With Blu-ray and HD-DVD already on the market, people are scrambling to find the best HDTVs on the market. Would you like a 19" Polaroid HDTV with a DVD player or would you prefer something else? Krillion.com is a huge help. They not only offer product specifications but they will also show you what prices stores in your area have. So if I happened to be looking at a 32" LCD HDTV with a DVD player and digital tuner as a Christmas present for my husband, I can see that three stores in my area are selling it for about $600. That's a lot easier than jumping in my car and driving around town to see who carries it and how much they want for it. I love making Christmas shopping as easy as possible!
Online Casino Reviews
I can't remember if I talked about this before. I don't think I did. I know a lot of people who play online poker. Often times, they have no idea whether an online casino is any good until they actually sign up and start playing there. In my opinion, this is a big waste of time and money. Why should you pay to play at a sucky casino? Pro360.com is a website that reviews online casinos. They use factors such as game experience, trust score and bonuses to help you choose the right casino for you. The best part is that they also accept user ratings. So if you disagree with their editor's opinion, you can enter your own rating. There is also a full review for you to read. You no longer have to rely on just a 1 to 10 rating score anymore. I really think that this is the best online casino review site. They cover everything you need to know before you pay a cent.
Not Just Mama!
Tina, who is a really awesome Australian stay-at-home mom, runs NotJustMama.net. With a husband and five kids running around, she has the typical "I'm more than just so-and-so's mom!" syndrome that I think all mothers go through. (I know I have!) So she started her blog to help her remember who she is. I wish her a lot of luck. Not just with finding herself but also taking care of five kids full time!
Holiday Shopping
The holiday season is quickly approaching. Black Friday, the semi-official kickoff to the Christmas buying season, is only 2 1/2 weeks away. Personally, I try to do all my shopping online. I hate stores and crowds and the whole shopping experience. I feel online shopping is the best thing ever invented. And online shopping coupons make it even better. Kohl's is one of my favorite stores. I buy a lot of my daughter's clothes there so, most likely, there will be a lot of Christmas presents bought there. I know my mother likes shopping there too. Maybe I'll get her a gift card.
EBGames is another big store for our family. Since my husband plays a ton of video games, that's probably where I will end up buying his Christmas present. Though his always have to wait until after the holiday season because he buys so many games on his own. I never know what to get him! Boys always have to make shopping so difficult.
NaBloPoMo For Me?
I'm sure a lot of you have heard of NaNoWriMo or the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. Since November tends to be a really busy month for me, I'm not able to even come close to accomplishing the task. However, I have come upon something that I can do in November. NaBloPoMo is the National Blog Posting Month. The goal is to write at least one blog post per month for November. Including Saturdays and Sundays. So I have taken the challenge. I hope that I can do this. One post per day isn't so bad, right?
Ashop Commerce
If you have an online business where you are selling products, you really need a good ecommerce software package. Your customers will find it easier to use your online store if you have a shopping cart on your site. Not only will it be easier to navigate your website but it will be easier for your customers to keep track of their purchases as well. I can't count the number of times I have clicked on a product more than once, forgetting that I already did. With some good shopping cart software, your customers will be able to re-read their list of purchases to make sure that they aren't buying something twice or that they accidentally clicked on the wrong item. There have been a lot of times that I have passed by an online store because they didn't have a shopping cart. It is inconvenient to have to fill out an order form to fax or email in before figuring how how the payment will be made. Ecommerce software would be the best way to make sure that your customers can easily purchase things from your online store.
This post is sponsored
Unlucky with iPods
A couple of years ago, I had a great iPod. Then it was stolen. My husband bought a new iPod and one day, it just stopped working. We took it into the Apple Store to be replaced but they would not replace it. There was a dent on the back of the case when we bought it, which we reported to the store. It turns out this dent was what caused the failure but no one had noted the dent in their customer service system so the skin we had on it was blamed for the dent. This past Christmas, my husband bought me a Shuffle. Recently, it has been flashing the green-and-orange light while not working. It turns out that this is a fairly common problem with Shuffle users. For now, turning it on and off a couple of times seems to fix it. I'm sure that it will stop working completely within the next week. Most likely I am going to have to go back to the Apple Store to try to get them to replace my less-than-one-year-old Shuffle. I find it a little ridiculous that it's suddenly having problems. My Shuffle hasn't been dropped a lot - maybe once or twice. When I am at work, it sits on my computer tower playing music. It travels in the cell phone pouch in my purse then it gets popped onto the charger as soon as I sit down at my desk at home. I really hope that the Apple Store will replace my Shuffle. Otherwise I will never buy another Apple product.
Amateur Voice Acting - A Geeky Hobby
I have a lot of really geeky hobbies. One of them is amateur voice acting. A lot of anime fans have a desire to lend their voices to their favorite characters. Maybe they think they can do a better job than the dub actor that was hired. Maybe they think they can get rich doing voice acting. Maybe they just like doing silly voices. For those of us that don't live near the major studios (basically New York, California, Texas and a few places in Canada), there is amateur voice acting. This is when a group of fans get together to put together a show using their voices. Sometimes the project is dubbing an animated series, though they aren't always anime shows. Sometimes the project is a radioplay where you don't have to worry about matching your voice something visual. No one gets paid for working on these type of projects and most people are just doing it for fun. However, some people use amateur voice acting as a springboard for paid voice acting. They will use clips from productions to put together a demo reel to send out to various companies.
So how does one get into amateur voice acting? First, make sure you have a good microphone and headphones. Producers, the people who are putting all of the pieces of the show together, don't like recordings with a lot of background noises, clicks or fuzziness. The headphones will help you listen to the original work while you record your piece of the puzzle.
Next, find an amateur voice acting community. I usually visit Voice Acting Alliance when I'm searching for roles. You'll find a wide variety of people and projects on their forums. From teens to adults and anime dubs to singing groups, this is one of the largest amateur voice acting communities today. I'm also a member of Dream Realm Enterprises. They have a very active Yahoo Group where they will list auditions for their new productions.
Finally, audition a lot. Find some projects that interest you and audition for as many characters as you can. Don't get upset if you don't get cast for your favorite character. Great casting can make a great production. Chances are there was someone else with that little extra something that made them perfect for the role. Keep your chin up and keep auditioning. You can only get better by working hard and practicing a lot. Most producers will give you feedback on your audition if you ask for it. If you think you nailed an audition but someone else was cast, ask the producer what he/she thought of your audition and really listen to what they have to say. They will most likely give you some tips that will help you be a better voice actor.
I suppose I should give you some links to productions that I have been in. Some of my early works are quite embarrassing. In my opinion, I was really bad when I was starting out but I'm pretty sure I've gotten better with time. The main acting project that I am currently working on is a radioplay based on the Batman: No Man's Land comics. I play Sarah Essen, Commissioner Gordon's wife. None of my past projects have websites of their own. I have uploaded a lot of the older productions on my Vox.com account.
Hopefully everyone that would like to do some voice acting will give amateur voice acting a try first. You'll quickly find that it is not an easy job and the professionals don't get paid nearly as much as everyone thinks they do. I find it to be a pretty fun hobby though. It's your chance to be a star in the comfort of your own bedroom.
Smorty
I have recently signed The Geek Within up for Smorty, a pay-to-blog service that connects advertisers with bloggers. For bloggers, blog advertising is pretty easy. You are presented with a list of advertising opportunities and you choose which ones you would like to talk about. For Smorty, the post needs to be at least 150 words long and contain one link to the sponsor's website. The URL and link text is provided by the sponsor so all you have to do is copy it into your post and while 150 words sounds like a tremendous amount, it's really not. This paragraph alone is over 100 words! Some people think blogging for money is dishonest. I've heard people say it is "selling out." Personally, I don't see the problem with receiving money to talk about something that might interest other people. I don't get paid for any of my entertainment reviews, whether they be jdoramas, music, movies or television shows. Companies get free advertising all the time. When a person has a good experience with a company, they are apt to recommend the company to their friends. It's called word of mouth. However, in the blogging world, those word of mouth posts don't go away once someone reads them. You can easily google a term and find a blog post from a couple years ago talking about it. So this form of advertising is a bit more permanent than just telling your friends about it. People from around the world will be able to read your words. I like to compare it to a billboard. Companies don't get to advertise to thousands of people via a billboard for free, so why should they be able to advertise to thousands of people on the internet for free?
This post is sponsored.
PayPerPost review
In order to make an extra bit of pocket cash, I've been using PayPerPost on my JDorama review blog. The idea behind PPP is that bloggers sign up and after their blog is approved, they get to choose from a list of advertisers what they want to post about. Each opportunity has different requirements and, as such, pays varying amounts. Once you write your post, you submit it to PPP for approval. After the post is approved, you wait 30 days and payment is sent via PayPal. In the beginning, I thought this was a really awesome service. I could make some (fairly) quick and easy money while blogging. However, after about a month, the opportunities began to dry up. Instead of $10 or $20 opportunities, all that is available nowadays are $5 opportunities asking you to blog about a educational tutoring service. Granted, I've made about $150 in the short time I've been using PPP but it doesn't seem that I'm going to be making much more than that.
If you're looking to make a little bit of money off your blog and you don't mind waiting the 30 days for payment, PPP would be worth a shot. I'm really hoping that things pick up for them and a bigger variety of opportunities become available for bloggers. Otherwise, this service is pretty useless.