The Celestin Web Site

29 September 2005
I was perusing through my Costco Magazine the other day and discovered a very interesting contest. It's called the National Novel Writing Month contest. Thousands of writers from all over the planet pour words onto paper during the 30 days of November. At the end, only a few will have completed the task of writing a 175-page novel. That's about 50,000 words. The novel doesn't have to be good. You're going to be going for quantity and not quality. In 2004, they had over 42,000 participants with almost 6,000 of them crossing the 50,000 word finish line. Maybe this year, you'll be one of those that cross that finish line. I know it's appealing to me. Alas, I believe I have no time for such an endeavor...

28 September 2005
About a week ago, my Zaya Ruzo guitar strings arrived. What do I think about them? I can't really tell yet. Certainly, it's a terrific deal. Being a neophyte in restringing a guitar, it took me over an hour to get the new strings on. And as anyone with a guitar knows, it takes about a year before the strings settle and stop going out of tune when you breathe on them. Well, maybe not an entire year, but it certainly feels that way. Like I said, it's been about a week, and the strings are relaxed now, and the tone is nice. I'm by no means an expert on how good strings should sound, but these strings cost about a third of what you would pay at your local Wal-Mart for similar strings if they even carry them. So, my recommendation? Go ahead and buy them. You really can't go wrong, and I'm happy with my purchase.

27 September 2005
The Master of Disguise has got to be one of the worst movies I've seen this year. But for all the stupidity, there were some very hilarious moments. I think the moment that made it worth going through the entire movie was the Jaws spoof where the the disguise meister pretends he's Quint, the crusty old sea captain. It was spot on. Too bad you have to endure the rest of the movie to get there, but such is life...

26 September 2005
My favorite coffee is Major Dickason's blend from Peet's Coffee and Teas. It's makes a really great cup of coffee if brewed properly. Unfortunately, it's really expensive at around $13 a pound, so I don't much partake of it. However, there is a blend that is almost as good and only costs around $3.50 a pound from Costco. It's the San Francisco Bay Coffee Company French Roast blend. You get a 3 pound bag for around $10, which is an incredible deal. If you grind the beans just before brewing, it makes a great pot of coffee. And don't believe anyone when they tell you to store your whole coffee beans in the freezer or refrigerator. That's the quickest way to ruin them. Instead, store them in an airtight container, preferably with all the air sucked out, somewhere dark and at room temperature. The beans will last nicely for at least a month. That's how long it takes me to go through 3 pounds of coffee, so I know of what I speak.

25 September 2005
While reviewing the google adsites that pop up on this site, I saw one for The Rich Jerk. Amused, I visited the web site. This self-deprecating site is definitely funny, albeit filled with questionable language. Not something fitting for the general population, so I wouldn't really recommend it. But I've got to admit I'm intrigued by his $97 "Making Money on the Internet" product. Not intrigued enough to buy it, so if anyone else is interested, go ahead and buy it and let me know what it says. Thanks!

24 September 2005
If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? I remember asking myself that question when I was about 14. I thought, "I'll just put it in the bank and live off the interest." In those days, regular savings accounts were paying 6 percent interest, so that would be around $60,000 a year. Not bad at all. These days, banks pay around 2 percent if you're lucky, and who can live off of $20,000 a year? Well, maybe you can live, but not very comfortably, especially if your housing costs are at least that. So, today, if I had a million bucks, where would I put it? Definitely not in the bank. World's worst investment. There's always real estate. As many people's fathers once said, they ain't making any more land, so grab it while the gittin's good. I'd probably grab a chunk myself, and maybe diversify into a few other areas. I would have to sit down and seriously think about it. Alas, I don't have a million bucks, so I'll have to muse myself with other things as I sip my latte in Peet's.

23 September 2005
I have a low-end Mac that I do most of my work on. It's a PowerBook 3400c with a whopping 144mb of RAM and a 10 gigabyte hard drive. You can laugh if you want, but it does everything I need, except maybe browse some of the fancier web sites out there. It's hard to get new software for a low-end Mac, especially one that is running Mac OS 9.1. The latest and greatest Mac operating system is OS X. The X stands for "10". I can't run OS X on my PowerBook, so I'm stuck looking for programs that don't require OS X. One of the resources I use is a place called Low End Mac. You'll find information, places to buy stuff, and software you can download. If you have a low-end Mac, you should check out this web site. It's a really great resource and proves that just because you've got an outdated computer, it still has some life left in it.

22 September 2005
Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me! Want to give me a present but don't know what to give someone who already has everything? Consider the gift of gold! My e-gold account # is 2424691. Anyone who sends me at least a buck worth of e-gold will get a free gift while supplies last! If you don't already have a e-gold account, get one for free at e-gold.

21 September 2005
I'm cheap by nature. I don't like to pay for things if I don't have to. But I will not illegally use things I haven't paid for, which is why I do not condone file swapping of commercial music or movies. However, I do condone the use of free audio and video. One site that offers free audio you can download is is Audiobooks for Free. You can find hundreds of free audiobooks in mp3 format, ready for download from this site. There is one catch, though. The sound quality of the free downloads is rather poor. The audio sounds like it was recorded from the bottom of a 10 gallon aquarium. But you can listen for free. And if you would like higher quality versions of the files, you can get them for a nominal fee. One of the greatest deals is getting a 7-DVD collection of their entire collection of audiobooks for a little over $100. That's hundreds of books. We're talking less than a dollar a book. Compare that to what other sites charge for audiobooks and you'll see it's a great deal.

20 September 2005
Those pesky ants have all but disappeared. I'm not sure if it was the ant drugs or just the cooling down of the weather. In any case, I can breathe easier knowing that I won't find any crawling up my leg while I compose html on my PowerBook.

While I was searching for something the other day, I came across a web site for a product that I simply could not believe. It's a car that runs on air! The MDI Air Car is a completely clean no-emission vehicle. Imagine a car that can take you about 2000 kilometers on a tank of compressed air. Imagine being able to fill it up for less than 2 euros and it only taking about 3 minutes at an "air filling station". Science fiction or possible future? Depends on how much big business doesn't want you to get your hands on one of these. I've encountered electric vehicles, solar-powered vehicles, fuel-cell vehicles, hybrids, etc., even a car that supposedly ran on tap water, but nothing quite like a vehicle powered by air. Right now, the car is being developed in Europe but all it would take would be a heavily funded entrepreneur to bring it to the US. Any takers out there?

19 September 2005
I've just come across what has got to be one of the better ideas of the year. PeerFlix is a DVD trading system. Instead of renting movies from a place like NetFlix, you swap movies with other people and PeerFlix acts as a go-between. You get rid of the movies you don't want and you get movies you do want, all for only 99 cents each! Such a deal. Most people have a bunch of DVDs doing nothing but collecting dust on the shelf. Why not make them available to people who might actually want to watch them? Sounds like a really good concept to me. Why didn't I think of it?

18 September 2005
I hate lawyers. Actually, I have friends who are lawyers, so I suppose I can't say I hate all lawyers. Maybe what I should say is, I hate what many lawyers do and how much they charge to do it. If you have ever dealt with a lawyer, you know what I mean. They charge you inordinate amounts of money for doing very little. They don't guarantee their results, either. And if you think that class action lawsuits are excellent ways of getting back at uncaring corporations, think again. Who benefits? I've participated in many class action lawsuits that have been successful, and maybe I've made enough money to buy a cup of coffee. I have always been a proponent of self-help, and that opinion doesn't change when it comes to simple legal concerns.

There's a site called Jurisdictionary that offers step-by-step legal self-help. You can get a lot of free information this site, but the main information will cost you $219. I think it's worth it, and it will give you a good legal education, even if you don't need to use any of the information right now.

17 September 2005
Wow. Gold is at a 17-year high right now. About $455 per ounce. That's a lot of dollars. But is is a lot of money?

I heard once that the cost of living really hasn't gone up in the past 100 years. It's the inflated dollar that's causing the differential. For example, a hundred years ago, with an ounce of gold, you could buy yourself a decent set of clothes, a night in a decent hotel, and a nice dinner. What can an ounce of gold buy you today? About the same thing. So, you see, the cost of living really hasn't gone up. It's just that the value of the dollar has gone down. And it's going to keep going down no matter what anyone tells you. If you want to protect your current pot of gold, you should consider keeping it in gold. Buy one ounce gold coins and stash them away. Not in safe deposit boxes, as the government can decide to confiscate the contents of your box at any time. Find a safe place in or around your home. To buy gold coins, check out All American Gold. Gold really isn't an investment. It's a sanity check against the strange times were are living in. No matter what happens, your ounce of gold will always be worth an ounce of gold. What will your stash of dollar bills be worth?

16 September 2005
OK, I know I obsess on guns a bit much. I promise I won't post about them for at least a week after this mention.

Of all the rifles ever manufactured, the one that epitomizes the American West the best has got to be the Winchester 1873. Over 720,000 were manufactered during its product run, which ended in 1919. It was offered in .32, .32, and .44 calibers, with the .44 model being the most popular. It really was the "gun that won the west" and was immortalized in the James Stewart film Winchester '73.

Unfortunately, this entry has little to do with the Winchester 1873 rifle. Instead, it presents a beautiful modern-day counterpart that you can actually afford, the Henry Lever Action .22LR. It's a beautiful rifle manufactured with all USA parts in the USA, including a stock made from American walnut. Retail is less than $300 and you might be able to find a dealer who will sell it to you for a little less. If you want to go to your local rifle range to do some target practice, you simply cannot go wrong with this lever action beauty.

15 September 2005
I hate PayPal. They've limited my account because they feel that one of the transactions that took place might be suspicious. And they are now making me go through hoops to get my account reinstated. I've got about $40 in the account right now, and I figure it's going to take me several hours to get together all the documentation they need. Know what I say? As this is a family-oriented web site, I can't really say what I'm thinking. Suffice it to say that I won't be using PayPal ever again, and I will do my best to tell everyone to stay away from PayPal. If you want to see a web site that tells you the details of many horror stories related to PayPal, visit NoPayPal. It exposes the nighmare of doing business with PayPal.

14 September 2005
Still no word on how the immortality rings are working. Just not enough data to go on. As for the Ants Clean, so far so good...

Every once in a while, I get in the mood to look at a gun site. One that I found recently is actually very interesting, the Heritage Manufacturing, Inc. web site. It's interesting because they produce a .22 single action revolver which is perfect for target practice. Normally, I would prefer an 1873 Colt SAA, but who could afford one of those? These .22 knock-offs are terrific because they are inexpensive and they use inexpensive ammo (22 lr or 22 magnum). I think I might actually get one of these and try it down at the local shooting range. If I do get one, I'll let you know what I think about it.

13 September 2005
Two items of note: My ant drugs finally arrived today! Also, my immortality rings surfaced. I won't say where.

The ant drugs were packaged in a regular business envelope and came from Malaysia via air mail. Interesting. Except for a small note explaining how to use them, there was nothing except a bunch of "Ants Clean" packages. The packages looked similar to the flavor packets you get in a package of ramen. Maybe that's what they are. Who knows? There's certainly no ingredient list to be found, at least not in English. There was some writing on the packets themselves, but I couldn't tell what language.

I opened one of the ant drug packages and dumped the contents into a 2-liter soda cap. I placed the cap outside, near the sliding glass door that leads out to the backyard. I spotted a trail of ants there earlier in the day and figured it would be a good test. During the next few hours, I sporadically checked for activity near the soda cap. Sure enough, a few ants started taking notice of the contents. Another hour later and there were more than a dozen, working feverishly to grab as much of the stuff as they could to bring back to their colony. Some of the ants started to look a bit disoriented. I noticed one in particular that kept going around in circles. Others were bumping into a each other. I don't know if this is normal ant behavior as I don't usually watch ants.

I'll keep you updated on "Ants Clean". I expect it will work well if the initial reactions I witnessed are any indication of future activity.

12 September 2005
Ever try to come up with a domain name only to find that it is already registered? Bummer, isn't it? Well, how about trying a recycled domain name? There's a site called Namestead that has a list of recently expired domains. How about civicrights.com or classicalresources.com? Not bad, eh? There's a bunch like that. Of course, there are a lot of domains like lonecoidal.com or pixservus.com that really aren't so clever. You'll have to dig deep to find some good ones, but they are there.

11 September 2005
Today marks the anniversary of 9/11. For anyone who has been sleeping under a rock for the last decaade, that's 11 September 2001. It's the day the World Trade Center buildings came down, the Pentagon was bombed, and another aircraft went down somewhere in the woods in Pennsylvania.

Now, I'm not your usual paranoid conspiracy nutcase, but I do think it's a rather odd set of circumstances. First, we get buildings supposedly based in super reinforced metal skeletons coming down because of the heat caused by jet fuel burning. That's not supposed to happen. The only way buildings like those are supposed to be able to come down is if there's an explosion (implosion?) on the inside - and they have to be well placed explosives.

What about those supposed cell phone calls from the plane that went down? Isn't it highly unlikely that cell phone calls can be made from that altitude and from inside a plane? I can't even make a cell phone call from an elevator in downtown Seattle...

And how about the bombing of the Pentagon with another civilian aircraft. Aren't we talking about the most guarded building on the planet? How in the world did an airplane get that close in the first place? Aren't alarms supposed to go off unless the plane has a military transponder? Aren't military aircraft supposed to escort the stray planes away or bomb them before they get that close? Seems really odd.

And now we've got the Patriot Act, the finest piece of legislation that your congresspeople have never read. I think only four congressmen actually read that huge mess of words, yet almost all of them voted yes on the thing. Imagine that. The congresspeople you voted for decided to pass something they didn't even read. What's wrong with this picture?

10 September 2005
Well, I'm not dead. At least not yet. I have yet to stamp the immortality rings with my endorsement, but I need to give it at least a month, maybe more. Then, we'll see.

In a cruel twist of fate, later in the day, my immortality rings disappeared! I had them on my desk, far from curious hands, but obviously not far enough. I have an idea who the culprit is, but I won't name names until I know for sure.

The ant drugs haven't arrived yet. I haven't given up hope. They are supposed to be coming from another country, so it could take another day or week or so before they arrive. But ever since the weather cooled down a bit, so have the ants. I haven't seen nearly as many as I usually do. If this keeps up, I'll be a happy camper in no time!

9 September 2005
My Alex Chiu's Eternal Life Device immortality rings arrived in the mail. I'm going to try them out tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. If it kills me, this will be my last entry. If not, you'll be the first to know how I feel. Maybe they'll give me the added energy I'll need to fight off the ants...

8 September 2005
The ant wars continue. They have invaded all parts of the house, and I am continuing to spray with the dish soap solution. To make matters worse, our cat is now leaving "offerings" of dead mice at our door every morning, and the ants are going crazy over them. The cat dish is being overrun by ants as well, which might be driving the cat to kill mice. The ant drugs still haven't arrived...

Ever needed a certified copy of your birth certificate? My wife needed one the other day, and I had lost the one we had in our files. So, on the Internet I went looking for a place to get a replacement. I found a place called US Certs. For a whopping $55, they would obtain and send us a certified copy of her birth certificate from Massachussetts. OK. I filled out the online form and a week later, we got the certificate. Not bad. A word of caution: if you want information from California, you're going to have to go through some hoops to prove you really deserve the information. Like maybe a notarized document stating that you are who you are and are wanting what you want.

7 September 2005

I'm a fan of classical music and love to hear good singing. Caruso is known as the most important voice in his time, which was the beginning of the last century. All of his recordings have fallen into the public domain and there are some good CD collections out there. However, if you don't feel like shelling out for what should be free music, you can download a bunch of Caruso legally from the Internet Archive. I wrote about it a while back as being a good source for old feature films and cartoons, but I didn't realize until recently that it also had a good collection of audio files. To see their archive of Caruso, visit "Caruso Collection part 1. All files are mp3 and quite enjoyable if you can look beyond the scratchy 78rpm source materials.

6 September 2005
I can't concentrate! These ants are driving me crazy! Now, they've invaded my inner sanctum. I mean, my home office. Every once in a while I see one crawling up my leg or onto my keyboard. I have no idea where they're coming from. It's almost like they must be dropping out of the thing that cold air comes out of on the ceiling. What's that thing called anyway? A duct or what? I still haven't received my ant drugs. I'm tired of spraying diluted dish washing soap on them and watching them die. I want them to take their dying somewhere else. Preferably their colony. Maybe the drugs will arrive today. I'm always hopeful...

5 September 2005
My daughter Monica will be turning 4 on the 19th of this month. Of all my children, she's the one who comes up with the wildest expressions. They are even more funny because they come out of the mouth of a 3 year old. Here are some examples.

One day near Christmas, I was sitting in the car with Monica and my other daughter Lily (who is a year and a half older). They were singing Christmas carols in the back while I was sitting in the front. Then, Monica started singing a song from "Aladdin: Return of Jafar", the one called "Arabian Nights". Lily looked at Monica with an expression of disgust and stated "that's not a Christmas song!" Monica, stopped long enough to answer her: "It's a Benee' song, and Benee' IS Christmas." Renee' is their 20-year old cousin, and for the longest time, they've mispronounced her name "Benee'."

One day, someone asked Monica if her brother Christopher was a boy or a girl. She replied: "He's like some kind of pig."

One day, Monica was with her brother Joe and her aunt Elsa. They were at a lake having fun. Monica was urging Elsa to carry her into the water and Elsa asked her "what about Joe?" Monica replied, "he's not a human being."

My three older boys were taking judo last year, and when Monica saw them dressed up in their judo outfits, she exclaimed "I want to go to judo, too!" I explained to her that judo was for boys. She quickly quipped "how about pink judo?"

There are plenty more of these "Monica-isms". As I remember them, I'll post them to their own page and put the url here. I realized they may not be that funny to most people, but I get a kick out of them.

4 September 2005
How about this for an idea. My son Nick came up with the initial concept. Buy an airplane. A Cessna 170 series would do. Doesn't even have to work. As a matter of fact, it's probably best if it doesn't work. Then, charge people $1 to touch one particular part of it. Advertise it all over the place, and soon you'll have a line of people circling the plane waiting for their chance to contribute to its erosion. Then, you can sell t-shirts and other merchandise, something with the slogan "I rode the plane" with the word "rode" crossed out and the word "e-roded" put in its place. Then, you can set up a web site called www.erodeaplane.com or something like that and have people "e-erode" it. You could use some sort of pulley and armature setup connected to the site, so that when people pay their $1 in PayPal or e-gold, it will make a reasonable facsimile of a finger touch that circled part of the airplane. After only about a million touches, you should start seeing some noticeable erosion, maybe even sooner. After you grow weary of dealing with the multitudes coming to erode your plane, you can cut it up into little pieces and sell them on Ebay.

I think the only problem you'll have with this idea is going to be numerous copycats out there who will set up a similar situation. I can see it now. Somewhere in Canton, Ohio, someone will have a dead Piper Tomahawk set up for only 50 cents a touch and claim the lines are a lot shorter and maybe they'll even let you put your entire hand on the airplane or maybe let you pick the spot you want to erode. Who knows? This concept might even grow to include items other than airplanes, though I really don't know why it would.

3 September 2005
Like a lot of people, I have a wireless network at home. Unlike a lot of people, my wireless network is unprotected. Anyone can go war driving or whatever the term is, connect to my network, and place an Internet order for pizza.

For the past week, the network was running very slow. I couldn't figure out why, so I kept rebooting the router thinking it would fix things. It would fix things for about 2 minutes, and then the network would slow down again. SBC tells me that my connection should be around 2.5 megabits down and 512 kilobits up. I went to Broadband Reports to check my actual speed. 248 kilobits down and 48 kilobits up. Something was amiss. I had to figure it out because it was making me crazy. The first thing I did was see if I could figure out what computers were connected to the wireless router. There are 7 computers in the house, and all of them can access the wireless router. My neighbor was also connected to the wireless network with his tablet PC, but I don't think he realized it. OK, I had maybe 8 computers connected. Now, how do I figure out if any were causing problems? I decided to turn on MAC address filtering in the wireless router. This is a very cool feature that lets you only allow computers with certain MAC addresses to gain access to your network. The first thing I did was limit access to every computer except the one I was using to connect to the router. I've made the mistake of accidentally limiting all computers in the past and had to physically reboot the router with a paper clip to get it to let me in again. OK, I reran the speed tests, and sure enough, I got 2331 kilobits down and 411 kilobits up. Not bad. Not bad at all. I started allowing computers onto the network one by one by manually adding MAC addresses to the filter list. Doing this, I found the culprit. I won't name names, but the computer's ID was "pokemon90" and resided in the room housing my 3 oldest boys. Now, I just have to figure out what was running on this machine that would hog all that bandwidth. Probably some nasty virus or trojan horse. Or maybe a bittorrent connection gone awfully wrong...

2 September 2005
When I was about 12 or 13, I answered a classified advertisement in the local newspaper. The ad said I could make up to $300/week stuffing envelopes. All I had to do was send a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) for all the details. So, I got a couple of stamps together and sent in for the information. About a week later, I received a one-page flyer in my SASE. It described the program in no more detail than the classified ad, but it did ask for some information. Along with name, address, etc., I was asked how much I wanted to make per week. The choices were $100, $200, or $300. Not wanting to seem too greedy, I selected $200. I filled out the rest of the information and then pondered on the words "please enclose $20 cash or money order for processing." I had $20 in my wallet at the time, and I thought, this would certainly be a good investment. Give $20 and get $200 a week back. Not bad. So, I went ahead and stuck my $20 bill into an envelope with the filled out form and then I waited. I'm still waiting. I haven't received my course on making lots of money by stuffing envelopes, but I know it will show up one of these days. My only concern is, I've changed addresses about a dozen times since then, and I'm hoping the package will find me. I am hopeful.

1 September 2005
I'm back on the ants thing. I am still waiting for my ant hallucinogenics to arrive. Until then, I've been wondering exactly how much Raid I should be using. Then, I heard from a friend of a friend that a good insecticide to use was plain dish soap diluted with the same amount of water. Stick it into a spray bottle and use it instead of Raid. Well, I thought, no that couldn't possibly work. But I ran out of Raid the other day and decided to try it. Sure enough, it kills them on contact, and it appears to deter them from revisiting that area, at least in the short term. My personal pick for dish soap is SunSations antibacterial, which is cheap (only about a buck or buck fifty per bottle), comes in a nice shade of orange, and doesn't require five gallons of water to wash off the soap residue like some of that highly concentrated stuff. I just fill a spray bottle half with dish soap and half with water, shake to mix, let it settle, and start spraying like crazy. I know that soap is a lot less toxic than Raid, so I feel better about using it, and so far, it's been working great. Can't wait until my ant drugs arrive, so I can make them crazy and want to kill each other...

31 August 2005
Fixed Orbit is one of those sites on the Internet that you may not initially have a use for, especially if you're just a day-to-day browser. But sometimes, especially if you are encountering problems, you might want to know what's going on underneath all that flash and sizzle. Fixed Orbit touts itself as an atlas to the Internet, and that's probably as good a description as anyone can come up with. You can find out who's connected to who, how many peers each place has, who controls the most ip addresses, where all that traffic is being used, and much more. If only to get a look at how (or maybe even why) the Internet works at all, check this site out.

30 August 2005
I like to keep up with what's happening on the Internet, especially the problems which may arise due to people who have nothing else better to do attempting to make things difficult for the rest of us. These so-called hackers have made life miserable for a lot of us, and it's always been a game of catch-up to try and stay one step ahead of them and their nasty tendencies. One site I rely on to at least try to keep that step ahead is packet storm. Not only does it give you up-to-the-minute reports on the latest exploits and hacking attempts, it also give you information about past hacks so you can check out your machines and make sure they haven't already been compromised, waiting to be "awakened" at some later date to do something bad to lots of unsuspecting people all over the place.

Ever see that movie "The Manchurian Candidate" with Frank Sinatra? I know there's a remake, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it's even the same story. Anyway, without giving the plot away, someone hides a trojan horse or virus or worm inside an unsuspecting machine. The machine, oblivious to the infection, goes about its merry existence until one day, it gets a connection from another machine. That other machine gives the infected machine a special code that turns it from a nice home computer that you might play fantasy football on to a mean, nasty, killer that will attack financial systems all over the world. It's up to the men in white hats to rescue the day and assassinate that machine before it kills its first target. OK, so that's not really the plot, but it's about how it goes...

29 August 2005
OK, I'm skeptical about many things, but sometimes I come across something that sounds like so much hype, I think it might actually be true. Case in point is Alex Chiu's Eternal Life Device. I'm all for being in good health, and this guy's eternal life rings seem to do the trick for a lot of people. I have absolutely no proof that these things actually work, but if they do half of what the testimonials say they do, then it's worth the $29 price of admission. I'm going to get a pair. Call me a sucker. Barnum said that one is born every minute. I figure it's no worse than buying a meal at Olive Garden. I'll sacrifice the dinner out next month and give myself better health instead. If it works, I'll let you know. If it doesn't, I'll let you know as well.

28 August 2005
Ants are a pest. There are no two ways about it. Over the past week, we have been dealing with an invasion unlike any other. If there is a way to get into the house, they will find it. Believe me, they will find it. I have been dealing with these pests several times a day, always finding them in new and creative places. First, it was the obvious places, like the kitchen and anywhere some food or drink might have spilled over the last 20 years. Then, they started going for the more unusual places, like the toy chest or the laundry room, looking for who knows what. How they got under the air-tight glass cake safe to pick at the cookie crumbs is beyond me, but they did.

Now, I don't usually get upset over little things, but put enough little things into a room, and watch me go to work with a spray can of Raid. I suppose it's the dry spell we're having that is bringing them into the house, or maybe it's just a seasonal thing. One thing for sure: I can't wait until I've seen the last of them.

And to think I once thought of putting up a web site devoted to those cute creatures (leafcutter.com). I thought to myself, isn't that cute? Look at that little ant lifting that huge piece of leaf, working like there's no tomorrow, and in harmony with the collective, aligned with the planets, and living within the boundaries of all that is good and right with the world. Yeah, right. Kill 'em! Kill 'em all!

After browsing for a while on the Internet, I found a site called Fast Pest Control. They have a product that guarantees to get rid of the entire ant colony. I'm going to try it and will let you know what happens...

27 August 2005
Have you noticed how the google ads change based on the topic I write about? Kind of neat, isn't it? I thought I'd give an update on how the adsense ads are working for me, for anyone curious out there. So far, it's doing much better than I thought it would. My best day thus far has been Friday, August 19th ($6.98), and my worst day thus far was the day right before that, Thursday, August 18th ($0.12). Now, it probably had to do with the types of ads that popped up. On the 18th, I wrote about favico.ico files, and on the 19th, I wrote about free fax and voicemail. I imagine there was more money to be made hawking fax and voicemail than favico.ico editors, which probably accounts for the disparity between the two days. I'm going to keep my eyes open and see if it's a trend. Another good day was August 23rd, where I wrote about calendars. I wouldn't think that would be a high-ticket item, but who knows? I'll let you know if I spot any trends.

26 August 2005
One of my all-time favorite pistols is the Colt 1911 semi-automatic. It was created by a master gunsmith, John Moses Browning. Any gun collector would recognize the name "Browning" as part of a select group. Now, I don't have a 1911 in my possession, nor do I even have one of the many modern versions, but I do hope to have one some day. I've handled several varieties, and they are not an inexpensive gun, so you could pay anywhere from $500 to $5000 depending on the model, features, and age. What makes the 1911 unique in today's world of weapons is the .45" caliber cartridge. It's big and has lots of stopping power, unlike the 9mm or .38" caliber cartridges of today's modern handguns. It has been the mainstay of several US government organizations for many decades and has only recently been replaced by more complicated, more prone to failure weapons. As far as I know, the IRS doesn't use a 1911-A1 government model, so there's yet another reason to dislike them. For all the information and pictures and lore you would ever want about the 1911, visit The M-1911 Pistols Home Page. I find it simply amazing that a gun that was designed nearly 100 years ago is as popular today as it was when it was first created and still holds its own against anything put on the market since.

25 August 2005
Once upon a time, my aunt told me something that happened to a friend of a friend of hers. At the time, I took it as the truth because I knew she would not lie about something that incredible. However, when I heard almost the exact same story from someone else a few years later, I knew something was amiss. That's when I found out about "urban legend". You've probably heard some of the stories yourself. The one my aunt told me had to do with a neighbor whose pet bunny had died. She had kept the bunny in a hutch in her backyard and when the bunny died, buried it near that same hutch. Another neighbor's dog jumped the fence that night and dug up the bunny, bringing it home. The dog's owner was horrified to see the dead bunny near her dog and decided to take matters into her own hands. She took the dead bunny, washed it, blow dried it, and then snuck it back into the hutch in the neighbor's backyard, hoping the neighbor would think the bunny died of natural causes. Naturally, when the neighbor saw her resurrected bunny back in its hutch, she fainted in disbelief! When I heard the story being told, it sounded so bizarre that it simply could not be made up, and I figured it must be true. Then, like I said earlier, I heard a similar story years later. If you've heard stories like this yourself, you should check out the Urban Legends Reference Pages to see how much veracity the story really holds. It might in fact be true but borrowed by people as their own. Usually, if the event happens to a "friend of a friend", it's probably urband legend. I was surprised myself to realize that when I told this resurrected bunny story, instead of claiming it happened to a friend of a friend of a friend, I would naturally just say it happened to a friend of a friend. If something like this happens, then who knows how far down the chain it's travelled before it comes to you?

24 August 2005
Do you play classical guitar? Want to hear about a too good to be true string deal? I desperately need to replace the strings on my guitar, and with the advent of the supermall and stripmall, most independent music stores have gone under, at least in this area. So, it's hard to find a place to buy guitar strings. And if you can find a place, chances are they won't have classical guitar strings, which differ from acoustic strings or electric guitar strings. Instead of all metal, a classical set uses nylon on the three high strings and wound metal strings for the other three. So, there I was looking for a place to buy strings. I decided to try the Internet. Immediately, I found a place that not only sells strings, they manufacture them! The company is called Zaya Ruzo and has been in business for many years. They started out in Ukraine and moved to the United States where they were able to automate the string making process and cut costs significantly. So, what does mean for the consumer? You can get 10 sets of guitar strings for less than $20, including shipping! I'm ordering some right now and will let you know what I think of them when they arrive. I know it sounds too good to be true, but if I like the product, I will shout about it from the rooftops, or at least on this web site...

23 August 2005
For a long while, I was going through life without a calendar. The calendar I had on my wall expired December 2004, and I never bothered getting one to replace it. So, whenever I needed to look up a date, I fumbled around looking for either a pocket calendar or just guessed. That wasn't working very well, so I did a search and found a place that would allow me to print a yearly calendar. Using the scaling feature of my printer, I printed up a 2005 calendar small enough to tape onto my monitor. Now, I know exacty where I am in the year and what falls on what. All I need now is a pair of reading glasses to see the tiny digits of my new yearly calendar. To print your own calendar (they give you many options), visit time and date.com.

22 August 2005
I'm a big fan of classical guitar. I try to play as often as I can, and although I never seem to get any better, I keep trying. Once upon a time, I had the idea to make a site of downloadable sheet music. The idea was a bit ahead of its time, and I didn't have the resources to make it happen, although Frederick Noad, noted guitar teacher, from whose books I first learned classical guitar, called me on the phone, and we chatted about the idea for quite some time. Back then, I was sure it was going to happen, so sure that I told him he should let people know about it in a new book he was writing. He passed away in 2001, and I never actually found out if he completed that new book of his.

For the last few weeks, I've been trying to learn a piece I first attempted about a decade ago. it's the Lagrima by Francisco Tarrega. Only problem was, I could not for the life of me find that piece of sheet music. After half a dozen moves, I had finally lost it, along with dozens of other pieces of music, including some of the last songs I ever wrote back in 1986. Oh, well. The songs weren't that good anyway. But I was upset over not being able to find the Lagrima piece. So, I ventured onto the handy dandy Internet, to see if I could find an electronic copy of it. After googling "lagrima", a pdf version of the music popped up. I was astonished. I ventured further into the web site home of the piece and was pleasantly surprised. In it were pdf versions of many dozens of pieces by various composers. What a find! If you play classical guitar, and you haven't already done so, check out www.delcamp.net.

21 August 2005
Sometimes I forget what I write about. Sometimes, I forget that I should write about something. I suppose it's old age. I'm really not that old, but you know how you think you're going to last forever, be sharp as a tack into your 90s and keep running those marathons even with the extra oxygen tank strapped onto your back. Well, maybe I'm not old enough to remember back to the glory days of radio, when George Burns and Gracie Allen cracked jokes back and forth and commercials had a lot more charm and simplicity than they do now. Sometimes, I'll see an advertisement and wonder exactly what it is they're trying to sell. Not so in radio's golden age. If you're curious, you've got to check out R U Sitting Comfortably. They have a huge archive of radio programs that would take you forever to listen to, if you listened to all of them. It does cost money, but they take PayPal. Shell out a few bucks from the earnings on your last auction and give them a try. All the files are in MP3 format, so they're easy to play on your computer or burnable to CD. My personal favorite series right now is Lux Radio Theater. You'll get great entertainment, complete with the actual vintage commercials of the day. Are you sitting comfortably?

20 August 2005
Gmail is Google's own version of what a web-based mail program should be. It's quite a radical change from the likes of Yahoo! and most other webmail providers out there, and I don't yet know if I like it or not. I still use Yahoo! Mail for my personal correspondence, and I probably won't give it up anytime soon. One of the things that takes getting used to in Gmail is the fact that you are discouraged from deleting email. And instead of archiving email into folders, you "flag" messages. You can give a message any number of flags, which means you can cross-reference to your heart's content. And because the message is always there, you can use Google's smart search capability to find what you are looking for quickly. Part of me likes this approach, but the other traditional part of me says "why?" I don't know. I suppose the longer I work with it, the better I'll feel about it.

Right now, Gmail is available by invitation only. If you'd like to give it a try, email me, and I'll send you one of my invites. I only have 50 of them, so it's first come first serve.

19 August 2005
Want a completely free fax and voicemail service? You'll get your faxes and voicemails via email or through their web site. You'll get your own personal telephone number people can dial. The only downside is, the number is going to be in the 206 area code. That's Seattle, for anyone who doesn't live in the Pacific Northwest. But, still, that's not a very bad downside, and maybe it would be a little prestigious to have a 206 number.

I know there are plenty of companies out there offering fax and voicemail service, some even for free, including j2, but they don't let you customize your outgoing message, and there are a few other annoying restrictions, like getting a number from a random part of the United States. I suppose that would be considered a feature for some. Would the 206 area code be any better if you live in New York? I don't know.

Anyway, the company to check out is K7.net. Go to their web site, and within minutes, you'll be able to start receiving faxes and voicemail to your very own Seattle phone number. Not bad for free.

18 August 2005
Sometimes, I put on my perfectionist hat. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does, it really annoys everyone around me. The other day, I happened to go through my web server error logs to see how many people were requesting something that didn't exist. I noticed that it appeared that a lot of people were requesting something called "favicon.ico". Now, why would they do that? I did a bit of googling and realized that it wasn't people requesting this file, it was their web browser. Most modern web browsers allow people to customize the little icon that appears next to the URL in the navigation field of their web browsers. For example, if you visit Yahoo!, you'll notice what looks like a big red "Y!" to the left of the "http://www.yahoo.com/". OK, you can put an icon there. Nice little touch. But how? I looked around some more and found a web site that lets you create your own by uploading a graphic. It then creates a favicon.ico file and gives you instructions for how to get it to show up on your site. For lack of a more creative title, the site is called FavInco from Pics. If you google favicon.ico, you'll see a bunch more places to go for information. It's worth taking a look at.

17 August 2005
One day, I was trying to copy a file from one computer in my office to another computer. Unfortunately, one of the computers did not have a floppy drive, and I had ran out of CDRs. I have a USB memory stick that I use to move files back and forth, but one of the computers did not have a USB port. The only thing they had in common was a connection to the Internet. So, I figured, I'll just upload a file to an ftp site on the Internet and then download that same file on the other computer. Easier said than done. I got the file up, but when I went to the other computer, there was no ftp program, at least none that I could see. So, I had to download an ftp program, install it, reboot the machine, and then I was finally able to get the file from the ftp site. Talk about difficult! I longed for the days of "sneakernet" when you could just copy something onto a 3.5" floppy diskette and stick it into another machine. But those days are long gone. Many new computers don't even have a floppy drive. And even if they did, have you noticed how finicky they can be? I've had them refuse the read a floppy formatted on another machine.

The reason I am talking about all this is because of the post I made yesterday about Dropload. As much as I like the service, I wish I didn't have to register just to send one file, and I also wish I could send the link to more than just one person. Well, you know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention. I decided to take matters into my own hands and set up a service similar to Dropload but have it address my own needs. Then, I figured maybe it would address other people's needs as well. So, say hello to planetcabinet.com. This was a domain name that I registered many moons ago when I had this hair-brained scheme to create a digital library and make it freely available to everyone on the Internet. Fortunately, other people have already done this, so I don't have to do it myself. So, now it's been reborn with a different purpose in life. Give it a try and see if it works for you. Send me some feedback if you notice any problems. I spent about 2 hours putting it together, so it's not as slick as I'd like, but it does work, and I'll continue to improve it, especially if there is interest.

16 August 2005
Ever wanted to send a huge file over the Internet to a friend or family member? A lot of free email companies put a restriction on how large a file attachment can be, and if you have an ftp site, it might be more trouble than it's worth to try and upload the file and give someone download instructions. Now, there's a better way. Use a service like Dropload. You can upload a file once to their web site and have the system send out emails to everyone you want to tell about the file. They've got seven days to download the file by simply clicking on the link that's emailed to them. It makes it dead simple to send files and the kicker is being able to send a file to multiple recipients.

15 August 2005
If you live in the Sacramento, California area and you have a small business or would like to start one, there's a great free publication that's just celebrating its 1 year anniversary. It's called Prosper Magazine. And it's absolutely free. Unlike some of the free publications out there, this one actually has some meat to it. Check it out.

14 August 2005
I just received a 10% off coupon from BUY.COM. It said I should share it with people, so here's the Coupon. Now that they take PayPal, it's easier than ever to spend all that money I make on Ebay auctions... I like BUY.COM. You can get a good deal there if you look hard enough and wait for a good coupon. 10% off is nothing to shake a stick at. My buying experience there has always been good, unlike with some other Internet merchants.

13 August 2005
I'm beginning to really like Google AdSense. I'm making an average of $1 a day already! I know it doesn't sound like much, but at the end of a month, it's $30 to cover miscellaneous expenses. I know the information on my web site is not that valuable yet, but in time, I am hoping that it will be. I'll be delving into subjects that I know about more than most people, so I should start collecting a larger readership through time. I'm also looking at ways to increase my readership without resorting to dirty tactics. If anyone can shed some light on how to do this, feel free to email me at the above email address. That email address changes often, as I don't like getting spammed beyond all recognition.

Any Linux users among you? I started using Linux back when there was a distribution called something like "Soft Landing". It featured a 0.997 version of the kernel and you installed it from a bunch of floppy disks. Those days are long gone, and now I do most of my work with Slackware Linux which I believe is one of the best distributions on the planet. It's not for the faint of heart, though. If you're looking for something easier to install, you couldn't go wrong with Linspire. They offer a free evaluation, but if you like what you see, you should pay for it. You get access to a boatload of software, all easily installed with the click of your mouse.

Speaking of Linux, I just recently installed Windows 98 on my daughter's computer. She's 5 and loves to use cheap educational software. Well, cheap educational software for the most part is not compatible with Windows XP, so I was forced to bring out my old Win98SE install disk and an even older Dell Optiplex G100 with a whopping 466mhz processor. But this makes a fine computer for her, as she is not into playing graphic-intense games, except of course for Putt Putt Dog on a Stick. Now, I'm not a great fan of Windows, especially the older versions. It took several tries to get the installation to work without crashing, and my sound still keeps going out for no apparent reason. It's probably incompatibility issues with the old software I'm using, but still. Weren't we supposed to have Plug N Play and easy installations? My most frustrating moment was when one piece of software insisted on installing an old version of QuickTime on the computer in place of a radically more recent version. There was no way to tell it to stop, and even Apple's installer failed to noticed the newer version. Oh well. I figure after a month or two, I'll have to reinstall Windows anyway. It will get that messed up.

12 August 2005
There is a wonderful company out there currently facing legal action, and I am asking my readers to help them out. The company is CleanFilms. They are a service like NetFlix, but they offer content-edited films that make it possible for an entire family to enjoy a movie without worrying about excessive garbage. I know people like to cry freedom of speech and all that. That's all fine. Anyone can go out and buy an unedited version of the films that they offer. That's not the point. The point is, there are families out there who would rather not watch anything than watch the garbage that Hollywood currently puts out. I'm talking about offensive content such as gratuitious violence, nudity, language, etc. We have enough of this in our everyday lives. Do we have to be bombarded with it in our entertainment as well? Can we say no? The only way I can watch the latest blockbuster from Hollywood is by renting it through CleanFilms.

Anyway, if you'd like to help this company, visit Help Save Family Choice in Movies. I get nothing out of telling anyone about this except maybe the satisfaction of knowing this company may survive the onslaught by Hollywood and also the ability to continue to rent movies from them.

11 August 2005
Want to know a secret? Maybe it's one of the best kept secrets on the Internet. Maybe you already know about it, in which case you must be one of the secret keepers. I just found out about it recently. It's a site called Internet Archive. Forgive me if this is common knowledge, but I can't get over how much free media is available on this site. There are full-length motion pictures you can download, a lot of classics, including lots of early day cartoons. My favorite two sections of the archive are Feature Films and Film Chest Vintage Cartoons. If you don't have a fast connection to the Internet, don't bother trying to download anything here. We're talking hundreds of megabytes for a cartoon and several gig for a feature film. But if you do have a high-speed connection, start downloading a feature film now and you'll be able to watch it tonight. Better yet, burn it onto a DVD and watch it later.

Another cool feature of the archive is their Wayback Machine. If you've ever watched Sherman and Peabody as a child, you'll know what a Wayback Machine is, but this one is even cooler. Try it on my site (it goes back to 1996), and you'll see all the gory details of what I used to do and where I used to be... The Wayback Machine works very well with web sites that have static pages. If you try to visit one with dynamic pages, you might get unusual results.

10 August 2005
OK, I'll admit it. I use SBC Yahoo! DSL at home. I looked at the only other option, which was Comcast and decided since I don't use cable, using their high-speed Internet service did not justify the cost of almost $60/month. Now, because I am a loyal SBC Yahoo! DSL customer, I get a great deal on their FreedomLink service for only $1.99/month. Now, I can use my laptop in McDonalds! OK, so a McDonald's hotspot is not that cool. But there are many others, and if you're traveling, you're bound to find one near you. I figure, for only a couple bucks more a month, it's worth having the service in case I find myself on the road in Washington, Oregon, or California, and I need to check my email or tweak my web site. The major places with wi-fi coverage are Barnes & Noble, UPS Stores, McDonalds, etc. You can use their Location Finder to see if it makes sense in your particular situation. It's usually pretty easy to find a Barnes & Noble, and it's not a bad place to hang out for a few hours, especially if it has a coffee shop, which I think most of them do.

9 August 2005
I've tried three different online music services, and I've cancelled two of them. What I was looking for was something that was easy to use and fairly priced. I also wanted something that had a huge selection of music and would let me listen to all of it without paying extra.

Being an avid Macintosh fan, the first service I tried was Apple's iTunes. It was fairly easy to use, but it took a while to load, and it sometimes played things back jittery on my 2.1ghz machine. It may not be the fastest machine on the planet, but it should be plenty fast enough to play simple audio. Also, iTunes did not let me listen to entire songs without paying for them. Not nice.

So, I moved to Rhapsody next. I installed the software and was pleasantly surprised at how easy the interface worked. At only $9.95 per month to listen to their entire library, I was hooked. My two favorite major genres of music are classical and folk, and they've got quite a library of songs to choose from. My only major gripe now is that they're adding a lot of material to their catalog that is "premium" in nature, meaning, the all-you-can-eat $9.95 service doesn't cover it. You have to pay extra to listen to the premium stuff. Also, there are still some artists that aren't included in their library yet, like Andres Segovia. But to be fair, they keep adding hundreds of albums every week, so there's always new material to try out.

As soon as I got comfortable with Rhapsody, Yahoo! decided to come out with their music service Yahoo! Music Unlimited. The $6.99 a month price was hard to beat, and they claimed over a million songs, just like Rhapsody. I like Yahoo!, so I decided I'd give it a try. Talk about disappointment. First, the Yahoo! Music Engine is incredibly slow. It takes forever to load and go from page to page of music. It's also slow to search for anything. And, if you're looking for classical music, good luck. It's been buried as a subgenre under some other category! I won't bother to mention which category. If you're brave enough to give it a try, you'll have to find it yourself. And, if you want to browse, good luck with that. There doesn't appear to be a way to easily browse through an entire genre. You get a few picks, but no way to go through more than a few screens worth of material. And there does not appear to be a way to see what's been recently added to the catalog, if anything. That's the one feature of Rhapsody I really like. Now, the Yahoo! service is a great deal, but great deals can only go so far. Until they fix the bizarre classification system where classical music is some odd subgenre and until there is some way to see what's been recently added and until the program loads at least as fast as Rhapsody, there's no way I'm going to spend any more money on it. I should have cancelled during the 14 day free trial, but I was lazy and let the service go for a couple of months before realizing that I wasn't using it though it appeared on my credit card statement. If you don't believe what I have to say about Yahoo! Music Unlimited, feel free to sign up for a free trial. Just remember to cancel it if it doesn't meet your expectations. It certainly did not meet mine.

I still subscribe to Rhapsody, and I probably will continue to do so unless another music service comes along that does it better.

8 August 2005
As you've probably noticed, I'm now using Google AdSense to display advertisements on my pages. I thought about joining some of the other banner ad organizations, but I like Google, so I figured I'd give it a try and see what happens. I'll report when I receive my first check and let you know how the whole experience is going. Signing up for the service was simple enough, though they do ask for a social security number for tax purposes. And according to the reports page, I just started earning money today! Not a whole lot, but hopefully, it will add up. They pay monthly, but not until you earn at least $100. It will be interesting to see when I actually make it to that $100 mark...

7 August 2005
I'm not a big gambler, at least not in the "Las Vegas" sense of the word. But my son Nick persuaded me to give one of the online poker games a try, and I'll have to admit, it's pretty fun. Certainly more fun than playing solitaire. I signed up with Empire Poker. I've never in my life played Texas Hold 'em, so I joined a few of the 7-card stud tables and so far, I'm doing pretty good with the $1000 of play money they gave me. If I continue to do well, who knows, maybe I'll play with some real money. Whenever I go to a real casino, my favorite game (besides sitting down at some mindless video slots) is blackjack. Somehow, I can manage to drop down $21 (my favorite initial stake) on a $2 or $3 table and sit there for hours enjoying free drinks and hoping the pit boss will come over and comp me with freebies. I've learned that in order to get the freebies, you really need to put down more than a $21 stake. Oh well, the free drinks are nice, though I do tip the waitress for each one, so I guess they're like a buck or two each, depending on how generous I feel or how lucky I am. Even though there are a bunch of tribal casinos around now, there's something alluring about going all the way to Tahoe or Reno to gamble. I guess it makes it special. Do it once or twice a year, and it's even more special. Any more than that and you might as well just write a check out the casino every month.

6 August 2005
Hey, does anyone remember that old seagull information site I used to have? I got a lot of hits on it several years back, and the only reason I pulled it was because I couldn't handle all the email I received asking me all sorts of questions about seagulls. I'm no expert on the bird, but I do have some resources, and I'm happy to share what I know. So for another bit of nostalgia, pay another visit to All About Seagulls. Some nice pictures, even if the information is not interesting to you.

5 August 2005
If you're looking for ways to promote your web site, visit the site of an associate of mine, Mike Crawford. His site is loaded with articles on how to best promote your site and get the traffic you deserve. There's also articles on how to find free music on the Internet without violating anyone's copyrights. Check it out at your earliest convenience!

4 August 2005
If you've never been to CraigsList, you've done yourself a disservice. It's one of the great free sites on the Internet. You can buy and sell, look for jobs, and even find your soulmate, all in one place. It's regionally based, and there are pages for most big communities in the United States and majors cities around the world. The main site is for the San Francisco Bay Area, but you'll find links to other cities. Give it a go!

3 August 2005
My favorite search engine is Google. I know it's no surprise, as it's one of the most popular destinations on the planet. However, they've got something really cool now that I've already used several dozen times. Check out their new Maps page. You will not be disappointed. You can retrieve a map for just about any place in the United States and some other parts of the world. And, satellite imagery is available for most of it! Want to see what your house looks like from above? You need to check it out now!

1 August 2005
I've gotten back into learning some new classical guitar pieces. I've got tons of Fernando Sor that I compiled from a visit to the Library of Congress back in 1995. I still haven't cleaned up the collection, but one of these days, maybe sometime soon, I will. And when I do, I'll make it freely available on one of my adjunct site, Sheet Music 411 - Sheet Music Resources on the Internet. Right now, the site is woefully out of date, but I'm planning on doing a lot to it very soon, including putting up a bunch of Christmas sheet music from my now defunct "Sheet Music on CD-ROM: Christmas Classics" CD-ROM I put out many years ago. Look for the downloadable files to appear in time for Christmas this year.

31 July 2005
An associate of mine, James Metcalf, has signed up for a very exciting new MLM. I'm not a big fan of multi-level marketing, but this one actually sounds like it has promise. I've not committed myself to signing up yet, but I'm seriously thinking of it. If you'd like to take a look for yourself, go to VMdirect. It's all about video email. They claim that zillions of people will be using video email in the near future and they're probably right. Sounds like a good way to make some solid money.

30 July 2005
One of my oldest sites is still running, and I'm even thinking of updating it soon. It's POCIA - Providers of Commercial Internet Access Directory, one of the first directories of ISPs ever created. There are better directories out there with much newer information, but if you'd like to take a look at a snapshot of what the Internet looked like several years ago, you might still find this site amusing.

29 July 2005
I love audiobooks, and Audible.com is great because you no longer have to lug a cassette player around with you. Instead, with a small MP3 player, you can store one or more complete books and go wherever you want! With their Audible Listener program, you pay a small monthly fee and get access to two or more books every month from their vast audio library. I recommend it!

28 July 2005
For no apparent reason, I just made over this web site. It wasn't doing anything useful, especialy after I stopped selling Apprentice. A bit of history: For 10 years, I've informed, annoyed, and otherwise done my part in making the Internet a kinder, gentler place. Well, maybe in my own mind. From Macintosh modem cables to tutorials on how to use communications software, I've covered a lot of ground. Then there was the partially successful experiment called POCIA. I think my most successful product had to be Apprentice, which died back in 1996 or thereabouts. Now, I am on to better things, at least I think I am...