

Looking for a birthday card today for my sister-n-law I thought that maybe I had found the the wrong card with this Birthday Cleavage Option from one of my sponsors.

Little did I realize until I played the video card preview that I had the right card afterall! 

I found a bunch of other funny cards also including this cute little guy (since my brother and sister-n-law are expecting a boy).

One of the more popular cards was pretty weird in a strange sort of way, the birthday chins didn't work for me, but my daughter loved the sponge bob cards (not as much as the cleavage card though )

Egreetings offers a bunch of these different cards for birthdays and valentines days. They did have a free trial offer but typically there is a yearly subscription of about $14 per year. They have been around for a long time and they allow you to schedule your cards out in advance.free funny eCards

Not sure if I would want to get the singing chins myself, but they definitely had some funny ones. If you happen to check out the birthday cleavage video, make sure you hover over the replay button!