I went to the Roller Derby this weekend…It was the Rose City Rollers Championship (http://rosecityrollers.com/index.php) and the Break Neck Betties won 1st place….It was one of the best events I have ever been to…The crowd was a wide range of spirited Portlanders, the energy was high, the participants were competetive, playful and giving 100% effort….I highly recommend anyone and everyone hopping on the max to the expo center to catch their bouts next season! Enjoy the sunshine!
Entries from October 2007
Roller Derby weekend
October 22, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Common search words
October 17, 2007 · 1 Comment
BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world’s most frequent searchers for Web sites using the keyword “sex” on Google search engines, according to statistics provided by Google Inc.
Germany, Mexico and Austria were world’s top three searchers of the word “Hitler” while “Nazi” scored the most hits in Chile, Australia and the United Kingdom, data from 2004 to the present retrievable on the “Google Trends” Web site showed.
Chile also came in first place searching for the word “gay”, followed by Mexico and Colombia.
The top searchers for other keywords were as follows (in order from first to third place):
“Jihad” – Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan
“Terrorism” – Pakistan, Philippines, Australia
“Hangover” – Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
“Burrito” – United States, Argentina, Canada
“Iraq” – United States, Australia, Canada
“Taliban” – Pakistan, Australia, Canada
“Tom Cruise” – Canada, United States, Australia
“Britney Spears” – Mexico, Venezuela, Canada
“Homosexual” – Philippines, Chile, Venezuela
“Love” – Philippines, Australia, United States
“Botox” – Australia, United States, United Kingdom
“Viagra” – Italy, United Kingdom, Germany
“David Beckham” – Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico
“Kate Moss” – Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden
“Dolly Buster” – Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia
“Car bomb” – Australia, United States, Canada
“Marijuana” – Canada, United States, Australia
“IAEA” – Austria, Pakistan, Iran
Categories: Uncategorized
October 15, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Hello again Sam
It’s time for Part II of the ‘mini-course’ on the “7 Keys
to Free Unlimited Traffic!”
I hope you have been thinking about how to use the keys
that were presented in the first installment. And now, let’s
move on to the next step…
=============================================
Key #3:
Writing Articles
=============================================
Writing articles is one of the easiest ways to
get traffic and bring in a substantial number of
targeted customers to your site.
You see what happens is thousands of webmaster go to sites
like goarticle.com and articleally.com, to find content to
put on their site/newsletters. They will go to these site,
copy the content put your resource box and then integrate
into their website/newsletter
Every webmaster who reprints your article has to
include your resource box, which should include a
link pointing to your site. This will give traffic and
increase your search engine ranking by getting tons of
one ways links.
The key is to submit too as many of these site as
possible. In my future newsletters I will send you
a list of sites so you find and submit them easily.
=====================================================
Key #4:
Banner Exchanges
=====================================================
I have some websites that I do banner exchanges and it
has proven to be successful way to get free traffic.
Banner exchanges are a little different than link
exchanges.
In link exchanges the links are more
permanent and are constantly there, whereas in banner
exchanges the banners are constantly changing.
Banner exchanges can be very effective at drawing
quality leads to your website. Some banner exchanges
offer a 2 to 1 ratio, so if you display someone else banner
once on your site they will display your banner twice on
another site. Some banners exchanges do offer a 1
to 1 ratio as well.
One point to note is if you are going to do banner advertising
you need to be selective in the banners you decide
to display. You need to make the banners catchy to get
people to click on them but not so much so that it might turn
off potential buyers. You might want to try click4click.com
if you’re interested in doing banner exchanges.
=====================================================
Key #5:
Directory Submissions
=====================================================
Did you know there are many directories that are waiting
for you to submit your site to them. You can create hundreds
of one way links simply by going to these directories.
These are just a few of the sites.
www.allthebizz.com
www.add-link.info
www.01webdirectory.com
www.abizdirectory.com
In a future newsletter I will send you a list of directories
to post, so you can save time and other help hints to save
you money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEXT — On 10/14/2007 You’ll receive ‘Part III’
(the final part) of this ‘mini-course’, by on direct mail.
Find out:
Key #6 – Paid To Read
Key #7 – Traffic Exchanges
See you then,
Sam Barns
Categories: Uncategorized
criterion full of options
October 8, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Fiction is made up
Posted by Crystal at 4:25 am in Main page Edit
What is a story? A story is not any one thing done any one way. We might say a story is something that happens in time that matters to someone. Vague? Yes. Rather, think of it as a criterion full of options. Any effort to define a story more precisely invariably results in too many exceptions to be of practical use. You do know the difference between fiction and non-fiction, right? Fiction is made up, to varying degrees, and is about imaginary events and people. Nonfiction is not made up: not-fiction. Nonfiction is prose based on real events, real people, and facts. Stories can be fiction or non-fiction. In this class, we’re going to focus on studying and writing fictional stories.
Categories: Uncategorized
Article I wrote for class, “The Casual Carpool” by Katherine Bell
October 5, 2007 · Leave a Comment
“The Casual Carpool” by Katherine Bell
Most of Kurt Vonnegut’s list of creative writing rules apply particularly well to the “The Casual Carpool” by Katherine Bell. It is a well crafted and thoughtful story that starts out with action. We are immediately given a tense, life or death situation, and someone to root for whose true place in our story is almost at the end. (Rule 1) When we are introduced to “the jumper” he is already in a tenuous position, all that remains to his story is the rescue attempt. Within a few sentences we already know what he wants, rescue, and we know he’s in pain. This story within a story is used to set the stage for another scene far below him. Although he is revisited at the end of the story, the jumper’s tale serves to give that element where people already have enough information to know he will be alright, It’s only a matter of when and how. So, the jumper’s story is effectively dismissed before it even begins, if cockroaches ate that part of the story anyone could predict what would happen. We know the jumpers conflict is over because mid-way we are reminded that even if he let’s go the wouldn’t fall. There is no more tension or conflict in that section of the story.
I got the impression that Katherine Bell was writing her character Hannah with one specific person in mind. (Rule 
In “The Casual Carpool” Hannah seems to have the most depth and I felt as if the story was written around her. A story based in San Francisco with a main character who is a lesbian in a committed relationship trying to have a child. Without knowing or researching Katherine Bell, I felt as if she was able to write this character because she personally knew or had witnessed the emotions behind Hannah’s inner conflict. Hannah isn’t a sweet and innocent character. (Rule 6) She’s a person who has compromised her principals for a relationship and perhaps regrets the decision. Her every day commute is a testament to this, “something she said she would never do” (293) and she regrets being callous to the people around her to the point where she can’t speak out about an obvious atrocity because it breaks the code of the carpool. That particular episode illustrates again how Hannah is fraught with tension about everyday things, yet when she has the opportunity to do the right thing she doesn’t take it. Her chance to make peace with someone she loves is trumped by running late and taking the one piece of mail that should be a mutual shared and positive emotional experience in their relationship. We are introduced to her as an overbearing person, arguing with her significant other over “buying the wrong kind of coffee” (294) and hitting the snooze button “one more time than (she) could tolerate”.
Then we learn at how uncomfortable Hannah is overall and her coping mechanism is a typical left-brain callous response using computer language to mask and smother her emotion.
Hannah also wants something, a child, which is explored through the other characters. Even a tertiary character like the police officer who brings Julia back to the car towards the end of the story (308), is used as a reminder of the unpredictability of children and the conflict that decision will bring to Hannah’s life in the future. Hannah says “so you lied” to Julia even after supporting the lie to the police officer herself. It’s almost a self assessment, a test of her own parenting ability which she fails. Only Jim, an actual parent who causes conflict by reading Hannah’s papers and interjecting his adoption experience, immediately tells the truth with the sense of responsibility that a true parent has to develop.
The depth of this story means that Kurt Vonnegut’s list of creative writing rules will also apply to several other characters, but I still think Hannah is the one with the most depth and true definition.
Before I submitted this assignment, I did a search for Katherine Bell and discovered that Katherine Bell writes occasionally for the Huffington Post.
Here’s an interesting follow up article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-bell/altering-the-tradition-of_b_53697.html
Categories: Uncategorized
Who Do I Have to Kill to Sell My Book?
October 1, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Who Do I Have to Kill to Sell My Book?
Posted September 29, 2007 | 03:49 PM (EST)
Read More: If I Did It, O.J. Simpson, Breaking Entertainment News
Along with what seems like 10,000 other titles, my first book, Money for Nothing: One Man’s Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions came out last Tuesday. I’m in the new release section with major authors and public figures such as Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Jeffrey Toobin, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, David Halberstam, Laura Ingraham, Mother Teresa, and Khaled Hosseini. These people sell books by their name alone (and rightfully so). My dad’s not even sure who I am. Tough competition in book land….
In that no one other than my mom’s bridge group has ever heard of me, you can imagine that none of the afore mentioned authors is sitting around their publisher’s office biting their nails over my lottery memoir. These folks are real machers: novelists, a president, an economist, even a saint. All I ever did was cut deals with lottery winners and live to tell a few funny stories. I wasn’t exactly leading the free world or saving babies in Calcutta. Fine.
Still, there’s one book selling like hot cakes which just kills me (sorry). OJ Simpson’s If I Did It. OJ Simpson’s book just passed President Clinton’s Giving on the New York Times Bestseller list. That gives me the willies. And, with all the chaos surrounding the book’s author, ghost writer, publisher, new publisher, ownership etc., I don’t even know if I’m rooting for the book to sell so the Goldman family can get a few bucks or hoping it doesn’t sell, so I can keep some modicum of faith in the intellect and taste of the nation which I call home. The entire thing is confusing at best.
I’m a realist about the publishing industry. Publishing is a sales game, nothing else. Publishing is about selling books, not disseminating literary masterpieces to the world. I’m fine with that. Most everything is about selling in one way or another.
I don’t blame the publishing world for the success of the OJ book. I blame the tens of thousands of people that saw fit to lay down $24.95 for the chance to know more about a subject we all should have overdosed on a decade ago. Don’t you folks have TV’s? Isn’t Entertainment Tonight on this week?
OJ’s book, or the Goldman family’s book…whoever’s taking credit/blame for it these days, is out selling virtually every other book on the market. What’s it say about the state of publishing? It bodes ill. What’s it say about us as a culture, our pop-culture, the collective zeitgeist of our population? Bad, bad things. Even if the book is beautifully written (which I simply cannot imagine), who cares? If the book is full of all the blood, guts, and gore that you lunched upon during the Simpson trial…too bad. Wasn’t enough enough back then?
I’m all for rubber necking. I get it. There was something interesting about the whole OJ scene. Fine. But, don’t we all get our OJ fix from the insane amount of hours that the TV shows still devote to the subject? Now, OJ has actually taken over or literary world too? Can’t something be done to stop it? (Perhaps anyone who’s bold enough to wait in line at Barnes and Noble with If I Did It in their hands should be either branded or tarred and feathered at the counter? Thoughts? Who’s with me?) I’d feel less embarrassed sitting on a plane reading the latest issue of Barely Legal than I would this book. And, come to think of it, if you did buy it, wouldn’t you feel inclined to hide it in the same drawer as your porn? It’s not exactly what you’d have featured on your coffee table, is it?
I’m no book snob (I haven’t the pedigree). I’m not even a TV snob. I love bad pop-culture. I even like bad TV. I just finished religiously watching yet another season of Big Brother on CBS, okay? In other words, I’m no genius. I read a lot, but I’ve barely gotten through half of the Western canon. (Okay, a quarter of it.) I’m a lot more CBS than PBS. But, even a putz like me has his limits.
Maybe I’m just missing the point on this one. Maybe everyone’s buying OJ’s book just to stick it to him. (Please feel free to stick it to me in the same way.) Maybe the country is reaching out to the Goldman and Brown families. Perhaps every purchase of If I Did It is the pop-culture equivalent of donating to a good cause. Somehow I doubt it.
If you want to stick it to OJ, try eliminating him from the national dialogue. He’s least offensive when there’s no one interested. And, if you must read some page turning crap this fall, read my book. I’ve never harmed a hair on my wife’s head. I’m too afraid of my wife to mess with her.
P.T Barnum said, “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People.” Somewhere in the dark underbelly of Manhattan’s publishing world, there’s a very happy man, nodding along in full agreement as he start the presses on If I Did It’s second printing.
We are a nation of yo-yo’s.
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Comments (12)
0 comments pending
Bill C (See profile | I’m a fan of Bill C)
Actually, Mencken said “You can never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
The Barnum quote is correct.
realitytrumpsbull (See profile | I’m a fan of realitytrumpsbull)
Here’s the punch line for this: The House Always Wins….
WTFbush (See profile | I’m a fan of WTFbush)
You, Sir, are right on the money!
Azjhutch (See profile | I’m a fan of Azjhutch)
Right: Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
realitytrumpsbull (See profile | I’m a fan of realitytrumpsbull)
Just from the title, your book sounds like it’s got fins on it and falling down through the
night sky over WWII Germany…
anastasiabeaverhousen (See profile | I’m a fan of anastasiabeaverhousen)
I think people are buying the book to support the Goldman’s and then tossing it in the trash. I know I’ve thought about it.
pros54 (See profile | I’m a fan of pros54)
“It’s the culture, stupid”. Supreme court justice Thomas understands it. See he knows the right place to promote his book – on Rush Limburghs(or however he spells his name) show” – cause that is where the literate Americans are (you know as 100?5 of his listerners believe Saddam Hussein financed and led the atacks of 9/11). “Don’t underestimate the intelligence of Americans.”
AlwaysAmused (See profile | I’m a fan of AlwaysAmused)
30% of The general American populace belives 9/11 was an “inside job”, By that metric his listners are about 6 times smarter than the avergae american.
zaneblue (See profile | I’m a fan of zaneblue)
I’m seeing red about that one too! I have a new book out, The Orgasmic Diet. You’d think a book that basically contains the secret to female Viagra would outsell OJ. But that’s not sensationalistic enough, I guess.
Wanna rob a bank together? 
Qbear (See profile | I’m a fan of Qbear)
Just a suggestion, have a young wizard from Hogwarts play the lottery in your next book…it couldn’t hurt.
Thorn (See profile | I’m a fan of Thorn)
Actually, it was Mencken who said that. Not Barnum.
Colmore (See profile | I’m a fan of Colmore)
Contact Jenna Bush, she had no trouble finding a publisher. In fact, her SECOND book will soon be in print!!! She just has to be – like – a GREAT author. Wow, I am so impressed.
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