One of these days? I’ll learn it…

1) Recently, I’ve parted ways with my Takamine Acoustic-Electric. In its place, I am now a proud owner of an A&L Cedar Antique Burst acoustic. Beautiful sounding guitar, but its only an acoustic… I’m in need of a pickup and electronics for that…
2) In the quest to record for the new album, I’ve been having a lot of technological issues with my current computing situation and the equipment I’m running. I’m looking seriously at getting a netbook mini to become my recording station.

That being said, I’ve been experimenting with Internet Revenue. Yup, that crazy “sign up and get paid for survey” junk. And believe me, it all works! Yup, really!

February is starting my first month at it. And from one internet job, I’m looking to cash out decently from a writing gig online. Aside from that, I’m looking at over $55 in Amazon giftcards, and about $6 or so from other survey sites, which I’m waiting to cash out too… All in all, I’m looking at needing about $550 to get where I’d like to be. After this month, I’ll be a little past 1/10th of the way there.

And that’s where I’m coming to my friends and looking for a little help. I’m going to post some of the sites that I go to and some of the referral codes, and these are things you can do to earn a few bucks on the side for you yourself. And its a simple click to get me a few bucks, can’t beat helping me out that way, huh?

1) SwagBucks:
I can’t tell you how freaking easy this one is. Every so often while searching with this site, you’ll win points. Easy as that! And every 45 points is equal to one Amazon.com giftcard. I signed up for this one on February 16th, and I passed that 45 point mark on the 19th. Three days. I highly HIGHLY recommend this one.

2) MyPoints.com:
I wish I could straight up post a referral code, but if you’re interested in this one, I’ll e-mail you an invite–of which I have limited ones a month–so please contact me. This site is downright amazing if you shop online. Think of it as a rewards program for shopping. You can earn points per dollar, and redeem for giftcards at TONS of vendors. And yes, it works. I’ve earned about 900 points from three transactions, will be getting another 750 when I order my contacts, and I’ve already cashed out points one time to get one giftcard for Macy’s. It works and works darn well.

3) InBox Dollars:
One of the oldest ones on the internet, it works but is slow as molasses. Still, if you’re interested, please sign up and give me a referral?

4) Generic goodwill and kindness:
Some of you might have seen me at a show or downloaded songs and just wished you could thank me. While I appreciate just the general gratitude, if you have a spare dollar you could send my way, you have no idea how much that would be appreciated. My PayPal account is on my downloads page, so if you see fit, you can click through there. Or, because my birthday just passed, you could always justify it that way too…

When the new album is finished, I’m going to do a release unlike any I’ve ever done. I’m going to do a mega packaging of my whole catalog of music on a flash drive. That means all of the downloads publically available, the new album, and the 2002 original demo EP that I released with “Breakdown,” “And I Said,” “Crash,” “Blind Man,” “Erica,” “In Too Deep,” “Drift Apart,” and “Losing Another Year.” Yup, all original tracks that were never before heard from Summer 2002, one month in August. This will be the only way my new album will be available for at least a month or so (except for a CD copy which I might make available on the site too for a dirt cheap price, with no artwork), but if you make any sort of donation monetarily or purchase an Amazon.com giftcard in excess of where I’ll be pricing these drives, you’ll receive one of these for free. To get an idea the retail of these drives, including shipping? About $25-30 is where they’ll be priced for a 2 gig flash drive, hand signed and numbered in a limited release of probably about 20 at most. And those will be available as soon as the new album is done…

So all of that said, anyway you can support me, I’d appreciate it. Think of it as a digital tip jar, so to speak… As musicians and individuals, this kindness does not go without thanks, and I thank you for your time and help in this…

So please, head on over and continue to enjoy the downloads!

And if you see fit, drop a few bucks to me via paypal and I might do this more often. Or click a bunch on my ads and help generate revenue that way.

Thanks folks, have a great Sunday. :)

However, due to an upcoming change to my site in a few months time from now, which I’ll get into shortly at one time or another, I’ve decided that because I have 10 gigs of bandwidth a month, its about time that I give back and do something a little different…

So with it being a fresh and new month, I’m going to open up my downloads for no registration needed. Yup, scott free.

All I ask, is that if you do download and have a few bucks you can shoot my way, please do that via paypal on the download page, or click a ton on my ads on my pages to help me pay for doing this. If I get enough of a good response, I might do this a little more often…

So check back sometime on Saturday midday/afternoon for all downloads to open up, and I’ll close it when I see the bandwidth going too high…

Let’s see how well this works, folks… Enjoy it when I do it…

I started it off by heading to Memphis on Main. A little surprised to just see Jeremy simply sitting behind a microphone and playing softer and bluesier than I’d ever seen him, when he finished I found out that apparently the open mics there are being moved to Sunday nights, with a bit of a cash pot for them too. That all makes sense, seeing the Tuesday night ones were always deader than dead. You know, the sort of dead that’s a capital Dee Eee Dee, DED.

That being said, it was a bit more laid back and we just did a jam session instead:

Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix
who Wouldn’t Want to Be Me? - Keith Urban
Take it Easy - Eagles
Blue on Black - Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd

I did the first two solo, and midway through the Urban cover, was joined by another guy who was there, and that’s when we got the idea just to have a jam instead. I did some backing vocals on the latter three, singing the whole second verse of “Free Bird” myself. And all of it reminded me of something: how much more damn practice I need. My hands were cramping up on some of the familiar Aerosmith riffs we were goofing off with. Had they not? You might have seen “Movin’ Out” on the list too…

Afterwards, I walked over to Cowboy Monkey. I hadn’t been in there since the very first open mic that I did there. Well, that’s a bit runaround, but I hope that makes sense. I went with a shortened set that was a combination of what I had originally wanted to do there and at Memphis had I played the week prior. See, I was going to head out on the 27th of January, but with the weather? I held off…

The Fall of Autumn
Cumbersome - Seven Mary Three
Toast - Mikey D
Growing

My voice was all over the place, and there was even a point just after the host ended his set and midway through the first guys second song that I sat there and said to myself “I don’t think I want to play today, I really don’t.” The thing is, there’s no such thing as excuses in those situations. Sometimes, you just need to buck up and do it.

Needless to say, maybe I’ll have to start adding to my Sunday routine and heading back out to Memphis on Main. Though this week? I think I could use just a little practice and time to heal… I really pushed my vocals something fierce on “Cumbersome.” But, you never know who’s come 600 miles to hear you, so sometimes you just have to rock it…

Why? Because that’s just me and how crazy I am.

You see, for folks who may read this on a feed, you see an advertisement at the bottom of the entry that’s randomly selected for the entry. Sometimes relevant, mostly not. And if you actually view this on my blog itself, you’ll see a one of those on the front page on my most recent entry and a few of those on the right side bar of my page too. We see them all over on any and all websites we go to.

And because we know what they are, we don’t click them. We deliberately avoid them.

While that’s all fine and dandy, we hurt websites when we do that. Not much, but just a little. You see, every 3-4 clicks can range from $.50 to $3 to even $4 for the site owner. Out of hundreds of views and viewers, if everyone just clicked once on one ad and closed it, the website could turn around and increase profitability. That would cause more people to buy text ads on the site through some style-word style applications, better geared content ads for the webmaster, and a few extra bucks in the pocket. And the webmaster would feel inclined for his advertisers to keep more relevant recent content up and would strive for the freshest of fresh content, updating more often and more frequently.

Its a beautiful situation when ad revenue pays off a bit. And its another example of something that costs nothing. Its why a lot of people embed an advertisement or two and maybe have a PayPal donation button like I do on my Discography page (along with my new EP). Of course, that’s also for my music, and when I taught guitar lessons would work out great for my clients too.

So what I’m implying is, we’re stuck in a bit of a cycle, always seeing the shadow and avoiding it. We see the bloody obvious advertisements and avoid them. How about we just open a new tab or two with a click when we visit and then move along? I know folks who take time each day to click the “Click here to donate a dollar to breast cancer” buttons online. While its far from it that folks should compare ad revenue to cancer, its something else which takes so minimal time just to perpetuate some internet good-will.

And that, is how you as an internet consumer monetize a website: give the webmaster an incentive for his eyes to bug-out when he sees people giving him “virtual kudos” that cost them nothing but make dollars and cents to him.

I’ll be back later this week with a piece on the world of “slow customer service.” Trust me, it should be a good one…

Like all years prior, I always try to release something new and musical on or around my birthday, and so with that in mind, I present to you something that I never imagined would be like this:

he, she, me, mind, you, yours, and i EP

1) Believe
2) Catch Every Rainbow
3) Tonight, Tonight
4) Pink and Brown
5) Growing

Now, there’s something that you’ll notice immediately different about this EP. You see, the songs are rough. There’s no production on them at all. I honestly sat down with my guitar and just sang into a microphone in front of me, and that’s what you hear. My voice isn’t me trying to sound good, its me trying to get some demos.

Yes, demos. See, I re-recorded these the very next day. And then, after listening, I realized they were missing something. I couldn’t fill in with the guitar, so I started messing around with MIDI, and there I found that I could find what it was looking for. But, along the way I encountered major issues with latency that I’m still working on resolving.

So what all does this mean?

Yes, there are new songs.
Yes, I will be releasing a full length album soon (read: within a year), with (possibly) these songs in a different version(s), and other tracks.
Yes, this is once again another free download on my site.

Just head to the Discography page and make sure you have a free account to use my site (or that you’re logged in). And please let me know what you think. There’s a rawness to this EP that sort of helps it. The songs are so new and fresh, so they’re really uncertain, but I like that vulnerability in this recording.

So enjoy something different from me as a birthday gift from me to you this year, my friends.

The other day, I heard a song that the chorus was simplistic and catchy. I took note of the words and I googled them, and found out that the song was “The Patient Ferris Wheel” by a band called The Gaslight Anthem. I don’t know what it was about the song, but I was mesmerized.

And then I got ahold of their second album (as well as their first and other material) and I was blown away. If that live recording there isn’t enough, take a listen to the studio version of their single from that album, “The ‘59 Sound”:

If its not your thing, hey, I can dig it. If it is? Glad I could point you in the direction of a new band. To me, I hear a bit of Seven Mary Three, Bruce Springsteen, AgainstMe!, and Lucero in them. I’ve heard others comment that they hear some Social Distortion and The Clash. But no matter what you hear, its deep lyrics, nicely arranged guitars, and just energetic and fun. Even their slower songs just have that panache to them.

And if my word isn’t enough? Jason Ross from 7M3 gives them his endorsement as one of the best albums of 2008. And I couldn’t agree more. I can’t stop listening to the album. Brilliant.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” - Socrates

And there’s a true beauty to that.

I won’t post the full e-mail here, but I will put the first paragraph:

To obtain the documents you need to learn more about the settlement, make a claim or exclude yourself from the settlement, go to www.iPodnanoSettlement.com or call 1-888-232-3395.

Your Control #: ***********

You will need your Serial # to make a claim. By keeping this email and providing your Control # (shown above) when you request your Claim Form, you will receive a personalized Claim Form.

IF YOU PURCHASED AN UNCOATED APPLE FIRST GENERATION IPOD NANO, YOU COULD GET BENEFITS FROM A CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT.

A proposed settlement of a consolidated class action lawsuit affects you if you purchased in the United States a new uncoated Apple First Generation iPod nano (referred to here as the “iPod nano”). These iPod nanos were first sold beginning in September 2005, and have a black or white plastic front and a stainless steel back. Some but not all of the First Generation iPod nanos were uncoated. The settlement will provide cash payments to qualified purchasers. To qualify for settlement benefits, you must have purchased in the United States a new uncoated First Generation iPod nano and experienced scratching of your iPod nano that impaired your use or enjoyment of your iPod nano. The Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles authorized this Notice. The Court will have a hearing to consider whether to approve the settlement.

Strange, you know? Well, the website it redirected me to didn’t sit all that well with me. Sure, it was a secure site where it needed to be secure and it was plain, as most settlement sites end up being, but to get an e-mail like that? And for Google to show me nothing except the Canadian battery Apple suit or a few forums where people had gotten the same e-mail? A bit strange.

So that’s when “super internet sleuth” mode kicked on for me. You see, with all of the freebies I post on HeyItsFree.net, I do a lot of crosschecking–much more than what could be considerably healthy for the average individual. But, my dear friends and casual readers, you should all know I’m far from that average individual.

My first tool was to go right to a WHOIS search. For those not familiar with it, it lets you check to see who registered a website. Sometimes that information is private (like on personal sites like mine), but this time around, it was free public information. A settlement company called Rosenthal & Company. Of course, I ran a WHOIS on them too. Now, something you might notice on those pages (if you’re not familiar with the WHOIS search, is when the page was first registered and when it expires. On both of those pages, you can see they’ve been around for a little longer than just a few days. The length on the settlement page is fairly short, but the Rosenthal page has almost a 9 year history. Noones going to plan a scam for 9 years, so that’s a pretty good sign that it’s legit.

But, I only thought to do the WHOIS search on Rosenthal’s site just now. You see, I verified mine a different way initially. I went to the cases page on their site, and I chose a random case and just Googled it. The results had a different company’s site at #2, a law firm, and one of their lawyers who worked on that case. And a quick WHOIS on their site verified that they were legit. Of course, the CNN article I found too by Googling them did too, but still.

Sure, there could be a giant conspiracy that’s making all of these fake sites, but I highly doubt it. And is what I did overkill? Yeah, a bit. But its nice to know that when you get a random settlement e-mail, just a little bit of poking around can give you the piece of mind that maybe, just maybe, not everything in this world is fake or a scam…

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get myself a nice little check for my 1st gen Nano soon… My settlement papers? Are in the mail tomorrow…

And today, as many friends of mine have made the trek to Washington, D.C., and as I know I’ll be waiting to read the words that one man speaks to start the next four years of his life, there are a lot of folks using the terms “error” and “era.” And I’m glad to hear the hope and the aspirations that we all have for our future as a country. And yet, as much as we should be celebrating this peaceable change of power, not only from one man to a next, but from one ideology to another, from an elder to a younger, or even from from one race to a different one? We should not forget that where we stand right here and now, only we can affect.

With even a different individual in the White House, he did something that was probably correct beyond all belief: he inspired us to dream, to hope, to believe. Whether you believed in what he had to say or not and whether you voted for him or not, he stepped up to the podium and stirred the masses in ways that most of those in my generation have never seen or could ever even really imagine. And that, is something to hold onto.

See, I remember when I was younger and one day while playing with my Legos, I realized the stories that I was telling and all that I was imagining was starting to bore me. I was interjecting into it so much of my real life and all of the things I dreamed, but I wasn’t making any action on everything I aspired for. I was sitting back and saying “I wish…” And as I’m now double that age where when I’d build a starship from those plastic blocks, I look to the sunrise on the horizon and once again, I say “I wish…”

But this time, I know that to wish and to hope and to dream, are passive things. We cannot let those wishes and hopes and dreams die out, but we need to know that we need to act to achieve them.

As one man leaves his residence that he’s held for the past 8 years, I’ll openly admit that I never agreed with many of his policies or the way he enacted those politics as a whole. I am not his judge, jury, or executioner: those failures only history can fully judge. The only policy and politic I can comment on is this: he didn’t inspire the population to wish, to hope, to dream.

Does that alone mean that Barack Obama, when he takes the oath of office, will be a better President or a better man than George W. Bush? No. And it doesn’t mean he’ll be worse either. He’ll be a man, starting his first day on the job, and he’ll be a man who will have the next 1,460 days, roughly, to continue to work on that job before his national performance review. We hired him to run this giant company that we call America, and like with any company, if you have workers that are proud of their company and the product it puts out or is capable of producing and the workers feel inspired, the company as a whole is better. And from there, there will be more of those who feel inspired to go that extra mile and to work that extra push.

Take the wishes, the hopes, and the dreams and move them into your action. He can guide us and direct our nation, but we’ll have to work to get there. This is not an “end of an error” or the “beginning of an era.” This is a transition into hope. And we need to be proactive and work from there and that is how we as a nation will be stronger.

Thank you.

To all friends who complain about cold weather in Florida? You would never survive anywhere else. Please continue a migration farther south. I hear that Puerto Rico is nice, as is Cuba if you overlook the Communist regime…

To everyone else: come on in, the snow is beautiful!

Oh, and if you haven’t seen it and were interested, on the right column is now a nice little widget with the current weather and time. All the better to be informed with!

You see, I’m surrounded by a ton of talented people. Its why I’m slowly working on building the “Trying So Hard Collective”–a collection of all of the artists and artistic folks that I know. And while I’m slowly linking them on my page, well, I’d like to feature them all and give them their dues…

And enter in my friend Kimmie, who makes duct tape wallets and handmade jewelry. I’ve seen her work as she posts it on her Twitter while working on it, and its really something to behold. Definitely awesome in my book.

But, don’t believe me? Head to her website and check it out:

She’s got samples and she does it to order, so you can choose the colors, and you know you’re getting something made especially for you.

And besides, its nice to actually know in these tough economic times that someone is working for you and its not some massive company doing the work. Made in America indeed. :)

So Mazel Tov, you two. I heard that Dad B. ambushed y’all, and I’m looking forward to seeing the footage later…

And now, back into silence for me… I’ve got a few things on deck that need attending to…