Brett Farrey

I’ve been watching the Packers this preseason, and the offense is hot. The emergence of Jermichael Finley makes them even better than last season, so be prepared for this team to score A LOT of points. The defense on the other hand is in trouble. The secondary is a concern for two reasons: 1) they’re missing Al Harris bad, and the young guys are, well still pretty young and raw. 2) The front seven. If the defensive line and linebackers can’t get some pressure on the QB, it’s going to be a long season for the corners. Thompson should have drafted or gone after a player in free agency to line-up opposite of Clay Matthews. The loss of Jolly is also going to hurt. Mike Neal looks promising, but I just watched him get thrown around like a rag doll by the Colts o-line.

I expect these guys to turn it around by the time the regular season gets here….at least I hope so.

My wife and I were driving around looking at different neighborhoods and houses for sale, when we came across this rubber ducky car. I’ve seen it a couple of different times around town, so I snapped a photo with my HTC EVO.

I love Star Wars, so spoofs like this just crack me up. This is one of the better ones I’ve seen, so I thought I’d share…

For more information, including some behind the scenes photos, check out their blog post….

http://improveverywhere.com/2010/07/14/star-wars-subway-car/

I chatted yesterday with a real estate agent who was having an open in our building yesterday. It was actually the unit below us. He told us the unit is selling for $105k, and the sellers bought it for $145k. The unit is just like ours, except they have the view of a rock wall, which is by far the worst view of any condo in our building. The owners moved out months ago, so I’m assuming they really just want to get rid of this thing as soon as possible. I get it, but I really wonder if they can afford to sell at such a low price. If it doesn’t sell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a foreclosure. I’m also concerned how all of this will affect the value of the rest our condo’s units.

We have our unit listed at $5k below what we paid for it, and it’s probably about $20k higher than the average person has for our layout in our two buildings. The problem is these other units aren’t getting anymore showings than we are, so we’ve decided not to drop our price anymore. We simply refuse to go in the red on this, so we’ll probably end up taking our condo off the market for a few years. At that point, we’ll see if the market is any better and try to sell it again. If not, we may refinance, and then rent it out. Either way, we’ll need to find a new place to live with more space.

This isn’t our condo association, but this is our situation…
Condo owners make the best of a tough situation

Related:
These Cards Suck
City Data

I’ve been working on putting a new band together for about a year now, and it’s finally coming together! Mike Cammilleri and I started trying out guitarists and drummers this past December, and then eventually singers. I think we’ve ended up with a really nice group of musicians….

Alexis – Vocals
Mike Cammilleri – Keyboards/Organ
Joe Niesen – Guitar
Chris Sandoval – Drums
Me – Bass

We’ve all played in a bands, except for maybe Alexis. She and Mike know each other from playing the UW marching band. She would sometimes sing at Badger games, so Mike already knew she had some good vocal chords. I met Mike when I was playing with Marcus King and Thee Royalty, but he’s also played with The Kissers and has his own organ trio called King Cruiser. I met Chris last Summer jamming at Madison Music Foundry, and he has a ton of experience playing with groups like Tommy Castro, Cold Blood, The Tubes, and the list goes on forever. Joe used to play guitar in Adam Isaac and the People, but I’ve know him since the early SWS days….funky as hell!

For now, we’ve been learning a bunch of funky covers, but the plan is to switch gears and start writing originals. We’re hoping to be playing out in a couple of months. Oh, if you have any ideas for a band name, post a comment!

I always wanted a toy AT-AT when I was kid, but never got one. Thankfully, I had plenty of other Star Wars gear to keep me happy. I thought this was a pretty awesome video using of stop motion….

Making of AT-AT day afternoon

My wife just got the HTC Hero with Google from Sprint this past weekend, and I planned on updating her Android operating system as soon as we got home. One problem, the hot sync tool is only available for Microsoft Windows. It might have been good to know before we actually purchased the phone. If find it incredibly ironic that Google is dropping Windows within their offices, yet you have to have Windows to update their Android operating system.

Who’s to blame?
It’s HTC’s update tool, but it’s also a Sprint phone, and Google should have some type of responsibility here. I realize when multiple companies work together on a project like this, things like this slip through the cracks, but this is a pretty big slip. Apple is huge right now, and what about Linux? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for all three parties to have update tools for multiple operating systems? Of course it would!

Anyway, I guess this means I need to get some version of Windows I’ll never use running on one of my Macs at home, just for HTC Sync Updates. I honestly think Sprint should be offering to update the operating system before the customer walks out the door.

If you want to make money blogging, you first need a blog that has some traffic. I highly suggest to my clients that you first need to have traffic, and then you can sell it. Once you have some traffic, then I would start easing in some advertising.

TIPS TO INCREASE BLOG TRAFFIC

1. Find Your Blog Topic
You need to find a topic people are interested reading about. There are thousands of blogs out there, so I would pick a topic and research how many other blogs are writing about it. If there are too many, and you don’t think you can find your niche, I would think about trying something else.

2. Search Engine Optimize Your Blog
I would do some research on SEO, but I would concentrate on two things, 1) search friendly URLs, and 2) title tags. I use WordPress for my blog, so I have my Permalink setting setup for “Day and name”. I also use a plugin called “All in one SEO Pack“. I really only use this to tweak my title tags. More than anything, I like to provide additional keywords in my article title.

3. Links
You need to be smart about your linking. In my blog posts, I try not to link to everything possible, but rather pick the most important items within the article and link to them. I also have some random links on my sidebar, which may or may not be associated with my blog. Some are links to friends, some of them are links to websites I find interesting. I would find other blogs and see if they’d be interested in trading links. The more blogs that link to you the better!

4. Lists
People love to read lists. Top 10 most beautiful people. Top 10 songs. Top 10 favorite blogs. Whatever! Say it to yourself out loud, people love to read lists.

5. Captivate Your Audience
Don’t get stuck in a rut of just posting text. As much as possible, I try to add images, videos, audio clips, or anything else I can think of that might grab your audience’s attention. You can also use blockquotes, indentation, bullet points, or whatever else you can to make it more visually appealing.

Articles on how to increase your blog traffic:

• 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
• 10 Free Ways To Increase Blog Traffic
• How to get traffic for your blog
• Blog Traffic Increase

MAKING MONEY
There are several ways you can make money with your blog. I highly recommend using more than one of these, and I would definitely experiment with what works best for your blog.

1. Google AdSense
AdSense allows you to place Google ads on your website which you can earn money from clicks or impressions. There are other similar programs such as Yahoo! Publisher Network(YPN), Chitika, and Clicksor. I would check out the Google AdSense Blog, which has a ton of great information.

2. Affiliate Programs
There are ton of affiliate programs out there. It really depends on which one best fits the content in your blog, and which one can make you the most money. I like to use the affiliate programs to link to products I’m blogging out. I create a simple link within my post to the product. If you have a good amount of traffic, and you do this over a period of time, you can make some money. Make sure not to spam your audience, and don’t waste your time with their banner advertising.

• Amazon
• DoubleClick (Google’s affiliate program)
• Pay Dot Com

3. Sell Advertising
You sell advertising on your own and use some type of banner software like OpenX. I personally don’t have time for this type of advertising, but if you start getting requests, I wouldn’t pass them up.

4. Donations
I really don’t like asking for donations, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. If you have really good fans, and they’re willing to give up some money to support your blog, why not? PayPal makes this really easy to setup with their donation buttons. I would wait until your blog is generating a good amount of traffic.

Overall
There are no rules when it comes to making money with your blog. This article simple lists some of the things that have worked for me and my clients. I suggest you do your research, and have fun blogging. Good luck!

Related:

• How to make money with a blog
• Make Money Blogging: Top Bloggers And How Much They Earn
• How to Make Money From Your Blog
• A step by step guide to making money blogging

I love using the self checkout, but there are some unwritten rules when using it:

1. No Cash Allowed. I just about lose my mind when some old lady starts pulling out cash, or worse, her coin purse. Seriously? Oh no, is she pulling out coupons too???

2. 10 Items or Less. I personally try to limit the number of items to 10 items or less. If someone pulls up with a big cart full of stuff, they should be kicked out of the store with a lifetime ban for stupidity.

3. Express Checkout. It normally doesn’t say it’s an express checkout, but the ONLY reason people use self checkout is to save time. If you have items that you need to lookup, for example produce, keep moving on down to the regular checkout.

It’s really hard to believe I used to like the Black Eyed Peas. I would recommend them to friends and bought at least two of their albums, but that was before they sold out. I first got turned onto them after Smokin’ with Superman played a show in Chicago and someone in the crowd told me that we reminded him of the Black Eyed Peas. I ended up going out and buying their album, “Bridging the Gap”. Loved it! I nice crossover album that mixed hip hop, funk, jazz, and other genres.

I liked this album, but the irony of this song today is hilarious….

I liked enough that I bought their new album, Elephunk, a few years later. I enjoyed it, and I was kind of digging on their new female singer, but they starting to scare me with some of the radio friendliness; like Hey Mama and Let’s Get Retard, which ended up being renamed so they could sell the crap out of it.

I actually liked this song…

I still liked them since I couldn’t blame them for making radio friendly songs, yet, for the most part, stuck to their roots. They would play shows with an actual band, and from what I’ve heard, put on a good show.

Their next album, “Monkey Business”, was total garbage. I thankfully hadn’t bought the album yet when I friend of mine warned me not to buy it. He told me to check out the song, “My Humps“, which happens to be one of the worst songs ever created. First, Fergie should never ever rap. I was embarrassed for her and the rest of the band. Second, their genre just went from a crossover hip hop band to dance music you’d hear in a dirty small town dance club. It was official, the Black Eyed Peas had officially sold out to the record industry. I’m guessing they liked the money they made from Elephunk, and were willing to do anything to make more.

Total suck….

Over the next few years, their suckdom continued to grow, which included a horrific solo effort by Fergie. I just found out they played on American Idol, and they stunk it up pretty good. They keep saying, “I wanna rock right now”, but they don’t do anything but suck.

I wanna suck right now…

Who keeps buying their crappy auto-tuned albums? You need to stop!

Related:
The Black Eyed Peas “Give Back” with Embarrassing Idol Performance
Black Eyed Peas Have Officially Written The Worst Song Ever
The Black Eyed Peas Suck!