Resveratrol Scammers

There’s a wonderful new scam on the net.  Companies offer a free sample of a resveratrol supplement.  Buried in the terms and conditions on another page from the order page, there is fine print that states you will be billed every month for shipments of their product.  The price of this stuff is like $90 for 30 tablets, which is ridiculous.  They get your order and then if you happen to read the terms and want to cancel, they tell you you have to wait 24 hours, meanwhile your order ships and they have you on the books for a recurrent charge on your card.

These people are very tricky.  Last year Barbara Walters did an interview with some doctor making claims for this substance.  The sites selling this stuff took her picture and created a phony news site, complete with call letters and a fake testimonial about how all you have to do to get a supply of this stuff is just hook up with three different companies pulling this scam and get free samples.  They totally wrote fake news about how you can get a free years supply just for signing up.  What they don’t tell you is that you are signing up for three recurrent billings of $90.

Why are there so many scammers on the net?  It must be the national sport to try to rip off the elderly or something.  Maybe someday there will be some enforcement on the net to shut down these bastards who pull these scams on unsuspecting people.  In any case, if somebody offers you something for free, don’t believe them.  Free samples are one of the oldest scams in the world.  In this case, there are a lot of places playing this game.  Always read the terms and conditions before you give anyone a credit card number.  Better yet, don’t believe everything you read on the net.

Waiting for Coffee

It’s not a very busy Sunday morning.  I am just waiting for a pot of coffee to brew.  This is my wonderful blog entry for today.  Not a lot to write about here.  I think I will spend the day reading about various things.  It is a beautiful summer day today.  I might take some time off and play some games on my computer.

I have not been adding posts to this blog lately.  It still gets some people stopping by to read stuff I wrote a long time ago.  I have been thinking about working on a real writing project.  It takes some coherent thought to write a book.  I don’t even know what I would write about.  There are so many things in the world to think about.  Right now, I just feel like learning as much as I can about things before I start on anything major.

The coffee should be done any time soon.  There goes the timer now.  It takes some confidence in yourself to do any kind of writing.  You have to have an idea you like enough to follow through on.  Perhaps I should open up the word processor and do some brainstorming.  This blog is a lot of words.  Working on something a bit every single day adds up to a lot after more than a year.  Now, on to something a bit different.  I think I actually am ready to start on something good.

Spending My Days Reading

Since I got a library card last winter I have been reading a lot of books.  Right now I am in the middle of Bill Gates’ book Business @ the Speed of Thought.  I am also reading a book called Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, as well as many others.  I enjoy reading.  There is so much information in the world that it doesn’t make sense not to be learning things every day.

I have not been doing a lot of writing lately.  I suppose I should get going on a project or something, but I just don’t know what to write about these days.  I could become a critic, I suppose.  I could write about things I read and give reviews of books.  On the other hand, I should be doing something original.  Maybe later I will fire up the word processor and get going on a project.  I have all this computer power to assist me in my work.  Maybe I should write a program to write books.  I hear somebody has already done this.  He wrote a program to snarf things off the web and compose the facts into books, which he sells on print on demand basis.  The guy already has something like one hundred thousand books in print.  What a plan.

Right now I think I am going to go read for a while.  I have checked on all my emails and blogs and think I would enjoy just reading about stuff for a while.  In any case, I have left a post here to keep things current on what I am doing.  Someday I will get back to endless blog posting, maybe.

Another Hot Summer Day

I was just out in the garden planting some cucumbers and squash.  The sun is hot today, though it may rain later.  I think today I am going to start a new writing project.  I have gotten enough practice from all the blogging in the last year so that I think I can write clearly.  Like anything else, a writing project takes time, and you have to work on it every day.  So far on this blog I have almost 600 posts.  That’s a lot of typing.  I need to work on something I can sell.

Anyway, I just wanted to post something here to make sure everything is working well.  One of these days I will get back to writing useful little articles.  Right now, I think I need to do some thinking.  Perhaps I will go read a book or something.

What I’ve Been Up To

It’s been days since I’ve written anything for this blog.  I have been taking it easy on the typing.  It’s getting close to 600 posts here now, and this is my longest blog.  Lately, I have been playing games on my computer.  I spend hours running around chasing monsters.  One of these days I am going to make my own game world.  All I need to do is find millions of dollars somewhere and put together a team of game designers.  Shouldn’t be too hard.

It’s summer and there are summer things to do.  I have a garden to take care of, and all the odd jobs around the house.  I have spent a lot of time lately reading books from the library.  I just finished one about art auctions, and am almost done with another about eBay.  I am using the public library as a learning institution.  I read a cool book about computer game design a couple weeks ago.  I have probably saved over a thousand dollars already getting stuff from the library.  Why pay for something when you can get it for free?

I just thought I’d leave a post here to update what I have been doing lately.  One of these days I have to go through and read some of the things I have written.  This blog has over 80,000 page views now.  It’s hard to believe that many people have read what I wrote.  Anyway, I am just about to have some dinner, then maybe play games for a little while before watching TV.  This is my blog entry for today.  If anyone reads it I will be surprised.

Keeping the Blog Active

I have not been posting here too often recently.  This morning I added three pictures of some of my paintings on my art blog.  I think for the time being I am going to concentrate on getting that blog set up and filled with images of my art work.

There is potential in art.  Even though the economy is rough, people still buy paintings and stuff to decorate their homes.  I have a bunch of stuff here that I have created over the years, and I like the idea of documenting it on a blog as an online portfolio.  Who knows, maybe someday galleries will consider submissions in an online format.  Who knows, maybe galleries are not necessary.  I am going to work on promoting my own work and see where that takes me.

So for now, if you want to see what I have been up to with blogging, check out the art blog linked in the blogroll.  I will try to add more work every day until I run out.  I may never run out, if I keep on producing work.  I will from time to time post more things here.  I need to learn how to focus on a project and also learn how to promote myself as a business.  Blogging is a great hobby.  Who knows, maybe some oil baron will like my work and make me rich.  A guy can dream at least.

Being a Lazy Blogger

I haven’t posted anything on this blog in over a week.  I’m just taking some time off to think about things and read some books.  I read an interesting interview yesterday with Matt from WordPress here in Inc. Magazine.  I like this blogging service.  I think it will be around for a lot of years.  I did not know that something like 3000 people make a living off WordPress.  Maybe I should not be so lazy.  There must be some way to cash in on all this functionality.

Anyway, I left a post here today so that’s about all I wanted to do right now.  I am thinking about starting a writing project again.  I am still interested in trying to write a book.  This blog is like one long crazy book.  I think they should have a feature on WordPress that counts up all the words you write to all your blog posts.  My best estimate for this blog is like a quarter million words.  That’s a lot of typing.  The letters on my keyboard are wearing out.  For a while I will continue to post infrequently.  Some day I will get back to posting endless random things here.

Do This. Get Rich!

This is a book by Jim Britt about how to go into business for yourself.  I checked this book out of the library yesterday and finished reading it this afternoon.  I have a lot of time to read now that I am not writing on my blogs constantly.  Anyway, this was a fairly decent book about business.  It had a lot of good advice for how to run an operation and how to make money.

I read books like this all the time.  I am probably an expert on getting rich now.  I got a good deal on the information in this book, as it was checked out for free from the library.  I would have to say that my library card has probably saved me hundreds of dollars already just in the books I haven’t bought because I get them for free now.  What a deal.

About the only practical advise this author gives for making money is to sell something.  He gives as an example his MLM business of selling soap.  I am not about to borrow thousands of dollars to buy soap to sell.  There has to be a better way to go into business than to sell some overpriced product.  I got another book on business from the library yesterday.  The Plymouth Library has a whole shelf full of books on business.  It will take me a while to read them all.

Reading Books

I spend a lot of time these days reading books.  Since I got a library card in February, I have checked out dozens of books.  I enjoy reading about different things.  People put a lot of time and effort into writing books.  It costs a lot of money to print up a book.  I can check out any book in the library for free.  That’s a good deal.

I have a book I started reading yesterday that is about the history of money.  I find it very interesting.  There is a lot of stuff that most people don’t know about money.  There is a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about money.  That’s why I read, so I can learn stuff I didn’t know.  I also checked out a book about network science.  Networks are the thing these days.  The Internet is the world’s biggest network.  I think networks rule.  I am part of the network with this blog.

I am about to read a book online.  There are many books posted online.  Basically, if something is more than 75 years old and the author is dead, that book is public domain and can be published by anyone.  I bet Plato never imagined that one day his books would be available to anyone with a computer and a network connection.  Anyway, I like to read books, and I am off to find another one.  One of these days I am going to write a book about something.  I have more than a book on this blog right here.  So many words.  So little time.

A Cool Spring Day

It’s about 52 degrees outside this morning and the sun is shining.  I just stopped by the blog to leave a short message on how things are going.  This blog is on hold for a while.  I have not been updating every day like I used to.  I have been trying to take it easy on the typing.  I don’t really know what to write here these days.  I suppose I should be adding more general knowledge type pieces, but I don’t feel like a teacher.  This is my experiment in blogging, and I am watching the residual traffic decline over time.

The weather is nice today, and I think I am going to read a book or something.  There must be a lot of words on this blog already.  Right now, I think I am just going to take it easy and relax for a while.  Some day in the future I will get back to posting random useful articles.  Right now, I am not interested in writing anything more.