This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Popstation. All opinions are 100% mine.

You know you do it. Sing along with your favorite artists while you’re in the car (come on, we know you secretly like Lady Gaga). Hum the tune to the current pop hit while you’re showering. Belt out horribly off key lyrics with your coworkers at the Karaoke Bar after work on Fridays. Don’t be ashamed, we all do it. The only difference is that some of us could actually become pop starts (ala Kenny Chesney) thanks to a cool site called PopStation.

PopStation is a kind of Online Karaoke Bar that’s generating a lot of news in the world. You sign up (for FREE), hit their practice rooms to practice your song and then record your version of it. Once its recorded you’re left to the mercy of the voters as your song climbs (or bombs) the charts. The cool thing is that if your song makes it to number one on the charts you’re entered in a contest to make it big.

Awarded every 3 months, one #1 Artist will earn what people dare to dream of. Win “The BIG Deal” and “The Artist Formerly Known As You” and a guest will enjoy an all expenses paid three night stay in NYC at a ridiculously hip hotel. You will be picked up in a luxury car service and whisked off to a professional recording studio where you will spend two days recording your very own album with the help of a professional production team.

Artists that prove themselves to be vocal superstars, add emotion to the music, and make the songs their own have a better shot at being selected.

Win “The BIG Deal” and you?ll get a crash course in the music industry, gain valuable insider knowledge about how to promote yourself and your music, and experience the dream.

Its actually a pretty cool deal when you think about it. You can enter FREE for a chance other people have been dreaming about. No waiting in lines at American Idol contests or listening to Simon talk about how absolutely droll you are. It’s all online. In your house. On your time. Plus, original Popstation songs are released Monday – Thursday (M – Hip Hop & R&B, T – Country, W – Pop, Th – Rock) and are available in the practice rooms for 2 weeks. People are encouraged to “make them your own”.

Why not visit PopStation today to register free for your chance at fame!

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Now cool is this? 14 artists have come together to release an album with some really good cuts on it (Bonfire Live in NY from Third Eye Blind) on the Indie Rocks! A Benefit Album For Malaria No More. The album itself is $10 and ALL proceedes go to help Malaria No More. So for every purchase, $10 goes to help end malaria deaths in Africa.

The donations help to distribute and educate families in Africa about mosquito nets, one of the easiest and cheapest ways to help fight the disease. But don’t buy the album strictly because its for a good cause (which it is) buy it for the kick ass cuts from groups like Peter Bjorn and John, The Grates, Third Eye Blind, Dirty Little Rabbits, the Walkmen and more.

Its awesome that for $10 you get 14 tracks that aren’t available anywhere else and you help stamp out Malaria. Isn’t it?

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’ve been doing paid blogging of one sort or another for years now. It was only natural that when a good way to make a little extra from twitter came along that I’d do that as well, enter Sponsored Tweets. The process is simple you sign up for sponsored tweets and they send you a message when you have an available opportunity. You log in, write the tweet (or approve it for tweeting) and you sit back and let it do the work for you. The beauty of it is how simple it is.

I’ve been a “publisher” for sponsored tweets for a while and with the occasional sponsored tweet, I’ve managed to earn enough money to buy two lunches. It’s not a lot, but these days, every little bit helps right? The cool thing is that I’m not alone. Some pretty big name twitter users like Kim Kardashian, Bob Vila, Sister Hazel and Leann Rimes use sponsored tweets as well. How cool is that?

Sponsored Tweets is brought to us by IZEA, the people behind SocialSpark and PPP, and there’s a pretty cool API they’ve developed for the program as well that has a bunch of developers working hard to incorporate it in to twitter apps.

If you’ve been looking for a good way to make a little extra from twitter, or maybe you need to get your brand out there on the twittersphere, I’m pretty sure that Sponsored Tweets will work for you!

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Its a sad day today, after a drawn out courtbattle and years of supplying the world with warez, movies and more the Pirate Bay has officially shut off the tracker. Although the site will remain operational for now, millions of BitTorrent users will lose the use of its tracker and will instead have to rely on DHT and alternative trackers to continue downloading.

In the fall of 2003, a group of friends from Sweden decided to launch a BitTorrent tracker named ‘The Pirate Bay’. It soon became one of the largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet, coordinating the downloads of more than 25 million peers at its height.

Despite this success, The Pirate Bay operators today decided to pull the plug and close down the tracker permanently. The evolution of the BitTorrent protocol has made trackers redundant they say, as BitTorrent downloads work well with trackerless solutions such as DHT and PEX.

To read the Full article at TorrentFreak Click Here

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At this time of year, its always nice to hear about companies doing things for the little guy. This year its no different as new to the scene Real Time Search LeapFish has teamed up with Make-a-Wish to send a child and his family to Disney. LeapFish’s tweet-a-cause is generating five cents for every tweet that sends out the simple message:

Just tweeted 2 grant a childs wish! #LeapFish donates to #makeawish foundation for each tweet. http://bit.ly/3Tj8A Please retweet!

Jacob, age 4, has a rare and life-threatening disease that has affected him since birth and his one big wish is to go to DisneyLand with his family. Your efforts tweeting can help get Jacob there as LeapFish is donating 5 cents a tweet now through November 27th as they raise $10,000 to send him and his family on a once in a life time trip!

So do what you can to help get the word out about this tweet-a-cause and lets help make Jacob’s Dream come true!

LeapFish is an evolved search engine that captures the traditional, multi-media and real-time Web, through a single, connected search platform for both searching and sharing content. Founded by Ben Behrouzi (co-founder of Reply.com), LeapFish is a privately held, 100-person corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California. For more information, visit blog.leapfish.com.

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Last year, I wrote a post about Friday the 13th in which I Gave 13 facts about the 13th. Well, here’s 13 more for you!

1. The British Navy is said to have built a ship named Friday the 13th, or the HMS Friday, which on its maiden voyage left dock on a Friday the 13th, and was never heard from again. As LiveScience readers pointed out, however, this story seems to be a legend. The Royal Navy Museum states on its web site that this story, which has been told before, is a hoax. “There has never been a Royal Navy ship named HMS Friday – or after any other day of the week for that matter,” the museum states.
2. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor.
3. Quarterback Dan Marino wore No. 13 throughout his career with the Miami Dolphins. Despite being a superb quarterback (some call him one of the best ever), he got to the Super Bowl just once, in 1985, and was trounced 38-16 by the San Francisco 49ers and Joe Montana (who wore No. 16 and won all four Super Bowls he played in).
4. Butch Cassidy, notorious American train and bank robber, was born on Friday, April 13, 1866.
5. Fidel Castro was born on Friday, Aug. 13, 1926.
6. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.
7. Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.
8. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. “It was bad luck,” Twain later told the friend. “They only had food for 12.”
9. Woodrow Wilson considered 13 his lucky number, though his experience didn’t support such faith. He arrived in Normandy, France on Friday, Dec. 13, 1918, for peace talks, only to return with a treaty he couldn’t get Congress to sign. (The ship’s crew wanted to dock the next day due to superstitions, Fernsler said.) He toured the United States to rally support for the treaty, and while traveling, suffered a near-fatal stroke.
10. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.
11. The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle’s head, 13 war arrows in the eagle’s claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. So far there’s been no evidence tying these long-ago design decisions to the present economic situation.
12. This week’s Friday the 13th (11/13/2009) is one of three to endure this year. Such a rare triple-threat occurs only once every 11 years.
13. The driver of Princess Diana hit pillar #13 at Place de l’Alma when she was killed in Paris, France.

There you have it, this week’s Friday the 13th List!

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Usually, I’m sporting a nicely trimmed goatee. The oldest, G has been complaining that the goatee and mustache was “prickly” when I kissed her goodnight, so I decided to do something about it. After I dropped her off at school the other morning, I came home and shaved before I left for work.

Needless to say, the reception my clean shaven self received was less then stellar. Em told me I wasn’t allowed to shave and that I wasn’t her daddy. Mary was Mary and as she is 6 months, wasn’t too put off by the clean shaven daddy as the voice was the same. Amy held the position that she usually has when I shave. I look like I’m 12. All things you want to hear from the people who are supposed to love you no matte what right?

Well, when I picked Grace up in the afternoon at the bus stop, she insisted I grow it back. Now she complains when I kiss her that its too rough. A guy just can’t win. She’s repeatedly told me to go to the store and buy a fake beard until it grows back out. Right now? I think I’m going to try growing the Magnum PI mustache or a handlebar mustache….

Thoughts?

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Unless you live under a rock (in which case, sorry to bother you Patrick the Starfish) you’ve heard of some of the cool give aways that Charter Communications has been running (they gave away laptops last time) then you’ll be interested in their current offering. They’ve upped the ante with their Camaro Sweepstakes. Thats right, you have the chance to win a 2010 Camaro 2SS. Complete with the black and yellow paint job if you choose.

The contest runs through November 26th at noon and you can enter on line (no purchase necessary) to win. In addition, you also get a $100 gift card when you buy 3 bundled services (not to worry, they have deals for smaller bundles as well). Charter has been making people’s lives faster for a while now, why not let them improve your garage as well?

You can follow Charter on Twitter or fan Charter on Facebook to stay on top of their awesome contests. Did you know that they’ve given away everything from an HDTV every day to Xbox 360s to a Hybrid Car last year? Why not enter and see what you can win!

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One of the things on my list of things to do is travel the world. I’ve done most of the US and the Caribbean, but I want to see Europe. Every once in a while, I’ll check the online deals or I’ll listen to Clark Howard and his weekly price updates on the airlines and think to myself, “wouldn’t it be nice to pack the wife up and head to London for a week?” Or maybe you’ve been to London (you lucky sod) and you want to go somewhere like Cairo, Dubai, or Nairobi. Well, British Airways has you covered!

Through November 16th, British Airways is offering AMAZING deals on their flights from New York (JFK) to places around the world starting at $229 one way (the cheapest I saw was Madrid, Spain from $205 ONE WAY!) and hotel packages starting at $659. There hasn’t been a better time to fly with the airlines competing for passengers, plus, you can check baggage as this is an international flight so no worries about fitting everything in to the overhead!

One of the other nice things about flying British Airways is the fact that they go everywhere you want to go around the world and they do it with comfort and luxury. Over 200 in flight entertainment options, complimentary food and drinks and some of the most comfortable seats in the airline business!

I was amazed at how easy it is to book a trip using their site, now the only problem is where to go and what to do with the kids and dogs!

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This week’s ASMW post is another freebie (notice a trend here?) from Amie Street. This one is by Pearl and the Beard, a pretty cool folk group I discovered just this morning (because I saw the free download link).

One of the recs for this song called it sort of “Folk Gothic” and I’d have to agree. The vocals work well and the tune is haunting in a good way. One to add to the library. And you can’t beat the current price. Can you?

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