Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time (well, only about 5 years ago really) I was a green being that wanted to make some money on the internet. At the time I was playing around on MyLot and read about this great opportunity, that would make me rich in absolutely no time at all, if only I would join. It was all going to be so easy, set up a ClickBank Account, join a couple of traffic exchanges and hey presto, within days I would be rich. So I learnt about hoplinks, and I learnt to surf and joined several surf sites and nothing happened.

But, luckily, whilst I was surfing I saw this very nice young man, who had apparently been living on rice and beans for years and years, though he did look good on it. Now though, he had made an absolute fortune and he was willing to teach me for FREE how to do the same. So I joined. And I joined. And I joined. I joined everything he told me to join and spent an absolute fortune improving his financial situation. I had an auto-responder, leads, my own website and various other things I had no idea how to use, and instead of earning money, I was spending it. I did get three sign ups for this program, and made $3.00 on the website site, without ever being able to get it out. I joined several other must have companies, all of which led to further and further expense as you had to absolutely join this Marketer Networking site that only cost $25.00 per month etc etc. I will not calculate how much I spent on all this, not because I can´t, but because I think it would reduce me to tears to think how much money I wasted on all these wonderful opportunities that never produced anything. Nada, zilch, zip.

Then I got a bit wiser, and managed to team up with someone from Australia, and actually made $5,000 for the first time in my life. But it took a while (mainly because I had lost interest and forgotten I had ever joined in the first place) and it is not a cheap opportunity to join, so getting sign ups is difficult.

However, I have learnt from my experiences though and found that I look at advertising in a new way. Put away your credit card your first month is free, means that the owner of that program has decided to use as their main business that you have to subscribe to, a program that was free for one month in the first place, but you will pay for it after one month when you are firmly hooked. Free report give-away mean you are a lead that has now been captured (I intensely dislike that expression, it sounds so degrading) and you will now be spammed senseless for the rest of your life. Serious man saying Flashy over-hyped sites do not work, but ours does we really want to help you, means zilch, zip, nada.

So, this disillusioned marketer has broken all the rules and joined a Flashy Over-hyped Site that pays 100% commissions directly into your payment processor of choice and guess what? She got her first payment within 2 days of joining, that means the original money is now back in account as though it had never left. It should not work, this flashy over-hyped impossible opportunity, It Should Not Work, but you know, I just think it will. So you may keep eating rice and beans, and having a Real Business fattening someone else`s downline and receiving their spam, and good luck to you. This girl will take her chance on the Flash and the Hype and the real money into PayPal account.

Feeding the Fish = Fattening your Finances

Having had some time out from all internet related activities, it it now time to start things moving again. We had the great good fortune of being paid rather well for some work we had done a couple of years ago, and this has kick started my search for further fortune on the internet again.

Today I want to talk about the programme called MyMoneyFish. I joined the programme about two weeks ago, and so far it looks really promising. It is a 10x4 forced matrix programme with a difference. Instead of getting paid when your matrix is full (which in a 10x4 would take some doing) you get paid every month. Basically this means getting paid $2.00 for each member that is in your downline, on whichever level they are, and whether you personally sponsored them or not. If at the time of first payout you decide to take the money and run, you can do that, though if you are in profit I see no reason why you would, considering that you are likely to be in even more profit the next month.

My brother, ever the sceptic, had to do the sums. He has worked out that the person who runs the programme will basically get $1.95 for each and every person in the programme, each and every month - so there is no reason for him not to pay out during the first pay run, because he will get an automatic fortune every month that the programme runs. It is his best interest to keep it running and it is in our best interest to stay in the programme.

I know matrices can be tricky, particularly if they are free to join or require a one-time joining fee, where would be money come from to pay out at the end? But this is different and I think it is definitely worth the $10.00 entry fee to give it the best you can.

There are people who do not ever wish to spend any money in any programme because they say that you should not have to pay to work, and that when you take a job in an off-line company you do not pay your boss to start work. This of course is erroneous thinking, and divides those who want a job (where you work for someone else who takes all the profits and gives you a fixed wage) from those who want to run their own business, which always takes some start up capital, whether it is on-line or off-line.

Will update this blog from time to time regarding the MyMoneyFish programme, to let you know how much profit we are making each month.

And Violence Begets Violence

This is a post that I did not think I would ever write, because it is quite personal and although I do not mind sharing parts of me with other people, this is a part I would rather not have shared. But I will share it now, in view of hearing calls for 'let's start a war with Iran' or 'let's bomb North Korea or 'blow Japan out of the water'. The reason for these various calls have to do with perceived or real threats to our safety or security or for other reasons, such as barbaric treatment of people or animals in their care. Whatever, the reason is, violence can NEVER be the answer.

Sure, if someone attacks you you have the right to defend yourself, but never ever be the one who starts the violence.

My absolute distate for violence is a result of my early upbringing. I am the off-spring of a mother who was in a Japanese concentration camp for four years, from age 11-15. I know in graphic detail what was done to my mother and other girls and women in those camps, it makes the British t.v. series 'Tenko' look like a holiday camp. After the war my mother moved back with her family to Holland, where nobody at that time was interested in what had happened to them, because the people who had lived in Holland during that time had themselves suffered a lot at the hands of the German occupiers.

I remember a childhood of beatings and walking home from school wondering if I would go home to 'loving mummy' or we would have to play 'Jap camp' again today. I will not bore you with the details, they are not interesting and add nothing to this story.

I want to say that violence done to one generation has lasting results not just for that generation but for the following one as well. And I guess, had I not decided never to have children, I might have visited that violence on the next generation too.

I just wish that when people say 'let's start a war' or 'let's blow them to kingdom come' they would remember that violence never ends well, and that all it does is beget more and more violence.

How Do You Like Your Surf?

Having decided that I am not going to spend the rest of my life frantically surfing on Traffic Era, I thought it was time to revisit some of the Traffic Exchanges I am already a member of and also join a couple of new ones. I will still do a couple of hours on Traffic Era, but I felt it was time to diversify a bit. This post is about the two new exchanges I have joined this weekend.

The first one is for those who like their surf easy and without frills. Ten second timer, one to one hit ratio, free, easy to use, unlimited URLs and a very good admin. Small at the moment, but that only gives us a better chance to build downlines. It is surfing at its easiest and I think it will give good results because people are not perpetually distracted by things that are supposed to make surfing 'fun'. You can visit Jus-Surfing here. See what you think, I like its pure simplicity. At the moment there is a contest going on to see who has the most points in their account at midnight 15th June UK time, and they will win £15.00 straight into their PayPal account. Nice :)

The other exchange I joined was the long-awaited second baby of Kjell, called Deep Space Traffic, I am sure you have seen the ads over all the exchanges you surf on. It is an interesting exchange, with lots of extras, possibilities to upgrade, win extra credits, lottery tickets and space travel. The design is fantastic and it does make surfing as much fun as it can be. No team surfing so you work for yourself and that can be very refreshing too. The splash pages you can use for advertising are numerous and some are very humorous.

Surfing the two together works very well, both have 10 second timers and they do not conflict with each other - even my little old laptop does not start to shudder every two minutes when I surf these two at the same time. They are as different from each other as they can be, but work extremely well together, so it is an excellent combination as far as I am concerned.

I am very happy with my two latest acquisitions, and have spent a few pleasurable hours over the weekend Just Surfing and relaxing.

What Would You Do If...

What would you do if someone lent you $25,000 dollars today to start your own business. That was the question posed to me by Pertuity Direct, who are a Social Lending Company. Unfortunately I probably live in the wrong country but just supposing someone lent you all that money, what sort of business would you start?

At the moment I own a very small but successful Home Care and Home Nursing Agency. I started it just over a year ago, with no start up capital at all, and have managed (at times just about) to keep my head above water, and furthermore also managed to keep the head of my colleague Paul above water for most of that time. But there are so many improvements to be made, a bit of start up capital would make a huge difference.

Firstly, I would use part of the money to pay to have the business incorporated, it makes sense for all sorts of reasons - tax reasons, legal reasons, insurance reasons, and it would enable me to give contracts to the people who work for me, thereby providing them with security for sick pay and pension rights.

The next thing I would do is buy some basic equipment, such as bath boards, a couple of wheelchairs, some Zimmer frames, over the lavatory frames for people who have difficulty with getting into and out of a sitting position. At the moment we rent these pieces of equipment, whereas if we owned them ourselves we could rent them out to our clients, and make a bit of money that way as well, plus we would not have to wait for the delivery company to come and fit the equipment. We would also buy some digital blood pressure machines and blood sugar monitors.

Since communication is a must at all times, I would invest some money in a series of cell phones on the same business contract, obviously with itemized bills. This would enable the business to repay the people who work for us for their work related calls, it would make all calls between those phones free of charge and would mean we would never run out of credit on our phones.

My car is on its last legs, so I would pay a good mechanic to repair the clutch and give it a total check up so that it will hopefully last for another couple of years. Obviously we need to be able to get to patients at all times of the day and night, and it would be great to have transport that is 100% reliable.

Finally, I would give myself a day off. I have not had a day off for more than a year now, and it would be really nice to stay in bed past 9.00 in the morning and then wake, knowing I have a whole day to relax.

I can see my new business now, not a new busines but a business renewed with fresh energy and new hope. Bring it on Pertuity please!

Is On-Line Love Possible?

When I was a small child, there were certain 'aunties' I would not kiss goodbye. We were about to leave, and my mother would prompt me 'kiss Auntie X goodbye' and I would absolutely refuse. This led to great anger and embarassment for my mother, who would later question me about why I would not kiss Auntie goodbye. I clearly remember telling her the reason was that Auntie did not 'smell' right. This was the best description I could give at the time, even though Auntie did not have horrendous body odour, there was something about Auntie that did not smell right and I did not want to kiss her. I now think that it was one of those indefinable things that make us either like or dislike people, but as a child I always associated that with 'smell'.

I only recently thought of that again when I heard that one my old 'smelly'Aunties had died. It led me to speculate about why we like or dislike some people,and what it is that makes us fall madly in love with people. I once thought I was in love with someone based on the quality of his voice over the telephone. When I actually met him, it was a great shock. He was so absolutely not the person I thought he was and I was no longer in love with him from the moment of first meeting.

I also like the way people move their hands (I find hands intensely fascinating) and have fallen in love with people for the way their face moved when they smiled. Of course I have only ever fallen in love with them if they 'smelt' (for want of a better word)right. I am sure that everyone falls in love with people on the basis of things of which we are not aware, maybe a type of chemical reaction or the scent of their pheromones.

I have written somewhere else about the man who hideously murdered his wife because he thought she was having a love affair on-line and he had become insanely jealous. It now appears that the woman was a member of Second Life, a virtual worldwide community. Since in that community you give yourself a new name, and can make up any qualities you like,the way you dress, the way your hair hangs, everything about yourself, it would appear then that if you were to fall in love with someone on Second Life you might not be falling in love with that person, but you are falling for an idea that the other person wants you to have about him/her.

But suppose you are in a community where people do not make up an avatar but post real photos of themselves and you chat with them a lot. Maybe you even speak to them via Skype. You now have a face and a voice. Two real things. But is that enough to fall in love? What happens when you meet that person and they 'smell' wrong? What if you have abandoned your previous family and friends for that person and then they are not who you thought they were? What if they eat with their mouth open and you have just lost everything you had before, for them? What if the person who was so witty on-line was really only witty because they had access to a book of clever quotations and Google search facilities?

My grandmother always said 'never buy anything until you have had a chance to test the goods', I think maybe in the case of on-line falling in love, she may have been right.

Man Learns Something New

This story really goes back to my previous post, about the man who was arrested for having a porcelain pig in his back garden. This story is not set in England, but in New Zealand. It was sent to me by a good friend of mine, who thought the previous story was funny and this might be the ideal follow-up.

The story is about a 22-year old man, who was arrested by police because he appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. He started hurling abuse at the police during the course of the arrest and amongst other things he called them 'pigs'

He appeared in court and the Community Magistrate ordered that the man should be sentenced to spend a day working at a pig farm and furthermore that he had to write an essay on his experience whilst working at the pig farm.

So the man did his day at the pig farm and wrote an essay about it.

According to the newspaper, he wrote: "I was very, very drunk. I have stopped drinking because of what happened. I have wasted the police's time and my time."

He maintained the word pig could be found in the Oxford dictionary and was often used to describe police.

But added he had learned 'that there is nothing at all in common with a pig and an officer'

My question is really simple, how does he know that unless he also works a day at the Police Station?

Do Not Call Your Next Door Neighbour A Pig

I read this story on-line today and had to really laugh, because it exposes beautifully people's sensitivities and a society gone absolutely mad with Political Correctness and becoming more and more fond of curbing people's liberties.

A man in a small village in England, near to Oxford, used to have a pig farm on his property. These used to be kept at the bottom of what is now his garden. In the last six years or so the man decided no longer to keep pigs, and painted a sign on what used to be the pig sty saying 'No Pigs'.

In memory of his previous lifestyle and his pigs, he placed a porcelain pig in his garden. The pig has been in his garden for six years now.

He got a new neighbour four years ago. Apparently there were arguments between the man and his new neighbour about who has the right to use a footpath that runs between the two properties.

So far so good. Just another story of suburban England. Now the story becomes funny. The neighbour is a police constable. One night Mr. Robin Demczak, 57, (the former pig farmer) was dragged off to the cells and held for more than 6½ hours as the constable’s colleagues grilled him about the porcelain porker. Apparently his PC neighbour stated that the pig had been deliberately placed there to taunt him and the the notice saying 'no pigs' on what was formerly the pig sty was also there to insult him.

Mr. Demczak has been cleared of the charges after being in custody for several hours. A Thames Valley Police force spokesman said: “We can confirm that a man was arrested on suspicion of harassment in relation to the incident. He has been released without charge. But the investigation is still ongoing."

Mr. Demczak has been ordered to take the porcelain pig out of his garden and to take down the notice from the former sty. So much for an Englishman's home being his castle.

A case of PC (in both senses) madness I think. PC Ablett was unavailable for comment

Just In Case You Missed This

Ok, I will be the first one to admit that I do not always read e-mails I receive from Traffic Exchanges. This is a fault of mine, because I am not really that interested usually and in too much of a hurry to pay them much attention. I did however partially read the e-mail from Traffic Era about the clock rain, and I thought 'wow, let's get in there and get a few tokens'. This means that I did not read the entire e-mail. Today I received a PM from another member on another team entirely who said that from next month on they would not afford to keep their Club Upgrade. I wondered what the hell they were talking about. As I had already deleted the e-mail about the Clock Rain, I had to ask my team whether they still had the mail. Luckily someone did and forwarded it to me. This post is for the unlucky person who wrote me the PM.

At the end of their e-mail about the Clock Rain (which was a Great Thing) they put in a bit about a change to the logibucks and selling rates etc as from the 9th May. I have only looked at it today, and I urge everyone to look at this carefully.

How will my rate be calculated starting on May 9th, 2009?
rate (per 5,000 credits) = [base rate*] + [$1 for each upgraded referral] + [$0.50 for each complete star**]

*base rate will vary between $0.25 and $1.00 depending on network demand

**Stars are achieved based on the following LPV (Lifetime Personal Value):
1 star @ 100,000
2 stars @ 250,000
3 stars @ 1,000,000
4 stars @ 2,000,000
5 stars @ 5,000,000

Weekly selling limit
Silver Membership: max 15,000/week
Gold Membership: max 20,000/week
Platinum Membership: max 25,000/week
Club Membership: max 30,000/week

Max selling rateSilver Membership: $1.00 / 5,000 credits
Gold Membership: $2.00 / 5,000 credits
Platinum Membership: $2.50 / 5,000 credits
Club Membership: $3.00 / 5,000 credits

You do the math.

How NOT To Get Sign-Ups For Your Business

I have always found it fascinating to see how people try to get other people to join their latest opportunity. Nowhere can this be more obvious than when you surf in a team.

There are very subtle ways in which you can get people interested in the opportunity you are interested in. If you are slightly aloof about what you do and how you earn your money, this may actually work to your advantage. It piques people's curiosity and they may even ask you about your opportunity. When they do, do not be too eager to explain everything about your opportunity, just tell them enough to have them begging for more information.

The way definitely not to get anyone to join your business is to come out with the phrases that we have all been taught would get people interested. Do not forget, we are all in the same boat.

So, in the middle of a long race, coming out with phrases such as 'What would it mean to you if you had $00.00 (fill in relevant amount yourself) of extra money each month' or 'What would you be willing to do to change your future' or even worse 'if you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep receiving what you have always received', is not going to get you anyone in the slightest bit interested in the opportunity you offer. The trouble with all those sentences is that we have all heard them many many times before, and usually at the end of all that, there is nothing to show for your hard work if you have joined. Furthermore, doing so in the middle of a race when your team would have a chance to maybe make it to second or third if everyone surfed, will turn off even those people who might otherwise have been interested in what you had to offer.

So, be reticent, say just enough to make people curious, do not rave about your opportunity, try to be original in the way that you elicit what people actually want to achieve in their lives, and most importantly, do not do any of those things when people are trying to win a race.

I have no opportunity to offer, so need to read any further now :)

Paid To Surf A Few Sites A Day

The concept of surfing and being paid to surf is not new. Several exchanges pay cash if you surf a required number of sites. Today I want to look at a relative newcomer in that field, an exchange called Ad-Ventures 4 U

Adventures is not a very old site, but it looks promising. The site is family owned, and the owners say they are sick of people getting scammed. We have all heard that before and therefore I was very cautious before joining. Some of the money they pay out is money paid in by other members of the exchange and some of the money comes from investments they have made. They promise to pay 75% of their Revenue and 90% of all other income (investments).

The exchange offers two different memberships. Free members are required to surf 70 sites a week. As far as I can see free members do not earn any money, but can use the site as a normal exchange. Paid members buy Ventures. One Venture costs $10.00. Paid members are required to surf 25 sites each day. If a paid member does not surf one day, his/her income for that week is reduced by 1/7 th of the weekly pay out for that week.

I had bookmarked the site several times before I decided to join, partially to see what was going on and partially because I could not make up my mind about whether I wanted to invest money in it. I know $10.00 is not much money, but I have made a decision to only invest money now in on-line activities if I have earnt the money on-line before. Since I had about $20.00 in AlertPay at the time, I had more or less decided to join when an offer came my way that made the decision for me.

I surf on a traffic exchange that features team surfing. One of my team members said he would pay for one venture for each of the members of the team if they joined under his link. Referral earnings are 15%. He had been with Adventures for quite a while and had regularly withdrawn earnings. He is only paying for new members if he has already earned the money in Adventures so sometimes it can take a little while to get upgraded. However, true to his promise he upgraded me within a couple of days.

I surfed my 25 sites and advertised my site link as well. Got a few referrals and helped upgrade a couple of them. Now I am getting to the point where I will start to see a weekly income quite soon. It will not be a huge amount, but it will be real money and it will be paid into my AlertPay account.

The plan is to leave half the money earned in the account each week, so that it will be automatically reinvested in more Ventures, thereby earning me more money again each week. If you do not withdraw your earnings they will be reinvested. On the site there is a weekly schedule that tells you when to check how much you have earned, how much you wish to withdraw and if you did not withdraw, a day later you see that your ventures have increased.

It is not a new concept. I also belong to another similar site, where you buy a venture and have to autosurf 35 sites a day (Adventures is manual surf) and earn 5% of your original investment each day you surf the 35 sites. Their minimal investment is $25.00 and I plan on blogging about them soon. They have already paid me twice.

What I like about Adventures, apart from the earning potential, is that you can use it as an ordinary Traffic Exchange, it is manual, the claims are not outrageous and it is not expensive to join. The admin is very funny, and sends emails updating regularly. I think Adventures may be a risk worth taking and the potential earnings are very pleasing.

A Whole Year has Gone!

Yesterday was my first anniversary on the traffic exchange called Traffic Era. Now, I belong to about 50 traffic exchanges or so, I think, but Traffic Era (or Tera as we normally call it) falls into a class of its own. It is owned by the same people who own TrafficPods, TS25 and Hitpulse. Traffic Era opened last year in January, and was the first of the Logiscape exchanges that featured team surfing with chat. They have team surfing on TS25 but there you are placed in teams, at Tera you request to join a team or you receive an invitation.

Team surfing on the whole is quite good fun. You get to meet a lot of different people from all over the world, and I have found it very interesting to surf with people who have completely different backgrounds. Most people I have surfed with have been very happy to talk about what they see, experience, feel and believe about different things. Also, because a lot of people are very experienced marketers or computer experts, I have learnt a lot from them about how to make money on-line, what not to do, how to sort out a virus on my computer and various other things (not all of which can be mentioned in polite chat!!)

However, there is a flip side to surfing in a team as well. You feel you have to surf, even when there are other things that need to be done. If you do not surf, you may be letting your team down, and they may not win the race. I moved to Spain to enjoy being in the sun and swim in my own little swimming pool, and I guess I spent most of last summer compulsively sitting behind the computer clicking numbers and letting the good weather go to waste. A day lost surfing because of bad connection (happens a lot in this bit of the world) is viewed as a complete disaster. I must admit I have become obsessed with Traffic Era, which for the team may be good, for my family and social life it has at times been less than ideal.

Surfing as a free (or silver) member on Tera is a disaster. The rate for free members is 5:1, why bother. Conversion rates on Tera can also be less than ideal, because most people surfing on teams will click on 11 seconds if they can, so I view Tera more as a semi-autosurf, in that people click to gets points and clocks - and you are really building brand awareness rather than looking for sign ups to programmes. (my personal point of view, I am sure there are lots of people who get loads of sign ups on Tera)

Surfing as an upgraded member is much better, and if you get sufficient loyalty points, you get invited to be a Club member, which gives a nice ratio for your click. Every week you can also sell a certain number of credits for 'logibucks', an imaginary currency which you can use to upgrade yourself either in Tera or one of the other Logiscape exchanges.

Since I joined Traffic Era there have been several changes in the overall set up of the exchange. There are a couple which are very annoying to me personally. One is that the overall limit in personal value that a surfer can contribute to a team is set to 5,000 daily and that the overall team limit for surfing has been capped. The other issue that really does annoy me personally is that Tera does not allow you to help other surfers, either team mates or downline members. You cannot transfer credits, tokens or logibucks. Now, in most traffic exchanges you can encourage your downline members by sending them tokens/credits, and it would also be helpful if you could send them superfluous logibucks as well. But this is no longer allowed at Traffic Era. This is a real shame, because it means that if you sponsor a silver member who surfs well, s/he will either have to spend real money to upgrade or spend months surfing as a silver member to earn sufficient logibucks to upgrade. I think this will eventually discourage silver members, who will leave TrafficEra rather than surf their fingers off to 'keep' the upgrade which their up-line or their team may have bought for them.

If you are not yet a member of Traffic Era you may like to have a look around, you can look around by clicking here , who knows, you may well like it, but warn your family before you join that they may not see so much of you again in future

Fairy Tale Revisited

It seems like my blog entry about the Gremlins has caused some concern on a Traffic Exchange called Traffic Era. One of their team leaders wrote to me, asking if I was referring to their team and telling me he would report the blog because he is taking it personally.

This was my response

Hi

Why would I be referring to your team? I have not even said which Traffic Exchange I am referring to, it is a fairy tale.

Once upon a time I surfed in a team that was highly successful because we had a computer wizard who put our team URLs in his rotator and we had a huge referral pv, so we ruled the exchange. However, that was against the rules of that exchange and a couple of our team members got suspended and we had to promise never to do this again, which we did.

On that traffic exchange there is a rule against advertising someone else's referral url.

If your team are doing that, then of course the fairy tale could apply to your team, if they are not doing it then you have nothing to worry about. So I don't understand why you think I am referring to your team, surely you are not putting your referral URLs into a rotator?

Anyway, thanks for reading the blog

Louise

Truly strange when fiction becomes more real than fact. However, as they say in England, if the cap fits, wear it

The Irreverent Fridge Magnet

Good morning Gremlins, still not made it to number one last week despite your cheating :)) heheh

Someone sent me a fridge magnet, which I want to share with you because I like it. It is called

Sh*t Happens

Taoism
Sh*t happens

Buddhism
If sh*t happens, it isn't really sh*t

Hinduism
This sh*t has happened before

Islam
If sh*t happens it is the will of Allah

Catholicism
Sh*t happens because you deserve it

Protestantism
Let sh*t happen to somebody else

Judaism
Why does shit always happen to us?

My current attitude is 'maybe the sh*t could happen to the Gremlins this week'. Maybe, just maybe, the Sleeping Giant will wake up and realize what is happening. Then again, maybe he won't and we will all have to put up with their cheating sh*t for another week.

Jade dies

Nice to see that even with all their cheating, Gremlins still have not made it to the top of the tree.



The UK ex-patriate community today is talking mainly about the death of Jade Goody. There are mixed opinions about whether she was a 'good' or 'bad' thing. Some people are reviling her because she allegedly sold photos of her wedding, when she was clearly already dying, for a huge amount of money.

Jade originally acquired 'notoriety' after being a contestant on the Big Brother television show in the UK. She was known for being gobby and outspoken, arguing incessantly and not knowing very much about anything. Although she did not win the Big Brother contest, she gained instant fame and was invited on many tv programmes and had her own tv show for a while. She made good use of the fame that came with being on Big Brother, and is probably the one 'celebrity' I can name from that show (which I have never watched).

For other people Jade was a role model. She came from a working class family, admitted herself that she was rude and argumentative, but she 'did good'. She got her fame, made loads of money, spent some of it wisely, and was never out of the limelight after she appeared on Big Brother. She was accused of being a racist when she had a set-to with an Indian actress in another 'reality tv show' but ended up being friends with this actress,spent time in India, got involved in charity projects there and later said she was not racist, she would argue aggressively with anyone regardless of skin colour.

Whatever the 'truth' about Jade may be, she was endlessly fascinating and irritating (sometimes both, sometimes just one or the other) for a huge number of people. She received the diagnosis of cervical cancer whilst she was in India. After that time she was never out of the news. She said she was not scared of dying, and was again criticised for allowing the press to watch her every move. She married her boyfriend in a lavish ceremony, and sold the right for the photos for a huge sum of money. Again,she was criticised for that. She herself said she sold the rights so that her two sons (from a previous relationship) would not have to have the same poverty stricken miserable childhood that she had.

The good Jade did, she may have done unwittingly. As a consequence of her diagnosis of cervical cancer, the number of young women attending for cervical smears has increased dramatically in the UK. The other good thing is that donations to cancer charities have increased.

Jade became famous because of 'us'. We bought the magazines that contained her pictures, we watched her tv appearances, and we talked about her. Anything about Jade Goody would sell. She did not hate that, she used it, and that is clever. She may not have been academically bright, in fact, her general knowledge was appalling, but she was shrewd, and she has provided for her children. In the end Jade's fame says more about us than about her.

It seems a shame to have to die on this day though, since this is Mothering Sunday in UK, and she had said she hoped to be able to spend one last Mothering Sunday with her children. It was not to be.

So goodbye Jade, gobby, argumentative, aggressive, shrewd, mother, funny at times, irritating as hell at other times, maybe we should just say that you were an ordinary person who got thrown into the limelight by accident, and made good use of all the consequences of that.

New service offered by a friend of mine

I am having a break from surfing much this week, as I have friends from England staying and we have been visiting some of the local sites of beauty. Sad to see that the Gremlins are still cheating their way to the top (see previous entry).

On a more positive note however, my good friend John is now offering a free spell-checking service for those wanting to post blogs or websites. He and I have always had a good time whilst surfing together, observing some of the more obvious errors in websites and blogs. You can find his log here go visit it and submit your site to his professional scrutiny - do not forget, it is FREE.

One of the things that used to make me laugh most was a hover-surfing site that proudly proclaimed they now had No Click Manuel surfing. I had an immediate vision of an old British sit-com called 'Fawlty Towers' which featured a Spanish waiter called Manuel. Poor Manuel not only did not have to click, he was obviously having to surf 24 hours a day too :) Unfortunately, the traffic exchange that advertised this has now changed its advertising - thus depriving me of a little laugh.

Other things that made me laugh were that I could earn a 'substatial' income, this matrix was 'defently one to join' and how would I like to have an 'eye-earn cling-on'. Bring that last one on for the fans of StarTrek.

More obvious faults were things like 'what could be easier/better then' (than) and fed up of/from, when it should be fed up with.

There are many other examples. Some of them obvious, some not so clear. Some of them are just differences between UK English and US English, as in humour -v- humor, but that is just spelling relating to country differences.

I guess it would be better if things were written properly, but I have to admit that the sites that made me laugh are also the sites whose names I remember, therefore there might be something to be said for making the occasional spelling error in order to be memorable.

If you do not want to be memorable for that reason, and you are not sure about your spelling then I would heartily recommend you contact John on his link above.

I did and he has compeetly fetted this blog and fownd it to be fre of any mistakens.

The Cheating Gremlins at the Traffic Exchange

A Modern Day Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a team of surfers, let's call them the Gremlins. They surfed together on a traffic exchange and they were quite nice really. But one day they became greedy. They could not win enough points just doing things in an honest way, so they started to cheat. There was one Gremlin who had a lot of very expensive equipment in his laboratory - of which he was so proud that he even wrote about it to a member of another team and said

'My secret to getting good PV is by running a 64-bit system, and running 14 autosurfs 24/7 in Internet Explorer x64 - I max out my ref PV within 6 hours every day'

Well of course the other Gremlins wanted to do that too, so they asked him to help them with their ref pv, and since that meant that as a team they would win more points, he was only too happy to help his team mates. He even wrote to the Traffic Exchange and asked them if they would be able to spot such a scam, and they said they probably would not. He then advertised this on the Traffic Exchange, because he wanted everyone to know how clever he and his team were.

What the little Gremlins did not realise is that every other team on that Exchange knew exactly what the Gremlins were doing and that one day the sleeping Giant (which is the Support Team of that Exchange) would wake up and probably eat up all the little cheating Gremlins.

And a good time was had by all and they all lived happily ever after...

You have to FEEL it

Apparently, you can have what you want in this life, as long as you FEEL it. This applies not only on a personal level, but also on the level of groups of people all wanting the same thing, and actively feeling that whatever it is they wish has already happened. So says Gregg Braden, author of, amongst others, Fractal Time, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, The Science of Miracles and the Divine Matrix.

Braden is a scientist who has spent a large part of his life travelling and studying in remote mountain villages in different parts of the world, to look for other civilizations' 'timeless secrets'. His main thesis is that there is a direct correlation between our thoughts and 'events' in the world. This sounds a bit like Louise Hay and the film The Secret, about manifesting what it is you want. But Braden goes a step further. According to him you can carry on wanting all you like, and the Universe (or Divine Matrix) will allow you to carry on wanting. Almost as if it is saying 'how nice that you want that, you can continue wanting that'. Instead Braden says you have to act as if you already have what you want, feel the gratitude and happiness you would feel if you already had it and then give thanks.

He states that the heart is the strongest centre of electrical impulse in the body (not the brain) and that if therefore the 'feeling' in the heart is involved in the imagining of what it is you want, then the message to the Divine Matrix becomes much stronger, rather than when you just repeat affirmations in the brain.

I am not so sure that the physical heart really is the seat of emotion, and there are plenty of other criticisms that can be levelled at his theory, but I found it an interesting idea anyway, and one that maybe would be worth practising for a while.

A good introduction to his ideas can be found here

Hope you enjoy it, I found it thought provoking but remain to be convinced. O well, keep on practising I guess - what is that I see,... my new car parked outside the house ?