Living in the City

Here's an invitation to earn some extra cash from our blogger pal who is based in New York. I am in :-) Why Not? Here's the text of the INVITE: "I am very delighted to let you all know, that I’m running my first ever contest on my three blogs: My World , My Library and Juliana’s Lair . I will be celebrating my first anniversary in the world of blogging this coming July 19, 2008. I can’t believe it will be a year soon, and I have enjoyed this experience immensely. As my way of thanking my readers, my blogger friends and my constant visitors, I’ll be giving away cash prizes to contest participants with the highest accumulated points across all my three blogs . 1st place - $100.00 2nd place - $ 55.00 3rd place - $ 40.00 4th place - $ 30.00 5th place - $ 25.00 The contest starts today, as soon as this post is published and ends on July 19, 2008. Contest winners will be announced on July 23, 2008. Here’s how to earn points: 1. Comment on my blog posts . - Every comment is

In today’s almost recession-like living conditions, people are seldom able to escape a debt ridden lifestyle. It doesn’t help that oil prices have astoundingly gone up, everything is running into dizzying speeds - gas is skyrocketing, prescription drugs are up, cash is slow, interest rates are up. Time for debt management. I must admit that my own family’s financial struggles have been brought about by many unwise money decisions. We handled our finances recklessly. Fact is, our overindulgent use of credit resources have almost led us to bankruptcy. Our lessons were learned the hard way. We managed to stay afloat by employing certain lifestyle changes. First stop is reduce the use of credit. From three credit cards it was cut down to just one. Less temptation, less unprogrammed purchases. Remember, cards have credit limits. Less cards, less limits. We also learned to use online payment systems regularly so we save on transportation costs. Instead of going to the bank, we ha

The range of emotions that Leonardo as an actor can deliver is only limited by our imagination. My proof is that I have seen Blood Diamonds thrice and every time, Leonardo DiCaprio pushes me to the depths of my own unexpressed pain, taking me to that place in my soul where the ache reside, suddenly roused, begging for expression. This happens particularly in that scene where he was talking about his parents... And then the tears :-( The truth is at first I didn't like him very much. Perhaps, for lack of real opportunity to watch him closely through his films. I didn't even see Titanic, which proved to be a commercial success. But, I first saw him in Catch Me If You Can and then another fan was born. I recall watching This Boy's Life but I guess Robert De Niro's presence was too overpowering that he was barely noticed. Good thing, Leonardo is one of the best screen performers of our time. (aside from Johnny Depp, of course) :-) (Please do not include Robert De Nir

As my goal really is to increase viewership of my blog/s, I have been trying to explore blog communities which will help me exactly do just that. Just recently, I found BlogsRater. Membership is not required. I just submitted my blog. It didn't really take a long time for my blog to get approved. The thing is visitors must be encouraged to rate your blog.If you write a 50 word review for one of the other bloggers, your link will be listed in the Featured Blog box for 24* impressions. More reviews, more impressions and more traffic. That’s all there is to it. You also get a button that you can paste in your blog. I gotta try this and hope it works for my blog fine. I am sure it will:-) Cheers!

The following news release by Chad Currie speaks about the apparent role of the New Media in the U.S Presidential elections. "The Race for the New-Media Nomination As they grapple for votes, Clinton and Obama are also locked in a battle of the brands" Feb 28, 2008 "We are watching the first presidential election of the new-media age. Call it election 2.0, if you like. The Obama campaign's ability to delay -- and possibly derail -- Clinton 's coronation isn't just a political headline; it's a marketing story. Regardless of their political leanings, advertising pros must take notice of new media's influence on the outcome of this race. In 2006, blogging and online donations were the game changers. In 2008, we add YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Digg and the like. Obama's team has benefited more from new-media tactics than Clinton 's team. Naturally, we will wonder if the Obama campaign's fortune should be attributed to a superior new-me

There’s a strong possibility that a lot of retirees will die of starvation, and/or be homeless within the next 10 years. At the rate their grown-up children are sapping their intended retirement funds through loans, a lot of aging bag ladies will be visible in the streets in the near future. This phenomenon currently has a collective value of 67 billion pounds, roughly averaging at 12,610 pounds per grown up child - and growing even larger. Debt payments account for 42% of these loans and 29% for homeowner loans or property acquisition. These adults enjoy a lifestyle beyond their means, and they apparently have no compunction about driving their tired parents to mendicancy to support their whims. After caring for them through adulthood in back breaking grinds at work, they would be denied a well deserved restful retirement because of the immaturity and irresponsible nature of their children. And the loans may not even have a repayment clause, or at least a binding document. I

From MATHEW INGRAM's February 28, 2008's mingram@globeandmail.com Free plug for: Mathew Ingram Read his Bio If it wasn't already obvious that the stock market has a bad case of nerves, it became abundantly so this week when a Web-traffic report from comScore was released with some unflattering numbers, and investors obliterated more than $15-billion (U.S.) worth of Google's stock market value. The report suggested that the click-through rate on Google's text ads - the ones that show up when you type in a keyword at the Google site, and the ones that show up on other websites as well - was virtually unchanged in January compared with a year earlier, and was about 12-per-cent lower than the click-through rate in the immediately preceding quarter. For a company that has been growing at double-digit rates for the better part of four years, and has been assigned a premium stock market multiple as a result, that kind of news is enough to