All Arkie Army

Music Monday–the Muffs

2012-05-21T00:15:00.001-05:00

Yet another band that never got enough attention…

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the ACTUAL LINK POST here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice. PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

A top destination for doctors looking to brush up on their skills

2012-05-20T23:24:00.001-05:00

Being a professional in about any field – law, medical or etc. – means you’ve got to stay current on your skills set.

When I was a lawyer, that meant taking a lot of continuing education. Doctors go through a similar process, but there is one exception – law is comparatively static compared to medicine which is dramatically impacted later by new techniques, technologies, pharmaceuticals, etc. How can a doctor learn the new skills necessary to stay ahead of the pack? Oxford Medical has some programs in place that are well worth your attention. Not only can you learn some new techniques, you can learn some new disciplines that will help advance your career or extend it into other areas.

What will you find through Oxford Medical? You’ll find a one-day, consultant interview course, a medical teaching course and a medical management course. One of the more innovative offerings is a teach the teacher course which is a highly interactive way in which doctors learn to teach.

Sound interesting? If so, click one of the links in this article to check out what England’s premier medical training institution has to offer. You might fine a training session is just what the doctor ordered to advance your career. Good luck!

How to cut costs painlessly

2012-05-20T22:54:00.001-05:00

Even though we're told the economy is getting better, how many of us have seen real evidence of that?

A lot of us are still cutting costs, building up our savings account and putting together budgets. Whether you’re comfortable with finances or not, things have changed over the past few years – we’ve learned the economy can take a dive and stay down for some time, so it only makes sense to be more careful with our money.

Now, cutting costs doesn’t always mean you have to give up something. Take Internet service, for example. You want to be careful about cutting too much there as a solid, reliable Internet connection has become a necessity in a lot of ways.

Ah, but there’s one company out there that can offer you the reliable access you want at a price that is certainly affordable. The company is Copper.net and how affordable is Internet access through it? How about dial-up Internet starting at $9.95 per month and broadband DSL starting at $19.95? Those prices are, clearly, very affordable and that makes Copper one of those companies to research whether you’re in the market for a new dial up connection or want a faster broadband one.

Who is copper? An American-owned company that offers Internet services throughout the United States and Canada. Want to see if the company has a service that will both save you money and give you the Internet access to which you are accustomed? Click one of the links in this article and find out more information. Who knows? You might just find your next Internet service provider.

Shopping for used cars made easy

2012-05-16T23:13:00.001-05:00

Buying just about anything on the Internet is as easy as can be, so why should used cars be any different?

It doesn’t have to be. Head to http://www.parkautomall.com for Tampa used cars. You can take a look at the inventory of everything from trucks to cars to SUVS, apply for credit and do just about everything online but pick up your new ride and take it home.

That’s a pretty good deal if you happen to live in Tampa, Fla. – how many sites feature an easy to browse selection of used cars, offer credit approval and even give shoppers the chance to see used car videos online?

Give it a look – finding that perfect car through your Internet browser is a snap with that site.

There is always demand people who know tax law

2012-05-16T22:52:00.001-05:00

No matter how rotten the economy gets, there will always be a demand for people who know how to deal with the IRS.

What’s a class of professionals authorized by the federal government to represent taxpayers on all administrative levels before the IRS? Enrolled agents are authorized to represent taxpayers in audits, collections and appeals. Tax laws are complicated, the IRS is always after someone and people who have the expertise to help people go through audits and such will always find find work.

How does one become an enrolled agent? Go through an enrolled agent course and pass an enrolled agent exam. It does take some work, but becoming an enrolled agent is probably more affordable than you think it might be. Click one of the links in this post for more information.

Medicare only going so far?

2012-05-12T01:02:00.001-05:00

It’s a common story – Medicare is useful as far as it goes, but it doesn’t quite cover everything, does it?

When it comes to Medicare, there are almost always out-of-pocket expenses and other items that simply aren’t covered. What can one do to close that “gap” between what Medicare does and does not cover? One can either shell out some cash to make up the difference or invest in Medicare supplement insurance.

Such insurance has always made a lot of sense, but particularly in this day and age. Consumers are hit with escalating medical costs and a rotten economy – a one-two punch that can catch a Medicare recipient in a serious trap if a medical condition takes hold and proves to be costly.

The good thing about such supplemental insurance is that the costs are reasonable, particularly when one considers that “one size fits all” policies aren’t the rule. One can choose the level of coverage they need and pay only for the appropriate amount of coverage.

It all boils down to a simple cost-benefit analysis. While there are times that people spend years paying for insurance to protect against an emergency that doesn’t happen, that’s not the case with Medicare supplemental insurance. Typically, making an investment in that coverage will pay for itself sooner rather than later.

My most prized possession

2012-05-12T00:30:00.001-05:00

I would have to say that my most prized item of choice is my Rolex watch.

I'd love to be selling a Rolex right now because I heard that now is probably the best time to sell Rolex to consumers. The ever popular Black rolex submariner brand watches are extremely wanted right now in the market. Also in high demand include the stunning all black models.

One special type of Rolex brand watches include the pvd Rolex model. PVD stands for "physical vapor deposition" and is the process used when creating these PVD Rolex watches. It is a very thin coating bonded to the stainless steel of the watch and is unable to flake or be destroyed. The surface is even more scratch resistant than it's counterpart of pure stainless steel. Celebrities are often found wearing the high class PVD Rolex watches. This is very good for the brand considering that celebrities tend to be the ones who start or continue important fashion trends or movements. Rolex watches have consistently appeared on the wrists of celebrities and will continue to do so long into the future. Rolex is a household name and should not ever be taken for granted.

Once you own a Rolex watch, it most likely becomes your most prized possession. Considering how much you (or another person) spent on it, the actual value of the watches themselves, and the time and effort it takes to carefully craft one of these beautiful timepieces will make it extremely valuable and possibly your favorite item that you own. My friend's father bought a Rolex about five to ten years back and it is still his favorite item. The watch he bought has increased exponentially in value and although he gets plenty of offers for it, he refuses to sell it. He honestly loves it way too much.

I've always had a dream about getting a Rolex watch and after saving up for maybe five more years I will finally be able to have my own. I don't think I'd ever sell it either, just because of how much time and work I put into getting it. If you want something that you can cherish for years and years to come, look into getting a Rolex brand watch. My Rolex has become my favorite item that I own, and for a good reason. It was actually given to me by my son for a birthday present.

Help Willy buy Groceries

2012-05-08T20:59:00.001-05:00

Music Monday–Angry Samoans

2012-05-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

Yes, Metal Mike grew up in Little Rock, Ark!

No Hablo Cinco de Mayo

2012-05-05T16:09:00.000-05:00

ARRA News Service (Dr. Bill Smith) -

Pix Via Corona

We are not celebrate Cinco de Mayo in our household today. Reason - we are Americans, first, last and forever and my Oath was to the United States of America and not to either Mexico or the sales at the local U.S. shopping malls.

Cinco de Mayo wasn't even related Mexico's Independence Day which is celebrated by Mexico on September 16. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. So, what is the big deal in the USA. We liked the French support in our Revolutionary War, we liked buying the Louisiana Purchase from them, and American forces bled and died twice helping France in WWI and WWII. In fact, we like them up and until Gen. Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle kicked American bases out of France in 1966.

The Mexican – American War, also known as the Mexican War, or the U.S.– Mexican War, was an armed conflict (war) between the USA and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. American forces quickly occupied New Mexico and California, then invaded parts of Northeastern Mexico and Northwest Mexico; meanwhile, the Pacific Squadron conducted a blockade, and took control of several garrisons on the Pacific coast further south in Baja California. After Mexico would still not agree to the cession of its northern territories, another American army waltzed into and captured Mexico City, and the war ended in victory of the U.S. Although in our victory, we more than generous and paid Mexico $18 million dollars and forgave their debt. A big mistake was not keeping Baja.

So, again! Why are American stores and even schools (a day early) celebrating Cinco de Mayo? If we are going to celebrate another day, maybe it should on March 2, when Texas celebrates its Texas Independence Day. On March 2, 1836, The Republic of Texas defeated Mexico!

And since we are NOT going to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I am going to celebrate not celebrating with one of my favorite American beers - a Corona. Just a minute - Yes - I know, I know, but the beer was made in "North" America :)

Tags: Cinco de Mayo, Corona, USA, Mexico, France

Sick of cable?

2012-04-19T01:02:00.001-05:00

Back when I was a business writer for a daily newspaper, I learned one thing in a hurry – people really paid attention every time we announced a rate from a commonly used service was going to increase.

Yes, we could bang out stories about SEC filings by local corporations, cover shareholder meetings and do all of that stuff, but the phone calls and emails started flowing in when one of us wrote about utilities rates increasing. For the purpose of this post, just lump cable rates in with utilities and you get the idea.

Cable rates always seemed to be on the rise. During the conversion to digital, cable rates soared as the local provider was shelling out millions of dollars to lay in fiber optic cable. Cable rates, in fact, seemed to go up almost annually and sometimes on a whim. We put up with all of that because, at the time, satellite service was relatively new and we couldn’t get any local channels.

Well, folks, times have changed. When it comes to satellite television, Direct TV is certainly an established company that provides millions of customers with all the HDTV options they want and even the standard digital channels come in very clear. In my area – and most others – local channels have been offered in high definition for years. And, here’s the clincher – the rates are lower than you might expect.

Interested in switching from cable? Give dx3 Direct TV a look and see what packages you can start enjoying soon. Head over to www.dx3.net and start shopping. You’ll be glad you did.

Burn POTUS

2012-04-03T10:58:00.001-05:00

From the ARRA News Service - Enjoy this parody by Duane Lester: Coming this fall (Nov 2012) to the USA ... hopefully!!!

Tags: Burn POTUS, POTUS, Barack Obama, 2012 elections, parody, Video, Duane Lester, ARRA News Service

Music Monday: Where’s Captain Kirk?

2012-04-01T23:48:00.001-05:00

Looking for an online hotel supply company?

2012-04-01T23:35:00.001-05:00

Yes, if you poke around the Internet long enough, you’ll find a little something for everyone.

One of he handiest things about the Internet, indeed, is its inherent ability to put people in touch with companies that sell the products they want and need. That doesn’t work quite so well in local markets where supply is strictly limited by demand – that means those low-demand items might be hard to find in a given market. When it comes to the Internet, demand expands nationally and (at times) internationally, meaning there is the potential for the supply of less common items to be substantially greater online than it is in any given local market.

What’s the point of all this? Let’s say you’re looking for a hotel supply company. Your choices of available supplies might be low in a local area, but that’s not the case if you’re shopping on the Internet. Let’s face it -- hospitality supplies & hotel catering supplies aren’t exactly in high demand in most local markets, so the choices of people in the market for those items are probably limited.

On the other hand, an Internet retailer specializing in those items exclusively will find a large enough customer base to offer a good supply of those items, turn a profit and even offer pricing that will attract clients. Are you looking for such an Internet-based company? Visit PeachSuite hotel linen and laundry supply and see what that company has to offer.

Looking cute in the kitchen

2012-03-29T12:53:00.001-06:00

Guest post written by MaryAnn Winifred

I'm not a very good cook, but I really am trying to learn! Now that I'm a little older I feel a little silly eating takeout all the time. So instead I'm going to try and learn how to cook for myself. Then maybe I can worry about trying to cook for other people. Right now for me a lot of it is about presentation because I'm a horrible cook at this point.

I thought I'd give myself some motivation by making a cute little apron for me to wear while I'm cooking and also to protect my clothes. When I was looking for a pattern that would give my clothes some more coverage from failed baking experiments, I saw the site debtcounseling.bankrupt.com/. I instantly knew that would help some too because I'm also in debt and need any help in that regard.

I did find a ruffled apron tutorial that I thought was simply too cute to pass up! So I didn't and I'm currently at work on piecing together some cheap dish towels into an apron.

Music Monday: The Screamers

2012-03-25T22:31:00.001-06:00

Wow. Back from when punk rock was actually interesting and unique. Odd clip, but fun as heck. Enjoy!

Social media, the Internet and the law

2012-03-25T22:16:00.001-06:00

It’s something I don’t admit often, but I – good ole The Hawg – used to be a lawyer. I learned at least one thing during the four fun-packed years I spent lawyering – attorneys are rarely the first in line when it comes to adopting new technology.

There are, of course, exceptions to that rule. While attorneys in these parts (and others) have been slow to utilize the Internet and market their services through social media, you’ll find some that have done that with gusto. One firm that has embraced the Internet and social media in an appealing way is the the Law Offices of Scott A. Rubenstein in Cincinnati.

Not only is that site full of useful information for people who might need an attorney, the “search engine optimized” side of thing is handled well so that the office gets in front of the public. If one fires up a search engine and types in terms such as “Cincinnati attorney,” “Cincinnati lawyer” or “Cincinnati DUI attorney,” the chances are good you’ll find the firm’s site, Google Plus page or Facebook page.

That’s all pretty sharp. Building an Internet site is one thing, but putting useful information on it and taking affirmative steps to drive traffic to it and related social media sites is quite another. Good job, there.

Spruce up for spring with an address plaque

2012-03-20T22:45:00.001-06:00

Yes, it’s spring and that means it’s time to take care of some of those “home beautifying” projects you’ve thought of during the winter.

One of the easiest things to do to improve the look of your home is to look at some custom address plaques and then select one you like. It seems that residential address plaques often get neglected on home, and that’s a shame as people do notice them when approaching homes.

I’m guilty of that one, for sure and certain. The address on my house looks awful – once proud bronze letters that are faded, tarnished and have clearly seen better days. Yes, I’d do well to look at some bronze address plaques or personalized address plaques to improve the look of my home and I may do just that.

Sure, one can go and shop locally for address plaques and deal with the downside of supply and demand. There aren’t just a whole lot of address plaques to choose from in my town, much less custom ones – I’m sure this Arkansas town isn’t the only one in the nation in which that is the case. Ah, but it’s easy to find plenty of address plaques on the Internet, and you can start that house-beautifying journey by clicking one of the links in this post.

Music Monday: The Goodies

2012-03-19T00:51:00.001-06:00

Here’s one from a British sitcom I enjoyed as a kid. They used to run The Goodies on the local PBS affiliate and I used to watch that, along with other classics such as Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers. Good times, and you couldn’t find that stuff on other networks in Arkansas, could you? Enjoy!

Yeah, you can build Websites, but can you market them?

2012-03-19T00:42:00.001-06:00

If you poke around on the Internet long enough and build a great looking site or two, you might get the notion of going into business setting those things up for other companies.

That’s all well and good, of course. Building a Website is one thing, but driving traffic to it is another. Think about how your Website building business could grow if you could also offer clients effective tools to market them and attract visitors.

If you’re rather at sea about how to put together a solid search engine optimized (SEO) campaign (or even what that means), you might consider outsourcing the marketing aspect of constructing a successful Internet site to an SEO reseller.

What’s that? Simply put, an SEO reseller is essentially a team of professionals who know how to get sites ranked highly in search engines, put together marketing campaigns and essentially find ways to connect Internet sites with people who will find them useful. In other words, they have the skills your clients want, you get some cash for outsourcing those services, you can offer more services to your clients and everyone’s happy.

Want to find out more about SEO reseller programs? Just click one of the links in this post and you’re on your way, ace.

Got an Internet site? Good. Now, get it noticed

2012-03-18T02:21:00.001-06:00

So, you’ve got a great Internet site. The design is attractive, the content is great and everything is going well, right?

Here’s the problem with the Internet – there’s a lot of stuff out there. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. You can have the greatest site on the planet, but it won’t matter much if no one is visiting it.

How can you get some traffic? Through hiring a firm that offers great SEO consulting services. What is SEO – it’s short for search engine optimized. A site with great SEO is full of keywords that search engines like and generate traffic through the site.

Building a good SEO strategy is important, but how many people know how to do it? Building a site is one thing, but promoting it is another and that is a task best left to an SEO consulting services company.

The choice is yours – you can either plug along and try to build an SEO strategy in a “hit or miss” fashion, or leave it to a professional by hiring an SEO consulting services company. Good luck…

Virtual data room: what it is and why it’s important

2012-03-18T02:03:00.001-06:00

When it comes to certain business and financial transactions, a physical data room is often utilized during the due diligence phase of mergers, acquisitions, certain loans, debt restructuring, etc.

In short, we’re talking about transactions in which sensitive information is shared. Access to it must be controlled, so the information is generally stored in a physical data room where people can keep an eye on it.

The problems with a physical data room are somewhat obvious. They are expensive to maintain, require people to travel to them, are full of documents that must be categorized and watched like a hawk, etc.

The solution? A Merrill Virtual Deal Room. What’s that? Simply put, it allows for the same advantages of a physical data room with none of the disadvantage. A virtual data room is located on the Internet and offers 24-7 access to critical data while enabling parties to restrict access to that information and take measures to make sure the information is not copied and distributed outside the room.

In other words, you get all the control offered by a traditional physical data room (and then some), plus easier access and less cost. That makes sense. Check the aforementioned link to check it out.

By the way, Merrill offers more than virtual data rooms. It also offers certified translation services and medical translation. Good stuff.

Music Monday–Russell Crowe

2012-03-12T01:49:00.001-06:00

One of the best bits from South Park. WARNING – there’s some rough language, but it’s South Park so what do you expect?

Music Monday: Ramones ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’

2012-03-04T23:16:00.001-06:00

Music Monday–Gear Daddies

2012-02-27T23:00:00.001-06:00

The phrase for the day is “criminally unappreciated.”