You know what I want?

To be a white corporate executive. You can sink a company, throw jobs out of the US, get a government bailout, get prices of trucks to all time lows, sell a bunch more trucks, and then reap million dollar rewards. I get the idea of incentive, that we need to pay the best and brightest, but frankly the 'market' is now out of hand. The disparity in earnings between white board member of GM makes 100x more than single mom in the projects. And no, I do'nt support lowering taxes for the highest 1% of AMericans, that's just dumb......and no, it's not the American Dream to have 2% of the population filthy rich while the rest of us scrap by.. But I ain't bitter. Check out this insane bonus for GM board members. So swanky.... *sarcasm alert* i'm so thrilled my tax dollars save this company; now off to my yacht for a much deserved vacation! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110211/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gm_bonuses

How To Draw and Paint Info: Beginning 2

"I would like to learn how to draw, but I don't think I can draw." Don't even worry about it!!! If you can write you can draw. It's really easy. The way to begin drawing is to give yourself permission to throw your drawing away if you don't like it, and you can always try again. This takes the pressure off and lets you experiment and find your style of drawing.

In the beginning, I took my time and learned how to draw. I concentrated on drawing each part of the face: the eyes, the nose, then the mouth, etc. This way I was not overwhelmed by the huge task of drawing a whole face. I always started with the eyes, it just seemed to make the drawing come to life. When I finished, and looked at the drawing as a finished piece of art, I was amazed how the whole face came together and I was immediately hooked on art!

Find your style and method of drawing. Even if you have a great education and read lots of books, you will still need to find your unique style. So relax, have fun, and begin an artistic journey that is sure to bring hours, days, and years of fulfillment and happiness.

Basic How To Draw and Paint Info: Beginning 1

When I first started drawing and painting, I was desperate for any information that I could find. Since I am a self-taught artist, I thought I would share my information here on my blog, you never know, it just might inspire and encourage someone to develop their artistic gifts.

When I first started, I wanted to start painting and create my masterpiece immediately. But, I did some research in art books that stressed drawing, drawing, drawing. So I focused in on drawing and it is the best thing I have ever done to date, that has helped my art. Even today, I always go through a process of drawing before I even think about painting.

As I progress, I will explain the steps in drawing and the quicker way for those who do not want to take the time to draw.

To begin: Why not start with a portrait of a child, nothing could be simpler. Whether you want to be a serious artist or you just want another hobby, all you need is a paper and pencil. If you want to get the feel of being an artist right away, you can always purchase art paper such as newsprint or art drawing paper and artist's pencil.

Today's assignment: Find a picture of a little loved one, your child, niece, nephew, sister, etc.

Simply draw the outline of the face, hair and neck on your sheet of paper.

If you think it will be hard to draw the picture simply by observing it, then you can always use tracing paper.

1. Simply lay the tracing paper over the photo, and trace the face, hair and neck (we'll call this the first side).

2. Then turn the paper over and draw the lines of the traced image on the back of the paper. (This is the second side).

3. Now lay the tracing paper (first side up) over your art paper (second side -or back- should be touching the art paper) and draw over your original tracing lines. The lines on the back of your tracing paper will be transferred onto your art paper.

For a more easier tracing method, you can always purchase graphite paper for tracing your image. This method is okay, but occasionally the graphite from the back of the paper will smudge on the art paper and you will find yourself erasing a lot of unnecessary graphite that might affect the way your pastels, colored pencils, or paint goes on your paper or canvas.

Update on bloggin for bloggers

What's the best way to get the most users to your blog? Well before you could do certain things to get more eyes to your page. Ping news networks, ping social media networks, etc. There are a few tried and tested measures specifically devoted for blogger.com authors. HEre are some tips to help you get the most visitors for your writing buck.

1. Write well, write coherently, but most of all, write something that's interesting! The crucial element to any blogging success is providing routine interesting content to your users. That routine element will also ensure users return to participate in your forum. Eventually you'll build up enough trust and you'll find yousrelf with a nice contingent of followers to leverage.

2. Create categories may help organize yourb log, but it doesn't help the spiders (how Google finds your new pages and brings that info back to their 'home') since some content technically looks duplicated. Again, in this case be concise and don't use 12 categories for each post.

3. when you get links try to use something relevant about what you're doing (name, brand, product, service, etc.) Links are the number item that help you rank higher in the search engines.

4. do'nt be afraid to link to your friends, especially those with great content.

5. use your social media tools. No more social media bookmarking, but social media tools like facebook and twitter are a must have on every blog. You have to communicate in the way your visitors communicate, and that would be through social media these days.

So those are some basic elements to help you in your blogging endeavors. Oh yea, be sure to always use rich titles to your posts. Not only do catchy titles make or break the popularity of an article, it makes it easier to find if someone is searching for something relevant to your post.




Thanks to our friends at Distinct SEO for some help with learning the basics of web marketing.

Create Categories For Blogger.com

Well, I am still new to this, but I have been wanting a category section for blogger.com for a long time. Finally, today, just in time, I googled "create categories for Blogger.com" and learned that del.icio.us now makes it possible for users of blogger.com to have categories - and it's so much easier than the other previous suggestions.

Here's what I did, maybe it will work for you too. I already had a del.icio.us account, but if you do not, just sign up for an account at http://del.icio.us . It's easy. Remember to add the "my del.icio.us and "post to del.icio.us" links to your favorites or link section (near your address bar).

First, you might want to decide what the names of your categories should be.

Now, simply go to your blog, click on your "post to del.icio.us" link and add your blog to your del.icio.us account, add all your category names as "tags".

Go to your del.icio.us account, click "help", click "Tag Rolls", now simply choose how you want your categories displayed in your blog and copy and paste the code in your template. You're done!

I haven't figured out a better way to do this yet, but I simply click on the page of my post, add it to my del.icio.us account with the proper "tag" and it is automatically categorized.

Del.icio.us, evidently, also pings your post for you because I went to use ping-o-matic and my post had already been pinged.

I'm still experimenting with it, but it's a great addition to my blog.

So that's it. Now blogger.com bloggers can blog with the best of 'em!