Funny Stuff is all around

Archive for October, 2008

People commit a lot of time waiting for discounts, scanning the newspaper for sales, and clipping coupons when trying to save money on typical household expenses. However, who stops to consider the prospect of a flea market when shopping for home furnishings?

Flea markets are a great place to hunt down some serious furniture bargains. From the antique chair that’s begging to be reupholstered to that hidden gem of a coffee table that just needs a new coat of varnish, you’re going to find them at the flea markets.

Keep reading for 5 hot tips that will teach you exactly how to find furniture deals at the flea markets.

1. Go Early

Especially if your local flea market is only open one day a week, go early to snag the best items.

2. Go Late

Though very contradictory to the last tip, you can sometimes snatch up some great deals by going to the flea market later in the day. While you won’t find the selection that’s available at the start of the day, you will find vendors that are more eager to sell and willing to part with an item for less than they would have at 8am.

So if you have the time and inclination, do both - go early and late.

3. Have a Plan

If you approach your flea market shopping with a plan, you’re less likely to spend money on impulse buys. For example, if you know you need a chair and you’re planning to find one to reupholster, then you’ll be less likely to leave with a kitchen table that needs re-sanding, especially if you don’t even own a sander!

4. Negotiate

Haggle, barter, or negotiate - whatever you want to call it, do it. Remember that with bargaining, the first person who says a price is usually at a disadvantage. First, ask the seller how much they were thinking of selling an item for, then go in with a price that’s about 25 to 50 percent lower than what you’re willing to pay.

When haggling, always be cordial, never overtly insult the item or the seller and try to play fair.

5. Be Ready to Repair

It’s unlikely that you’re going to find a pristine, unmarked piece of furniture for a great discount at flea market prices. Instead of holding out for that holy grail of furniture finds, look at items that may need just a little loving care to bring out their beauty. You’re more likely to find what you’re looking for and at a good price.

Basically, the keys to flea market success are knowing you’re not going to find perfection, being wiling to negotiate, planning ahead and timing your visits. With these 5 great tips, you’ll know exactly how to find furniture deals at the flea markets.

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Summary of Wordpress Premium Themes

There seems to be a growing demand for higher quality themes for WordPress. Whether to choose a Premium theme or a Free theme is sometimes a difficult choice. Some free themes are really top notch so depending on what your needs are there may be no need for you to purchase a Premium theme. But, there are more and more high quality (and some unfortunately low quality) premium themes as well.

There are usually three types of Premium themes available - single site, multiple site and developer license, although some sites just have either single site or developer licenses. In most cases you would normally go for the multiple license unless you are certain you will only use the theme for one site. If you are a developer, obviously you would want to choose the developer’s license.

One thing that has changed recently is Revolution going Open Source, so you can now download some of their Premium themes for free. But, you have to pay for support. This is probably a smart move as more people will try their themes out and realise they then need support. Hopefully this move will get rid of some of those people trying to make a quick buck by selling cheap and nasty generic Premium themes.

My current favourite theme is the one I use on this site, which is WP-VYBE. It has a lot of flexibility in the admin menu, great support and a great design.

Below is a description of some of the best Premium Themes that I have found. I’m constantly adding to this list so hopefully will be putting a few more up here soon.

1) WP-VYBE
No. of themes: 12
Pricing: $99 (single), $199 (multiple), $299 (developer). But there are cheaper themes from $49 up.
Type of themes: Magazine
Customization services: Possible through other developers.

Notes:Theme settings page in your Wordpress control pane, 2-column or 3-column layouts, 10 different color options, Gravatar integration, Optional banner ad integration, Optional built-in post thumbnails, Optional logo/header image integration via control panel, Built-in drop-down navigation for sub-categories and sub-pages, widgetized sidebars and alot more….

2) ARTHEMIA
No. of themes: 1 (but customization through admin panel is possible)
Pricing: $70 (1 site), $140 (5-site), $240 (developer’s pack)
Type of themes: online magazine, corporate, personal blog
Customization service: Nothing mentioned

Notes: Flexible theme admin panel, category colour assignment, auto-thumbnail old posts, banner and adsense management, show or hide headline spoilers, adsense friendly.

3) PRESS 75
No. of themes: 3
Pricing: $75 (single), $150 (mulit-site), $250 (developer’s license)
Type of theme: Video/TV themed
Customization service: None listed

Notes: Ability to post using videos from several sources including Blip, TV, Flickr, MetaCafe, MySpace, Veoh, Viddler, Vimeo and YouTube. You can separate the blog from the video and there is an embed code allowing others to embed videos on their site.

4) WOO THEMES
No. of themes: 10
Pricing: $70 (single) , $150 (multiple) for each theme
Type of themes: Business, CMS, Magazine/News, Personal blog, Portfolio
Customization services: none advertised.

Notes: Theme options backend, custom write panels (to make the addition of custom fields easier), same base backend for all themes.

5) ZIDALGO
No. of themes: 2
Pricing: $75 (singl), $249 (developer’s license)
Type of themes: News/Magazine
Customization services: None advertised

Notes: Google adsense, Widget, plugin ready, custom category search, author pages, 100% Valid XHTML/CSS, cross-browser tested.

6) MIMBO PRO
No. of themes: 1
Pricing: $99 (single), $199 (developer’s license)
Type of theme: Magazine
Customization services: none advertised

Notes: Built in contact form, automatic cropping and resizing of images, printer friendly rendering, custom templates for search results, date archives, sitemap, contact, author archives and category archives

7) GABFIRE
No. of themes: 2
Pricing: $59 (single), $159 (multi), $259 (developer)
Type of theme: Magazine, News, Wordpress showcase Customization services: Yes. Fill in your budget, colours to be used, example sites and message.

Notes: Built in FlickR support, video spot, Ajax tabs, custom 404 error page, Gravatar support, drop down menu

The definitive advice as to whether a presidential candidate would win the election and eventually become the President of the United States could be verified, among other things, by computing whether there is any propensity for long-term relationships with his (for the time being) nominated vice president.

The Democratic Party has chosen Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois as its nominee to compete against the Republican Party’s John McCain from Arizona in the forth-coming United States presidential election of 2008.

The 2008 presidential election is the first time in the U.S. history that two sitting senators will run against each other for the presidency of the United States, and more importantly, it is also the first time an African American has become a presidential nominee for a major party, as well as the first time both candidates of the two major parties - Democratic and Republican, were born outside the continental U. S. A. - Hawaii for Obama and the Panama Canal Zone for McCain.

On November 4, 2008, the Election Day in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, registered voters will cast votes for presidential candidates nominated and listed.

On December 15, 2008, members of the U. S. Electoral College will meet in their respective state capital to officially cast their votes for President and Vice President.

On January 6, 2009, Electoral votes will officially be tallied before both chambers of Congress - the Senate and the House of Representatives.

On January 20, 2009, the constitutionally set Inauguration Day, Barack H. Obama, Jr. will become the 44th President of the United States and Joseph R. Biden, Jr. the 47th Vice President of the United States.

Barack H. Obama, Jr. (born August 4, 1961) announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007.

On August 27, 2008 he became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election. Shortly after midnight on August 23, 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign announced that Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware has become the Vice Presidential candidate.

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware.

On Wednesday, February 6, 2008, the day after the Super Tuesday - the single biggest U. S. presidential primary day, will become President-elect at the end of 2008.

Subsequent to the announcement of the partnership with Senator Joe Biden, Best-Relationship-Advice has carefully computed definitively the Relationship between the presidential candidate, Obama, and the vice Presidential candidate, Biden. The result is stunning — there is absolute propensity for a long-term partnership. In the current situation that they are teamed up for the 2008 presidential campaign, this could only lead to one single conclusion, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will become President and Vice President of the United States in the 2008 Election.

Parallel study has been made on John McCain and Sarah Palin. The result is affirmative, that the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Republican Party do not reflect any long-term relationship in the coming years.

The result is therefore conclusive, which duly coincides with the same piece of advice given before based upon a totally different methodology by Best Relationship Advice.

Read more about President Barack Obama.

For the relationship advice and speed dating game read more here.

If you are wanting a chocolate Labrador for sale then please read this article.

Why would you want a chocolate Labrador Retriever? That’s a question that I often ask myself, as I receive various requests for information about them.

Having been involved with Labrador Retrievers for many years now, and having also observed numerous Labrador Retrievers, including chocolate, I find it difficult to justify the additional price often charged for chocolate Labrador Retrievers locally.

The yellow and black Labrador Retrievers have been bred now for many, many, years. And they seem to be a very different (and nicer) dog to me than the chocolate Labrador Retrievers.

This opinion is also shared with various other Labrador Breeders to whom I have spoken.

Some Labrador Breeders have felt that the ‘gene pool’ for the chocolate Labradors is much smaller than those of the yellow and black Labradors. And this smaller gene pool, could contribute to more inbreeding etc and/or maximum inbreeding depression (which is the opposite to hybrid vigor).

This certainly seems to make sense to me, and I can’t see why this wouldn’t be the case?

From my personal experience, the vast majority of the chocolate Labrador Retrievers seem to me to be different to the yellow and black Labrador Retrievers, not only physically, but also in respect of their temperament, etc.

Some of the chocolate Labrador Retrievers that I have observed have had temperaments etc more like kelpies etc than Labradors. And some of the chocolate Labrador Retrievers I have observed have had temperaments etc with a combination of being very shy, fearful, etc combined with aggression (seemingly through a heightened sense of fear).

Also, I have seen chocolate Labradors with hereditary diseases, such as ectropion, which is a defect with their eyes which involves their eyelid being lose or turning outwards, which increases risks of foreign bodies (such as grass seeds, etc) being able to get under their eyelid/s. This in turn can then cause other health problems etc, which may need Veterinary attention.

Another eye condition, which is also accepted as being hereditary, is entropion, which is the opposite to ectropion. With entropion, the eyelid turns inwards, and can irritate the eye by (for example) the eye-lashed rubbing against the eye.

Some Veterinarians will operate on the eyelid/s to remove the defective part, in order to try and reduce the associated risks or health problems. But, of course, dogs with these problems should not be used for breeding, in my opinion (and that of some Vets) as they may produce offspring with the same or similar eye problems etc.

However, there are some Labrador breeders of chocolate Labradors who knowingly continue to breed from Labradors that have hereditary eye problem, and produce offspring with problems.

I know of cases that have even been reported to the appropriate controlling body, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing has been done to prevent the reported Labrador breeders from continuing to breed from defective breeding animals, and producing defective offspring, which they sell to the unsuspecting public!

There have also been cases (for example) a senior official from a Labrador Retriever Club ‘endorsing’ a Labrador Breeder that was using defective breeding Labradors and producing defective puppies.

Please don’t assume that ALL chocolate Labradors are defective etc, as I am certainly NOT suggesting this. But I certainly believe that generally, I would prefer a yellow or black Labrador over a chocolate Labrador, and that if I had to have a chocolate Labrador, then I would do a LOT of research etc about the parents, their health and temperament, etc before accepting it.

Read more about Labrador puppies for sale in NSW and Labrador breeders Australia.

Also read more how to house train your dog.

If you really need some Dog dress then visit right away!

New Puppy – Purchasing an Older Puppy and the Question to Ask

In most cases, when someone gets a new puppy, it is just a little over a month old. This is good because it is also the perfect time to wean and train the dog; but what happens if the puppy is 2 months or older? Choosing to bring home an older puppy which may be as much as 6months old requires that you ask some serious questions about the puppy because you need to know what was taught to the puppy as well as a lot of other things.

Making the decision to bring home an older puppy requires vast amounts of information about the puppy and the only way to get this information and determine if you are willing to take home the puppy is to ask questions about it.

Your really need to look at Dog pajamas take a look right away!

What considerations should you keep in mind when deciding on an older puppy?

One of the biggest benefits of getting an older puppy right off the bat is that their behavior is a lot more calm than a younger pup and the dog has usually been socialized to a small degree when it comes to the day-to-day chaos of living in a house with other people. Their first home has already conditioned them for you.

On the other hand, choosing an older puppy may also mean that you may have to deal with a puppy that had a neglectful owner whether or not the owner was aware of any neglectful treatments. It is important to not that not every single pet owner will sell their dog for a positive reason such as finding them a better home than they can offer. Some owners are selling their puppy because of the puppy’s behavior as a result of neglect and maltreatment.

The results of this unfortunate living situation could have produced anxiety and stress related disorders to the dog. Because you cannot get all of this information with your first meeting of your potential new puppy, it is important to bring all the members of your family with you to look at the dog. Make sure they all get a chance meet the dog. Look closely at how he interacts with the other members of your family. Does he seem nervous? Do you sense any aggression? Is his approach with confidence or shyness? These are possible signs that the animal has developed some sort of mental condition as a result of the lack of human contact.

Ask if the owner has noticed any types of negative behaviors as well as if the puppy has undergone any form of training. The last thing that you would want is a several month old puppy that still has not had any type of housebreaking training as by this age housebreaking them can prove to be a difficult task.

Do you want a great deal on Dog sweaters take a look right away.

When you’ve been raised on the turn

In a fixed-limit game, most players with very strong hands will wait until the betting doubles on the turn before raising their opponents. They are trying to exploit them by extracting the most money they can.

If you are betting the turn because you believe your opponent is weak and will fold to your bet, you don’t have much of a decision at all. The best course of action is to realize you’ve misread your opponent. Just fold your hand and wait for a better opportunity. Calling won’t help if he’s got a decent hand and you have nothing at all. You could reraise him, but the vast majority of players in a fixed-limit game are not going to raise and then fold to a reraise.

But so much of hold’em is often a contest between top pair with a good kicker and other hands. Top pair often wins when those other hands are top pair with a weaker kicker, a lesser pair, or a drawing hand that fails to connect. But top pair usually loses to two pair or better.

If you examined the play of all the hold’em players in all the games in all the world, most of them will raise with two pair or better and they usually have the best hand when doing so.

If you know absolutely nothing about your opponent and you’ve been raised on the turn, or checkraised, and you have to guess about what he has, you can usually figure him for two pair or better and you can use that as a decision point.

If you have a draw to a straight or a flush and the size of the pot offsets the odds against completing your hand, you should call and see the river. If you have one pair and you figure him for two pair or better, you are usually drawing to catch one of five cards that will allow you to make three of a kind of pair your kicker. The size of the pot doesn’t usually support this kind of draw and in these kinds of situations you’re better off releasing your hand, even if it is top pair with a good kicker.

Summarising Turn Play

Raise when you’ve got the top two pair on the turn and an opponent bets.

If you’ve got an open ended straight draw or flush draw, and you’re up against two or more opponents, call any bet on the turn. However, if the board is paired, and there’s a bet and raise in front of you, be wary. You could be up against a full house.

Bet, or check (planning to raise), when you’re sure you have the best hand. Make it expensive for opponents to draw out on you.

If you hold a drawing hand, usually try to make your hand as cheaply as possible.

If you have a hand you would call with, betting — rather than calling — is a superior strategy if you think there’s any chance your bet will cause your opponent to fold.

Be alert to picking up a draw on the turn.

“Should I checkraise or should I bet?” comes up frequently. Unless you think your opponent will bet and call your raise, you should come out betting.

Don’t bluff bad players.

If you’re raised on the turn consider folding if all you have is one pair.

Read more about Texas Hold Em poker online game, poker ranking of hands and 7 hand poker.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization there are many paths to follow. In this short article we will look at the web as a forest, where sites are trees and links are branches.

On those branches grow leaves aka “content”. And like the words, pictures and layout of a webpage every leave has nerves, colour, texture. From this perspective the enormity of the task our beloved Google has taken on becomes dazzling. For imagine, standing in the middle of the forest, having to answer the question: “Good Sir, I’m looking for a leave with a little brown spot on its right edge. Can you please show me where they are? And worse, just like the forest continuously changes with the seasons, the wordlwide web is in a constant state of flux. Sites and pages are like trees and leaves that come into being, grow, die. Unlike the forest however, the web has a memory. Google’s servers (or, for that matter, any other search engine operation) retain an image of the forest, its trees, branches and leaves even after they have faded away. Every spring nature starts anew.

In midwinter there’s no trace left of the fresh spring green, the lush colours of summer, the weary fall.

No such thing in Google. The recycling process in Google is not based on the earths’ circumvention of the sun but on fierce competetion. Keep in mind Google does not actually carry an image of the web. Rather, it’s a collection of pointers to location. Both pointer and location are real, in that they are actually represented by physical bits somewhere on a server. In contrast, the relation between pointer and location - the thing that points and the thing that is pointed to - does not exist in physical space. Their relation is an idea, something that exists only in our mind.

No single bit in the whole wide world carries its meaning in itself. It is us, humans, that bestow meaning upon them.

Withous us, there would be no meaning in the world, no reason, no cause and effect. The collection of pointers that makes up Google’s Index has no inherent structure, it is just a collection (like a pile of leaves), not a system. But it is not a random collection. Google’s spiders follow a precise set of instructions, genetically engineered or not, when they set out to crawl through the forest. Now, what exactly are those instructions? If only the human mind can turn raw data into information then how does the spider know what it must collect? The answer to this lies buried deep in Google’s carefully kept secret page crawling algorithm and its subsequent processing by the even more mysterious Page Ranking process. That’s why SEO is much more then finding the ‘right keyword’. It’s about that most elusive of ideas, ‘meaning’.

Read more about AdSense packages.

Home Improvements-Kitchen Tiles

Home Fixes

Everyone wants an elegant looking home. One of the rooms that you will want to feel comfortable in is the kitchen. Most people think of tiles as something that is for floors, this however, has been changed by contractors, designers, and homeowners.

It is not unusual today to walk into a kitchen and find tile not only on the floors, but also on the walls, and counter tops.

Tile floors in the past would be seen with only one pattern in the floor tiles. Imagine a floor that used more than one pattern, or more than one type of tile. For instance, around the counters, you could put a few rows of large tiles, then in the center mark off a section where traffic is not as likely to flow, and install a square using smaller tiles, such as mosaic. You could out line mosaic tiles with a small longer tile, approximately 2 inches x 4 inches, then use small mosaic squares in the center of that. This is just one example. The outcome of your floor is left to your discretion, as the tile comes in so many different types, sizes, and colors.

Bathroom Remodeling Ideas

Counter tops have always been seen with Formica as a design for the kitchen. Not too many homeowners or cooks have thought of using tile for counter tops. This is beginning to catch on more and more. Marble and stone are some good choices for counter tops, and it give the counter a very impressive look.

Splashguards are being made of marble, and it is now being installed not just as a splashguard but also as part of the wall, or even the rest of the wall itself.

Kitchen Walls

People are beginning to use tiles for kitchen walls now more than ever before. There is no limit to the designs that can be done using different types of tiles for the wall and they will be less expensive than the floor tiles because there will not be any traffic on them, and so the coding will be different.

Bathroom Remodel

Tiles used for the walls are easy to clean and can resist stains. From the ceiling down can use a light code because you will not have stains or moisture except around the stove where the steam may reach the upper heights. Approximately one foot from the top of the stove, you could use the same type of tile with a more moisture resistant code.

When deciding to use tiles in the kitchen, you should talk it over with an employee at the home improvement store. They may have some ideas of their own that you would like to use. Even if they do not have any ideas, you can try researching the internet. Someone will have a website that will give you an idea. They will usually have tiles that will appeal to you.

A small fire in your home can quickly fill your home with noxious smoke. It’s vital that you choose the proper smoke detector for your home, have them properly installed and perform regular tests on.

residential smoke detectors come in two types, one is photoelectric, and the other is an ionization detector. In a photoelectric detector a beam of light is aimed into a chamber containing a photocell. Smoke entering the chamber will scatter the light, enabling some of it to reach the photocell and cause an alarm. A smoldering fire will set off a photoelectric detector quicker than a flaming fire.

Ionization detectors use radiation that ionizes (breaks up) the air inside the unit, and gives it a small electrical charge. When smoke enters this detector, the current is lowered and sets off the alarm.

Which type of First Alert Smoke Detector works best? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. A majority of photoelectric units these days are hardwired into your home’s electrical system meaning you will not be protected during a loss of power. Ionization models run on house current with a battery back up, but tend to be more susceptible to false alarms. It would be a good idea to use both - an ionization detector in your bedroom hallway, and photoelectric in your main living area.

A general rule is to have a minimum of one smoke detector for every level of your home. You should also keep these guidelines in mind:

Do not install smoke detectors close to the kitchen, furnace, garage, or just outside a bathroom door. Do not install smoke detectors in areas where the air circulation is poor, i.e. corners. Install each smoke alarm on a ceiling or on a wall roughly 8 to 10 inches below the ceiling.

Remember to test your detector monthly. Most have a test button that makes this very easy. If your smoke detector is not equipped with a test button simple test is to just light a candle blow it out and allow the smoke to waft into the smoke detector. The smoke should set the unit into alarm.

smoke detector batteries should be replaced annually. An easy to remember dates such as a birthday or the beginning of daylight savings time makes it simple to remember. When you are performing this you can also clean the inside and vent openings of the detector which will help the reliability.

The purpose of coffee maker reviews used to be a platform that measures the positive and negative aspect of coffee machines, isn’t that so? However, with companies giving this guru and that expert incentives, I think is has become more like an advertising platform that a real evaluation piece.

It is very difficult to find good coffee maker reviews that offers unbiased views about machines and would even warn consumers about using the machine. Usually, when I look at review or evaluation, it is always positive, and it led me to think if there are lousy machines around!

I do not know if you have thought about this. Do you think by reading the coffee maker reviews and then ultimately finding the correct coffee machine, would you get the perfect cuppa?

I seriously doubt so. Take starbucks barista espresso machine as an example, bearing the starbucks logo, there are few negative reports about this machine. In fact, it creates an imagery in people’s mind that if you want to get starbucks quality coffee, you would have to get this machine.

But, for those of us that have done espresso before, we know that it is not so straightforward. Some skills are involved before you get a good shot of espresso. Do you think the reviews about this espresso machine would be telling you that?

Other than telling you about the good things about branded machine, if you are looking for a good coffee maker by reading the coffee maker reviews, you would missed out those that are not so well known.

Take the dualit coffee maker, it is unlikely that you would find it in any evaluation or reviews. The fact is, dualit is more well known for its toaster than its espresso machine, so you are unlikely to read about it.

However, the dualit espresso maker delivers great shots of espresso at 15 bar pressure. Something you would not consider coming from a relatively unknown coffee maker company.

Highlighted are some drawbacks one would have when they are too focused browsing reviews to find the machine to get their perfect cuppa. That is the reason, in the market, there are some folks that highlight coffee is about the experience rather than the taste.

Too much focus has been placed on the right machines, the right variables to deliver the correct type of espresso or coffee drink. One important variable that is missed out is the environment.

Trust me, no matter how great tasting the espresso might be, if you are drinking it to keep you awake in the middle of the night to finish a report, the experience is never good.

And, a simple cup of freeze dried coffee from a vending machine enjoyed in Mount Fuji with your loved one is going to be very tasty, although it is just freeze dried.

Experience can never be found browsing some reports or coffee maker reviews, it has to be created and enjoyed and I hope you can have many such moments…