Blacksheep Speaks

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I’m sure that by now you have heard all about how, in February, by government decree analog television is going away and we all HAVE to switch to some kind of digital receiver or we are SOL. Trust the government to make things as irritating as possible. Well, in preparation for this, the family got together last Christmas and bought my mother a brand new, up to the minute HDTV setup. Problem is, we live ninety miles from the nearest television station, and even with boosters and all that happy crappy, about half the time we get a black screen with the words “digital strength too low”. Now, if they are going to FORCE this they should at LEAST make the stations send signals strong enough to get to their entire viewing audience. At least with the analog, we could hear it, even if the picture wasn’t clear all the time. Now, with all this great new state of the art technology, we get nothing. It’s ridiculous.

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Back when I was first getting started in the working world, as a way to work my way through college, I tested for and got my certification as a CNA in my state. It came in handy through the years when jobs in my field were hard to come by, and now I am wondering if I shouldn’t go ahead and get some further training. See, I found this place online that offers a Master of Science in Nursing. This isn’t one of those online buy-a-degree places either. You already have to have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college to be accepted into their program. There’s actual hands on training as well, making it not just an average online MS nursing course. From the look of it, this place really prepares you for working in the field. I can tell you from the perspective of one who has actually worked in the health care industry that what they are offering is a great way to go, and a viable alternative to conventional campus schooling. I think I might just give it a try.

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So, you have an online business, or you have one you want to take online. One of the VERY first things you are going to have to come up with is a good domain name. And what IS a good name? What makes it good? Well, that’s a great question. Ask a dozen people, get a dozen answers. Very seriously, the SAME domain name can be appraised by ten different appraisers and get values ranging from fifty dollars to several thousand dollars. So, what IS a good one? Well, here are some pointers:

ALWAYS get a relatively short, CORRECTLY spelled, no hyphen dot com. But what if the dot com is taken, but the dot us, dot net, or dot org is available? My advice is to choose another name. Why? Because it’s a universal fact that most people automatically TYPE .com, even when they mean the others. So, to own a business on anything BUT a dot com means you are simply sending more business TO the owner of the dot com, and that’s business YOU won’t get back.

But all the GOOD domain names are taken… now what? Well, you can always buy one on the aftermarket. There are a LOT of good names out there. And the fact is, that when you find the one that is right for you, it isn’t going to matter if they want fifty bucks for it or a thousand, it will be what your business needs. If you are in a highly competitive market, say, clothing, cars, or diet pills, you need an especially memorable name anyway. Aftermarkets are about the only place to look.

In the end, the only thing that REALLY matters is that it’s easy to remember and spell, that it either describes your business or at least the name of the business, and that YOU like it. You are going to be advertising it anyway. Make it MEMORABLE and your ads will stand out. Hey, I can ALWAYS find good, relevant names. If I can do it, so can you!

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One thing about the holiday season that I love is my ability to absolutely MORTIFY my children. It’s a gift. And now that my oldest two each have males in their lives, it gets even better. With Thanksgiving coming up, at least one of my “babies” will be home for the holiday… and I DO so love pulling out the old video tapes of when they were toddlers! There is even one very memorable shot of a two year old angel shaking her bare bottom at the camera in time to “Funky Town”. As I recall, the shot was a total accident. This particular baby had a habit of disrobing with no notice, and had done so seconds before running in front of the shot we were TRYING to get of her sister playing with something. Of course, playing this tape drives her absolutely out of her mind NOW. I wonder what her new boyfriend is going to think of it? (innocent blink)

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Kids. You gotta love em. Even when you want to strangle them. As a parent… you get awfully used to your teens smiling and nodding as you talk, giving you a verbal pat on the head, and then going forth to screw up their lives doing exactly what you warned them not to do. And when you are talking to a kid who doesn’t just THINK she’s smarter than you but has the IQ scores to prove it, it gets even worse. How do you explain to a teen that even if they DID top the state on test scores, they don’t know diddley about REAL life? And… when the subject you are disagreeing about is a boy…. yeesh. You just pray that the next call you get is not from some vegas hotel where they are honeymooning on the last of their scholarship stipend. (mutter) I need to give up parenting and start taming alligators. It’s MUCH less stressful.

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Christmas season is about to attack again. Actually, I love Christmas. There is only one part of it I don’t like. While I absolutely adore buying gifts for others, when the same people I am buying for want to know what they should get ME, I am at a complete loss. I already have pretty much everything I want. Anything I might name would be too much to ask of anyone. So, as usual, I wind up looking at them with a sickly smile on my face and shrugging my shoulders. This leads to a rather interesting turn on Christmas day. My husband and I have a running bet about how many popcorn machines I could possibly end up with. There are three on my closet shelf already… we don’t eat popcorn. Ah, well. It is definitely always… an experience.

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…and my husband isn’t even jealous.

In all honesty, healthy cooking hasn’t been a big priority around here. We eat country food and we like flavor, and we never gave a lot of thought to what might be wrong with it. But things do change in the strangest of ways, don’t they… and with this change, my family is living a much healthier lifestyle.

You see, a while back, I was given the chance to test a George Foreman grill, and then come on here and talk to you about it. I figured, what the heck, why not. I figured it couldn’t be TOO bad! But then, when the grill arrived and we started actually USING it, I couldn’t believe how much it improved things, even for us country folks with our country appetites. Now, we even use it to braise our stew meat before tossing it in the pot (though that probably wasn’t one of the uses the company had in mind!) and I have no idea how we made it without one until now. In our house, healthy living has taken on a whole new meaning! I am even planning to see that my college daughter has one of these. A different one, of course… I am not about to give up mine!

My family and I, in appreciation for this great opportunity, put together the following video in honor of the folks at www.georgeforemancooking.com who gave us this chance. The video tells a fictional story, and we hope you like it. Just remember, there is absolutely nothing fictional about the health benefits of using this great product… not to mention the way it improves the flavor of the food when it’s cooked this way!

Please, if you enjoy the video, go ahead and click through the links and see what the company has to offer. You won’t be sorry… this is GREAT!

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I don’t expect a single politician out there to agree with me on this, but our entire political system could use a complete overhaul. We are supposed to be a Democracy, after all.

The Electoral College is outdated, unneeded and unfair. It causes a lot of folks to vote… and the votes mean nothing. Don’t believe me? Check it out… if you vote for a Republican, and so does forty percent of the rest of your state…. but sixty percent vote Democrat, then ALL the electoral votes cast in your state are Democrat, thereby nullifying the votes of the minority. There have been cases where a president that actually won the popular vote lost the election because of this. The POPULAR VOTE is what reflects the wish of the people, yet it is routinely ignored.

We also need to abolish the party system in this country. Make the candidates stand on their own and you find out what they are made of. We also wouldn’t have all the political infighting in the congress and senate.

Just a couple thoughts.

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For anyone who has ever tried to buy a gift for someone and keep it secret, this contest is a no brainer! Entry is FREE, and there are $1500 MONTHLY prizes, with a GRAND PRIZE of $15,000! Yes, you read that right. And who couldn’t use an extra fifteen grand? If you are into online shopping this will be super easy. You can enter in two ways. Either you can make a video telling about your secret purchase and what the result was, OR you can simply write it out in text, fill out the entry form, and submit. That is ALL there is to it! The video below explains it in MUCH greater detail, so watch the video, click the link, and enter the contest! Just one thing… on the entry form, where it asks who referred you… PLEASE remember to fill it in with my URL, BLACKSHEEPSPEAKS.COM. The more folks tell them I sent them, the more CONTESTS like this one I can bring you!

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Hey, just out of curiosity, have you guys seen that television commercial where the guy is sitting in a psychiatrist’s office talking about a dream he had… and the psychiatrist starts explaining everything in Russian? The commercial is for a stockbroker/investment company. I wonder if they really thought about what they were doing when they put forth this commercialized passport to insanity. Think about it… they are comparing the talk of investment counsellors to Russian… meaning, even though it’s in English they think you can’t understand it. THEY, on the other hand, claim to speak in a way you will understand. What does that REALLY say? “Come to US! We are as dumb as we think YOU are!”

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