Friday, January 16, 2015

I could Always do More: the 50 Tricks edition

I love to learn more ways to save money, and while I was trawling the web looking for things to learn I found a great article on plash about frugality. The article is titled "50 nifty DIY tricks that save you $50-$500 ", and while it seems clear that most of the measures are directed towards homowners with lots of appliances and likely $2,500-$25,000 of waste in their budgets already, I'm still hopeful that I could potentially use at least some of them.

In pursuance of this goal, I'm going to start trying out the methods on and off, and seeing what happens.

Who knows, I might save myself an extra $2,500, but I'd be happy if I could save an extra $50.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Update on some Writing Sites

As I mentioned about a week ago (http://www.bubblews.com/news/9723786-signing-up-for-some-writing-sites), I signed up for a number of writing sites and I've been building up work there.

I managed to get to the point where 5 of my Hubpages Hubs were featured Hubs, and that means that I'm on the map for search engines.

I have active accounts on seekyt and wizzley with a couple of live articles each, and I still have a lot more that I want to write and adapt from my bubbling with the rest of my week off.

I haven't made progress on Zazzle, but I managed to figure out the processes of registration with Viglink, Chitika, and Amazon for the newer sites.

Hopefully this will turn out to be a good decision for me.

As of yet I haven't made any money on them, and they've consumed a lot of time.

Initially posted to bubblews at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9757880-update-on-writing-sites

Charity isn't always given freely

I don't know about you but I've been in the situation where I was forced to donate to a charity, can not really one of my choosing.
I think that it's somewhat disingenuous for a charitable organization to compel donations from people, especially people that would otherwise be supporting their activities.
I'm also not a fan of aggressive solicitation for donation to charities.

I would like to think that a good charity would draw money because it is good not because it's popular, but this is of course naive.

This post was initially posted at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9755986-charity-isn039t-always-given-freely

King of Anything, King of Nothing

There has been a pretty popular song going around the artsy fartsy circles of the past few years called King of Anything.

I first heard it in a Japanese cantina in New Orleans, played by a young lady on an acoustic guitar, but it is a commercial song and I assume that there are a number of CDs available.

I think that the song has a lot of messages, most importantly that despite our conceptions of what we have, our power or lack thereof, our influence on others or even on ourselves, we only have, at the end of the day, what we can rely on.

In many cases, that is nothing.

Originally posted on Bubblews at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9758572-king-of-anything-king-of-nothing

Something just Clicks

Every once in your while, going through life at maximum speed, you just find your center.

Something in your mind, maybe a little switch too small or slender to see gets clicked on or off, and your energy is so much more productive.

You start to feel more efficient, more effective, like the chemistry that works to make you run just got an extra catalyst and you're in overdrive.

Everything you do seems just right, even if it isn't, and you think things are totally going your way.

That is a good day, or time of day.

Too bad that they don't last forever.

Even though you can click on, you can switch back off too.

Are you in the zone, or in a cool-down right now?

Originally posted here: http://www.bubblews.com/news/9758585-something-just-clicks

Should There Be A Best Of Bubblews?


I think that it would be great if there were a "Best of Bubblews" section, where people who had never visited before could go to check out the best and most interesting or amusing or useful posts from the past.
I don't even know if my work would qualify for it, but I would love to see a top 100 list of all the very best Bubblews posts since the site began.

I don't know if we would organize it based on interest or likes or views, or the number of comments, but there could be a great potential for cool content and an understanding of the people on the site through a feature like that.

Just a thought, late at night, from a person who spent a lot of time here this year.

Originally posted on Bubblews at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9758559-should-there-be-a-best-of-bubblews

My Menu


For our potluck every person attending is supposed to bring whatever they want to bring.

But I have done a lot of preparation ahead of time, so here are the dishes that I cooked so that we could be ready for the party.

I made glazed carrots with mashed potatoes, oven roasted turkey basted in its own juices and butter with stuffing, hummus and pita bread, both of which were homemade, and a big pot of rice.

My musical roommate seems to have tapped into his Trust fund.

He ordered a dozen pizzas from the local store.

My last roomie made so many cookies!
I hope that lots of people come by.