… the person who was the sole winner of the $600 million lottery.

What do you DO with money like that?

I would probably die from happiness, “happiness” in this instance meaning wine, women and song.

But what a friggin’ way to go!

Even though they’d take about half of it for taxes, I’d say God Bless and start my last wild spree. First thing, I’d buy a few marijuana dispensaries in Colorado and Washington so I could have a never-ending supply of the blessed herb. A chauffeured limo to drive me around when I’m stoned.

And Sofia Vergara – I’d definitely buy her.

I’m getting real tired of the ‘Net lately – maybe it’s time to unplug for a while.

It seems no matter what I do to make a living online I’m coming up short.

• I kill myself making a blog – no dice. Alexa sends me from ranking at a little over one million straight down to 10 million in one day.
• I write a new ebook and offer it for sale for $2.99 – after a week I have 5 sales and 1 “lend”.
• I join Facebook’s advertising program and can’t get an ad approved in time to run it.
• I set up mailing lists and newsletter offers – no one joins.
• In fact, no one even visits any of these blogs.
• I grab Internet Marketing programs promising to show me the “real thing” – they never do.

So why bother? Why don’t I just go out and get a REAL job?

Probably because I hate the thought so much.

I was reading about this dude that claims to have made $77 million in two years. Now he’s selling a program that promises to show you how to do it. Thing is, this dude made his money in mail order, not on the ‘Net, and he did it by creating his own bogus Peter Pills.

That’s right – he made his own “herbal Viagra” and sold it for ridiculous amounts by mail order, then refused to respond when people wanted a refund. THAT’S how he made his money. He did a little time for it when they finally caught him, but now he’s back and bragging.

Maybe that’s what I should do …

Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others drew back and formed a ring round them.

For long the two enemies looked at one another; Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.

‘So, Pan,’ said Hook at last, ‘this is all your doing.’

‘Ay, James Hook,’ came the stern answer, ‘it is all my doing.’

‘Proud and insolent youth,’ said Hook, ‘prepare to meet thy doom.’

‘Dark and sinister man,’ Peter answered, ‘have at thee.’

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Found a great gift on Fiverr from Ang for my buddy Johnny Joint – he’s going to use it on his Facebook Fan Page …

OK, so follow me on this if you will – I’ll try to make it easy.

Unlike some behemoth corporations.

I’m working on a new network of websites that are intended to help me achieve my goal of financial comfort. Part of my plan is to utilize the Amazon Associate program, where you advertise items from Amazon on your site and, if they are bought, receive a commission.

Easy concept so far, right?

But it’s in the details that the Devil resides. All I wanted to do was to take a product I found on Amazon and put it in a sidebar widget. Now, Amazon has a nice little set-up for affiliates, or so I thought. You can search for products to advertise (although the search function itself is kind of hinky), hit a button and get HTML code to paste into your site.

Again, so far so good.

The problem is that the code has an “iframe” which WordPress text widgets will not recognize. I think the code is intended to be placed on a page or a post, NOT in a widget. Not being a computer programmer or WordPress expert I figured that the lowly text widget wasn’t smart enough to handle iframes, so I began my quest by looking for WP widgets that COULD handle it.

Good luck.

Read the rest of this entry »

My good friend Johnny Joint called me today and let me know about an article he just put up on his new website Tokin’ Times, entitled “The Dangers of Cannabis: A Forced Essay“.

It seems a British bloke was busted for having two pounds of weed on his person, which he admitted was for re-sale. The judge gave him a choice of sentences: a year in the pokey or the writing of a 5,000-word essay on “The Evils of Cannabis”.

Our boy chose the latter.

But Johnny Joint is never one to pass up the opportunity to poke holes in pompous legal or political systems when it comes to pot, so he did a 2,500-word essay off the top of his head.

Check it out – it’s long but it’s fantastic!

Just ignore the smoking pile of dung here.

I’ve just switched web hosts to what I hope will be one that is more efficient and knowledgeable, and who doesn’t    constantly have down-times and unexplained data-wipes.

Just hang out here, help yourself to some pizza and beer, and I’ll be with you shortly. I might look a bit different – the “clothes” that this site wears may change – I’m not sure yet. I just want to get back to Ground Zero and keep on going.

Thanks.

So spring is coming and I’m starting to look for a bike to get around town (bicycle, that is – not a motorcycle). I looked on the Wilkes Barre / Scranton Craigslist this morning and saw an ad for

Giant 20′ Bikegirls

My mind was instantly thrown into full-throttle fantasy mode, envisioning 20-foot-tall chicks riding bikes.

I thought of what a hit they would be on the local bike runs.

I wondered if they couldn’t find leathers in their size, hence the poor girl’s forced choice of short-shorts and bippy top.

I had the urge to check the legality of giant women riding normal-sized bikes on a public roadway.

I cogitated on whether their normal-sized biker daddy would have an inferiority complex.

I thought perhaps they would work part-time for the local traveling carnivals.

I questioned in my mind whether they were always that size, and if so had they played JV ball.

I wondered if they would fit under low-clearance tunnels.

I contemplated whether they had to have specially-reinforced tires.

And of course, I thought about sex with them.

All of these thoughts went through my mind almost simultaneously, as most of my weird thoughts do, but then I clicked on the link to see these mutant babes being sold online and this was what came up:

THAT’S IT ?!?

Bummer!

On the plus side, it’s only a few blocks away and they’re only asking $25 for it, so I might have a new ride soon.

Unless of course that bike really IS scaled for a 20′ girl …

I was cruising through Facebook the other day, trying to touch base with a few friends, when I realized that my profile picture was getting a bit long in the tooth. I had taken it several years ago, and while I like it it doesn’t really show me as I see myself now. So, I decided to do a virtual make-over.

  This was taken back in 2009, I think it was, when I was running a fitness center. Many people asked which one was the dummy.

Ha-ha.

Although I’m still a practicing martial artist (it’s like being a Marine – it’s for life) it isn’t the core focus of my life right now. I see myself as a writer, in the company of other writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, who didn’t really give a damn what people thought of their writing as long as they could get it down on paper. I think that’s what writing is all about, anyway – not the NY Times Bestseller List, but the fact that you can’t breathe without writing.

Anyway, a week or so ago I grabbed my little Canon compact and, like the duck-lipped people on Facebook, held it out at arm’s length for a self-portrait. This is what I ended up with:

I figure I look like one of several things:

• an aging pyrate
• a blind Jewish cantor
• an aging, blind Jewish pyrate

The headgear is courtesy of the local convenience store where, for a paltry $1.50, I picked up a do-rag made especially for the Brothers in the ‘hood and which has much more material to work with when tying it than the old bandanas I used to wear.

The shades are standard-issue “Old-Man-in-Miami-Beach” style, nice and dark. I particularly value the owl-like appearance they give me – when I wear them I often have the overpowering urge to barf up a pellet of digested food.

Now all I need are the baggy, hanging pants and a XXXXL football jersey and I’ll blend right in.

Of course, being me I couldn’t leave well-enough alone. I had to embark on a soul-satisfying journey to perk up my pic. I have an old photo manipulation program called Photofiltre, which is sort of a Photoshop without a lot of the bells and whistles and certainly without the humungous price tag. It allows me to do what I want and need to do with my pics without wasting any time on steep learning curves, and I’ve grown accustomed to using it over the years, so it’s all good.

My first attempt was to merge myself into one of my favorite memes – Grumpy Cat. GC embodies the one virtue I hold dear: grumpiness. No coincidence, I think, that his fur coloring includes a certain beige hue which directly mimics my beard, so it made ‘shopping the shot much easier. I realize I still have a lot to learn about art but I’m happy with the result:

I had to make my face triangular like a cat’s and blend his facial fur into my head. Again, I realize there are some sharp edges in the pic that I could have done better, but all in all over the past few years I think I’m getting better at these quickie jobs.

I’m just waiting for my friends to grab hold of this and start adding titles to it like ICanHasCheezeburger.

The latest version of Photofiltre that I recently picked up has a new technology – layers – that is old-hat to Photoshop users but to me is a brand-new thing. I have to get used to a slightly different work-flow now along with changing the order in which I’ve always done things, but I guess as “they” say change is inevitable.

With that said, there are only two layers in this shot – my head and Grumpy Cat. As I stated earlier I had already “triangulated” my head, so all that remained was to blend in the fur. I have a suspicion that extra layering would have been useful at this point, but for the life of me I don’t know how. Maybe in another year or so I’ll understand the whole layers thing.

My next experiment was Nyan Cat. For those who don’t know him, Nyan Cat is simply a Pop-Tart with a cat’s head, flying through the sky and leaving a rainbow trailing behind him. Don’t ask me his history – I don’t know it nor do I really care to at the moment. I just know he’s a powerful meme, and that’s all I really NEED to know.

Nyan Cat was easy – once again, just two layers: Nyan and Phil’s triangular head. Not even any real blending to do – just a simple cut and paste.

Doing this one got me to thinking how I could do a video with my head on various cartoon characters. I just started fooling around with GoAnimate, an online animation tool. It’s a bit primitive but it’s allowing me to get my feet wet with animation without having to have any real artistic ability, so once again that’s good enough for me.

Nyan Phil, streaking through the universe leaving a happy rainbow behind him! Okay, in real life I leave something a bit different behind me, but let’s not quibble.

My last try this time around was an homage to Keyboard Cat, another powerful ‘Net meme. Again I don’t know all the trivia involved – I’m sure if you have the time and desire you could go over to Google and YouTube and learn all about him. I just know that’s he’s funny.

This is an oddball in the sense that it’s a parody of a parody – my first double-header! Someone had put on a blue T-shirt, cat’s ears and fake paws/arms, along with his real face and body, and made like he was KC. I just cut and pasted my own puss on top of his, did some more blending and voila.

I know this one could have been far better; if I wasn’t such a lazy cuss I would have re-sized my head to fit the ears better, and someday I’m going to learn how to change my skin tone to match that of the rest of the picture, but for now it served its purpose.

I do these for fun, not for critical commenting and certainly not in competition with the many skilled ‘Shoppers on the Web. In that spirit I’m totally satisfied with them, and I hope you are too. They’re just the kicker to my jokes, the extra punchline, and aren’t meant to replace my words – just to augment them.

Yeah! Consumer Reports did their annual review and testing of world religions! I’ve been waiting for this issue for a long time – it seems the printing was delayed due to the resignation of the Pope.

In addition to the  usual short- and long-term tests they offer advice on researching, testing and purchasing (or leasing) your new belief system. They give a comprehensive listing of over 300 world religions including some you may never have heard of, such as The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and (new this year) Philstivism.

Their long-term Torture Tests are especially informative – see for yourself the results of thousands of years of persecution, crucifixion and immolation.

If you’re looking to update your tired old religion or are simply a first-time believer you’ll find valuable information in this Consumer Reports special edition.

Recalls and safety advisories are also listed for each religion, along with such important demographics as number of satisfied owners, low-to-high price comparisons and energy-saving comparisons. Crash tests are always a vital part of CR tests and in this they don’t disappoint – a full 12 pages are devoted to health and safety considerations, with warnings such as WARNING: This religion may spontaneously combust when in the vicinity of virgins.

A special section has been added to this year’s edition: profiles of famous practitioners and their effect on both first-time and experienced buyers.