Here’s a fun post for today that might start with the quote from Body Heat, “I’ll talk to you if you don’t talk about the heat.” (Hopefully that’s close.)

While that’s a favorite saying around our house here in Las Vegas, it still doesn’t prevent me from wearing my most favorite of all things… demin.

I live and breathe demin jeans. So this morning when I can across the Armani Exchange website, I had the opportunity to play around and create my own style (my other passions are tee shirts and handbags) which I’ll show you below. Keep in mind we’re not talking off the rack. Armani Exchange has “New Premium Denim starting at $98″ – yes Armani

I had to start, of course, with their J57 grey straight leg jeans. I choose grey, but they also have J57 in potassium straight leg. I considered the J11 Indigo Destruction Skinny Leg as a third potential, but I really prefer low rise jeans. They just fit better and look better on me.

I then was able to move into the “dressing room” and start putting shirts with jeans (or you can pick shorts, skirts, whatever), and adding accessories. I finally settled for a cool handbag (reference my passion above lol!).

Here’s the final result which should give you a fairly good idea about what I truly enjoy wearing. Give me a great pair of jeans that look cool, throw in an amazing top, and round it off with a stunning – very summer-like – handbag and voila!

Then I did some more digging around on their web site and discovered Armani is giving away a pair of demin every day throughout July. All you need to do is text A|X. Enter the keyword “DENIM2″ to ARMANI (276264). It’s that easy.

In fact, after visiting and putting together your ideal outfit or just purchasing a full price pair of denim from Armani Exchange, in store or online, between 7/7/09 – 7/19/09, and you will receive a gift card for $20 off your next purchase of $100 or more. And that gift card is valid from 7/30/09 through 8/15/09. Nice!

Let’s face it who wouldn’t want to wear Armani if the price is right. Street-chic, casual, sophisticated and affordable.

A|X Blog

Living in Las Vegas, snow is a rare commodity. It gets cold, and snow up on Mt. Charleston, but generally it’s once in a blue moon for it to snow in the Valley and stick. However, as I type we are getting flurries. Who knows, we might be making snowmen in a little bit (they did on the other side of the valley day before yesterday).

And… in my continuing odd post for the day, I read something interesting in the Las Vegas Review Journal. A commentary written by Gail Collins, a columnist for The New York Times.

I’m not going to replicate the entire article, but the section that caught my eye about dogs:

“Folks at the University of Vienna conducted a test in which dogs were asked to shake hands over and over and over again. If you have any experience with dogs, you will not be surprised to hear that they were absolutely delighted. And they didn’t care about being paid! The opportunity to perform the same trick endlessly with a stranger in a white coat was reward enough.

Then the researchers brought in new dogs that were given a piece of bread as a reward for every handshake. The uncompensated dogs watched, lost their innate love of mindless repetition and grew sullen.

“They get so mad that they look at you and just don’t give you the paw anymore,” said Friederike Range, one of the scientists.

So OK. Dogs are secretly obsessed with fairness. (And bread. Who knew?)”

Strangely enough, as I read that portion it reminds me of so many individuals I’ve “met” online. They work their little buns off for nothing, yet some “bigger dog” comes along, steals all the thunder, and gets all the bread.

This might sound familiar to anyone who’s joined an affiliate program, promoted it with real heart, and gotten squat (or peanuts) for their efforts. While the “big dog” made tons of money from your efforts.

But there is hope… and a way around this… Start your own thing!

However, you must be picky! By that we mean, so specifically “niche” picky that you’ve taken a big old umbrella of a website (or blog) down to its finest points.

“Health” is not a niche, it is an umbrella. However, “colon cleansing” is a specific niche under the umbrella of Health.

“Home business” is not a niche. However, joining a specific home business (or starting your own service or product oriented website narrowed to a single product or service) IS a niche.

This particular blog you are reading right now is NOT a niche. It is an umbrella, encompassing all sorts of niche-like features to internet marketing and social media – from monetizing blogs, to social bookmarking, to freelance writing… and so much more (hang out a while and read the archives there’s tons of help and direction in this here blog!).

Get the idea?

Another valuable thing to keep in mind is choosing something you are passionate about. If you sign up for something that just sounds like a money maker, with no real understanding of what it is or how to run it, what’s the point? You’ll merely be out the money it took to join (and maybe maintain) because you lack passion.

So snow, dogs, umbrellas, niche markets, passion… and that wraps up today’s post

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Quite a while back, when Qassia first announced itself to the social media community and internet world at large, we did a post about it.

There’s a lot more substance to this post, I swear, so click to (more…)

If ever there is a Gold Medal for blogging, Linda Rembowski of Forcedgreen would win hands down!

The August 16th edition of the WebProNews includes a quick (I don’t know what to call it… article? post? tidbit?) of information from their staff writer, David A. Utter. He writes:

The popularity contest of blogging and gaining links and traffic doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and work.

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Very late last night I received an email over at My Wizard Ads from a gentleman wanting to know if he was wasting his time online. He wasn’t questioning the MWA services, but his whole perception on trying to make money online in general.

Of course I emailed him back and forth several times. I’m afraid I climbed on my soapbox and did my thing (which he did appreciate). The crux of the making-money dilemma is something I will cover in the next post (I promise!) and present solutions to that problem.

In the meantime though, I want to take a moment and show you a shortcut to making money – under your own steam, without relying on anyone or anything else online.

After proving to ourselves, for ourselves, that a person can make money writing online, I set off on a journey to uncover a resource that could shave years off the learning curve. A way to step up to the plate much faster in the field of writing – any kind of writing - online.

With income potentials of $85,000 or more per year, this is hardly something you will want to poo-poo out of turn without researching!

I’m happy to report I found such a resource – and  (more…)