Mamma Maya

Archive for November, 2009

Most of us suffer from the blemishes or acne that appear on our skin. There are so many different products out there, that it is hard to choose which one might work for your skin. Trying all of the different products can be time consuming, expensive and can even make you break out more. The real key to maintaining a healthy complextion is to naturally take care of your skin. There are some simple principles that you can follow with out having to buy expensive creams and medicine.

The first thing that your skin is very sensitive to is consitancy. If you find a schedule for washing you face that seems to keep it fresh and oil free, you must stick to it. It is recomended that you wash your face twice a day in the morning and evening. If you disrupt this cycle your skin will break out. It is also important how you wash your face. Dead skin can trap oil in your pores and cause pimples. Soap alone will not remove the excess dead skin by itself. A scrubbing soap is the best way to exfoliate and remove the dead skin. Many of these scrubs offer extra acids and such, but I recommend to find one that just has rough beads with no chemicals. You are trying to bring your skin to a natural clean. For guys, shaving with a razor is also a great way to keep your skin clear but you don’t shave your whole face.

With clean skin there are a couple of other natural things you can do to help keep a clear complextion. Regular exercise will help clear out the pores with sweat, but you must make sure to wash your face after you have cooled down to remove dirt and oils that may have accumulated during exercise. Exercise can affect your hormone levels, which can result in more acne in some individuals. Keep this in mind. One of the greates natural ways to maintain a clean healthy look is to get some sun light exposure. Use a oil free facial sunscreen and get about a half hour or more of direct sun light. Then rinse your skin with some salt water. This is easy for beach goers, but there is also a way for inlanders. After getting some sun make a solution of water and sea salts that is room temputature and rinse you face. This naturally dries you skin and revitalizes it. Our skin was meant to be exposed to the elements and it has a healthy reaction when done in moderation.

They might be multi-millionaires now but once they were delivering mail, collecting debt and sawing wood to make ends meet. Major movie stars like Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore and Harrison Ford all had to start somewhere but clearly not every struggling actor or Los Angeles waitress ends up in Beverly Hills with their name in lights and a closet full of Oscars.

So what does it take to be one of the lucky few who move from celebrity wannabe to red carpet regular?

According to Elisa Eliot, an acting Coach in Los Angeles who has helped budding starlets land roles on major TV shows including CSI, Nip/Tuck and The Office, while looks can be important in making the cut, even the most attractive actor won’t be cast if he or she doesn’t have the acting ability to turn a script into a convincing performance.

And for Eliot, who learned her acting skills at Yale University’s drama school, that means rising stars have to leave the day job behind them when they make it to the audition.

“I’m always telling my students to make the stakes higher in their acting, which means committing to each moment,” she says. “If an actor is not totally committed to what he or she is trying to achieve then the moment won’t be believable.”

That doesn’t mean though that a background in Stanislavski and a love of Method Acting are all you need to win the breakthrough parts. According to Eliot, it’s just not enough these days for an actor to have only one way of bringing a character to life. “No actor can be confined to just one of the older methods in today’s acting world,” she advises on her website. Instead, Elisa teaches a blend of all the different acting approaches so that actors can choose the methods that work best for them.

So the right looks help, it seems, and solid acting skills certainly count for something. But there’s one more ingredient that any actor with ambition needs: an objective opinion to tell them where they’re going wrong and how to improve it… before the casting director does. Even the most talented actor can struggle with the stress of an audition and nervous habits like shifting from one foot to the other can kill chances faster than a fluffed line.

For many stars in the making, that means exchanging poses in the mirror for personal training if they want to swap their uniform for an Oscar dress.

- Daniel Nord

Voom was thought to be the company that would be able to compete with DirecTV and Echostar in satellite service. However, after a $650 million loss it became clear that the company needed more than technology. By looking inside the Voom Company, you can learn from their business mistakes to avoid the same problems in your own business.

You Need More Than a Good Product

The Voom channels definitely had something to offer to their customers. Never before was such a wide selection of HD channels available for television viewers. However, it takes more than just a good product to make a profit. Market research needs to be done to see if anyone will buy the product. The money you put into research will definitely pay off to find out whether or not you can sell your product or not. You need to find out if you can make a valuable return on your investment or not. In the Voom case, their investment obviously did not provide the company with a profit.

Do Not do Business with Your Family

The Voom battle became a family feud. Charles Dolan, founder of Cablevision, felt that Voom was worth saving while his son the CEO, Jimmy Dolan, wanted to pull the plug. Eventually, Charles Dolan tried to buy Voom with the help of his other son. This caused major conflicts within the Dolan Family. You should avoid mixing family and business. This may seem like a harsh rule but it is something that can save a lot of heartache in the long run.

Know Your Competitors and Your Industry

One of the problems with Voom is that they did not expect the technological advances that their competitors had after they launched Voom. Know your competitors and know what type of industry you are in. Be aware of the outside forces that can affect your business. Is your industry known to change rapidly? Voom did not take into account what their competitors had up their sleeve and this became very detrimental to the business.

The Pain of Sunk Costs

It is hard to walk away from a large investment that does not give any returns. One must remember that a sunk cost is exactly what it sounds like; it is sunk, gone, vanished, kiss it goodbye. So many times businesses fall into the mistake of trying to save fallen projects because they have already put so much time and money into it. This was definitely the case with Voom. With the lost of $650 million Charles Dolan was bound to want to save part of the investment. This is an important lesson to learn in business. You must say goodbye to sunk costs.

Listen!

Charles Dolan dreamed about creating a satellite company that could compete with DirecTV and Dish Network. However, almost no one was supporting to Charles Dolan in his cause at the end seeing that Voom was bound to fail. However, Charles Dolan would not listen to the other board of directors and continued in his efforts to save the dying business. It is important to sometimes swallow your pride and listen to the arguments of those around you to see if they possibly have some validity. Be open to what others are saying because they just might be right.

While it seemed that Voom had the capabilities to change the way viewers watch TV and to be very profitable, instead it failed shortly after its creation. This is because of a few business principles that were neglected. When working with your own new business, make sure that your business plan makes sense and that you pay particular attention to your team, the external factors that could affect your business, and know how to walk away when your great idea turns out to be a flop. If you are willing to do these things, you will avoid running into the same problems that Voom did.

Kaitlin Carruth is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing- More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. To learn more about Voom, please visit I-Satellite.

Mark Knopfler has been producing his own work for years, first with Dire Straits, then his film soundtracks, and finally and most recently for his solo albums. In the 1980s, however, he also produced tracks and entire CDs for other very notable artists – including Bob Dylan.

After performing on Dylan’s 1979’s religion-laden “Slow Train Coming,” Knopfler was approached once again in 1983 to produce his newest album. Knopfler brought along engineer Neil Dorfsman (who went on to engineer and produce the Dire Straits megaalbum “Brothers in Arms”) and Dire Straits’ keyboardist Alan Clark, and put together a number of other musicians who ultimately created the eight tracks entitled “Infidels” that would end up on the finished product (along with the countless other songs that didn’t make the cut). Knopfler played guitar on the album as well, along with former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor.

Christopher Connelly of Rolling Stone complimented Dylan, saying it was “a stunning recovery of the lyric and melodic powers that seemed to have all but deserted him.” It ended up being the only one of Dylan’s albums to go gold in the 80s, and the Village Voice awarded it as one of its Top 10 Albums of the Year.

A continuing mystery is why Dylan ultimately decided to remove the track “Blind Willie McTell” from the finished product. The song, eventually released as one of a series of outtakes, was simply arranged with Dylan singing and playing the piano, and Knopfler on acoustic guitar. Knopfler, who wanted to leave the song on the album, had to leave for a previously-committed tour in Germany with Dire Straits and Dylan ended up finishing the editing and ultimately delivered the masters to CBS Records without his assistance or input.

In a 1987 interview in Q Magazine, Knopfler admitted “I was lucky with Bob. He’s wild to work with but different people get results different ways. If anybody ever has the dubious fortune to end up in the producer’s seat they’ll find out for themselves that the best way to go forward is to respect others’ feelings about things, sometimes when they’re directly opposed to your own.”

Mark Knopfler is a singer, songwriter and guitar player touring in 2006 with Emmylou Harris to promote their new album “All the Roadrunning.” For Mark Knopfler news, biography, photographs, and tour information visit the site: http://www.knopfler.info

It can be hard to talk about turtles properly in North America because what we refer to as turtles is not really what a turtle is. While traditionally we use the word to describe those shelled reptiles that live by the water it really refers to any shelled reptile there is. In this part of the world we generally refer to the land turtles as tortoises.

So though we separate the species in our minds by assigning different words, they are really all one. These are little guys that are born with a shell. It is a bony leathery shell that grows with them and is pretty much carried with them for life.

Turtles are resilient creatures and perhaps one of the best examples of evolved life on Earth. This is because they have survived longer than most any other species that has come along. The earliest known turtles lived so long ago that dinosaurs were walking the earth with them, but when the disaster struck to wipe out the dinosaurs the turtles managed to survive. They also survived another life altering disaster a few million years later.

Now these guys back then were so well evolved, that is to say they were such a perfect specimen of what they should be, that the oldest fossils we know of are not much different than the ones that roam around today. That means that in the past millions of years turtles have not changed, and have not had to change, all that much in order to survive. Compare that with humans who have evolved dramatically from where we were just a million years ago.

These days turtles can be found everywhere. Populated or remote areas, in personal aquariums or you can find some really big and old turtles in any number of zoos.

Van Whitsett has published a number of articles, both online and offline. For more info on turtles, visit: Turtle Pond

Bad eggs are rare but they do occur. Crack eggs into a separate bowl before mixing with other ingredients. If the egg is bad it will have an unmistakeable odor.

If you find an egg stuck to the carton, fill the indentation with cool water and let sit for five minutes. The water will soften the dried egg white that is holding the egg in the carton.

Many techniques are used for cracking open an egg. Their is an easy method you can use if you want to keep the eggshell out of the frypan. Using the following method will keep the egg shell from shattering when you crack the egg.

1. First, find a flat surface, you want to crack the egg on a flat surface and not on the edge of counter or frying pan.

2. Place the egg in the upper part of your palm, between your thumb and first three fingers. Leave a space between your middle and ring finger. Give a short, sharp crack to the exposed area on a flat surface.

3. Once the egg is cracked, quickly bring the egg over the bowl or pan and quickly spread apart the two halves of the shell. Pull the lower half down with your ring finger, while pushing up the upper half with your thumb and middle finger. The egg will gently fall into the bowl as the shell spreads apart.

If you drop an egg on the floor, pour salt on the floor, heavily. Wipe it up fifteen minutes later. Salt will set up the eggs protein so that it’s easier to clean up.

If you have to clean up a mixing bowl that has eggs coated on them, use warm water. Hot water may set up the egg’s protein and make it harder to wipe off the bowl.

George Lake updates his blog Monday-Friday with cooking tips and recipes that relate to each other. Check out the following blog if you want new recipes and additional cooking tips:

http://www.dailyrecipes.blogspot.com

It should have been a simple task. Just go to the drugstore and buy a razor. Not even one of those highly complex computerized electric razors you need an advanced degree in electrical engineering to operate, just a plain old manual model with which I could joyfully hack away at my face. It was not to be.

Now, I’m a simple guy. I try to abide by the aptly named ‘Occam’s razor’ principle of science, which basically says that the simpler things are, the better. Now I find myself wondering just how many blades Occam’s razor had.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the evolution of manual razors seems to be roughly following the same path as home stereo equipment. In the fifties, you had a razor with just one blade, just as you had a transistor radio with that one tinny-sounding speaker. Then came the invention of stereo, and the two bladed razor was born. Two speakers and a subwoofer, three blades. Quadrophonic sound, four blades. Now we are up to Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a razor with an incredible five blades on one side and one on the other. That’s right, there are now so many blades on your razor that they can’t even fit them all on the same side.

Where will it end? Is there a theoretical limit on the number of blades one razor can support? I, for one, believe that we are very close to the blade event horizon. Critical mass has almost been reached. It used to be that I would occasionally give myself a slight nick while shaving. One false move now and I’ll be getting tips from Michael Jackson on which nose to buy.

Perhaps the razor companies just don’t understand the concept. Maybe someone needs to tell them that we are just trying to take the hair off of our faces, not make julienne potatoes for a society luncheon while we shower. It’s only a matter of time before someone comes out with a razor that has one blade for every hair follicle on your face, so you can shave with just one stroke and then spend the rest of the morning trying to find your lips.

No more, I say. It’s time to release myself from the tyranny of blades. This morning I gave myself a clean , comfortable shave without using any blades at all.

Now I just need a new string for my weed whacker.

Ian McCarthy is the author of The Science of Wit, a 100 page ebook that contains a proven formula you can use to transform your personality from shy or even boring into the witty and funny person you were meant to be!

Learn more at: www.scienceofwit.com

That’s the least you need to start your own online business.
Well, that’s what I started with and it doesn’t have to be
different with you.

In today’s Information Age, we are bless to have such wonderful
opportunities right at our fingertips. A brick and mortar
business can cost you thousands of dollars to get off the ground,
where as an online business can cost you zero dollars to start.

There are many companies that you can sign up and sell their
products and services for a commission. They provide marketing
tools, tracking software and product links all free of cost to
you. You can then market for free through classified ads,
articles and forums.

At sometime you will realize that you will need to invest some
money in your online business to help speed up it’s growth. As
they say there is no free lunch, because all these stuff are
available for free that does not means your success is also free.
Your dollars will be well spent and will give you a more
professional appearance.

For example, I know webmasters that purchase domain names just
to market their affiliate products. I have seen people like Willie
Crawford published an article with a web link embedded in it
which redirects you to TheRichJerk.com. This is clearly an
affiliate link presented in a professional format. And that
domain may have cost Mr. Crawford just a few bucks.

Sorry if I have let any cat out of the bag but that’s the way
these people are making things happen. Here in my homeland of
Jamaica, many are bewildered when I show them how easy it can be
for them to start their own online business.

They are even more startled when they learn that they can set up
a free website through Geocities or a free blog with Blogger and
create a source of income. They can place pay per click ads or
affiliate links on them and make some mail box money.

With economies around the world so unstable, it is imperative
that you seek to create a stable source or multiple sources of
income. And in today’s world the easiest way to do so is with
your own online business. All you need to start is a dollar in
your pocket and a dream.

© Oceanroc Web Publishing

Nicholas Dixon is the owner of Oceanroc Classic Books. Visit
his website http://WWW.Lulu.com/Oceanroc to learn more about The
Blue Strategy of Sarah Jack.

For centuries online poker was considered the exclusive domain of middle aged men who spent an evening with the guys to get away from the wife back home. The image of poker, and online poker players, has changed since those days of yore. Now it is not unusual to see someone under fifty, and full head of hair or even a woman (gasp) at the poker table. Poker has become universally popular, and this popularity is directly related to the fact that it is now televised.

Televised poker broadcasts are beamed into every home with cable and an active television set. People start to flip through the channels and before you know it are looking at poker in a new way. Televised broadcasts make poker seem young, exciting, and hip. This is exactly the kind of ambience that draws new faces into the casino online and livens up the average poker game. Televised poker has made the casino the domain of all people instead of just middle aged balding men.

We owe the modern poker diversity to the television set. For all those people who think that television is ruining poker, ask yourself how you became involved in the game. More likely than not, it’s because you realized that the game had an attraction for someone like you.

Here’s a simple but powerful meditation exercise you may enjoy. Teaching you the basics of meditation is beyond the scope of this blog entry (maybe someone can post a comment with a link to a meditation primer for those who’ve never done it), but if you’re already familiar with it, I think you’ll find this one interesting and valuable.

I didn’t learn this particular meditation from anyone else it’s just something I made up at one point and have been doing for around 10 years now.

First I get myself totally relaxed and into a peaceful state. Then I imagine a special room in my mind which has two chairs facing each other. I sit in one chair, and in the chair opposite me, I visualize my future self five years from now. He appears as the ideal “me” I’m striving to become. He’s physically fit, strong, brave, confident, driven, passionate, enthusiastic, etc. We have a conversation for 5-10 minutes where I ask him questions, and he willingly answers them. He usually looks at me almost with a sense of nostalgia and compassion, since he knows where I am right now as well as the challenges I’m dealing with, challenges he’s long since overcome.

Eventually my future self leaves. Then I get up and take his seat, and my past self from five years ago enters the room and takes the first seat. So now I’m the future self (Steve 2005) looking back on my past self (Steve 2000). I take a moment to remember what my life was like exactly five years ago, so I can recall what that past Steve is experiencing. Now he’s asking me questions about his future (my present), and I’m providing the answers. I’m often amazed to look back and see just how trivially easy his challenges seem to me today, even though I remember that they appeared much grander when I was in his shoes. I take the time to reassure Steve 2000 that everything turns out well for Steve 2005. I also let him know what things I haven’t yet solved that I’m still working on.

Then I do one more step and fast-forward time by five years. So now I’m Steve 2010, and I’m facing Steve 2005. I’m looking back on my present situation from the future from a vantage point where I’ve already solved my biggest challenges. Now I see my Steve 2005 asking the same questions I was previously asking Steve 2010, and I’m able to answer them with confidence and certainty.

Then I imagine all three of us in the room together (Steve 2000, Steve 2005, Steve 2010), and I visualize all three of our bodies becoming translucent. We walk into each other and blend into one being in a flash of light. When this happens I’m often overwhelmed by a release of emotion the feeling is somewhat different each time I experience it. We become an integrated whole, a single being who exists outside of time but has been splintered in order to experience the sensation of growth and change.

As I slowly bring myself out of this meditation, I feel very peaceful and calm. But the most important benefit is a feeling of oneness, a sense that I’m more than just a physical being moving forward through time. I feel like an integrated being who exists at all times but is merely focusing his consciousness on a particular time in order to experience it more fully. When I’m in this state of mind, I see the present moment as something contained within my being instead of the more common perception of being a person contained within the reality of the present moment. This has the effect of melting present-moment concerns and replacing them with a feeling of expansiveness and transcendence. My new perception causes my present-reality problems to shrink, which makes them far easier to resolve, sometimes almost trivially easy.

I encourage you to try this meditation at least once to see if you find it as beneficial as I do.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.