A few moons ago (which was last year), I did a post here: “Success Saturday: Putting Together an eCommerce Site“. Yep, that too was posted on a Saturday.

Well, this week, I released another version of it: “Getting Started with Your Own eCommerce Site“.

Much is the same; just had to change a few things. Please check it out and tell your friends too.

I’m using this one to promote my “Internet Marketing Backstage Pass” guide which, by the way, is on sale this weekend only. I’m writing this on Friday evening, and some have already taken advantage of the sale, which is good news. So, if you’ve thought about getting a copy, this would be a good weekend to do so to take advantage of a pretty incredible sale price. But, that ends around midnight Sunday, November 15th, so you better act now.

But, even if you don’t buy the guide, at least please give the article a read. Thanks!

Let’s hope you don’t suffer from Triskaidekaphobia!

While cleaning out the aforementioned cabinet, I also came across these “Rainbow Glasses.”

I believe that this were from some point in the mid to late 1980s. I don’t remember where I got them.

They are just heavy paper with thin film called Holex Kaleidaglas. This film essentially lets you see a rainbow of colors when you look at things. In daylight, you can see rainbows just about everywhere. At night, you’ll only see them around lights and brightly lit objects.

Here’s an example which I did by holding up the glasses to the camera lens:

In daylight, that’s what pretty much everything looks like, with varying degrees of intensity depending upon the amount of light reflecting from or produced by the objects being viewed.

I think this is a form of diffraction grating. Regardless, it’s pretty cool stuff. I think I had a lens for my video camera that produced similar effects. Too bad my video camera lens don’t fit my digital camera. (I haven’t found an adapter for them either.)

You see, kids, sometimes science is fun.

In cleaning out that old cabinet, I also found this radio.

This is the first portable radio that I remember having. Ran on a 9V battery, so you know it’s old since it seems like most later electronics always seemed to require two AA batteries.

I can remember sitting in the back of the van when I was a kid, one night on our way back home from somewhere, and listening to “Funkytown” by Lipps, Inc. That’s my longest lasting memory (and perhaps earliest?) of this radio.

In a couple posts this week, I’ve mentioned an old cabinet I’ve been cleaning out.

When cleaning it out on Sunday, I found this:

That’s a bag of spice. No, nothing weird. It’s the Spice, as in melange.

Back in the mid-eighties, I was in school and one of the books we had to read for our English class was Dune. Well, as it happened, the movie Dune came out around the same time. At present, I don’t recall whether the movie was being filmed or had already been released. The movie came out in December of 1984. I remember reading this in the spring, so it had to be spring of 1984 or spring of 1985.

Anyway, the teacher tried to tie things in with the movie a bit (so I’m thinking it’s more likely to have been 1985) and one of our assignments was to make our own props. I think this was an exercise in showing how people envision different things they read and that not everyone would interpret the book the same. Probably. Then again, we weren’t special effects and props people, so the things we made didn’t necessarily reflect how we envisioned them but rather how we envisioned them and could fashion them out of things from around the house and without the skill set of a professional prop maker.

So, one of my props was the spice. I made mine from sugar, cinnamon and (I think perhaps) a bit of nutmeg. It’s been 24 years, so I don’t remember for certain, but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s in there.

Evidently, I still have the spice. And here it is.

I also made a Fremen dagger, which was supposed to be a sandworm’s tooth. And also the dunes of Arrakis with a sandworm.

And they let us into school with that. I bet these days you couldn’t carry a bag of spice and a sandworm tooth dagger into school without landing yourself in trouble.

He’s vintage! He’s famous! He wants to hook up…

That’s right–this rapper wants to phone home!

I’ve had this guy since the early 80’s, I guess. Here he is without his hat:

He used to be on my dresser way back when. I think. He was obviously cold with his neck shriveled up, so I gave him a scarf (a piece of navy yarn) at some point and then added an arrowhead necklace. Don’t remember if he got the cap before or after all that.

Live long and phone home often. Rock on!

This is from the same cabinet as the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” chalk drawing from yesterday’s post.

This was one of the first–if not the first–stop-motion animations I did with my new video camera when I got it back in 1990. I think the title was “The Tortoise and The [insert name of comic book character I'm not licensed to use but runs very fast and is not Superman]“. It was just practice anyway, so using a comic book character for it wasn’t a worry. But, I can’t show you the video due to copyright concerns. Don’t worry, though, you’re not missing much!

It was a very basic animation. You can still see the figures stuck on the page: the turtle and the comic book character. There used to be a blurry strip that I put behind the comic book character to give the illusion he was running very fast, but that’s no longer stuck on there. (It’s been 19 years!!!)

Anyway, so I had the two characters next to each other, and they raced across the background image. On their backs were single-sided tape wrapped around itself and pressed on to give a sticky surface on both sides. Then, I would take start and stop the camera to take a quick shot, and then advance the figures forward. It was a very choppy animation, and, as you can imagine, the turtle didn’t win.

This is just a chalk drawing that I did on the side of a cabinet. I did this around 1990.

This is a small wooden cabinet that I’m pretty sure my grandfather built. It was all painted in a pale green color. Lots of stuff my grandparents had were painted this color. I’m not sure where the paint came from, but they evidently had a lot of it. The basement was painted in this color. My grandfather’s toolroom had cabinets (which he built) and walls all painted in this pale green.

Anyway, many moons ago (circa 1990), I think I moved the cabinet from the basement (or was it the shed?) into my bedroom. After cleaning it up, I put contact paper on it. The interior, the shelves and the top were done in a grey/black woodgrain pattern. I did the front and sides with a chalkboard contact paper, so you could write on it with chalk, as I did in this photo.

It’s been there ever since. It’s gotten a bit blurred over the years, but is mostly intact.

Compare the “Sell By” date with the “Use/frz By” date…

Evidently, you have more time to buy it than you have to use it.

Finally, I have finished my other eBook, you know the one I started before the Internet marketing guide.

It’s basically an old book which I edited and added new material in the form of exercises and worksheets based on the lessons in the book. So, it becomes a course rather than just a simple book.

And then I let it sit on my hard drive for ages while I pondered how to touch up a few things.

Which led to being sidetracked into other projects.

Which is the kind of stuff you’ll learn not to do if you follow the lessons in the book.

Remember when this blog used to have better content? Well, that was when I was applying the principles learned in this book.

And then I slacked off.

And you have seen the results.

At any rate, the book is now available: How to Train Your Mind. And, as a new release, I’ve set it up with special introductory pricing, which will not last long.

So, if you’re interested in boosting your brain power, and getting a good deal, now is to time to check out that link!

You said you didn’t want them.
You told them “Get lost!” (Get lost!)
You lost a lot of good mail
When you tossed out the spam.
Now you wished
That it’d go away (for good!)
And you want a better tool.
You just click on “Delete”
But it just don’t get it gone.
Gotta blame it on something.
Gotta blame it on something.

Blame it on the spam (spam!)
Blame it on the spam (spam!)
Whatever you do, don’t put the blame on you.
Blame it on the spam, yeah, yeah.
You can blame it on the spam.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. (Yeah!)
I can’t–I can’t–I can’t–can’t stand the spam.
I can’t–I can’t–I can’t–can’t stand the spam.
No, no.

So, I’ve been waiting for an eMail all week. Normally, it takes a few days, so I didn’t expect it until the end of this week.

Anxious, I decided to check to make sure I hadn’t missed it, so I did a search in my eMailbox.

And, I had missed it. In fact, it had arrived Monday, well before I had expected it. And, of course, it required further action on my part, because of an error I had made (the hazards of copy & paste!!!). So, I had to reply back and wait some more…

I am hoping (fingers crossed) that I’ll hear back tomorrow.

Can’t wait!