Remember James O’Keefe?  He and Hannah Giles broke the news stories on just how far ACORN was willing to go, including breaking laws.  Several ACORN (Obama’s pets) offices aggreed to help them set up illegal underage prostitution houses with federal aid.  The stories broke and the left went nuts.  They completely ignored the fact that the ACORN offices were more than willing to break the laws.  Enter todays news about O’Keefe attempting to wire tap Mary Landrieu’s office.  The left are all over his “crime”.  Where were they on ACORN’s crimes?  Completely ignoring the issue, that’s where.

Reminds me of a time that I reported a copyright violation to a site I sell through.  I had bought a merchants resource believing that the seller had the right to sell the digital images she was selling.  Then someone posted a link to the website where she copied her resource from (it was quickly pulled from the forum at the request of the infringer).   After contacting the website and learning that they did not, in fact, allow such use of their digital images I contacted the site she was selling them through and quietly reported it.   Now I’ve been a member there for years and watched innocent mistakes publicly denounced in public forums.  It ruins reps and serves no one.  I reported it quietly so as not to destroy someone’s rep and what did I get for it?   Her friends decided to post angry comments in the merchant forum, not towards her stupid mistake which she should have known better than to do but against the person who reported it.  That’s right, her idiot friends claimed that a 3rd party shouldn’t have been able to bring the copyright infringement to the sites attention, that it was only the copyright holders place.  The problem with that is the site that she stole from would never have known.   Were it someone they weren’t personal friends with they would have had their pitchforks out against them.  Did she, or they even bother to consider that I could have made a public issue out of it?  She certainly wouldn’t be selling where she is now if I had.  I did her a favor and she never even bothered to explain to her customers why she had to pull the product.

So same sh*t different market.

Based on my experience with them, I fully believe Opinion Outpost is a scam.  In my experience, I have qualified for a survey only to spend anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes answering questions only to be told either quotas are met or I’m am not, in fact, qualified.  This after they’ve received quite a bit of information from me.  Contacting them does no good either as I’ve explained this frustration to them and they basically claim there is nothing they can do.  As soon as I suggested that it makes them look like a scam site they clam up.  I’m very curious if anyone else has had a bad experience with Opinion Outpost.  If so, leave a comment.  I’d like to hear it.

I admit it, I am a capitalist as you can probably tell by now if you’ve been reading here for any amount of time. :)  Today is tax day and all over the country there are Tax Tea Parties going on.  I so wanted to go to the one nearest me.  Unfortunately life interferes but had I had the chance I had plans for taking the kids, creating t-shirt graphics, the works.   For the next one (and I’m sure there will be more Tea Parties)  I found a button machine and it’s100% American Made.  Of course the capitalist in me is thinking that it’s a great place to be selling buttons and t-shirts today.  :)    The website offers free tips and design ideas so anyone could purchase a button machine and make some income.

We’ve been doing some work in the store re-modeling and re-arranging and I have plans for next year to draw in more customers.  I came across www.Threadsmith.com.  They have an easy interface for creating your own custom embroidery.   In addition to shirts and personalized baby gifts they have a denim shirt, much like the ones we sell.  It’s a good shirt to wear like a uniform but it doesn’t have the store name on it.  I played around with a design and the store name and it looked great.  Since it’s embroidery and not printing I’ll have to tweak the design I have to work with embroidery but it should work.  If I want to re-vamp the store it’s an idea to look into.   They have a huge variety of products.  More than most sites like this.  They even have a santa hat.  That’s something I’ve never seen.  :)  I’m looking at the laptop backpack right now.

Honestly I can’t believe our Government is about to spend over a trillion dollars with less than half of it, if that,  going to create any jobs at all.  Businesses are closing left and right.  Tonight I saw two more empty places in a decent strip mall that gets enough traffic.  And one was right next door to a Subway Sandwich Shop.  I was reading that Casino’s and fast food businesses were doing just fine.  Ironic isn’t it?  And each time a business closes there go that many jobs that went with it.  If our government would wake up and smell the coffee they’d see that tax breaks keep jobs in the country not to mention that capitalism creates jobs.   Be nice to big business and small business and we won’t have record unemployment.

Now is definitely the time to consider self-employed side businesses.  The other day as I was scanning and touching up old photos I began to think about doing that as a side job.  Just about everyone is online these days and have scanners but not everyone has the software or ability to scan and then fix an old photo that may be torn or damaged in some way.  I’m still considering it but I’d have to find a way to accept credit cards and could use a small business loan to obtain the software.  I’m still suck in Photoshop 7 and would love to get Photoshop CS4. 

Every little bit helps.

I really figured things would slow down after the weekend but I was wrong.  It’s still pretty busy here.  I would imagine it will stay at some level of “busy” until after New Years Day though.  There is a bit of a difference though.  Most people with kids are still out of school but many had to go back to work after the holiday weekend.  Me, I’ll be working until the 1st of the new year and then I can breathe a bit.  I am definitely looking forward to that point.  So far people have been decent.  Usually, this time of year they get cranky and they take it out on the businesses up here.  We did manage to get away yesterday and take the kids to see “Marley and Me”.  (hint: don’t go see it without tissues.  i’ve never heard so many crying at a movie before in my life)

I can’t really tell if the economy is affecting the holiday or not.  I have seen busier days after Christmas with just as much snow so I suppose it has.  I’m still seeing a lot of SUV’s on the road though.  I have noticed that people are using their credit cards a lot more than usual.  Typically, they’ve put so much on them for Christmas shopping that they’re down to cash only afterwards.   I’m tempted to check out different merchant services accounts after the holiday.  We pay so much in fees and the percentage that if we’re going to be seeing a lot more card use we may as well shop around for something more economical.  The economy has hit us too.  The next few years will be interesting.

I’ve been browsing different photography sites for portrait pose ideas and I can’t believe how many have auto start music on their sites.   Music is for myspace, not an online portfolio.  When I’m working on my computer I usually have my own music playing.  I choose music that fits the mood I’m in or the project I’m working on.  It’s frustrating to have something suddenly blare through the speakers at me on top of what I’m listening to.   If you think it’s just so cool to force your choice of music on people either get a myspace account or give visitors the option of turning on music.

I’m not entirely sure where I stand on this but since there isn’t much I can do about it personally all I can do is just watch it play out. So far our business hasn’t been affected other than people just aren’t traveling too much. Those who do come through are still making the same amount of purchases. It hasn’t affected us at home much just yet. Luckily we aren’t in need of a Personal Loan and we don’t plan to move anytime soon. Those are the people I feel for right now. Some are acting as if the sky is falling but the fact is there is no proof that banks aren’t lending however they may be making smarter loans than they were previously. It is still possible to get an Auto Loan if you need it. Hopefully my car, which is shifting hard, isn’t about to die or we could be looking at needing a Instant Personal Loan soon. With one deisel and one SUV we need a car that can save gas for longer drives.
But I really don’t believe the sky is falling and I don’t believe that all of the banks are going to fold leaving us up the creek. People just need to be carefull right now and borrow what they can afford to pay back and use the money responsibly.
I’ll be watching the vote tonight to see where it goes.

My mustang is gone. I’m not exactly happy about it but it was needing work that didn’t quite fit in with our schedule. It was such a fun car to drive. I told my husband that mustang was my mid life crisis vehicle. Something I could put a little money into and have my fun red sports car. Considering all that was needed it would have taken an Auto Loan to do it, mainly for the engine but after that the only other thing it really needed was a new top.

So now I’m missing my mustang and looking at different cars online that I’d love to replace it with. I’m a few years away from doing that but Apex Auto Loan has quick and easy online approval and an Auto Loan Calculator.

I’m thinking Jaguar. (I’m also thinking I’d better think cheaper)