My Swedish Film

I've made a film!


It's in Swedish (with subtitles)! Well, to be honest, it's not really a film. You only see my face. You can do the same too. There's a website which allows you to put your face into a film. (I learned about it from Webphermera.)


This film is a fantastic promotional project called The Hero - A Movie About You or Someone You Know. It was put together by the Swedes in order to convince the public that paying for your TV license was the right thing to do. 
Now people all over the world are putting their faces up there. 


You can too. Watch this then upload your picture and away you go. It takes a little while to load, but hang in there. It asks you to click on the link for a faster upload. Do this to watch it in the larger version and wait for it to start. 

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Earning Money From BidVertiser?

Some time ago I took a decision to sign up with Bidvertiser on my relationship blog. I was told that clicks and payments would soon be coming my way. I did all that was required of me and even sign in regularly to approve the ads I want displayed on my blog. 


A few months later, and I'm still waiting for a single click. Now, I have a large number of visitors to my site and regularly record clicks on all my Google Adsense ads on my blogs. I find it hard to believe that I would not have had one single click to my Bidvertiser ad. 


Curiosity got my fingers walking, and I did a little investigating on the Internet. Apparently, many people who sign up with Bidvertiser have this same problem. They have lots of page impressions but no clicks. This seems to be a universal problem. I read one report where the writer confessed to having asked numerous online friends from other countries to click on his ads. In exchange, he did the same for theirs. Both parties still had zero clicks at the end of the month. 


Of course, I'm not advocating doing this. It's not something I've done or plan to do. The point I'm raising is that if there's proof that Bidvertiser clicks aren't been recorded, what's the point of staying with the programme.


I'll give Bidvertiser one last month. If nothing changes, I'm going to remove it from my site. How about you? What has been your experience with Bidvertiser? If you've had any of your clicks recorded, have you been paid for them? 

Chinese New Year - What Animal Are You?

                                                                        image source


The Chinese New Year is steeped in history and mathematics, and is thought to have been first perfected in 500 BCE.
Westerners have heard several myths of how each year was originally named. One of the most popular legends is that Buddha asked the animals to meet him on New Year's Day, and for the 12 that came, he rewarded them  by naming a year after each of them. 


Ever since the event, legend has it that people born in the year named after a particular animal are said to have some of its attributes. For example, babies born this year will be natural leaders (like the tiger).


Apart from mainland China, the Chinese New Year is celebrated in many other countries like The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand etc.
Festivities continue from the start to the fifteenth day of the year. Chinese people take a few days off work to prepare for and celebrate this holiday - the most important in their culture. Families work hard to spend time together, and even poor relatives send money to each other in little red envelopes. Days are set aside for specific activities. For example the first five days include:


Day 1 - Welcome the deities and abstain from meat.
Day 2 - Married daughters visit parents.
Day 3 and 4 - Visit graves of dead relatives or homes of relatives who've recently passed on.
Day 5- Shoot firecrackers.


Even for us Westerners, the legends hold intrigue, mystery and even an element of fun.
Find out which animal you're most like by clicking on the link and type in your date of birth. I don't believe in this, but for the fun of it, was interested to find out what it said about the year I was born. According to this site, I'm a monkey: 'Very clever, but mischievous. Love a challenge and can wriggle out of difficult situations by thinking through difficult problems. Highly successful and well-liked.'


What animal are you? Are you anything like it?

Songs Most Frequently Ruined on X-Factor

Through the years, it has emerged that contestants vying for that top spot on Britain's X-Factor tend to favour certain songs. Of course, the great singers like Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis and JLS pull it off every time. 


On the other hand, many of the not-so-talented contestants drag otherwise enjoyable songs in the mud, work them into the slush with the bottom of their shoes, spit on them then walk away on the Cowell of shame. 
Below is the list of songs contestants in the X-Factor auditions frequently insist on singing then get completely wrong.


Michael Jackson - You Are Not Alone



Mariah Carey - Hero 


Even without the tiring embellishments Mariah Carey forces into her songs, this track is mighty hard to sing. X-Factor's contestants nevertheless, in a stupor of dual-personality, fail to vocally deliver the sounds they think they hear inside their heads when they sing. If you think I'm being too harsh, check out the guy below who's allegedly singing Hero. At least he's got the up and down (inside out, right-side back) embellishment at the end of his words in typical Mariah Carey fashion. 



French Guy (Fouad Djaoublia) singing Mariah. Please (don't) laugh out too loudly.



Christiana Aguilera - You're Beautiful


This is another one of the songs that pop up year after year completely ruined by X-Factor contestants in the auditions. No one does Lady Christina like she does. When you've got a frog-related kink to your voice, this is not the song to pick. You might be beautiful and you may think that Cheryl and Danii are, but please don't tell them in song. Not because her voice sounds beautiful in your head ...(you know the rest).



Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You 


In fact, anything by Whitney should be banned on the X-Factor auditions. One has to be an amazingly good singer to face Simon Cowell and belt out a Whitney in perfect key. Meanwhile, Whitney is still singing the first line of her song. Please, please get on with it, girl. We all know that you can sing. We don't want to wait a whole minute for you to finish that one word.



Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You


You know, he and Michael Buble are my favourite male singers on earth! Evidently, a lot of people agree with me that Robbie is fantastic. Why else would so many of them try singing this song on the X-Factor auditions. I've seen groups, boys, girls and everyone in between have a go at this track. A few of them have been okay, but hundreds have tried and failed - miserably. Sing us out, Robbie!

Urban Dictionary Week

Urban Dictionary is a website that lets you define non-dictionary phrases and slangs which are trending at the moment. It's a fun site that gently eases nerds like me into yesterday's 'new' terminology. Most of the definitions are fun and entertaining. However, they do provide a necessary insight into a 'language' that is quickly amalgamating into everyday English.


This is where Facebook comes in. As quoted by All Facebook and Mashable (the latter has had more than 900 tweets on this article at my last count). There's a brand new trend on Facebook this week. (What did we do with our fingers and thumbs before we discovered we could waste time on Facebook trends?) If you have 5 minutes to throw away this week why not pop into the link above for Urban Dictionary. 

• Type your name into the search panel (on Urban Dictionary's site).
• Use your first name as your Facebook profile update.
• Copy and paste the first definition as a comment.

I was highly entertained to find these as definitions for 'Anne.' 

• An attractive and classy young woman who lives up to the simple beauty of her name.
• A tall young lady with hair that changes color on a regular basis. 
• noun: Someone who goes into the pool with his/her clothes on and flounders about due to an inability to swim. 

I loved the explanation that went with that one: Person A: Dude what the hell is that guy doing drowning with his clothes on? 

Person B: Oh, don't mind him. He's such an anne.

Maybe you can find something to make you smile?