Some of you were lucky enough to view this post: “Something Few People Have Ever Seen.” (Your comments were left on this post, because, for whatever reason, no one can comment on a password-protected post on this blog.)

Well, I have decided to work on it again (in between all my other projects…). Last night, I dug out my notes and files on the project, from where I left off back in (gasp!) 2001, apparently. And, today, I dug out some materials from 1999, for “recycling.” No, not tossing them–reusing them!

Late last night, I made some notes of the new features I want to add. I think that I will be able to incorporate all the old features (nothing is outdated!) and add in the new features.

Anyway, what I am going to need are some pioneers! People ready, willing and able to stake a claim to their virtual territory. In other words, you would get to be the first to try it out and give me feedback. Naturally, at first, there won’t be much to give feedback on, so your “duties” would be light. And, it really doesn’t matter if you can log in daily (though that would be helpful at some point) or weekly or on some sporadic schedule. If you can check it out (and hopefully participate) on some sort of semi-regular basis, that’ll work!

Fun and information is the goal of the service with some motivation thrown in. No porn, no adult stuff. Family-friendly, though kids won’t be allowed because COPPA is just a freaking nightmare to deal with.

If interested, leave a comment. Thanks!

This is a Mersman table. Very popular back in the day. So popular, they’re not worth a whole lot, and they are supposedly easy to find, though I haven’t been able to find the particular one I’d like to find, and am probably even less likely to find the specific one I’d like to find. But, you don’t care about any of that. So, let’s move on…

This one is not a Mersman. It’s a Melissa and Doug. Some of you will know what that means. At any rate, this is the furniture you are really interested in knowing more about, because I’ve kept you hanging for so long. Well, not on this nightstand, nor the bed beside it, but on the sofa and the original bed.

As I mentioned before, though, I was on a quest for more furniture, which resulted in this nightstand and bed from Melissa and Doug. For those not in the know, that’s a brand name, not a couple named Melissa and Doug, although they might be, but that’s another story, probably.

And why does the spell checker think that nightstand is spelled correctly in one spot, but not anywhere else? Nightstand. Nightstand. Nightstand. Weird.

So, anyway, today was going to be the reveal, but now it’s not. And, it wouldn’t be appropriate to have the reveal on Easter Sunday–you’ll probably understand why after you see it–so now you are going to have to wait until Monday.

Monday is when you’ll see what this nightstand and bed were used for. In fact, the photo in this post was cropped from the actual image you’ll see on Monday. The sofa and other bed will have to wait a while longer, but you’ll have the general idea after Monday what’s going on with those as well.

Your extra teaser, or Easter egg if you prefer, is that Monday’s reveal will involve a redhead. And you should probably keep children away from your computer monitor when you take a look.

Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach, but sometimes an army marches on a self-adhesive foam pad.

This custom rubber stamp army is currently on its way to a customer. The customer needed only the stamp mounts and handles for a special project, so the “stamps” pictured don’t have any stamp dies on them.

I think the general (the one with the red cap) is a little upset with the troops falling out of formation.

Is it sad that I’m still looking for dollhouse furniture, even though I don’t have a dollhouse?

I just need to find a decent carpet. I think that’s what I really need to finish this project. Maybe a blanket too. And some nice flooring. Walls. I think I can build the walls myself. Paint them a solid color. Maybe a faux finish. No patterns. Don’t want to have to buy tiny wallpaper. Flooring–don’t know what to do there. Obviously regular wood would be too large. Maybe I’ll have to be creative. I don’t want to spend much money on this project…

I knew none of you would know what this is.

However, MacBros did come the closest with his guess of a “rubber stamp casing.”

As I mentioned, there was some trickery involved. “It” was actually two things glued together:

They are covers for replacement ink wells for single-line self-inking rubber stamps. They keep the ink pad covered while in storage or transit, to both help keep the ink from drying out and keep everything else getting all inky.

We usually end up with leftovers of these, so it would be nice to figure out something to do with them. Maybe I can make my own USB storage devices or something.

But, I guess it really wasn’t.

Since lots of Internet marketers use what are called “eCovers,” I thought this might be a good idea. An eCover is designed to simulate an actual product, and the trend is toward more realistic products.

So, what could be more realistic than an actual photo, customized with the “eCover” of the eBook?

The response has been nil. Perhaps there is a limit to the level of realism desired?

Oh well. On to the next idea…

A lot of Internet marketers use “eCovers” for their digital products. An example “box” is what you see above. Some use boxes, some use books, some use CD or DVD cases. All to give the illusion of a physical product.

Of course, you (usually) don’t receive a physical product, but some people apparently feel more comfortable seeing a simulated product box, even when they’re being told they’re getting a digital download and not anything sent to them in a box.

Anyway, so, if people are compelled to purchase based on an illusionary box, why not go the extra yard with more of a 3D cover, such as this:

I think it looks cool, anyway. Maybe there are marketers already doing this. Maybe I’ve stumbled across another money making market that’s already dried up.

Which is typically my luck.

Anyway, if you know any Internet marketers that might like a 3D box like that, feel free to steer them my way.

Books and CD cases may be next, if there is any demand.

Oh, and the rotation speed can be changed of course. It goes at a good pace on my computer, but your mileage may vary.

As I mentioned, I worked on an “economic” video over the weekend. (Worked on it Friday too.)

Why? you ask.

Well, you see the Internet marketing “gurus” say you need to use video these days. People don’t want to read sales pages anymore. They want to spend a half hour watching a marketing video instead.

Personally, I don’t get it. I’d much rather read a sales letter, which I can read or skim through at my own pace, than sit and wade through a video which may or may not contain anything useful.

But, at any rate, I figured I’d give it a go…

So, you’ll remember that last fall I had a post on how you could “Earn Extra Money with Your Own Office Cleaning Business.” I decided to make a video for that.

Towards the end, it gets a bit out of whack. At first, YouTube was consistently chopping off the last 7 seconds of the video. After four or five attempts to get it uploaded without those 7 seconds getting chopped off, I tried a different approach: I added 7 seconds to the video and uploaded it. But, this time YouTube didn’t chop anything off, so there’s an extra 7 seconds to the final video…

But, it shouldn’t freeze on the Uncle Sam image for so long. That’s where the problem seems to be, but I’m not quite sure what it is. I’m going to try something later to see if it fixes it. But, it takes about a half hour to redo the video, and I don’t have time for that right now.

I think I may need to boost the audio a bit too.

Anyway, feel free to let me know your thoughts!

Almost done!

I just finished taking the last three shots I need to wrap it up. Just need to squeeze those in, and I will be done!

Took the long way of doing a few things. Couldn’t figure out how to do something I thought would be easy, but found another way to do it. Then, in figuring out something else, I found the easy way to do the other thing. I suppose that’s the way of things when you haven’t touched a particular software application in many moons!

I used five applications this weekend that I haven’t used in ages in order to do this video.

I won’t be able to do the gardening post I was planning, but at least I’ll get the video done.

Back to work…

This is just a very brief snippet of what has become my weekend project.

I am making a video. I wrote the script Thursday night, or really Friday morning as it was 2:13 a.m. when I finished it. (Started at 1:55 a.m.)

Took some photos yesterday, and started on the video. I planned to do the audio today, but the video took so long that now the audio will have to be done tomorrow. And, I need the audio done before I can finish the rest of the video.

I plan to wrap up a bit of the video work tonight (the portion that doesn’t rely on the audio), so hopefully I can get it all done tomorrow!

I’ll post it for all to see when I’m done!