Being that I tend to have free time during the day, I get to visit a lot of interesting websites, though most are just, um, annoying. I came across one today on the PC World 100 Blogs We Love article that has me smiling from ear to ear and wanting to pass it on to you. i can has cheezburger is a collection of cat (and other small furry animal) photos with leet captions on them that make you smile.

I think my favorite is the Donut Worry one or the lvl 30 Cat.

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At the corner of one of the streets near our neighborhood, there’s a notice about an upcoming hearing regarding a cell tower being put up on private land. Most of the people in the area are against it as it would be 155 feet tall and quite an eye sore (as if you walk around looking up all the time…. you wouldn’t notice it most of the time) and they’re mostly against it… I personally don’t know how I feel.

On the one hand, there would be a 155 foot tower just down the road from my house. I probably couldn’t see it from my back deck (thanks to the pine trees) and I wouldn’t see it most of the time I was driving on Mack Dobbs. That, combined with the fact that even though its a tower for T-mobile, it would help my cell reception make me want to say “who gives a flip” and let them build a tower. I mean after all, if the property owner wants a cell tower in their backyard, who am I to stop them?

But this whole mess got me to thinking about just how much rights do we have over what our neighbors do with their own property? HOA’s (as much as I hate them) do help to keep things looking somewhat decent (have you compared two neighborhoods side by side, one with an HOA and one with out? The one with out is much worse…) but really, where does the right to tell our neighbors what they can and cannot do with their property end? For example, our HOA does not allow any outside antenna’s or towers (which makes it hard for Amateur Radio…), but you can do almost anything in your backyard as long as it cannot be seen from the street. Does my neighbor have the right to tell me I can’t build a tower or put up a tree house on my own property?

I’d like to think not, but here, we are, trying to stop someone from benefiting from a cell phone tower (most property owners are subsidized by the tower operator) on their own property, simply because we do not like the way it will look. Imagine if you were asked to tear down your house for the same reason…

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I run another site that is fairly profitable (it pays for itself through advertising…) and I’m always looking for ways to enhance my financial status. I’ve considered running ads on this site, however, I feel that since its a personal blog, google ads would look out of place and besides, no one really wants to see them mixed in with my deluded ramblings and photos of the kids (I did upload over 500 photos from our cruise though…), that is until I came across Smorty.

Smorty is a program where you sign up and can write about various advertisers on your blog. You get to choose the advertisers you write about/review and you get paid for blogging. While it looks like the average payout is about $6.00 (us) per post for an advertiser, its a fairly decent way to bring in a little extra cash for something you were going to do anyways. Isn’t it? Not only that but the new posts about different subjects might just bring in new traffic that otherwise would not have visited your site.

The application process was fairly easy, fill out a form and wait for them to approve your site. Once approved you log in, and start selecting the advertisers you want to write about. Most have a time limit for when you have to post about them once you’ve selected them and you are required to submit the post for approval once its written (otherwise you won’t get paid…) but they make it fairly simple through the web interface which is clean and easy to use.

I was pleasantly surprised when I logged in, the site itself was easily to get around and loaded quickly (two huge pluses). The other nice thing about the smorty program is that they pay out via paypal on a weekly basis. I have yet to receive a payout (I just joined) and I am waiting to see if there is a minimum payout amount. If there isn’t then this could be a very cool thing. If there is… well, I may be posting more….

Either way its a good way to blog for money.

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Ok, so I’ve finally decided that I am going to be updating this damned thing more often. I promise to try to update at least twice a week…. whether or not I have anything important to say. That being said…

In my last post I mentioned that Amy and I had been on a cruise…. it was our first. This was with a group and it was a lot of fun. One of our friends sings in a Barbershop Quartet and they had a Fun Afloat Cruise where you could go and hang out with the quartet, attend some private concerts and enjoy the Caribbean. We thought it’d be a fun way to experience a cruise and we weren’t wrong. It Rocked!

If you’ve never been on a cruise, you have to go at least once. The food, the accommodations, the ports of call…. all were fabulous. As soon as I can sit down and shrink the 600+ photos to a smaller size and get them uploaded…. I will.

Also, I wanted to share two links with you:

It seems…. they aren’t too far behind apple…

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Washington, D.C. – Congressman John Linder (GA-07) announced today that his revolutionary tax reform legislation, the FairTax, achieved 60 co-sponsors, which is a record number for H.R. 25.

“I am ecstatic, but I have to say, I am not terribly surprised. This has been the case all year. Grassroots support across the nation is motivating Members to call us up and ask for information on the FairTax, and when they read it they are always eager to put their name on the bill.”

Congressman Linder pointed out that the FairTax is the most highly co-sponsored piece of tax reform legislation in U.S. House of Representatives. In fact, the Flat Tax, which is the only other serious piece of tax reform legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, falls far short of that number with only four.

“Again, I am just not surprised. In fact, this past Saturday I traveled to Macon, Georgia, to speak to another FairTax training session. They had around 50 people come out for several hours, on a Saturday, to learn how they can better educate others on the FairTax. That is real passion, and it is real traction, and I think that is what you see reflected in this incredible list of co-sponsors.”

Congressman Linder also expressed his appreciation to Representatives Darrell Issa (CA-49) and John Boozman (AR-03) for being the most recent cosponsors of H.R. 25, and for surpassing the bill’s highest number of co-sponsors in merely the first four months of the 110th Congress.

Source!

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Linuxtracker.org is pleased to announce the availability of LinuxMint-3.0-BETA-012.iso on the linuxtracker bittorrent network. For faster downloads, more accurate statistics and to see all of the available torrents, please visit http://linuxtracker.org. This is the first beta release of Cassandra.

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Linuxtracker.org is pleased to announce the availability of Ultimate Boot CD V4.1.0 on the linuxtracker bittorrent network. For faster downloads, more accurate statistics and to see all of the available torrents, please visit http://linuxtracker.org. Ultimate Boot CD V4.1.0 (ZIP)

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Ok, so I’m a little early… however, every time I see this commercial, I get chills… so I thought I’d share….

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Linuxtracker.org is pleased to announce the availability of trixbox 2.2 on the linuxtracker bittorrent network. For faster downloads, more accurate statistics and to see all of the available torrents, please visit http://linuxtracker.org. A new version of trixbox, a CentOS-based distribution that enables users to quickly set up a VOIP Asterisk PBX,

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