I often joke with people who are fanatics about Elvis music, telling them that yeah, I saw Elvis Presley once — he sat between me and Bigfoot on the UFO I was abducted on. My mother, who will be 77-years old within a month (two years older than Elvis would have been if he was still alive), is not in the best of health and hasn't been in good health since before my father died of cancer last year. She is one of the greatest fans of Elvis that I have ever known, stopping just short of joining any kind of Elvis Presley fan club. I grew up in the 1960s, at the height of his career and it was through my mother that I became a fan as well.

Elvis Presley Music

Back when my family (my parents' family, not my own) lived in Hawaii (1974-1977), my mother listened to Elvis Presley's music all the time, almost enough to be annoying. The day his death was announced, a local radio station played Elvis Presley music for 24 hours with few interruptions. We were camped out at Koloa beach on Kauai at the time and I remember my mother reading one of her many romance novels and listening to the music at the same time.

I don't know if I accidentally met Elvis while we were living on Kauai. I was at the Kauai Surf Hotel once (and I don't remember why) and someone came through that looked a lot like Elvis. Of course, I actually saw Brian Keith at that hotel once, of that I'm sure. Did Elvis impersonators exist back then? Somehow I doubt it. Of course, I bumped into a lot of Elvis impersonators when I was stationed in North Carolina in the late eighties and early nineties. I think they grow them there.

Of all the singers that have ever existed, there are only a very few that I can imitate while performing with karaoke machines or specialty microphones. Elvis Presley is one of them. I used to always get applauded when I sang "Suspicious Minds" or "It's Now or Never". Of course, I couldn't wiggle my legs like that (I never could, even when I was much younger).

Elvis Presley Movies

Elvis made a slew of movies during his short lifetime. Only a couple of them were non-musicals. I really think I've seen them all, but I'm not going to list them here. You can visit IMDB to get that information if you want it.

Besides all the Elvis sightings that have been reported by the general public, some tongue-in-cheek like mine, Elvis sightings even exist in other movies. Take "The Frighteners" of 1996, for example. One character exclaimed "He's alive!" as a statuette of Elvis flew around the room during a poltergeist experience.

The most amazing thing about Elvis Presley is that his original music is STILL being listened to today, more than 33 years after his death. That speaks volumes about the lasting impression he made on millions of listeners. I can't count how many movie and TV soundtracks have used one or more of his songs in the background. I think it would be an exercise in futility.

My Mother

I just found out that my mother fell a few weeks ago, breaking her pelvis. According to one of my sisters (not the one that lives with her), she now spends all of her time in bed, not eating or drinking much. My sister is under the impression that my mother is giving up on life and that may very well be so.

Perhaps I need to hire and send over a good Elvis impersonator to cheer her up and make her realize that life, even as a widow, is worth living.

For those of you who have never seen Elvis Presley perform, or for those of you who just want to be reminded of his talent, I present this YouTube video. Hopefully it won't get taken down anytime soon.

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As I was driving through downtown Olongapo a few days ago, I realized that I have store sign and billboard sign blindness. I just don't notice them anymore and I think it's caused by the effects of visual pollution. Of course, there are roadside billboards apart from the downtown areas and I'm more likely to see those.

The Purpose of Store Signs and Billboard Advertising

The purpose is obvious if you think about it. The store signs identify the stores and sometime include advertising in their designs and the static billboard signs are intended to point you to stores you might not see without them.

Static and mobile billboards are also used to build brand recognition. The companies doing the advertising want you to buy something, either now or later, or they want to you to use their services either now or later.

Billboard Advertising Costs

The cost of any billboard advertisement obviously varies based on the kind of advertisement and the location. There are companies set up to maximize their own revenue, for setting them up, while attempting to make it affordable for the advertisers.

On the flip side of the coin, however, are the people who own the locations. If you have property which appears to be perfect for an outdoor billboard of some kind, it's very likely you will be approached by one of the companies that build and maintain them. In the Philippines, I'm sure some people actually live off of what these companies pay them to use their property.

This all make sense, right? Proper usage of store signs and billboard advertising benefits both businesses and consumers. Note the word "proper" used at the beginning of the sentence. Improper usage works to no one's benefit.

Store Sign and Billboard Sign Blindness

Store and business signs lose their effectiveness when grouped around each other. Billboard signs lose their effectiveness when placed side by side or one right behind another. When the human eye is assaulted with too many conflicting images, the human eye tends to ignore them rather than attempt to process them. (Website owners take note. The same thing applies when you use too much or the wrong kind of advertising on your websites.)

Most of the stores in our downtown areas are guilty of too much signage. The problem is that a single building may house several businesses and they all want their signs prominently displayed at eye level for both pedestrians and people driving vehicles. What ends up happening is that all of the signs are ignored at the same time.

Effective Billboard Ads

Sometimes the most effective billboard ads are those that are designed to be subtle or subliminal. If a person is exposed to subtle or subliminal ads often enough, the message gets through without it even being obvious. Let's use the billboard signs for McDonald's as an example.

Yes, McDonald's has become a household name synonymous with fast food. Most of their outdoor billboard advertising, however, doesn't advertise the food itself. Have you ever noticed what the billboard signs actually say or don't say? The arch, the word "McDonald's" and X number of miles straight ahead are usually what you see if you take the time to notice them. They even have small billboard signs in Olongapo that say the say thing; the trouble is that they almost look like regular traffic signs.

Mobile Advertising Billboards

Your first thoughts about mobile billboard signs may lean toward the newfangled advertisement methods such as the led billboard on the side of a truck. These kinds of billboard signs may be new, but there are old kinds being pushed right under our noses. In some cases, I'm using the word "pushed" literally.

The advertising you see on the side of push carts is what I'm talking about. Of course, some of those push carts have been more modernized to being attached to trikes, tricycles, or whatever you want to call motorcycles with sidecars. In this case, the cart is substituted for the sidecar.

Billboard Advertising Costs

The cost of any billboard advertising will vary, obviously, based on the type of billboard and the location. There are companies which specialize in procuring space for outdoor billboards at a cost that's affordable to most advertisers.

On the other side of the coin, if you own property that looks like a prime location for a billboard, chances are that you'll be approached by one of these companies. I have no doubt there are people living in the Philippines who use the rental of billboard advertising space as their sole means of income.

Back to the Blindness

When I ask one of my in-laws, or even my younger son, where something is located, they often reply with something like "It's at such and such place. Haven't you seen the signs?"

Honestly, I haven't, even when they were right in front of me.

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I am not unique when it comes to Americans living in the Philippines, even if my particular set of circumstances is unique. There are other Americans here and they're here for a variety of reasons.

Dual Citizens

Whether you regard them as Americans or not is really not an issue – dual citizens as discussed here are legal citizens of both the Philippines and the US. There are three ways that I know of in which Filipinos are also Americans, as dual citizens.

The first and most common now are the Filipinos who've emigrated to the US, gone through the process of alien residency and naturalization, lived in the US for a while and have moved back to the Philippines. Many of the people in this category move back to the Philippines after retirement, but not always due to retirement.

The second are the natural born children of Filipinos, who haven't yet become citizens of the US, born on American soil. American soil is defined as any of the states of the US, its territories and its possessions. Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands are a few of these places. The children are Filipinos by birth, due to having unnaturalized Filipino parents, and American citizens by birth, due to being born on American soil.

The third are those that became American citizens before the Philippine Repatriation Act of 2003 was enacted and lost their Philippine citizenship. The only requirement to becoming a dual citizen is to swear in as a Philippine citizen at one of the Philippine Consulates or at the Philippine Bureau of Immigration.

There are many dual citizens living in the Philippines as retirees and a lot of those are US military retirees. Again, not all of the dual citizens are retirees. One of my neighbors, for example, is a disabled American veteran with a wife and children all being dual citizens. One of his daughters is my younger son's nursing school classmate.

Other Retired Americans

In my situation, Philippine law allows me to be a permanent resident of the Philippines because I'm married to a Filipina (the female gender equivalent to Filipino). I am retired from the US military and I live in Olongapo, next to the former US naval station which is now the Subic Bay Freeport Zone (colloquially called SBMA). My older son, who is living in the US with his own family now, is not a dual citizen because he hasn't completed the steps in the third case above for dual citizenship (he's my adopted stepson whose real father was Filipino). My wife and my younger son are both dual citizens. I could become a dual citizen as well, but the Philippine immigration conditions are stricter than those of the US and I don't want to play that game.

There are other Americans, retired from the US military, living here as permanent residents just like me. I don't know any of them and that may be for the best. I'm too much of an introvert to seek out casual relationships with people outside of my own relatives.

There are also other Americans, retired from the US military, who aren't living here as permanent residents. They play the visa game because they're not married to Filipinas. They have US passports and come into the country for the initial periods which don't require visas. I don't remember offhand what that length of time is, but it used to be 21 days. Regardless, they can pay fees to the local bureau of immigration offices and extend the visas for the better part of a year. They are then required to leave the country for at least 24 hours before they can start the same process all over again.

Some Americans living here are merely US social security retirees and my mother-in-law is one of them. You can't live on US social security payments alone in the US and it's difficult to live on them alone even in the Philippines, but at least it can be done.

Other Americans

There are Americans living here who are not retirees at all, but are permanent residents or in the process of becoming permanent residents. They either work for American companies with locations in the Philippines or are using their life savings to attempt lives here based on the local economy. Yes, if you have the money to invest in something that produces an income, you can live on the local economy just like everyone else.

Finally, there are Americans living in the Philippines as illegal aliens, with expired visas. As long as no one reports them to one of the bureau of immigration offices, they can get away with it. If you think tracking and finding illegal aliens is hard in the US, imagine how hard it is to do the same thing in the Philippines. Filipinos and Americans in the Philippines are not required to have social security numbers (except for certain jobs, especially government jobs) and a lot of people have the same names. One of my nephews, for example, had a difficult time getting an NBI clearance for his passport because he has the same name as one of his uncles (both birth certificates exclude the middle names) and that uncle has a criminal record.

Questions

I'm sure there are Americans living in the Philippines who don't fall under any of the conditions I've mentioned. Of course, that depends on the definition of "living".

Regardless of how or why an American is living in the Philippines, it does no good at all to make assumptions (which is something my wife likes to do quite often). Unless you know exactly "how and why", your assumptions are nothing more than guesses. There are those who will take offense if you lump them in with the wrong group of people and I know this because I've read about it on open forums. Luckily, I've never been in a position where I wanted to make an assumption – I've been told up front the "how and why" of a particular situation and usually through e-mail.

In the past, I've offered to answer questions and help people who are thinking of moving to the Philippines. I don't make the offers anymore because it eats up a lot of time and I usually end up giving out outdated information.

There are websites that specialize in the kind of information sought and searching for "living in the Philippines" as well as "RAO Subic" will bring you to them. Of course, this website will probably appear, but I don't have the information most people require.

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My wife left for the US on March 6th on Hawaiian Airlines because Hawaiian Airlines is cheaper than Philippine Airlines. What we discovered is that cheaper doesn't mean you get the same thing at a lower price.

Flight Delays

More often than not, there aren't any substantial flight delays when flying with Philippine Airlines. Even when there is one, the staff is courteous and will get you on the next available flight. Despite some of the horror stories I've read, mainly for locations outside of Manila, Philippine Airlines has excellent customer service.

After talking to my wife, after she reached her final destination, the customer service of Hawaiian Airlines leaves a lot to be desired. The flight from Manila was delayed by three hours and then the connecting flight in Honolulu wasn't available. She was put on a United Airways flight and United Airways wanted to charge her a rebooking fee. Apparently, Hawaiian Airlines and other airlines don't communicate so well. Anyway, she had a layover of NINE HOURS in Honolulu.

Frills and No Frills

Flights from the Philippines to the US, and vice-versa, can take from 12 hours to 18 hours, depending on the flight schedule. Philippine Airlines provides all the things you expect on a long flight: Meals, courtesy snacks, beverages, blankets, pillows and in-flight movies. Hawaiian Airlines provided no meals on my wife's flight to Honolulu and United Airways provided no meals on the flight to Phoenix.

My wife had to ask for water from a flight attendant. What purpose does a flight attendant service if he or she doesn't attend the passengers? She asked for a pillow and blanket, but Hawaiian Airlines wanted to charge a usage fee. They probably charged for anything over the ticket price.

Honest Comparisons

I have never heard of any airlines that didn't have flight attendants offering service to the passengers on a regular basis until now.

To be fair, most of the major airlines have similar service to Philippine Airlines. I'm talking about Northwest and Continental, just to name two of them that I've flown with.

I just haven't figured out when "coach" doesn't really mean "coach" and actually means "no frills at all". In today's economy I guess you really have to watch out when you go for things like bargain flights. What's next? Flights without seats where you have to hang on bars like some city buses and light rails?

Take my advice and stay away from airlines that look like they're giving you a good deal. The good deal is definitely not in the service.

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I'm not going to get into the history of video games, if that's your first thought. That particular feat would require a website all its own. What I am going to do is give you a rundown of how I've been affected by video games through the years, starting with "Pong".

About Pong

Although Pong was released to home consumers by Sears in 1975, I didn't know about it or any other video games until 1977 when one of my brothers received the video game for Christmas. It had to be connected to a TV and luckily, we had an old black and white TV stashed in storage. He and I played the game for hours and hours over the course of several days before we both became tired of it.

The game was simple. The screen was a rudimentary view of a table tennis table from above. It played like the real ping pong game, using sprite paddles instead of the real thing of course.

The game affected me in a way that ate up a lot of my money for a few short years.

The Early Years

From about April of 1979 to April of 1981, I spent many hours playing video games at an arcade in downtown San Diego. I'm sure the arcade no longer exists, but it consumed thousands of quarters from me.

I can't imagine how I got hooked so badly on arcade games. I remember "Asteroids", "Pac-Man", "Mario Bros", "Donkey Kong" as well as countless others. The vast majority of the games were later transcribed into home video versions and I, of course, had them all. I played them on one of the first computers I owned, a Commodore 64C, somewhere around the 1987 to 1988 time frame. That was after I got married and had children. They were too young to appreciate video games though.

I'm out of order, somewhat. Between 1985 and 1987, I owned one of the original Atari home video consoles. Don't ask me what model it was. I only know that it was the first model and not the second one. I can't remember what games I played on it. I don't want to guess because I could very well be remembering it wrong.

The Reemergence of Home Video Games

After the popularity of the Atari game console died out, it looked like the home video market was pretty much dead. The Nintendo Entertainment System, originally released in 1985, finally made its mark when it bundled Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt with the system. Sometime after 1987, I bought one for my family. Everyone, including me, got hooked on Super Mario Brothers.

When the Super NES came out, I bought one for the kids, but I never really got into the games for it. That was really the end of my infatuation with video game consoles. It wasn't the end of my fascination with video games, though, because I bought video games for my first PC in 1994.

Since that time, we've had several game consoles (including portable devices) in our house at one time or another. Although I'll probably miss one on two, I think I can remember most of them (in no particular order): The Atari 2600 (I remember!), NES, Super NES, Sega Genesis, Sega Genesis 32x, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, PSP, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, X-Box. My older son now has the Playstation 3, the Nintendo Wii and the X-Box 360 in his own home. Yeah, he's fanatic all right.

PC Games

I spotted a co-worker playing "Doom", when he shouldn't have been, on a PC at work one day. It think it was in 1994 or early 1995. The computer I bought in 1994, a Packard Bell (a real pile of dung, I might add), could play it quite well. The machine only had 72 megabytes of RAM!

I enjoyed playing Doom enough to buy the second version, Doom II. I know a Doom III came out a year or three ago, but I don't play video games anymore. Well, not very often. When I do, it's with my younger son on his Playstation 2.

Another game I got a hold of during that era was "Duke Nukem 3D". The game play was similar to Doom, but it was whole lot more fun to play because of the speech.

One thing I never got into, although my son loves them to death, are video RPG games.

Video Games Today

My younger son, Jon, plays the hell out of video games. I think he plays video games more than anything else, when he's not going to nursing school. He tells me there's not much else for him to do here in the Philippines, other than chasing girls.

His favorite games are the different versions of "Final Fantasy" more than anything else. Right now, he plays one or two different ones on his Playstation Portable, something I gave him for one of his birthdays.

Every once in a while, I can get Jon to switch to his Playstation 2 so that we can play one of the versions of "Soul Caliber". It's one of the few video games I enjoy playing with him. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. The best part about it is that I get to use "Nightmare" to stomp just about any character he uses.

Ah, well. I spend most of my time doing this — writing — nowadays. I really don't have time for TV or video games anymore.

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Piracy has existed in one form or another for almost as long as movie, music, and software files have been in existence. When the Internet opened up to consumers of the world, it was like opening up Pandora's Box. The cat is out of the bag and the recording industries as well as software authors do not like it one bit.

Piracy is Not the Correct Word

Equating copyright infringement with piracy is exactly what the owners of the copyrights want and they know it's not the same thing. Pirates of the high seas were thieves, usually working for one government against another, but thieves nonetheless. File sharers are not thieves because sharing isn't stealing. Stealing something means depriving someone of something they own. With file sharing on the Internet, no one has been deprived.

Regardless of proper word usage, the word "pirate" is now synonymous with "thief" when it comes to file sharing as far as ordinary consumers (and politicians) are concerned.

Piracy is Caused by the Recording Industries Themselves

The recording industries are causing piracy to occur by being unable or unwilling to change their business models. They get copyright laws enacted to protect their rights while trampling on the rights of consumers.

One law exists on the books (in the US) that allows each of us to make one archival copy of any recorded media we own. Another law exists that says we can continue to do so as long as we don't circumvent any copy protection. With CD music, this isn't a problem since most of it doesn't have any copy protection embedded. With movies, almost all of it has some form of copy protection. With software, copy protection isn't a hurdle, but losing a software license will be.

What's really irritating about the recording industries is that they honestly believe that if you want an archival copy, you should have to buy it. Buy two plastic discs instead of one and your problem is solved, or so they think. The problem with plastic media is that it doesn't last as long as it's supposed to, even if toddlers don't get their hands on it and destroy it for you.

Even with that mentality, driven by the recording industries, it wouldn't be such an issue if the prices were reasonable. No one should have to pay full price for a copy of anything they already own.

Of course, I'm only touching on a couple of reasons the recording industries have broken business models. There is a solution to their dilemma, but they won't like it at all.

Video Streaming and Downloads

The reason that downloading music and movie files is so popular with a small percentage of the population (it really is small in comparison to the number of people who still buy the media) is that it's more convenient than buying the same products. It's not because they don't want to buy it most of the time, despite what people will tell you.

Okay, with the newer stuff, it's pretty easy to buy it, even if you don't agree with the prices. It's the older stuff that disappears from store shelves and becomes harder to obtain, especially at video rental stores.

If the recording industry offered wide scale streaming downloads of all the digital media they put on disc, and charged a reasonable fee (monthly is a good idea), I'm sure they'd make money hand over fist. A lot of people who download the files (not streamed) only keep the files temporarily, especially with movies. Why anyone would want to keep a copy of Gigli is beyond me. Streaming downloads don't have to replace sales of physical media; they just need to augment the physical sales.

Pissing off consumers doesn't work to their advantage either. How many times do they expect to make money off the Beatles White Album anyway? If you already bought it on vinyl, it shouldn't have to cost full price when you buy it on cassette or CD. Are cassettes still sold? It's up to the recording industry to track sales and they should have the capability, especially with the current state of technology, to offer copies or replacements at reduced rates.

Of course, there's no incentive for any industry stuck in the past to embrace the future. They do not care about what's good for consumers; they only care about their bottom line. Companies that embrace consumers are doing very well in the marketplace. Failing to produce what consumers want and treat consumers with respect is what results in things like piracy.

Personal Experience

I no longer buy any form of recorded media. If I can't buy it and download it in one form or another, I won't bother. I watch movies (rarely) at the local theater and I listen to music (sometimes) through online music services and most of that is completely free.

All it took was for me to have one of my favorite movies on DVD become unplayable due to a single scratch for me to come to that decision. Of course, I don't listen to CDs in my car or try to play movies anywhere other than my computer.

When I lived in the US, I rented movies through Netflix because I was happy with paying $19.95 a month for having 3 movies in my possession at all times. Services like that don't exist locally or I might be inclined to do it here, even if I have to drive to swap them out.

There are other things I could do, that I won't do, simply because I'm not interested in doing things that way. I know that I can download any music album, any movie already out on DVD, and any software title (already cracked) if I want to and there's not a damned thing that can be done to stop me since I don't upload anything anywhere and downloading anything is not illegal. The only reason I don't is because I'm just not interested in what the industries have to offer. What I'm doing right now is what interests me.

I have hundreds of DVDs on disc stored in closets in this house that I never watch. Some of them, given to me, haven't even been watched for the first time. I have disc cases full of CDs with music from various artists sitting in other places, which I never pull out to listen to. The last thing I need, at this point in my life, is more stuff that I won't listen to or watch.

Getting Back on Topic

Sorry if I tend to ramble. The point is that there is no longer anything the movie, music, and software industries can do to stop Internet piracy. They can slow it down and make it go further underground, but that's about it.

Movie, music and software piracy is here to stay. The best thing the industries involved can do is to produce what consumers want and allow them to use it in any way the consumers see fit. When file sharing becomes a waste of time, it will stop on its own. Judging by the actions of the industries involved, I don't think that will ever happen in my lifetime.

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Some movies that have religious undertones or overtones, or are about one deity or another, are often found to be repulsive by devout religious people. I don't quite understand the revulsion as long as the movies are done in good taste. God, after all, must have a sense of humor or we mere mortals wouldn't have any sense of humor ourselves.

The Good Guys

I can't remember every movie I've watched over the course of my lifetime, but some in particular have stood out for one reason or another.

The oldest movie I can remember with angels in it, one named Clarence in particular, was "It's a Wonderful Life". Clarence was a guardian angel who saved George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) from death by suicide in 1946. Although it's a black and white movie, it's still popularly broadcast on TV around Christmas time each year. A gender-reversal remake was made for TV in 1977, called "It Happened One Christmas", proving that Hollywood can't think of new ideas while reusing the same plot lines.

I remember when "Oh, God!", the comedy about the mix-master himself starring George Burns in the title role, came out in 1977. I also remember how people were saying it was sacrilegious. It was a fun movie, with John Denver as the protagonist. I was only 16-years old at the time, but I remember seeing it for the first time on the big screen. The odd part of the movie, that I reflected on later, was that Jesus was never mentioned. I found out much later that some religions believe in God but don't believe in Jesus. The movie inspired two sequels: Oh, God! Book II (1980) and Oh, God! You Devil (1984). The last one featured George Burns in dual roles as both God and Satan. It was a little ridiculous, if you ask me.

Other comedies that featured God, but no angels, include "Bruce Almighty" (starring Jim Carrey) from 2003 along with a sequel called "Evan Almighty" (starring Steve Carell) in 2007. Morgan Freeman played God in both of those films.

An unusual comedy called "Dogma" was released in 1999. I actually saw the movie by accident because I wanted to see more movies with Jay and Silent Bob in them. Anyway, all sorts of angels and demons are in the movie, along with God and a ghost.

I cannot remember seeing anything other than a religious movie with Jesus in it. That strikes me as odd. There had to be at least one, right?

The Bad Guys

I don't think anyone can forget the original "Exorcist" from 1973. I was only 12-years old at the time and it scared the, pardon the pun, devil out of me. I've watched it several times as an adult and now I just get a kick out of watching Linda Blair spin her head around and curse. This movie purported to show what demonic possession was like. There were two sequels, but I didn't watch either one due to bad reviews I'd read ahead of time.

The Prophesy series of movies, starting with "The Prophecy" in 1995 were all about what was supposed to happen beyond the end of the book of Revelations. The baddest of the bad was the angel Gabriel, played to the hilt by Christopher Walken. He reprised the role in "The Prophesy II" and "The Prophecy 3: The Ascent", both of which were released directly to video. At the end of the second movie, bad guy Gabriel was turned into a human, something he regarded as a "monkey". By the end of third movie, his attitude had changed and he returned to being an angel.

Okay, well, that's enough. There are way more bad guy movies like that than there are good guy movies. The reason, I think, is that a lot of people can believe there's a devil of some kind responsible for all the evil in the world, yet they can't believe there's a God or anything else responsible for all the good in the world. In my opinion, you can't believe in one without believing in the other. It just doesn't make sense otherwise.

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In the world of Internet marketing, the article marketing article is a valuable asset. As with all assets located on the Internet, there are some pros and cons when working with them. I'm fortunate to have contacts who are both experienced and inexperienced because through them, I can see which things have lasting value and which do not.

Pros

With article marketing articles, you can create brand new articles with links pointing to any website you want to point them to. The limitations imposed are there to make sure your articles rank as well as they can with the search engines as well as protecting the value of the website hosting the articles.

The links you insert in your articles count as votes to the websites linked to. If you have create enough links, regardless of how well each link ranks, the website or page of the website you link to will rise in the search engine results pages.

If you write one thousand articles about "space monkeys" and link to a website about "space monkeys" about three thousand times, that website about "space monkeys" will shoot to number one in any search engine, provided the one thousand articles aren't all on one article marketing website.

Many article marketing websites have a revenue sharing program of some kind or another in place. Not only do you get to publish articles on their websites, you get to place your own ads on them and if your articles rank well, you can make a bit of extra money from them.

Cons

Unless you own (or are an administrator of) the article marketing website, you don't have control over the articles you submit. Whether your article is approved or published is completely up to someone else. If they don't like what you submit, your article doesn't get published. It's as simple as that.

If the owner of the article marketing website gets de-indexed by one or more search engines, your articles no longer have any value whatsoever for users of that search engine. The same thing holds true if the owner of that website simply decides to quit (or dies, I'm sure that happens too) and not renew the domain name.

As the sole owner and administrator of Post Your Own Articles, I have full control of anything I write for it and that works to my advantage, but it doesn't necessarily work to your advantage. What happens if I no longer exist or the website no longer exists? All of the article marketing articles on that website will be gone and the value of those articles is lost.

Proper Usage of Article Marketing Websites

The first thing you want to do is make sure you submit your articles to as many unique article marketing websites as possible. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them in existence. The only problem you'll have is making sure you're submitting articles to a quality website in the first place. Research each website as you find them and build your own article marketing website list.

Make sure you follow the rules of any article marketing website you submit articles to so that your articles are likely to be approved. Some article marketing websites are harder to work with than others, but it usually pays off in the end.

Just as you want to use as many unique article marketing websites as you can, you want to make sure your articles are each as unique as possible. You don't want your own duplicate content competing on different websites.

I can't tell you how many article marketing articles per website to submit, nor can I tell you how many is too many. This is something that only the search engines know. As a general rule of thumb, I wouldn't link to the same domain more than three times in an article and I wouldn't like to the same domain more than 30 times at any specific website. I also wouldn't link to the same domain more than once per day (regardless of number of links) at any specific website.

The secret to successful article marketing is to make each article of enough quality to stand alone. If you treat embedded links as a secondary resource, you cannot go wrong.

Getting Started

I am in the process of compiling my own list, but here are a few (in no particular order) to get you started. If you know of good, quality article marketing websites I don't have listed and you want them listed, please add them to the comments.

• HubPages
• Squidoo
• Article Blast
• PcQL
• Article Slash
• Snipsly
• (My own website, linked above)

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Most news travels by word of mouth in Olongapo, despite it having a huge population. I didn't hear about the new Olongapo pedestrian overpass when it was announce. None of my relatives have said anything at all.

Under Construction

Manila has quite a few pedestrian overpasses in place already, yet this is the first one in Olongapo and it's way overdue. Just shy of a couple of weeks ago, when I was headed to the bank and my wife was driving, I noticed the overpass under construction for the first time. It was the first time either of us had seen it.

It's no wonder. We only travel in the northern part of the city when we're going to the Philippine National Bank and we only do that once a month. I'm sure we were distracted by other things in the roadway on previous trips.

Location

If I was asked for an exact location, I wouldn't be able to tell you anything other than it's on Rizal Avenue near the Olongapo City Elementary School. Yes, around 4000 students cross the road in that particular area on every school day and yes, the traffic is always controlled by crossing guards. What compounds this problem is the amount of vehicles that run on this particular stretch. It's unreal and traffic jams are commonplace. You can appreciate why we avoid that part of the city.

I know this is the first one and I hope it won't be the only one. There are several areas in the city which could become a lot safer for pedestrians overnight once pedestrian overpasses are put in place.

Pedestrian Accidents

Will having this overpass in place reduce pedestrian accidents and pedestrian injuries? Obviously it will, but it will not eliminate them, not even in that particular area. The reason is simple. A lot of the residents will be too lazy to use it. Okay, go ahead and ask me how I know that.

I'm a good observer. On one of my many trips to Manila, in the places where pedestrian overpasses exist, there are still people who refuse to use them. I can't count how many times I saw people weaving and bobbing to get across one of the large thoroughfares. It's easy to change conditions. It's hard to change human behavior.

We rarely hear of pedestrian car accidents in Olongapo. Again, it's because most of the news travels by word of mouth. The city has four times as many residents as it had 25 years ago (currently around 200,000) and probably about ten times the amount of traffic. I'm surprised that there isn't even a local newspaper in Olongapo.

Disclaimer: Since almost all of the news comes by word of mouth, certain things I write about could be utterly wrong. I invite anyone who wants to take the time to correct me to do so.

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Every once in awhile, I have to ask myself if I'm responsible for my son's (Jon) nursing school education and nursing degree. I think any parents paying for college should ask themselves that question at least once or twice since paying for college is a huge financial commitment.

The Responsibility is All Mine

A year after Jon graduated from high school, I saw that his life was going nowhere fast. He was content to live at home and kept applying for jobs which paid minimum wages or a little more. He wouldn't work at fast food joints, so his choices were that much more limited. In the early spring of 2005, after watching Jon spend most of his waking hours playing video games with his fellow video game addicts, I decided to send him to live in the Philippines, with relatives. He was a dual-citizen (American and Filipino) by birth due to a Philippines repatriation act in 2003, so I knew it wouldn't be too much trouble. I figured that even if he couldn't or wouldn't improve his life, he could at least get some form of education. By the beginning of summer, Jon left with my mother-in-law and moved to the Philippines.

The fact that my wife and I decided to move to the Philippines a few months later was purely coincidental, although I'm sure my concern for Jon's welfare had something to do with it.

Assuming Responsibility

I wouldn't be responsible for Jon's nursing school education in the Philippines if I hadn't been the person to force him into it. If it was his choice, providing his education would have been completely optional. Since I am responsible for him being here in the first place, I'm responsible for supporting him until he's able to support himself, regardless of education. It wasn't his choice and therefore, I assume full responsibility.

Jon started attending the first semester of nursing school at George Dewey Medical College, formerly Global City Innovative College at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone almost exactly a year after arrival.

High Hopes

Despite the fact that I thought Jon would never be able to finish nursing school in the Philippines due to his learning disability, he's not very far from graduating with a nursing degree. He's only had one setback due to failing a required course the first time around. Had it not been for that, he would be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing this summer, along with his peers.

Once Jon graduates from college, he'll be moving back to the US to live with his older brother (and family) while he studies for and passes the required board exams. From that point on, the future is all his and I'll no longer be responsible for anything he does or doesn't do.

Yes, I have high hopes for Jon and I'm more than happy that I'm able to put him in a position where he'll be independent and self-sufficient (unlike all the other relatives I have around here). Isn't that the position all parents really want to be in?

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