Archive for January 22nd, 2008

A Good But Frightening Read

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

If you really want to read a scary book, read ‘The Coming Plague’ by Laurie Garrett.  It has very descriptive passages about the ebola virus and talks about diseases that you’ve never really heard of.  For example, ever heard of Lassa?  Or how about the Bolivian Hemorrhagic fever?  Pretty much anything with ‘hemorrhagic’ in it’s name is disgusting.    There’s a chapter that looks at the Hanta virus for those of you in Arizona.  Or Legionnaires’ disease for you readers out east.

Fascinating is a good way to describe this book.  I gave it to my mom to read when I was done with it but she didn’t like it.  I can’t understand why.  When you are done with this book, you will be a germaphobe who never wants to travel anywhere and feel desperate to find your own little cocoon to live in.  After a while, you’ll come out of it so don’t be too put off by that.

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Get Some Address Labels

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Some may think it’s lazy, but I would say it saves me a hassle when I use labels instead of writing out my return address. I mean, I already abbreviate my first name and as silly as it sounds, Piccadilly is not that easy to spell. I love it when they come for free in the mail (ok, I’m really supposed to make a contribution to whatever organization sent them) but there never seem to be enough of them.

Growing up my parents had lick and stick address labels but now you get to peel and stick them making them a million times better. No more gross after taste. On top of that, the variety is huge. You can get some that look formal, some that look funny and some that are just for Christmas cards with little effort, time and money on your part.

Maybe your address labels will inspire you to start a correspondence with someone just so you can send out some of your labels. Later you say, “Did you notice my address label?” and they say, “Why, yes. Quite striking indeed!”

Posted in Money | 1 Comment »

Super Bowl Crazy

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

The Super Bowl is just around the corner so now’s the time to decide who you’re going to root for.  Will it be the Packers or will it be … um…  I’ve forgotten – exactly who is it that the Packers will be beating this year?

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Ad Opportunity for Your Blog

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

I have been trying for a while to get things going with the click ads on my blog but I just have not managed to get the right mix. Some add links in my posts that I find annoying, distracting and just plain unlikeable. Others have nothing to do with my post (even though they are supposed to) and still others do not have anything to do with the post that is up currently, but with some other post instead. Most of the time things look right and by and large they do a good job matching, but I am here often enough that I notice when they do not.

Lately, I have been trying to expand my ability to make a little cash so I am looking into something called eClickZ. They have an affiliate program that lets you do the off to the side ads that go along with your topic but they have more than just that. They also let you do a search box on your page and you get paid for letting them put ads on the search results page. Having this extra option means I have one more option in what can be a very difficult quest to find profit in those ads.

And when (or if) you are interested in analyzing how well these tools are working for you on your web site, they offer an easy to use report. If this sounds interesting to you and your ready to try something new with your blog and maybe make some extra money at the same time, click here for more information and signup form for eClickZ Affiliate Program.

For those of you who are more technically minded than I am, I should tell you that they also have something called an XML search feed available that you can embed.

Posted in Business | No Comments »

Fed Rate Cut

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

OH – MY – GOSH!  I was SHOCKED when I heard about the fed’s move to reduce the prime rate by 3/4 of a point.  For a group that has moved in small increments in the past, this is a HUGE jump.

In one place I read this was the biggest adjustment of the rate in 12 years and in another, I heard it was the biggest in 24 years.  Either way, it’s been a long time since they’ve done this kind of thing.

Also, they did it during an emergency session so market’s haven’t had much time to react.  AND there have been reports that another cut on top of this one will be made at the next regularly scheduled session in about a week.  Some suspect that the next cut will be as big or bigger than this one.  If that happens, I’ll be even more shocked than I am now.  I think having such a huge drop in the rate may be a bad thing, though I’m not educated in anyway on that.  It just feels like a bad idea (and as I’m sure we all know, the market is in tune with MY feelings).

Posted in Business, Money | No Comments »

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