A big Thank you for everyone who's contributed Starbucks coffee to the Diva by playing the million dollar jackpot game (see sidebar - Donate To The Diva) this week. I'm just waiting for my Starbucks certificate to come in the mail. And I'm on the roll to get another one! This is doing so well, that I'm going to add a couple more Donate links for shoes and gift certificates.

Thank You! Thank You! Gimme Coffee.

So yesterday, when Lem was ready to go out and play, I wasnt ready to go. While I was waiting for him, I found a list of over 300 Digg-like sites. Someone actually made an effort to put awhole list together! It took me the whole day to filter through the list to find appropriate sites to submit my material to. So now, my list totals to 13. It takes me longer to submit my posts than to make my posts. Oh well. But the amount of visitors - wow, wow, wow. It was definitely worthe the effort.

I also came across a couple of software that actually makes these Digg-like sites. Very cool. I can now make my own! I played around with it for a bit trying to understand its language, and I cant believe how easy it is. It's being filed under a-million-other-things-to-do-when-I- am-not-busy-which-is-never. I'm so boring, I know.

I can not believe that in two days it will already be November! Time has flown so fast. Lem and I are expecting a very busy two months (well, we hope anyway) leading up to Christmas on our e-commerce stores. I hope I wont get too busy to maintain my other websites.

Lem is really looking forward to Halloween. He's planning on giving candies to the neighborhood kids. He's going to be wearing that hideous leather full head mask and a leather choker that a client of his has returned. I dont know what's wrong with him.

The Big Man upstairs has forgotten to tell good old Vancouver weather that it is fall. The sun is still out. The temperature is cool. We've had some rain the last day or so, but today it looks like the sun is making up for lost time.

I was not able to get Lem off his computer yesterday. And he's ignoring my hints to go do something else today. Like maybe off his computer. If he gets that, then that's a good start. At least yesterday, when he went for his workout, he brought me back coffee bubble tea. This weather is not planning on sticking around, and we really need to get a little bit of playtime. Maybe if I whine enough. Maybe if I turn the tv too loud. Or maybe I'll just have to forcibly remove him from his new leather massage chair.

Yesterday I got a chance to watch the premier of Shark with James Woods. It's pretty good. Lots of familiar faces that I like to watch - Jeri Ryan (Borg from Star Trek) and Alexis Cruz (from Stargate). It's going to be added to my long list of legal dramas (Boston Legal, CSI and Law & Order).

I was surfing late last night and I came across a couple of Digg-like sites. I always submit my articles to Digg to get new readers. I dont pretty much care if I get dugg or not, just send me those new visitors! Anyway, these sites are not as big as Digg because they are just starting out. But they are more suitable to promote what I write - beauty, makeup, fitness, shopping. So, hopefully, they'll gain momentum. You can check out www.contentpop.com and www.bringr.com

Now, I'm off to get Lem out of the house.

It's very hard when you are in a relationship with an equally dedicated-to-money-let's-work-all-the-time man.

I absolutely refuse to do computer work today. My eyes are getting so buggy eyed, it's screaming to be rescued from sitting in front of my monitor all throughout the week. Of course, Lem wants to wait for his auctions on Ebay to end before we go anywhere. It will be dark and dreary by the time he wants to set foot out of the house.

I want to go out for Bubble Tea. Maybe go for a walk to White Rock. Catch a flick.

All work and no play is so dull.

Yesterday morning I made myself a promise not to touch the new template I've scratched up together for The Discount Diva. I usually let new templates sit and ferment for over a week, then I'll know which direction they're going.

Well, sometime yesterday afternoon my I checked my affiliate commission statements, and it was impressive across the board considering I've only really been at this for the last four months. A buyer that passed through my site to an affiliate to purchase averaged $100.00 per sale. The most purchased by one buyer is $650.00. So, I spent the rest of the day tinkering with The Discount Diva to add more affiliate banners (God Help Us All!). Hopefully this time I will let it sit and wait until it's been digested (and spit out) by my readers. It still needs a lot of work. But I just need to be patient and wait.

And as you can see, I've ventured into the Podcasting world. What that really I have no clue.. I dont have much background on the internet stuff.... I just try as I go. Now, you can listen to my blog on your phone, ipod, and while you're doing dishes. I think everyone should get on this bandwagon so I can just listen to your daily podcast while I am doing the things I need to do.

Nothing else is happening in my boring life, as usual. It's the weekend. And there are no plans.

Sigh.

Lem and I went to pick up some late night snacks at Safeway last night, and on our way out of the store, we passed by two clerks arguing passionately about Madonna.

All these crazy media sensationalism about the adoption. So what if the process got fast tracked? You would be stupid to not realize that rich people like celebrities, politicians, and jetsetters get preferential treatment. It goes around you everyday. ....

There's a lot of these "well, I think". Wait for a moment, and realize what you just said. Have you even considered what's best for the welfare of the child? If you had the wish of having to start over again in life, wouldnt you want to be born into a privilege life? A life that Madonna can offer him?

Get Real People. You are the crazy one if you think he should go back to where he came from.

What is an expandable post script? It is a script that shortens your Blogger post into a teaser and adds a READ MORE link on your main page post leading to the full post.

Why should you use an expandable post script?

What is an example of an expandable post? The Imaginary Diva is my personal blog page and I prefer not to use expandable post. Here are some of my other sites that use the script:

How to get started:

Click on your template tab.

Make a copy your current template into Word or Text file and save it.

Go back to your template tab.

Hit Control F on your keyboard, find </head>

Right before </head> copy and paste

<style type="text/css"><mainorarchivepage>span.fullpost{display:none;}</mainorarchivepage><itempage>span.fullpost{display:inline;}</itempage></style>

Just after </head> copy and paste

<script type="text/javascript">var memory = 0; var number = 0;</script>

Hit Control F on your Keyboard, and find <$BlogItemBody$>

Right after <$BlogItemBody$> should be a <br /> or <div>

Right after <br /> or <div> copy and paste

<mainorarchivepage><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />spans = document.getElementsByTagName('span');<br />number = 0;<br />for(i=0; i <>{<br />var c = " " + spans[i].className + " ";<br />if (c.index0f("fullpost") != -1) number++;<br />}<br />if(number != memory)<br />{<br />document.write('<a href="">">Read More </a>');<br /><br />}<br />memory = number;<br /></script><br /></mainorarchivepage>

Your template script is now done! You will need to click on the Preview tab before moving on to the blog script. When you see the preview page, you will not see any changes from your previous template. You SHOULD not see any changes from your previous template. If you see changes, make sure not to save it. You have done something wrong with the implementation of your script.

The Final Step - Using the script on your future blog posts (or you can go ahead and revise the last 10 or however many you want to shop on your main page). When you enter a regular post, you will need to add the following code starting from the point on the post that you dont want to appear on the main page.

<span class="fullpost">What you dont want to see on the main / front page, and you only want to see on the item page </span>

What I usually do is a save this code on a txt file that I leave open with all the scripts I use when posting. That way, I dont have to retype for each post.

After publishing the post, you will notice the difference of the new post length on the main page.

If you have any questions or want the script emailed, please feel free to drop me a note

Dont forget to grab my rss feed because in the next couple of days, I will be adding an article on how to monetize your item page to its full capacity. You will not want to miss that.

I am considering joining Squidoo.com and associatedcontent.com - has anyone out there ever worked with them? I've made a short note on my list a couple of months ago to look over these sites, and I just passed by yesterday for a quick lookover. I already write a lot of content for my sites, and I am not sure if I want to add two more sites to my growing list of to-do daily. Has anyone ever made any money, how much (approximately) and any tips I should be aware about?

Yesterday, I got a lot done and I slept at midnight. I was just pooped from waking up so early. I'm getting my rhythm back, and it looks like it's going to be a great day. All I need is that cup of coffee. I'm going to ask Lem to take me to Starbucks for my caffeine....

The last few days have been very intresting. I wrote over 5 articles on celebrities. It takes the concept of "namedropping" to a different level. You should see the amount of visitors it generated to my sites.. Wow, if only I could keep it up. So, I decided my not-used imaginarydiva.com is going to resurface as a gossip rag in the next few months.

And I'm writing an article on Blogger Expandable Post later on today as part of my Blogger-How To Series. Dont forget to come back and check it out!

Yesterday I just felt so distracted because I didnt get much sleep. I was blundering on everything I did. Especially when my work is so repetitious and burned in my brain. But for some strange reason, I was screwing up on the most simple things.

Oh, well. I just need someone to clone me. Maybe 5 times. I just feel like I have so much to do. My to-do list is about 30 pages long. Just keep on crossing off those lines.

The Discount Diva is now up and running. It is expermentally complete. It is a new template style, and I just have to let it go. And then look at it again in week to see what I can improve. Hopefully, that little voice in my head will not convince to rework it from scratch. Yesterday, I missed my daily workout because fixing it was taking longer than I intended.

Well, I am going to try to catch some of what's left of the california weather today.

Last night I got carried away revising The Discount Diva, and I knew it, I was going to have to pay for it by starting my day late today. I just woke up.

I sat at my computer at 9PM last night thinking the current template needs to go. Common sense told me that I should wait until today to revise it, but that little voice in my head won (the same little voice that told me to delete fraudprotection - and I clicked delete with my eyes closed - all that missed revenue.....) and I started fiddling around with it. And when I'm tired, I screw things up quite a bit. Two hours later, I made a big mess. Columns were not aligning. Fonts gone all wonky. What's with all the bright colors? Did I just do that? How can you sleep after that? So at 6 in the morning I managed to fix the outer shell. It actually looks great I think. I still have to fix the individual post pages, but that's next on my agenda after I finish my morning personal post. God, I hate deviating from my to-do list.

I now have my Personal Google Homepage all personalized. I've got the RSS and News feeds to what's hot in all the topics that are related to my websites. And I check it every 30 minutes to see what's breaking. Last night, one site ran a release on an upcoming tv show. I caught it within the first 10 minutes. But they ran the wrong date - September 10th. Isnt that past? I was itching to write an article about it for Crazy Generation since no one else has written about it yet. I sent the editors an email. Still no response. Everyone's probably got their paws on it already.

My writing is definitely getting better. My article about Penelope Cruz at The Designer Diva has been picked up by several well known entertainment columns. Love all the new visitors that it generated. I wrote another "celebrity fashion" article - Bling H20 Is More Than Just A Pretty Face, But Would You Pay For a Bottle? - and I hope that will also get picked up by their feeds.

Lem's newest passion is the Ultimate Wrestling Championships and the WWE. At least it gives me a break from Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. I was half watching his TNA wrestling with one eye on my computer and the other eye keeping up with the fight. He's talking about getting tickets if they are ever in town. I hope these folks do not come out with DVD sets because Lem will be out in a flash to get his own copies and watch them over and over again. Did I tell you that one thing that I can't really stand are re-runs?

I took a breather at 3AM and we went out to pick up our usual junk food. Burger King Late Night Drive Thru will never be the same. I ordered my usual - Burger King Jr - with Bacon. I cant believe I've been missing out all this time! I wish I ordered two....

I am a newsletter junkie. I just cant help myself. I visit a website. I like the stuff they write about. I subscribe to the newsletter. I have my outlook set up to file all my newsletters under a To Read folder. This morning, it filed 395 newsletters in the last week. Not to mention that I still have about 10,000 other newsletters to read from the previous months. How can I keep up? ?

We are having 16 degree weather in Vancouver today. Exactly the same weather as Pasadena, my old home town! Can you believe it? If you are planning on coming on over for the 2010 Winter Olympics, you might be in for a real treat of fake snow. I'd be worried if I was part of the snow planning committee. Will it snow? Or will it just rain? In February? Hands down. Freezing rain.

I havent been on msn lately because my computer keeps on crashing. Lem has been telling me he is going to fix my archaic computer, and he has to pencil me in his to-do list. The great thing about having two silver personalities in the house - me and him - is that we are so organized to the point that we actually have to do lists. I am not sure exactly where I am on that list of his, but it better soon, before it totally crashes on me and I wont be able to post anymore..... :)

Last night, on a moment of enlightenment, I cancelled fraud protection. It's really not my core competency. So, fraudprotection.blogspot.com is now back in blogger circulation. Snap it up before anyone else does!

This morning, I checked my Google Adsense revenue, and my new site (not Blogger hosted) has clickthroughs. Very little content because it just went up on the server last Thursday, but since it's a niche site, it's getting viewers already. I cant tell you the site address yet, but will post up a link soon.

After I dropped my mom home from church earlier today, I took the skytrain home. This time I took the right train. I am not so used to taking public transportation, and I always end up taking the train that does the 360 turn and takes me back where I started after an hour or so. But never to where I want to go. Anyhow.... I bumped into an old friend I havent seen in ages. Luke! (Elisa, if you are reading this, oh my god, I didnt recognize him. He looks so different. By the way, wherever you are in the Bahamas, I hope you are enjoying the pageant you are in). Small world.

K-Fed has been very busy lately. There was that much publicized CSI Las Vegas "itty bitty" role. And now, WWE? Who gave him the day pass to leave the trailer park?



I'm going to be sure we will be seeing a lot of the K-Fed in the future. Maybe in Fear Factor in a casket full of maggots?

Friday was a day off for me away from the computer.

It started as lunch with the girls - Carrie and Grace at 11:30 AM. We had Thai food. I had spicy shrimp & cashew meal, and coffee. Carrie and I walked Grace to her office, and we went to Cafe Crepe. Had some more coffee, and crepe desserts. We walked around dowtown for 30 minutes and ended up at Starbucks at 6PM. And no brainer what we had there - coffee (Are you Donating Coffee to the Diva? See the sidebar). And I had this awesome turkey sandwich. Lem picked me up at the skytrain at 9:00PM, he took me to Fresgo's for a huge teriyaki chicken meal with an equally big plate of ceasar salad.

So, I dont know which one to blame for my sleeplessness - the food that's sitting in my stomach waiting to explode, or the whole gallon+ of coffee that I drank.

And why is it, when you are looking for something good to read while surfing at 2AM, all you get are political blogs, picture blogs, and (gulp) those e-book blogs? One of these days I'm going to write an e-book just to learn how to make those snazzy looking book covers. They always look so nice, and I wonder why their blogs look so bad and unorganized.

Okay, this time I blame the coffee for the bad mood.

It was a very productive day even if I was away from the computer. Carrie and I had another one of those idea blasting sessions, and we've come up with a couple of winners. So, I can not wait to add more work to me..... But I know, she'll be successful on this blog venture. When it is up and running, you all will be very impressed.

And as if I dont have anything else to do, I am accepting submissions on what kind of Blogger customizations you are looking to do. I've had so many hits on my template posts, that I will probably will be adding another topic sometime soon. I have added a new section on my sidebar on Blogger How-To Help. Go and check it out! If there is anything else, you would like to see how it's done, please drop me a note.

If I sound like as if I'm mumbling through this post, my English is not so good when I'm all wired up.

I woke up earlier than usual today. My headaches is gone. Thank god! I was a little bit worried about that because I was starting to get feverish yesterday.

I watched a little bit more tv yesterday than normal to pass time. And caught an episode of Dancing With The Stars. It was so painful to watch Jerry Springer do the Pasadoble. He had to do the start of his dance "springer" style by smashing the guitar on stage. ??? Earth to Mr. Springer, did you forget which set you are on? I didnt bother to finish the show. But he probably got booted out. It was worse than bad.

I helped Lem out on his site yesterday. His blog is on Wordpress. When it comes to full customization, Wordpress is not the blog for you. Unless you are experienced enough to build the full css from scratch and then pick it apart to save in 6 different files for upload. Good luck. I did convince him to go for a pre-made 3 column template. We got his eBay affiliate up and got his auctions on his sidebar. Yey! Very cool.

I have been advertising on craigslist and I've been getting so many scam emails to purchase my products. They always ask that stupid question of "is the product still available" and "is it still in good condition". "Please send me more photos" - well, have you checked the posting, it has all the photos you need. They send so many of these spoofs that they cant keep track of which is what. If they were pro-active enough, maybe they'll be able to pass as normal buyers.

For those of you who have started to play The Million Dollar Jackpot Game - Thank you! I am so much closer to getting my Starbucks certificate!!!!! The coffee monster in me has awaken, and I can not (not) wait to spend my loot. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! This is one way you can truly donate to the Diva. By Getting me my coffee. Sign up is free. Playing is free. You win prizes along the way, and a chance to win a million bucks!

Yesterday I posted seven articles in the Diva World! If you want to keep track of all the articles (and not just the imaginary diva blog), you can pick up the LATEST ARTICLES link on the sidebar. Or add imaginarydivabc to your del.icio.us network.

I've been fighting a nasty cold for the last four days. And it doesnt seem to want to go away anytime soon. The migraines are really intense so I am minimizing the amount of time I am working in front of the computer until it goes away. I am working too much.

There are some things I've been meaning to blog about, and you'll get it all in one post! Yey!

1. Have you visited my new roomie yet? No? Well make sure you do before he goes away. This will probably be my last Blog Explosion roommate for awhile because I'm too busy to keep up. He's preparing for his local government vote in November. "It seems that telling people why you should be elected is out of style." Hey, I didnt say that, he did. So, go right over and say your piece.

2. I was going to tell you about our 16 degree weather all throughout last week. Especially when Alberta (the closest province to us) is experiencing freak snow storms. Snow, snow, Go Away. Come Again, Another Year. Well, the gloomy weather is back. There's not much to tell. It's just GLOOM!!!!!

3. It's been a busy weekend, we went to Sally Chow's one-month celebration over the weekend and yes, I will be posting pictures up really soon. Really.

4. Lem and I also watched The Departed. And I walked out of the theatre thinking how can a group of A-lister make the movie so bad. Oh, right. Brad Pitt produced it along with Scorsese. ?? That, ladies and gentlemen should be a bad start. You get so much of Jackie. How did Mark Wahlberg make the cut? The worst acting role I've ever seen Martin Sheen do. Vera Farmiga carried the whole movie through. She's a tough act to follow.

5. You have to give up when you know you have to give up. And I did. I decided to close down Crazy Generation and Fraud Protection. What I meant by that, was I was just going to leave them along until I figured what I was going to do with them. In the meantime, I am still getting a decent Google revenue from those two pages. So I sat down, long and hard, and realized, I'm going to restructure them and turn them around. Crazy Generation is done. It has a new look! I've added my affiliate advertising. I posted a new article on cheating spouses. Who knows that it is a hot button keyword when it comes to Google Searches? Extramarital affair searches? I dont know. Fraud Protection will be looked at sometime in the near future.

Okay that's it folks. I think I am going to lied down and sleep. Anyone got a remedy to get rid of migraines?

For those of you who know me, must know by now, that I am the biggest Hasselhoff fan. This afternoon I saw one of his recent videos on German TV - Rhinestone Cowboy and there's no bootleg version of it on the internet! Even Youtube doesnt have it. Now that's very disappointing.

In the meantime, I found some David must-see-videos- Lem calls it digging for smut - of Hasselfhoff. Lem can call me crazy as many times as he wants. But I'm playing my music.

It is so easy to get carried away by putting flashy banners, external links and icons on your sidebar. I too, went over the top in more than several occasions. Especially when I first got my Amazon and affiliate ads.

If you are using a Blogger template, it is very easy to clean up your sidebar. It makes for easy viewing and good blog feng shui.

A standard Blogger template is designed in CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. Some bloggers use an external source to re-design their template, but in this case you will not be needing it. We will be working on line with the blogger template.

The most important thing you need to know about your blog sidebar is the width. Knowing this information will prevent you from including banners and icons that are too big for the sidebar. Using an image bigger than the width will make your sidebar appear on the bottom of your page instead of being parallel to your post.

How to find the width of your sidebar is tricky as CSS style codes differ from one template designer to another. I suggest you go to the template tab, and if X does mark the spot, you will be able to get your sidebar width by entering Control F on your keypad and using "sidebar" as the search word. The first match should be sidebar-wrapper (or a variation) and about 2 or 3 lines underneath it, you should find 250px (example). Most sidebar widths are about 200px - 275px. If you have a blog like mine, Pannasmontata labels his containers differently. You can just go ahead and ask me and I will get you the width info.

Something else to remember, your sidebar will already contain a pre-set sections such as profile, links, and archives. To add more sections, you will need to copy starting from

<div>to</div>.

When you make changes on your template, preview it before you chose to save it. When a change is made, and you like the way it looks save it right away. Remember, you are editing on line. If you save before seeing the result, you will not be able to get your old template back.

A COUPLE OF NEAT ORGANIZING IDEAS FOR YOUR SIDEBAR ~

Use a good font size and color for clarity and readability.

To create a line below an entry or image
<hr size="1" color="#e6e6fa">
Size determines how thick your line is. You can change 1 to any number. To change the color, you can enter the new color codes between # and ">. You can visit this color hex hub to get the color codes - http://www.december.com/html/spec/color.html

Use the smallest bookmarklet button 16x16 instead of the 80x15.

Change your standard sidebar header into something more funky and bold. You can pick up some free fonts at http://www.fontface.com/fonts/a.html

Match the background color of your Google Adsense to your sidebar background color. It just makes for better reading and creates a seamless look.

Align your content properly.
<p align="center">align center</p>
<p align="left">align left</p>
<p align="right">align right</p>

Get rid of the Add-To RSS Buttons. I've seen blogs that have 20+ RSS bookmarklets! Get yourself a Feedburner account and it will let your visitor save your feed into the service that they prefer.

Google Adsense for Search - make sure you adjust the length of the text box before you cut and paste to your sidebar. If you keep the default of 31 characters, it might not fit a standard blogger template sidebar.

Maintain a good proportion of your blog posts to your sidebar. You can minimize the amount of posts that appears on the of Blog by going to the Setting Tabs.

Create a border around your sidebar sections / content
<div style="border: 1 dashed #e6e6fa"> sidebar header </div>
<ul style="border: 1 single #e6e6fa"> sidebar content</ul>
You can change the size of the border by substituting another number. The appearance of the border can also be changed to dashed, single, inset, outset, double and ridge. Color can also be changed.

I typed this phrase in Google. It yielded over a million articles. So, I figured that with that many articles available, I would find something worthwhile to read.

The first 5 pages did not provide information that I do not already know - Adsense, text links ads, amazon ads, ya - di - da - di - da. The next 10 pages were exact copycats of the first 5.

Is Google Adsense really the beginning and end word when it comes to monetizing your blog?

X has put it to my attention sometime last week that my social bookmarkers were not doing their magic properly. So, I took them down.

I've just been so lazy to do it. And since Lem and I had a late night dinner to celebrate his birthday, I'm trying to stay awake so that all the greasy food would digest properly with nothing to do. Well, at least they are now done.

I added a couple of new neat things - you will now be able to see my Netscape votes and Diggs (please vote or digg if you like the post), along with a chance to track comments on a specific post.

I also now have added visitor ability to click on the Blog Post Title and it will take you to its Blog Item Page.

Did I forget anything else?? ??

Lem and I went for a trip to downtown Langley to visit an old buddy of his from college that just opened a Fido store.

While we were there, we checked out the new residential / workspace studio that is being built right beside the store. The concept is very Yaletown Gastown style, except it's right in the heart of Langley. A little bit misplaced but it would have been perfect for us because it has a C1 zoning which allows us to have a commercial permit to operate out of our living quarters. The layout was very nicely done with private quarters, and a showroom for our numerous home businesses. And the price was fantastic!

Lem is not sold. One of the deciding factors for us is to not have a Money Mart, Liquor Store and Casino within a one mile radius of our place. All three were just a block away each direction. We really need to think ahead on profitability of flipping a place because this will just be a pitstop for us. Three to five years tops.

All of the other places that we have looked at were either 700 square feet condos downtown going for the price of a 4 bedroom house in the suburb. How ridiculous is that? Or a house in the burbs that can fit your whole family and extended family comfortably. That's a lot of space for Lem to occupy and for me to clean. We just cant seem to find a good middle ground.

He hates small talk as much as I do.

Don't even get him talking about spam because he hates it more than I do.

And word verification! You know, he's right, why do they have to be 12 letters long or more?

Make sure you pass by and say hello!

This morning I stumbled across an actors blog directory.

There were a lot of upcoming actors with a lot of nothing on their resume. Movie and TV extras who are hoping to the next Gunter (Friends). Unsubstantiated claims of being the best superhero, comedian, actor.... Blah, Blah, Blah.

They are off to a good start. Did you know that in order to be someone in movie/tvland, you will need to be the master of shameless self promotion?

Being a past alumni of the entertainment industry, I have put together a list of ways to shamelessly promote yourself in order to get noticed in the acting industry. Even with little or no background at all!

AN ACTING RESUME THAT STANDS OUT

The most important components of an acting resume are: film credits, tv Credits, theatre Credits, training / workshops, and special skills. This is the only resume you'll ever make that does not have to be 100% accurate. Agents and casting will never call your references. Make sure not to forget to list everything you have done - angel at church christmas play when you were 5, lead actor in stupid stunt video projects ..... Just make sure you file them under the right category.

Under training and workshops, list all the acting classes you could have possibly taken. Then, research acting schools or instructors in your neighborhood that are well respected. A good place to start is The Directory of Acting Schools in the US and Canadian Acting Schools. Go on acting forums and see which coaches are creating a buzz. On your acting resume list that you are on a waitlist for that class.

GET YOUR PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT TAKEN

A professional photographer will give you a contact sheet or proofs to chose your headshot from. Pick one that shows character. Avoid the Michaelangelo David profile and the thoughtful stare. That's just goofy. Get about 100 repros and 1000 business cards and you are almost ready to be showcased!

MAKE A VIDEO DEMO

Get a friend to videotape you. Pick a couple of monologues from Anne's Page of Actor's Monologues. Never pick anything that Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson has done. That's actor suicide. Remember to edit each 15 minute monologue to the best 30 second clip. Put it on a CD and you are done!

GET LISTED!

Of course, all actors need to be listed on IMDB.com. Even if you are a nobody. Dont forget to upload your video!

NOW, YOU ARE READY TO SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE YOURSELF!

Let's go find an agent. Good agents are never hard to get. You just need to know how to get them! The Production Hub has a very reliable list of acting agencies. Find out which agencies represent famous faces! Send them an email with your resume, picture and video. Ring their office doorbells and pretend you're the Fedex guy and deliver them a package yourself! And when you get your own agent, do not forget to drop by to bring coffee, orchestrate chance meetings, or move in the same apartment building. Just act your way into everything coincidental.

Find out what's in production in your area. - IMDB and Local Film Commissions. Research who the important people are that are involved - casting directors, producers, and directors. Frequent celebrity hangouts. Fake your way into wrap parties. A good indication of a success is if you have passed out at least 50 business cards in one night. Always remember who you've met that night and google them when you get home.

Auditions - Casting assistants are also invaluable friends. Make sure to also drop by to bring coffee, orchestrate chance meetings, or move into the same building. They work with casting directors and will be the future wave. Casting assistants are usually responsible for audition list and will be able to sneak a name in, given the right conditions.

Word of advise from The Diva.... I do not recommend sleeping with the powers-that-be in order to get a role. That's just plain stupid. And you'll never get the part. You dont think producers know how to exploit actors shamelessly?

As far as I can remember, everything is a need to know basis with her. A very strong silver quality. How my dad and her made their marriage survive, I dont know. He is an extreme blue.

I drive her to church every Sunday. I drop her off. I come back for her after the church service. Of course, she wouldnt tell me that it was a gala she was going to this Sunday and that I should wear more appropriate clotes to church. And my hoodie and sneakers just doesnt quite cut it.

I've picked up a little trick from my father. I look at my mom square in the eye. I count slowly from one to five. And I tell her I am dropping her off and if she really wanted me to go with her she would have told me ahead in advance.

Being an adult, I fully appreciate the values my parents have given me. I am so like her. But then, I am so like my father. I have qualities that my parents both don't like in each other. If I really wanted to, I could have played the emotional card that my father usually tosses out in situations like this.

I do like spending time with my mother. So I dropped her off, went home and changed. And sat beside her at the gala. I made her promise not to do this again. She said of course.

I like to surf in the middle of the night when people are asleep. That's usually about 2 or 3 in the morning. It's even better if Lem is asleep by then. So at least he's not asking me to look for his missing jeans, or to get food. Or something that I dont want to get for him.

I feel it's a great way to end my day by visiting my blog friends. They always seem to have more crazier days, more inspiration words, and more exciting holidays. I get inspired to write them these long comments about nothing.... up until I get to their posting captchas.

How can anyone enter these word verifications right at 3 in the morning? It's just insane. I can never get them right the first time. Or the second time. Or the third time. How did they get to be 12 digits long? Like a computer spam bot can distinguish 3 digits versus 12 digits? My mind is faster than my brain. My fingers cant keep up. I have to slow down and read the captcha back letter by letter to make sure my messages dont get zapped into oblivion.

If you have not heard from me (as in post on your blog) lately, I've had good intentions to. I just cant stand the word verification. So, I might have tried. Really.

Is that why I havent heard from you either? Because I've turned on word verification??

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Lem and I were over at X place yesterday and I had my first session on website advertising revenue 101.

Which proves all along that everything I knew was wrong. No skill I've managed to acquire in the past - marketing strategies, closing million dollar accounts, mergers - has prepared me for this. When it comes to internet promotion, I am on unchartered territory.

Now I'm beginning to look at websites differently.

For instance, I signed up for NetWinner. There is a milli0n dollar jackpot up for grabs. The site gave me 1,000 free credits to register, and so far, no one has asked me to pay any money to play the game.

I played twenty minutes straight using lotto quick pick and I've been bombarded with video ads:

Apply for a credit card
Right Guard
Bryers Ice Cream
Jet Li's Fearless (Shaking too my boots. Ugh! Subtitles.....)
Mel Gibson's Apocalypse

Just to name a few.

I did manage to win 30 credits by sheer luck. I'm still not sure what I can cash in for these credits, but I do know though that these advertisers paid good money to have their ads shown while I was playing Netwinner's game.

This morning I woke up to find that a spammer has hit The Designer Diva. Since I have been encouraging comments on this site, I had turned off Blogger's Comment Moderation and Verification features. I was fortunate that the spammer was still live when I got on line and managed to activate the features within minutes.

I counted about 85 comment spams that managed to get through and about 50 more stuck in moderation before the idiot realized that the comments were no longer posting.

An hour later while I am in the middle of putting together this post, the same spammer started hitting The Bikini Body Diet. My outlook notification is live and it was buzzing like a bee with all the new casino posts. I shut him down within a few comments and about 100+ are stuck in comment moderation.

I should have known. These two sites hit PR3 ranking a couple of days ago.

Today is a busy day for me, and having to delete all these unwanted comments has set me back a couple of hours. Not to mention that I now have to seriously consider implementing a better strategy to prevent this from happening in the future.

What is Blogger doing to cope with unwanted spam comments? Blogger Help and the Group Support was not much help. The only solutions being offered are: Turn on Comment Moderation and/or Word Verification. There must be a blogger hack out there that I am not finding.

Why is it that Moveable Type and Word Press have better solutions available for their bloggers? Word Press itself lists over 10 Spam Filter options. Google Search has come up a big zero for blogger. I looked for Blacklist Creation, Word Filtering Option, IP Blocking... Is there a big conspiracy here that we dont know about?

For now I'll have to take Blogger's solution of leaving Word Verification on so that the bots cant get through and hopefully manual spams will get too tired of having to enter the long captchas.

However, I have a big plan. When I have time, I am going to write a script that will let me filter specific words (casino, poker, online gambling...) from being published as is. Instead, objectionable content will be changed into catchy phrases such as I LOVE THIS BLOG, THE DIVA IS THE GREATEST, and the list goes on.....

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I found this picture at Life At The Edge, and some say that this mysterious sexy man could possibly be Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1.

For those of you who dont keep up with Stargate, Daniel is the quiet, sexy archaelogist. And definitely gets all covered up in a uniform for the show.

It does look like him. But then it doesnt. After all, I havent seen any episodes of him naked before. It might be worth another look through Lem's DVD collections.

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