More Sad News in the Southern Hemisphere

In all confidence, I must now tell you that south of the Equator, the people sound altogether too much like the people of England! It appears that these people did not dump tea in a harbor, did not sign a Declaration of Independence, did not shoot at soldiers in bright-red uniforms, and generally did not do what all right-thinking people did in the 1770’s.

We live in troubled times.

Shocking News South of the Equator

Let me tell you the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard south of the Equator. After six weeks of careful listening and observation, I’ve noticed that the people of the Southern Hemisphere speak with accents unlike anything I’ve ever heard in the American Middle West, where English is always pronounced correctly. Moreover, the accents heard down under in no way resemble the accents in New York, Alabama, Boston, or not even in Missouri.

Northern Virginia Real Estate

Every so often, I like to visit Washington, D.C., to gaze again at some of our national monuments. The Lincoln Monument is my favorite, and the Jefferson Monument is a close second. Once I’ve taken all the photographs I can afford, I can easily spend a week going through the Smithsonian Institution.

If I lived in Northern Virginia, I could visit those places more frequently and conveniently. And if I could move to Northern Virginia, I would want to look into fairfax real estate. And I would also want to introduce myself to John Holmes at Keller Williams real estate.

Keller Williams is the fastest growing real estate firm in the United States, and John Holmes has helped create that success. With over 20 years of real estate experience, John could help me find just the property I needed in Northern Virginia. He knows both condos and houses. And when it came time to move on, John could find me an eager buyer.

This whole idea sounds better and better. I’m presently visiting a country in the South Pacific. If I can do that, why not Northern Virginia?

Still More Word Trouble South of the Equator

South of the Equator, cars have bonnets and boots. But close observation of the Old Order Amish in the United States of America proves that bonnets and boots are still items of clothing, not the al-u-min-i-um that may or may not be used to manufacture anything powered by an internal-combustion engine.

More Word Trouble South of the Equator

Animal husbandry is important to English-speaking citizens anywhere. As a boy on the farm, I often moved the cows and calves from one pasture to another. But there are no pastures south of the Equator. The sheep eat their bluegrass in “paddocks,” which I confused with “padlocks,” an invention in which the sheep will search in vain for bluegrass.

Walt Disney World Tickets

If Orlando, Florida, is your vacation destination, you will find it useful to make OrlandoFunTickets.com your ticket destination. Perhaps the most popular attraction in Orlando is Walt Disney World, which offers four theme parks, two water parks, and much more.

But there’s a great deal more to see and do in Orlando. Its variety of theme parks, dinner shows, and numerous other attractions make it popular for all members of the family. Because of the large number of tourist stops in Orlando, the visitor can find the numerous options for admission tickets far too confusing.

One solution to this confusing situation is to go online and obtain your Walt Disney World Tickets from OrlandoFunTickets.com. This firm offers the lowest prices for all discount Disney tickets. OrlandoFunTickets also offers the lowest discount prices for all other theme parks and dinner shows. These popular attractions include Sea World, Universal Studios, Arabian Nights, and much more.

Your visit to Orlando should be fun, not confusing. For the best ticket prices, logon to Orlandofuntickets.com.

Language Trouble South of the Equator

I like to take a generous attitude toward the people of any country south of the Equator, but I am baffled by “aluminium.” This is apparently the word used for the metal otherwise known as “aluminum.” When I first heard al-u-min-i-um, I thought the speaker had been drinking an inferior brand of beer. But then I saw the word in print in an otherwise reputable journal. Now I see and hear the word everywhere.

We live in troubled times.

More Trouble in the South Pacific

In the South Pacific, global warming has caused all the refrigerators to melt.

The refrigerator crisis has caused Island.com and Island.org to declare war on each other, although neither country has an army, navy, or air force.

Reports from Island.com and Island.org state that no casualties have occurred in the first week of warfare.

In the most recent election in the island nation of Tasmansea, the Sheep Party won all seats in Parliament. The party’s first act was to change the national anthem to “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”

Most sheep in Tasmansea prefer to drive the Dodge Ram, although the Swedish Woolvo is also popular.

Sheep now control a majority interest in Woolworth’s.

The Best Dental Care

Next month, I’ll start the car and drive off to Cedar Street, where I’ll park the car and bravely go into the office of my dentist, where experience has taught me that I’ll receive the best dental care available in the town where I live. If you live near Alexandria, Virginia, you can expect to receive the same excellent treatment at Hayfield Dental Care, which has served the residents of that area since 1987.

Consider the qualifications of charles brown dds pc. Dr. Brown has worked at Hayfield Dental Care for ten years. During that time, he has performed thousands of crown, root canal, and surgical procedures. The Virginia Board of Dentistry reports that Charles Brown, DDS, has received zero complaints.

Dr. Brown graduated from the Medical College of Virginia, where he received the Academic Achievement Award for having ranked first in his class for the 1996 academic year. The Washington Area Consumer Council listed Charles Brown, DDS, as one of the region’s top dentists. With staff members like Dr. Brown on board, why look elsewhere? You can reach Hayfield Dental Care at 703-971-2220.

“Minutes”

Here’s a teaser, one paragraph from “Minutes,” a short story now available from Amazon Shorts. The author of New Moon is also the author of “Minutes.” Here we go:

Burning Desire Romance Writers

Dressed in a lovely burgundy evening gown, Chairwoman Angela Chandler Dumont rose from her chair at the head of the long, gleaming walnut table and called the meeting to order at eight o’clock. “Ladies,” she said breathlessly, “first I must thank our hostess on behalf of the group. The chilled champagne and lightly sautéed vegetables orientale were exquisite, especially in this beautiful setting in Deepwater’s exclusive East End, with the moonlight streaming through the high windows with their Palladian summits. Thank you, Penelope.”

Want to read more? Go to the right sidebar and click on “Amazon Shorts.” Then get ready to pay a mere 49 cents.

Discover StoresOnline

The StoresOnline website says, “Discover the advantage you can have with StoresOnline's eCommerce training and powerful technology.” But a New Zealand woman says she paid the Web company over $23,000 and received almost nothing in sales.

According to an article in the April 3 issue of The Dominion Post, Karen Clunie paid $6500 for a starter pack, $1000 for financing, $14,000 for coaching and support packs, and $1800 to register her company in the United States. Her six online “stores” realized total sales of $80.

In 2006, StoresOnline paid 175 Australians $680,000 to resolve charges of misleading and deceptive practices.

New Moon finds it distressing that the actions of companies like StoresOnline may damage the prospects of legitimate online firms.

Disney World Packages

Why not make this the year for an Orlando vacation? Disney World packages offer all the excitement you can imagine. If you've already taken the family to Disney World recently, you may be interested to learn that Orlando has 52 theme parks altogether. And beautiful ocean beaches await you only 40 minutes away. To top all this off, consider the fact that the rates for vacation homes are lower than those for most other popular vacation destinations. With rent like that, you can stay even longer to enjoy Orlando's many attractions.

Still not convinced? Consider this. Because the theme park business is so competitive, most parks are continually adding new rides and new attractions. So if you haven't been to Orlando within the last 3 to 5 years, the whole family still has a lot to see.

DVD-Quality Downloads

This Web site now provides a quick and easy way for you to obtain the movie you just can’t wait for. Simply go to the right sidebar and find the box labeled “DVD-Quality Downloads.” Click on the button and see what’s waiting for you. I just clicked on the button, and three recent releases leapt out at me—The Pursuit of Happiness, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, and The Departed.

But you don’t have to stop there. DVD-quality downloads for hundreds of other movies await you, as categorized in the lists on the left. You can shop by category, by genre, or by movie studio. If you prefer a TV show instead of a movie, look at anything from A&E to VH1. Shop by channel or by genre. The prices vary, depending on what you choose. Why wait? See what you want, and see it now.

Movies

This weblog takes a sympathetic look at American movies. We like mysteries, drama, humor, and documentary. We take a dimly lit view of “adult movies,” this designation being little more than a codeword for porn. We need good children’s movies, but rarely get them.

In the mystery genre, we haven’t seen a good film since Chinatown. Humor has suffered since Mel Brooks retired. The drama category has produced the first great American movie of the twenty-first century: Good Night, and Good Luck.

We may not get that lucky again for half a century.

Sleep Apnea

A friend of mine may or may not have sleep apnea. His wife says he does. He says he doesn’t. His wife is in a better position to render this diagnosis, since this problem, if it exists, occurs when my friend is asleep. I don’t intend to take part in this debate, but if the couple finally reaches an agreement, I could provide some information.

A person who has sleep apnea falls asleep for 10 to 30 seconds at a time while sleeping. These incidents may occur as much as 400 times a night. This condition is potentially dangerous, and anyone who suffers from it should seek the attention of a doctor. If the doctor finds that there is sufficient danger, he or she may arrange for a sleep study. If this study finds that the disorder exists, the doctor may prescribe a cpap device.

At this point CPAP Wholesale can be of assistance. CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure. When used as directed, a CPAP device lets a person breathe normally while sleeping, thereby relieving the symptoms and potential dangers of sleep apnea.

An individual cannot simply order a CPAP device. You must first obtain a doctor’s prescription. After that, you can contact CPAP Wholesale for help in obtaining the prescribed device. If you have any questions, the staff will be happy to assist you. Simply call 757-788-8073.

Sleep well, friends. Sweet dreams.

Music Videos

All of us have seen and heard music videos on television, but how many of us have found ourselves featured in such a production? Not me. But now it’s actually possible to create a music slideshow with the help of fliptrack.com. All you need is a computer with an internet connection, and you can star in your own music video.

The whole process is really quite simple. Fliptrack.com explains each step required to create a music slideshow. You don’t need a television studio. You provide only the photographs, and Fliptrack provides everything else you need to star in your own production.

After you create a music slideshow, you can then share it with your friends by e-mailing them or by putting it into your own blog. In either case, you’re the star. But let me give you one last piece of advice. Don’t quit your day job.

Murder One

Three of my short mysteries feature Michael Scofield, my private detective. “Chips” raises the number of Scofield stories to four. Scofield lives and works in the Quad Cities, which sit on the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois. These cities contain a total population of about 350,000 people, many of whom show little respect for law and order. Scofield usually goes where the money leads him, but in “Chips” the murder of a childhood friend motivates him more than money. I give the reader every clue that Scofield finds, but not one reader in a hundred will solve this mystery before my favorite private eye.

You can read this short mystery at Chips.

Murder Two

“The Plot” features 23-year-old amateur detective Teri Benda. Teri works as an assistant editor for a mystery magazine. This job, for all its merits, doesn't fulfill Teri's compulsion to investigate real-life crimes, a practice that frightens her mother and irritates Detective Lieutenant David Malatek. While at work one day, Teri is reading a mystery story submitted by a would-be writer named Mullen. Mullen displays none of the literary skill required by magazine editors, but Teri finds one page in the story that appears to have been included by mistake. The page reveals a murder plot that is either the plot for a story or the plot for a real murder. Despite the fears of her mother and the advice of her boss, Teri sets out to discover whether the plot is fact or fiction. This leads directly to the body of a man who didn't die of natural causes. Will Teri let the police handle it? Not likely.

Read this story mystery at The Plot.

Invest Wisely

I have often wondered where to invest my meager savings. What is the safest place to put my small pile of dough? Treasury bonds? Certificates of deposit? Blue-chip stocks. Lottery tickets? Even I know enough not to throw my money away by gambling. But where should I invest? Perhaps there's more than just one type of safe investment. What about bullion?

If you should want to invest in bullion, the Monex Deposit Company can provide safe delivery and competitive prices. Monex has both a dedicated staff and over thirty years of experience in the precious metals business. The firm provides secure delivery to individuals or to independent banks or depositories, whichever the buyer prefers.

Although I wouldn’t recommend that anyone should invest all of his or her savings in gold or silver, one might find good reason to invest a portion of those savings in bullion. At the present moment, silver is especially attractive. Around the world, the annual production of silver cannot meet the yearly demand. After selling off most of its stockpile of silver, the United States is now buying this precious metal, which makes silver look like an especially good purchase for individual investors at this moment.

From the time of the ancient Egyptians to the present, people have sought to protect their wealth by investing in gold. Gold still provides a way to diversify one’s investment portfolio, protect wealth, and preserve purchasing power.

For those individuals who wish to invest in gold and/or silver, Monex can provide the same combination of safe delivery and competitive prices that it has provided for over thirty years.

Trouble in the South Pacific

I’m presently touring the island nations of the South Pacific. I’m paying for this fact-finding mission with a grant funded by the U.S. Department of State. Like all such grants, I received this one by bribing a member of Congress.

My tour has brought me to the island nation of New Zealand, where the major impediment to a just society is the overpopulation of sheep. Sheep outnumber humans by 567 trillion to 4 million. The Sheep Party controls Parliament, and therefore all branches of government.

Parliament has passed laws banning cows and hogs from both the North Island and the South Island. Air New Zealand is presently flying non-stop between New Zealand and Australia, carrying overbooked loads of cattle and hogs to new homes in Australia.

Sheep now clog the roads with their cars and pickups. Their favorite pickup is the Dodge Ram. Sheep have bought up all available housing. The kitchens, parlors, and beds are full of sheep. Sheep demand and get the best seats at restaurants, theaters, and concerts.

No one yet knows how to end the gross injustice brought on the people and livestock of the island nation of New Zealand.

Come to the Caribbean

Have you ever been to the Caribbean? Neither have I, but I’d like to go. I imagine palm trees, white beaches, and perfectly clear water. I’ll go there someday.

But maybe someday should be right now. Why not do it and stop imagining it? Maybe it’s time to logon to Vacations.net. It’s time to find an All Inclusive Resort In The Caribbean.

Vacations.net has redesigned its website to offer up-scale resort vacations at discount rates. The site provides an intuitive booking engine, thorough content, and compelling images. And best of all, the site is easy to use.

A trip to Vacations.net provides virtual tours, detailed information about accommodations, and everything you need to know about all-inclusive resort vacations in places such as Jamaica, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

For reservations and all the info you need, visit www.vacations.net, or call 1-888-205-3315. I'll see you in the Caribbean.

D.O.A.

Many fans believe that D.O.A. is the greatest film noir movie ever made. Frank Bigelow has left his small-town home and business for a vacation in the city. Frank is contemplating marriage and wants some time away from his girl friend to think things over.

Shortly after his arrival in the city, Frank falls ill. A visit to the doctor reveals that someone has poisoned Frank with iridium. (There is no poison called "iridium," but don't let that spoil the movie for you.) No antidote exists and Frank has only a short time to live.

In the days that Frank has left, he sets out to find his killer.

Big Trouble in Deepwater

Have you ever served as the secretary of a local group or organization? If you have, you will recall the painful effort required to write down everything that was said or done. Forget all that now and come with me to the town of Deepwater, Iowa. (There is no deep water in Iowa.) Read the minutes kept by the secretaries of five groups, starting with the Deepwater Skywatch Support Group as it deals with issues such as space aliens in a silo and the expensive obstacles involved in the creation of an alien-abduction hall of fame. You can purchase this comic masterpiece for only 49 cents. Clink on this link and get ready to laugh: Minutes.

Delta Chelsea

Delta Hotels can be found in over 40 Canadian cities, including locations in Toronto, British Columbia, and Alberta. The Delta Chelsea is located in downtown Toronto, close to theaters, tourist attractions, and the financial district. Because of its location, both business travellers and families find the Delta Chelsea to be one of the most attractive toronto hotels.

Among its many attractions, the Delta Chelsea offers an indoor waterslide, a day-care center, a rooftop pool, and a health club. The health club features lifecycles, liferowers, treadmills, and much more fitness equipment.

Whether you are a business traveller or a parent intent on a vacation for the family, the Delta Chelsea will meet all your needs during your stay in Toronto.

News from the South Pacific

On the islands of the South Pacific, water goes down the drain in a counterclockwise whirl, causing all the plumbing to explode.

The sun rises in the west and sets in the east, making it impossible to navigate a ship by means of an astrolabe. This causes ship captains to lose their way and crash into the coast of Australia.

Military tyrants dissolve parliaments and arrest presidents because they were “causing trouble.”

When I get drunk and get lost in the night, I can’t find my way by means of the North Star. This causes me to crash into the coast of Australia.

The sun crosses the sky in the wrong place, which makes it impossible to tell north from south. Citizens on the islands of the South Pacific think they’re heading north until they drive off the bluffs, fall into the ocean, and crash into the coast, etc.

McNaught’s Comet recently crossed the South Pacific and fell into Melbourne, Australia, where it horrified all the kangaroos in parliament.

Kangaroos have recently become pests on the islands of the South Pacific. No one knows where they came from, but they arrived from the west, wet and tired.

Opossums have become a menace to literature in the South Pacific, where they climb down chimneys and eat all the hard-boiled detective fiction.

Hedgehogs have begun breaking into movie vaults and poking holes in the film noir.

Following the next eclipse of the moon, all the islands will slip beneath the waters of the South Pacific.

Patrick is in seclusion somewhere in the South Pacific.

The Trouble With Humor

I’m from the Middle West, where I and my fellow taxpayers use a common form of humor. This humor combines exaggeration, irony, and self-denigration. The trouble with all this is that people from outside the Middle West don’t always get the joke.
Many years ago I met a nice fellow from somewhere in the eastern part of the United States. At one point he told me that he was a poet. “A poet,” I said. “I have to tell you that I can’t tell iambic pentameter from a row of beans.”
“Don’t derogate yourself,” he said with the kindness of a saint. “You can learn whatever you want.”
This baffled me. I didn’t know what to say. You can’t tell a guy that he missed the joke. That would be insulting. I realized that it didn’t matter if he understood that “beans” meant “soybeans.” I could’ve said “corn,” but it was already too late. I also saw that it would be pointless to show him one of my sonnets.
While still a lad and all the world was in birth, I fell in love with a girl named Mary. She came from South America. Her black hair, brown eyes, and numerous other bodily improvements hit me like a gravel truck. She was a girl, I was a boy, and the summer fields of Iowa rose and fell with the feminine attributes Grant Wood made famous.
The girl went off to visit someone somewhere beyond the Poconos. When she returned, I rushed to her side. “We need to talk,” she said. The “need to talk” has spoiled far too many of my summers.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t love you the way I did before.”
“Why not?”
Mary, who was growing tired of my questions, produced an answer. “You’re too critical of yourself. You don’t have enough self-respect.” (These events occurred prior to the popularity of the term “self-esteem.”)
The need to talk ended. I could’ve told Mary she was a humorless moron, but that wouldn’t have made her think any better of me. Someone later told me that Mary had got married and divorced. Events happen quickly. I assume that the need to talk arose.
I’m presently visiting the country of New Zealand, where the people are friendly and polite. I’ve met many of these people, and I interject humor into every conversation. Sometimes the victim laughs. Others may smile. The Iranian barber at a nearby town always laughs at my jokes, and I laugh at his. “You should charge a dollar per eyebrow,” I said.
“Next time,” he said. “Next time.”
I’m staying with my friend Joyce, who owns a house in New Zealand. Joyce is from Iowa. A opossum came down one of her two chimneys and made a mess. This offended me so much that I climbed onto the roof of the house and put some chicken wire over the appropriate chimney. The opossum hasn’t come back.
I made far too many comedic gestures during this heroic chimney work. Joyce laughed, but not until I returned to earth.
I hope Joyce doesn’t tell me I lack self-respect. I hope she doesn’t say we need to talk. You never know what’s going to come down the chimney.

Disney Tickets

Orlando, Florida, has long been one of the leading tourist destinations in the world. Its variety of theme parks, dinner shows, and numerous other attractions make it popular for all members of the family.

One of the major attractions is Walt Disney World, which offers four theme parks, two water parks, and a great deal more. Because of the large number of tourist stops in Orlando, the visitor can find the numerous options for admission tickets far too confusing.

One solution to this confusing situation is to go online and obtain your Disney Tickets from Orlandofuntickets.com. This firm offers the lowest prices for all discount Disney tickets. Orlandofuntickets also offers the lowest discount prices for all other theme parks and dinner shows. These popular attractions include Sea World, Universal Studios, Arabian Nights, and much more.

Your visit to Orlando should be fun, not confusing. For the best ticket prices, logon to Orlandofuntickets.com.

Whistle Stop

Whistle Stop is one of my favorite movies in the Ultimate Film Noir Collection. Leonide Moguy directed this 1946 film, which lasts a convenient 84 minutes. Ava Gardner plays the woman who returns to her hometown, where the local citizens find her a little too sexy for small-town standards. She rejoins her old flame (George Raft), a local gambler who tests the limits of shady activity when he gets himself involved in a murder plot. The sexy woman who just got off the train goes along for the wild ride.

Scarlet Street

Scarlet Street is one of the film-noir classics in the Ultimate Film Noir Collection available from Patrick's Film Noir Store. Fritz Lang directed this steamy 93-minute movie, which was released in 1945. Edward G. Robinson plays the unsuspecting victim who falls for a scheming woman (Joan Bennett). Our hero then falls victim to Bennett’s boyfriend (Dan Duryea). At this point, things become very nasty.

ScalesEtc

Every year I go to my annual physical, and every year my doctor tells me the same thing. I need to lose weight. Just a little more exercise and a lot less food will do the job. Then I go home, trot around the block a few times, and eat a light dinner. When sleep starts pulling me toward the bed, I resist the temptation to have a snack, and soon my snoring is waking up everyone on the block.

The next morning, I hop out of bed and rush to the bathroom to check the results of my heroic efforts. I jump on the scales, watch the dial, and suddenly remember what I always remember. My scales don’t work. To the best of my knowledge, my scales have never worked. I think I bought them at a fire sale and subsequently learned that all the movable parts had fused together during the fire that prompted the sale. The time has come for me to get some Digital Scales.

ScalesEtc has scales for any weight you want—grams, pounds, tons. You name it. And ScalesEtc also has scales for every common use. Scales for cooking, scales for shipping, scales for THE BATHROOM. And because I can order my bathroom scales online, I have no reason to forget about buying an accurate set of scales with nice large numbers that will tell me if I’m making progress with my weight-loss efforts.

And I don’t have to worry about getting a pair of scales that melted in a fire. ScalesEtc sells My Weigh-brand scales with a lifetime warranty from the manufacturer. Jennings scales come with a 20-year warranty. And all these scales are sold at discount prices. Why don’t I place my order before my annual physical? I’m listening to you Dr. V. I really am. I’ll see you in May.

Ultimate Film Noir Collection

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, PATRICK'S FILM NOIR STORE now offers you eleven film-noir classics on five DVDs. The collection includes The L.A. Investigator, Scarlet Street, Impact, Trapped, Whistle Stop, The Best of Film Noir (documentary), and five more. The whole bundle costs only $14.99. Give it a look.

Hammett’s Published Work

Between 1929 and 1934, Dashiell Hammett published five novels: Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), and The Thin Man (1934).

He also wrote a great number of short stories, collected in The Big Knockover, The Continental Op, and Nightmare Town. His most enduring characters were Sam Spade, Nick Charles, and the Continental Op.

During the 1950’s, Hammett became the object of the latest Red Scare and was jailed for refusing to reveal the political affiliations of friends and acquaintances.

Hammett served in both World Wars. He died in 1961 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Increase Link Popularity

If you want to increase the link popularity of your website, you could try any number of strategies. You could photocopy your site’s URL and tack it on every bulletin board in every laundromat in North America. You could spend months creating links to every site remotely related to yours. In either of these brave attempts, you would be ignoring the importance of search engines, especially Google.

Google considers websites by looking at both on-site and off-site factors. For the sake of clarity, let’s consider only the off-site factors. One factor is page rank. Although page rank remains important for Google’s calculations, it’s no longer as important as it used to be. Google now looks at links from a wide variety of places on the internet, not just those places with high page ranks. Links from a thousand websites of various types now carry more weight than a hundred sites with heroic page ranks. I can’t state it any more simply or honestly than that.

So what is the best way to increase link popularity for your website? I recommend the time-tested press release, but let’s not send it off to every English-language newspaper in the world. Let’s remember that we’re dealing with your website and call it a web release (a short version of the traditional press release).

If you have a great deal of time on your hands, you can send your web release to thousands of blogs in hopes that all of them will print your release. If you don’t have all that much time to waste, you can send your web release to Blogitive, which already has over 2000 Blogs and their eager Bloggers who are ready to refine your web release into the best prose they can create.

Please believe me if I say that their prose will be very good indeed.

Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett began his literary career by announcing that he was going to take crime away from the English upper class and give it back to the common people, who were really good at it. Hammett didn’t say that English detective writers lacked merit. He merely decided to invent the hard-boiled school and forget about the lord of the manor and his idiotic relatives.

Raymond Chandler, an Englishman by lineage and education, agreed that the English had made a contribution to detective fiction. “The English may not always be the best writers in the world,” he wrote, “but they are incomparably the best dull writers.”

The Hard-Boiled School

Without the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, film noir would not exist, or it would exist in only a flaccid manner. Dashiell Hammett was the only writer of detective fiction who ever worked as a real private detective. In his case, he worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. After losing his health as a soldier in World War One, he found the work of a detective too arduous. Fortunately, he did not find writing too arduous.

Hammett went on to write five great novels and a pile of short stories, all of which I’ve read. His best effort was probably The Maltese Falcon, which featured Sam Spade, the greatest private eye of them all. He never wrote another Sam Spade story, but that character became the hero of a long-running radio series that Hammett didn’t write.

In his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler wrote the most definitive statement ever made about the art of Dashiell Hammett: “But down those mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

Charles Brown, DDS

Let’s face it. Most of us don’t look forward with joy to an appointment with the dentist. At the office where I receive my dental care, a sign by the door says, “We cater to cowards.” That sign reassures me, and experience has taught me that I’ll receive the best dental care possible at that office. If you live near Alexandria, Virginia, you can expect to receive the same kind of gentle treatment at Hayfield Dental Care, which has served the residents of that area since 1987.

All the dentists at Hayfield Dental Care have received advanced training, which eliminates the need for referrals to other offices. Consider the career of charles brown dds pc. Dr. Brown has worked at Hayfield Dental Care for ten years. During that time, he has performed thousands of crown, root canal, and surgical procedures. The Virginia Board of Dentistry reports that Charles Brown, DDS, has received zero complaints.

Dr. Brown graduated from the Medical College of Virginia, where he received the Academic Achievement Award for having ranked first in his class for the 1996 academic year. The Washington Area Consumer Council listed Charles Brown, DDS, as one of the region’s top dentists. With staff members like Dr. Brown on board, why look elsewhere? You can reach Hayfield Dental Care at 703-971-2220.

Classic Film Noir, Volume 2

St. Clair Vision has released Volume 2 of Classic Film Noir. The entire set contains nine movies on three DVDs. The collection sells for $9.98. Volume 2 contains many of my favorite film-noir movies, including Jigsaw, Quicksand, Port of New York, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, and many others. If you’re looking for a large collection for a small price, Classic Film Noir, Volume 2, may meet your needs. As always, you can make your purchase at PATRICK'S FILM NOIR STORE .

Film-Noir Video Downloads

“New Moon” now makes it possible for you to purchase or rent your favorite movies and TV shows for as little as $1.99. Simply click the Amazon Unbox link on the right sidebar to download and watch your favorite film-noir movie, all in DVD quality. (Actually, you can also watch movies from other film genres, but we’re pushing film noir here.) High-quality video downloads are the one of the latest ways to obtain movies quickly. Watch your Amazon Unbox videos on your PC, portable device, or TV.

Ebates

When I was a child, my mother and I used to take the family car downtown, where Mother found a spot in the big parking lot beside the Des Moines River. Then we walked across the Burlington Railroad tracks and went shopping at JCPenney and various other stores. Mother bought all sorts of things at JCPenney, including sheets, pillowcases, towels, T-shirts, socks and other useful products.

I’m presently far away from that town beside the Des Moines River, but I can still order all the T-shirts and anything else I want from jcpenney. All I need is a computer and an e-mail address, and I happen to have both. So it’s easy for me to take advantage of Ebates, which allows me to save money and receive cash back when I shop online. It costs me nothing to become a member of Ebates, and this membership makes over 800 stores available to me for online shopping.

By using Ebates, I can take advantage of its low prices and receive up to 25 percent in cash back from my purchases. Coupons and other specials make Ebates even more inviting. I’ll see that town beside the Des Moines River again before long, but I think I’ll wait until the snow melts.

The Fat Lip

Many years ago I was walking down the sidewalk, minding my own business, when a kid suddenly took a swing at me with his fist. It wasn’t a knockout blow, but it did cut my lower lip. I spat blood on the drunken punk’s shirt and wrestled him to the ground. I felt like killing him, but that wouldn’t have improved my career path. So I sat on him until the police arrived.

My attacker got off with a $100 fine, and I got off with a fat lip. Someone told me, much too late, that I should have sued the jerk. I realize now that I could have used the services of simmons jannace & stagg, but that excellent firm didn’t yet exist at that time.

The law practice of Simmons, Jannace, & Stagg was formed ten years ago as a firm that dealt primarily with commercial and general liability litigation in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Today, the firm has expanded its practice to include labor and employment, municipal law, real estate, and many other areas of interest to its growing list of clients. These clients include some of the largest corporations in the country, such as Home Depot, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Best Buy, and many others.

Simmons, Jannace, & Stagg has retained this list of clients by providing new ways to resolve conflicts, thereby offering its services at a reasonable cost. And the firm is equally adept at representing small companies and individuals. I’m an individual. If I ever get another fat lip, I’ll know who to call.

Dark Passage

Some film-noir fans don’t like this movie because the plot strikes them as too improbable. I prefer to say that Dark Passage has an imaginative plot. The trouble begins with Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) doing time in San Quentin for a murder he didn’t commit. Who wouldn’t sympathize with the guy? He breaks out of the joint by hiding in an outbound barrel aboard a truck. With police sirens coming his way, Parry rocks the barrel back and forth until it tips over and rolls off the truck. Luckily, the barrel rolls into the tall grass instead of over a cliff. Next, a plastic surgeon enters the story, followed by Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall). What will happen next? Plenty.

Classic Film Noir

Patrick knows a bargain when he sees one, and this is it. "Classic Film Noir" provides nine movies on three disks, all for only $9.98. The visual and audio quality of each film is quite good. The nine titles are D.O.A., Detour, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Hitchhiker, Quicksand, Too Late for Tears, Hollow Triumph, The Man Who Cheated Himself, and The Stranger. Some of these titles have already appeared in the list of my film noir favorites at Patrick's Film Noir Store. If money is of no concern, the visual and audio quality of each movie is likely to be better in an individual DVD. You decide.

Long Vacation

I’m presently spending a long vacation at a pleasant spot in the South Pacific. I planned the whole thing myself, which could explain why I made a stop in Australia when I felt no need to stop anywhere near Australia. I might have been better off had I taken advantage of the services provided by Vacations.net.

Vacations.net can help you plan an all inclusive vacation at its newly redesigned website. This website is easy to use, offers savings of up to 50 percent off of standard rates, and includes beautiful pictures of vacation sites. It also provides information on the customs, culture, and history of your destination.

Because the Vacations.net website is so easy to use, you can book your all-inclusive vacation anytime you have access to a computer with an internet connection. Visual images and virtual tours make your vacation planning far simpler than my recent experience. If you’re looking for beautiful beaches and sunny skies at resorts in locations such as Jamaica, Mexico, or the Dominican Republic, make your first stop at Vacations.net.

Detour

This classic example of film noir proves that if you want to get to California, you should travel by any means other than hitchhiking. A chump named Al makes a series of mistakes that make it obvious that he should have stayed in New York. Martin Goldsmith wrote the script, and Edgar G. Ulmer directed this must-see film. Tom Neal played Al. Buy this movie for only $9.99 at Patrick's Film Noir Store.

High Sierra

This film noir favorite profits from the direction of Raoul Walsh and a screenplay written by the youthful John Huston. Humphrey Bogart plays the professional criminal Roy Earle, whose release from prison leads inevitably to his shootout with police in the High Sierra. This early example of film noir hints at how the genre will develop later in the 1940's.

Bullion

At a time when real estate, stocks, bonds, and many other kinds of investments seem full of danger and uncertainty, one of the oldest ways of preserving wealth remains an alternative—bullion. No sensible person would suggest that investors should put all their savings into gold and silver, but one can see that bullion deserves a place in any investment portfolio.

Gold and silver have served as a means of protecting wealth since the time of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. In the present era, Monex Deposit Company provides a convenient way for the public to buy gold and silver. Bullion is not the kind of thing you should store with your childhood stamp collection. Monex can provide for safe delivery to an independent bank or depository of your choice. Both gold and silver are available in either coin or ingot form.

Silver may be especially attractive to investors at the present time. Yearly demand for silver now exceeds production. Likewise, gold remains as attractive as it has for centuries. Regardless of whether you prefer gold or silver, Monex can provide safe delivery and competitive prices.

Key Largo

John Huston, the film noir genius, directed this masterpiece about a gangster (Edward G. Robinson) and his pals who hold the residents of a hotel hostage. The hotel happens to be in the Florida Keys, and a hurricane happens to be in progress. Humphrey Bogart plays the returning war hero who takes on the bad guys with the help of Lauren Bacall. This movie cleverly exploits the familiar theme of a group of strangers united by common enemies. Buy it at Patrick's Film Noir Store.

The Hitchhiker

Ida Lupino directed this film noir classic. Daniel Mainwaring wrote the screenplay. Two chumps (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) pick up a hitchhiker (William Tallman), which proves to be the worst mistake of their lives. This hitchhiker takes them for a ride they won't soon forget. Buy this film at Patrick's Film Noir Store.

Railroads, Bridges, and Power Plants

Civil engineers work in the branch of engineering that plans and constructs large public works such as railroads, bridges, and power plants. In other words, they do the kind of work that I could never do. In the 1800’s, my great-grandfather patented and built three kinds of steel-truss bridges for railroads, streets, and highways. But I’m not my great-grandfather.

I can’t build bridges, but I use them anytime I go somewhere. I need to use the structures that civil engineers can create only after years of study and work. I benefit from flood control and irrigation systems, even though I may never see the dams and waterways that make them possible.

In order for these engineers to complete the work that society requires, they must be associated with the right Civil Engineering Firms. That’s where CSI makes its contribution. CSI recruits civil engineers for the engineering firms that need those recruits. CSI has a four-member management team with over 60 years of recruiting experience in the field of civil engineering. In addition, CSI has a staff of 14 professional recruiters located throughout the United States.

CSI recruiters do not waste their time shuffling through piles of ancient resumes. Instead, they work with the candidates who are calling or submitting resumes right now. Using a database of job seekers, CSI recruiters place over 25,000 telephone calls in a typical month. Given the success of these energetic recruiters, CSI now represents over 50 top-flight civil engineering firms. By first understanding the needs of each firm it represents, CSI knows the best candidates for each job before anyone picks up a phone.

Thanks for the bridges, guys. I need them.

Contemporary American Fiction

An appalling sameness has descended on contemporary American fiction. The subject matter rarely departs from the relationship between two lovers, regardless of their sexual preferences. This kind of story has a long history and its value cannot be denied. I would never suggest, for example, that the tragic love of Romeo and Juliet has no merit.

But I would suggest that an unending succession of love stories could eventually drive the reader from her book and into the world of unending reruns of I Love Lucy. It’s hard to contend that one is better than the other. Each, Lucy or the story, repeated long enough, could send the reader-viewer into catatonia.

Contemporary American fiction also suffers from a lack of place, which traditionally became known to the reader on the first or second page. As I read stories in literary journals, I keep looking for clues to the location of the characters. Where are these people? I ask. In Cleveland? In St. Louis? Or on one Jupiter’s many moons? I want to know where the characters happen to be. If the reader knows that detail, he can start to make more sense out of the actions and motives of the characters. If a love-sick chump lives in Kansas, he can’t end it all by jumping off the George Washington Bridge, can he?

But the one characteristic of contemporary fiction most likely to send me in search of a bridge is the typical story’s humorlessness. Who is teaching all the young writers that literary fiction cannot include humor and still remain literary? I know that someone is out there, slandering the reputations of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, John Kennedy Toole, and many more of the greatest writers in history.

I won’t put up with this. Like it or not, the stories that I write (and sometimes publish) will continue to take the humorous high road whenever appropriate. I have one or two of these waiting on my hard drive. Let the bidding begin. I hear one laugh. Do I hear two?

Bingo

Back when I was a child, longer ago than I care to discuss, I used to attend neighborhood bingo parties with my parents. I recall that on one occasion I won a small vase. I still have that vase somewhere, and someday I may find it.

In that receding past, I never dreamed that bingo might become available in nearby casinos, but that has now become a reality close to the town where I live. In that same childhood, I had no idea what a computer was, so it never occurred to me that one day a person might sit at a computer screen and play bingo.

That childhood has vanished, and I can now play bingo online at PartyBingo.com merely by going to http://www.partybingo.com/. And if I decide to play, I can win prizes far more valuable than that vase I won many decades ago.

I can also play a variety of games such as 90-ball bingo, bingo royale, and many others as described at http://www.partybingo.com/games/. If I get lucky, I might win a tasty jackpot prize.

Of coure, I might not get lucky. I might lose money. Before I do anything else I should read about Responsible Gaming at http://www.partybingo.com/responsible_gaming/.

Now I will give some sage advice. Do read that page on Responsible Gaming at http://www.partybingo.com/responsible_gaming/. If you’re not at least 18 years old or whatever the legal adult age is where you live, PartyBingo doesn’t want your business. Go read a book. Play baseball. Gambling of any sort is not for you.

Here’s another piece of advice from your aging bingo player. It’s the oldest piece of advice in the book. Only gamble what you can afford to lose. If you’re losing next month’s rent, PartyBingo doesn’t want your business.

Now I’m going to go look for that vase.

Double Indemnity

Raymond Chandler adapted James M. Cain's masterpiece to create a perfect screenplay. The story remains the same in both book and movie. Why would a man with a good job and no police record allow himself to be drawn into a conspiracy to commit murder? Only money or a woman could do it, and in this case we have both. Sorry, America, take a look at yourself in the mirror. And remember to buy this classic film from Patrick's Film Noir Store.

MagsDirect.com

Despite what you may have heard, television has not killed the magazine industry. For my part, I know that I get plenty of traditional mail from magazines that want me to subscribe. MagsDirect.com offers a convenient way to order subscriptions online.

Simply go to http://www.magsdirect.com/ and a screen will reveal what kinds of subscriptions you can buy from MagsDirect.com. A list of categories includes Cars, Entertainment, Health, Sports, and numerous others. At the top of the page, you can read that MagsDirect.com offers its subscriptions at the "lowest prices allowed by publishers.” I don’t have the time right now to poll all the publishers. So I can neither confirm nor deny this claim.

I like to be entertained, so I clicked on “Entertainment.” A page at http://www.magsdirect.com/entertainment-magazines.html revealed that I could subscribe to Reader’s Digest and People. A closer look showed that MagsDirect offers both Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. I like to read mysteries. So those two publications caught my attention.

Once you’ve found something you like at MagsDirect, you can simply click on “Subscribe” and complete the whole process online. You can, in fact, find over 1000 magazines at http://www.magsdirect.com/.

Raw Milk

One of the most dangerous fads about the food we eat is that unpasteurized milk is more healthful than pasteurized milk. Some people believe that pasteurization removes certain nutrients from the milk. I don’t know any other arguments in favor of raw milk, but I grew up on a farm, and I know what goes into the milk bucket besides milk when you milk a cow by hand.


Cows are evil animals, and they like to put their hoofs into your bucket of milk. Their hoofs are typically covered with manure, as are their tails, which swing to and fro above the bucket. So we strained our milk and sent it to the creamery, where the workers got rid of the small particles of manure and its diseases by pasteurizing it. We then used part of the money we got paid for our milk and bought pasteurized milk for our own consumption.


Nowadays, dairy farmers use milking machines that make it impossible for a cow to put her hoof into the milk. The farmers wash each cow’s teats before attaching the machine, but cows don’t sleep on clean sheets every night, so the dairy farmer can’t always get the teats perfectly clean. The milk truck comes around every day, collects the milk, and takes it to the creamery for pasteurization.


But for reasons unknown to your aging farm boy, some people want unpasteurized milk. Because dairy farmers use milking machines, they’re somewhat unlikely to get manure in their milk, and some people buy raw milk from dairy farmers willing to sell it to them. What’s left to worry about? I’ll tell you what’s left.


Tuberculosis. That’s what. Louis Pasteur didn’t go to a great deal of trouble just to invent a better milkshake.


Some diseases that kill animals can also kill humans. Tuberculosis is one of those diseases. Some animals can transmit their diseases to humans. Cows can transfer their tuberculosis to humans. How? Drink a nice cold glass of raw milk from a cow that has tuberculosis, and you can have tuberculosis, too. Or you can drink pasteurized milk from that cow until it dies, and you’ll never get that cow’s tuberculosis.


In Iowa, the state where I live, specialists from the Department of Agriculture routinely test all milk cows for tuberculosis, but it’s impossible to destroy all the tuberculosis microorganisms in every milk cow in Iowa. This is also true for all the other milk cows anywhere in the world.


In Iowa and throughout the United States, as a matter of law, grocery stores may sell only pasteurized milk. During a recent visit to the local Hy-Vee Food Store, I counted seven brands of milk, all of which said “Pasteurized” on the labels. These seven brands included Lactaid, Land O’ Lakes, Anderson Erickson, Hy-Vee, Roberts, Organic Valley (”Ultra Pasteurized”), and Country Fare.


I explained all the arguments in favor of pasteurized milk to a friend many decades ago, but she ignored me. One day I happened to drop by her house just when she was bringing in the groceries. I sat on a kitchen chair while my friend’s gallon of milk sat on the counter beside the refrigerator. The woman put groceries here and there and finally turned toward the milk. She peered at the gallon of whiteness for a few seconds. “What’s that on the jar?” she said.


“That?” I said with my innocent farm-boy voice. “That’s cow manure.”


My friend stopped drinking raw milk.

Blogsvertise

Blogsvertise offers bloggers a way to make money while blogging. All you need to get started is an active blog that is already up and running. You also need an established PayPal account because that’s the only way that Blogsvertise can pay you. Once you’ve met these two requirements, go to http://www.blogsvertise.com/ and complete the simple online application.

Assuming that Blogsvertise accepts you into its program, the administrator will send you an existing URL for an advertiser, and you must complete a post in which you repeat the URL three times. Your post must be at least 50-60 words in length. You don’t have to praise the advertiser’s website, products, or services. You simply say whatever you want and remember to include the URL three times. (Naturally, you have to avoid foul language or pornographic themes.) Simply write about the website in whatever way it relates to you. You can even complain about the website, but I wouldn’t advise an endless string of complaints.

After posting your comments, you notify the Blogsvertise administrator for approval. If approved, you receive an agreed-on amount to your PayPal account. Not bad for only 50-60 words.

If this appeals to you, give it a try. You have nothing to lose but money.

Tickets

If you enjoy horse racing as much as I do, and if you hope to attend the Kentucky Derby next spring, the last thing you want is to learn that the event is already sold out. The only thing that comes close to that disappointment is to obtain tickets, then arrive for the race and learn that you have the worst seats at Churchill Downs. A bad seat can be almost as annoying as no seat.

Next time, order your Event Tickets through Premium Seats USA. Premium Seats USA provides first-class tickets for concert, theater, and sports events throughout the country. If horse racing doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you need tickets to a performance of Les Miserables. Regardless of your preference, Premium Seats USA has a huge supply of tickets available.

So relax and enjoy yourself. Maybe I’ll see you at the races.

Chinatown

Chinatown is the only motion picture made in color that deserves to be included in my list of the nine greatest film noir movies ever made. Color, by definition, is the opposite of film noir. But Director Roman Polanski and his camera crew muted the color in ways that make you forget that the color is even there. Chinatown recreates the criminal career of William Mulholland, whose manipulation of water rights made Los Angeles possible and will one day destroy it. When the snowfall in the mountains drops to one pint per acre, I don't know where the bloated population of southern California will find its next drink. As always, buy this film at Patrick's Film Noir Store.

Blog Explosion

Every now and then I wander into Blog Explosion. I always head straight for the Books/Lit/Writing group in hopes of finding some good prose.

Almost always.

About two hours ago, I stumbled and fell into the politics group, although I didn’t notice the error until I started reading the second blog. At that point, a repetitiveness in the writing style and content hit me in the forehead like a paper weight thrown by a frustrated journalist.

In the politics club, all the contributors have opinions, and their opinions tend to veer toward the extreme. Statements resemble bayonet charges rather that discourse. The writers suggest by their tone and content that they wouldn’t mind executing anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of rigging elections, they’d prefer to eliminate the electorate.

The violence of the opinions expressed by the political contributors is matched only by the foulness of their language. If you have young children around the house, I suggest that you steer them away from the poolroom language of the political commentators. Vulgarities and obscenities fly around the page like a powerful break by Minnesota Fats. This crowd of politicos didn’t pay much attention to the nuns while in grade school. Maybe they didn’t get into grade school.

All this violence sent me running for the Books/Lit/Writing group where I belong. We may not be as talented as Flannery O’Connor, but most of us want to limit the body count.

I lost my cue stick. See you in the library.

Software Systems To Improve Your Business or Organization

Acorn Systems provides the IT value management software needed to help its customers increase profits and reduce costs. Whether you are associated with a multi-national corporation, a governmental organization, or a medium-sized business, Acorn Systems has the consulting capability and the software platform to improve your profits. Acorn uses its information technology value management software to help you reach your performance management objectives by giving you the ability to make wise business decisions.

Acorn Systems can help your business or organization because every employee at Acorn focuses on helping customers improve profits and reduce costs. This is Acorn’s only business. It has the consulting methodology, and it has the value management software that will interface with your existing software systems. Taken together, these ingredients will quickly increase the success of your business or organization.

The Blue Gardenia

Director Fritz Lang turned an actual crime into this 1953 film noir classic. Many fans have reservations about this movie, but it makes my list of the best film noir thrillers ever made. Ann Baxter stars as an accused killer with a bad memory. Raymond Burr portrays a worthless man who suddenly becomes a corpse. And Richard Conte plays the journalist who first condemns and then defends the accused woman. Be sure to make your purchase through PATRICK'S FILM NOIR STORE.

Hayfield Dental Care

I make a habit of taking good care of my teeth. I brush and floss every day, and I avoid sweets and other foods that contain too much sugar. But despite all these heroics, the day always arrives when my dentist tells me that this or that tooth needs restoration. Although my dentist and his excellent dental assistant are among the kindest people in the world, I always arrive for the appointment filled with dread. And every time, I leave the office wondering why I had been so fearful. My dentist always does his work with the least amount of discomfort to me.

If I lived in or near Alexandria, Virginia, I would look for a dentist like the one I have now, and I’d start looking at Hayfield Dental Care. Hayfield Dental Care has been open since 1987, and its dentists have treated over 23,000 patients since that date. All these dentist have received the advanced training needed to carry out almost any dental task required, without having to refer patients to another dental office.

The dentists at Hayfield Dental Care use only the newest and most advanced materials and equipment available. They provide general, family, and cosmetic dental care. A dentist who specializes in orthodontics provides full-time service. The Virginia Board of Dentistry reports that it has never received a complaint about any dentist at Hayfield Dental Care. You can contact Hayfield Dental Care at 703-971-2220.

The Hard-Boiled Detective

For many readers of mysteries, the hard-boiled detective remains the most popular hero in detective fiction. Some of us like the genre so much that we've joined the club by writting about our own hard-boiled detectives. Check out the sample below:

Chips

Tim Dolan came out the door of the Sheep’s Head Tap, turned right, and walked down West Fourth Street. It was one of those mild spring evenings that convinces even the most skeptical Midwesterner that winter is finally over. The smell of plowed earth blew in from the west, the breeze tousling Dolan’s sandy hair. A young woman came down the sidewalk, pushing a stroller in which a baby was happily chewing his fist.

Dolan was a tall, slender man with long legs and a graceful stride. A walk always made him feel good, and tonight he felt pretty good already. He had consumed just enough Harp Lager to make him pleasantly drunk, but not enough to cause a hangover the next morning. Long experience at the Sheep’s Head had taught him how to avoid the ordeal of going to work with a hangover. He walked down Fourth Street, past Lafayette Square, to a block of row houses. When he reached the second house, he turned and climbed the worn limestone steps.

The door was unlocked. Dolan walked inside and closed it behind him. A dim ceiling light burned in the entryway. Straight ahead on the left, carpeted stairs and a walnut banister led up to the second floor. To the right, French doors led to the living room. Dolan hummed a popular tune as he opened the door and walked in.

Along the opposite wall, a floor lamp burned beside an oak table. Dolan stopped just inside the door. Something was wrong here. He started to walk over to the table, then saw something in his periphery, something coming toward him. Fast.

Suddenly on guard, he turned in that direction, but too late. The beer had slowed his reaction time. A heavy object struck his head with terrible force. He raised his hands to protect himself while struggling to stay on his feet. The object hit him again, even harder this time. He staggered to one side and felt himself falling. His body crashed into the table and fell to the floor.

Then everything went black.

Forever.

Read more. Go to Mystery and Thrillers.

Amazon Shorts

Amazon.com sells Amazon Shorts online for 49 cents each. Numerous categories are available, including entertainment, sports, travel, humor, fiction, mysteries, and others. To see a complete list, go to Amazon.com and do a search for “Amazon Shorts.” Every time a reader buys an Amazon Short, the writer’s account receives credit for 40 percent of the sale (19.6 cents). The money you make depends entirely on how many readers buy your piece. But before that, you have to submit your story or article and the editorial staff decides whether to accept or reject it. The length of each piece ranges from 2000 to 10,000 words.

I’ve submitted three short stories, and the editors have accepted all three. It helps if you have a book or books sold through Amazon.com. Your storys or essays advertize your books, which are listed below your photograph and the summary you provide to convince the reader to buy your short piece. As an example, click on “Mystery & Thrillers” and scroll down to The Plot and/or Chips. Click on the icon, and my mug shot and the introductory material I provided will leap off the screen. If you decide to buy the story, it remains yours forever. You can read it online, print it out, or download it to your computer (and I’ll make 19.6 cents; thank you). If you don't like mysteries, you'll find a comic short story with Minutes.

The Amazon Shorts program is still young, and I wouldn’t want to predict anything about it. But I think that for both readers and writers, it’s worth taking a look.

Earn an Online Ph.D.

If you don’t happen to live near a university, but you need to earn an advanced degree in order to help you reach your career goals, you may wish to consider an online phd. Capella University offers online graduate-degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology.

At Capella University, you will obtain both theoretical and practical knowledge, along with the leadership skills your job requires. With this background, you’ll be in a position to make the most of your chosen profession. If you’ve already earned graduate credit elsewhere, you may be eligible to transfer up to 48 credits.

Capella University presently serves 16,000 students throughout the United States and in 63 foreign countries. It accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. To learn more about Capella’s online courses and degree programs, logon to its website and download the Capella University Catalog.

The Killers

The jacket for this VHS bravely says, "Ernest Hemingway's 'The Killers.'" But the only resemblance between this movie and Hemingway's short story is that they have the same title. Earnest wrote the short story. Anthony Veiller wrote the movie. The film stars Burt Lancaster, Edmond O'Brien, and Ava Gardner.

This movie is a prime example of film noir. You can order it from Patrick's Film Noir Store. For your continued health and happiness, avoid the 1964 remake.

Touch of Evil

A remarable use of light and shadow, directed by Orson Welles, America's certified king of movie making. Most of the action occurs at night, the perfect time of day for all the characteristics of film noir. In our greatest movies, nothing is ever simple. This film is set along the U.S.-Mexican border. A touch of evil waits around every corner.

You can buy this movie at Patrick's Film Noir Store. Click on the link in the right sidebar.

Send Flowers

Men often give flowers to the women they love. This act provides a special show of affection. They give flower for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and to apologize for their stupid blunders. It doesn’t require a great imagination to think of appropriate times to send flowers.

I don’t know where or when this tradition began, but what man can resist sending a gift basket of beautiful flowers, especially when he can order it so easily from Dot Flowers? Just go online, and you’ll see what I mean. If you don’t know exactly what you want, the people at Dot Flowers have great flower gift ideas. And they’ll get the flowers sent quickly to anyone in the United States.

But I must say one more thing about a gift of flowers. We live in an era of increasing gender equality. And where is it written that a woman can’t send flowers to her special man? We men may be boneheads, but give us a little encouragement. We’re not as smart as women, but we try hard. Sometimes.

So come on someone. Send me some flowers.

Window Blinds for the Inept Male

Whenever I move to a new address–house, condo, or apartment–I never know how to dress the windows. I have no skill for interior decorating. When this skill is required, I’m a total failure.
If the previous residents have left blinds on the windows, I always leave them exactly as they are. If they’re ugly, dirty, or poorly installed, I take no notice. As long as they let the light in or keep it out, that’s all I ask. In the morning I get dressed and open the blinds. At night, I reverse that process. These are my only two skills with window blinds.

If the previous residents have left the windows naked, giving me no civilized way to change clothes or dry off after a shower, I go into panic mode. Fortunately, help is available online at http://www.guaranteedblinds.com/.

GUARANTEEDblinds.com offers a wide variety of window blinds and shades at http://www.guaranteedblinds.com/page/products/. In fact, this company has too many options for a guy like me who has only a vague understanding of cellular shades, pleated shades, sliding panels, and many others choices.

But GUARANTEEDblinds.com has provided help for the inept male such as me. I click on the name of any kind of shades or blinds I care to, and a page appears that contains photographs and printed material that show and tell you everything you need to know about the color, appearance, and cost of every option that interests you.

Now your inept narrator enters dangerous territory. My eye-hand coordination is somewhat less than that of a turtle. Once again, GUARANTEEDblinds.com comes to my aid. I click on http://www.guaranteedblinds.com/page/measuring/, where I learn everything I need to know about measuring the windows for the required blinds or shades I’ve chosen.

Finally, with trembling hands, I contemplate installing my new blinds. I click on http://www.guaranteedblinds.com/page/installation/, where I learn that I can follow illustrated directions for every variety of blinds or shades sold by GUARANTEEDblinds.com.

And if I try and fail, I can always call my friend Howard. He’s a carpenter. What are friends for?

The Joy of Literature

What happens after you get your first book or two published? Do baskets of cash begin arriving at your door? Do gorgeous movie stars invite you to stop by at 10:00 PM and not to forget your toothbrush? Do the leaders of powerful countries ask you what to do about the problems of the world? Maybe famous writers get piles of cash and buses of literary groupies, but most writers aren’t famous and never will be.

If you want to get rich and famous, don’t become a writer. Become a doctor, lawyer, or faith healer. Go into politics, where bribes are more common than books. If you just want to see your name in print, look it up in the phone book. Only a tiny percentage of my fellow countrymen read books, and most of them want to see the first page filled with sex and violence, and they want graphic details if you don’t mind.

In the entire United States, the number of people who want to read anything literary could be seated comfortably in the restrooms at the bus depot in Omaha. If you insist on living in a garret and perfecting your masterpiece, I hope you don’t snore. I got here first.

Advantage Processors

Any business needs the help of a company that can process its credit-card payments. Advantage Processors (http://www.advantageprocessors.com/) is one of the many firms eager to process credit-card payments for traditional or online merchants.

Advantage Processors provides its services to both low-risk and high-risk merchants. Low-risk customers include firms such as retail stores, hotels, and restaurants. High-risk operations include firms such as travel businesses, legal gaming companies, and merchants that previously lost their credit-card processors.

If I were a merchant in search of someone to process credit-card payments for me, I’d think more highly of Advantage Processors if it didn’t misspell “risk” as “Rrisk” on the first page of its Web site. But we copyeditors tend to be excessively fastidious, and I couldn’t buy or run a hotdog cart.

In any event, Advantage explains its services without any misspellings on the second page of its Web site. Interested merchants can read all this by going to http://www.advantageprocessors.com/processor_services.php.

If you don’t care to open your own hotdog cart, but you’d like to find a job, Advantage Processors “is always looking for bright energetic sales persons.” I’m not feeling all that bright and energetic at the moment, but someone a little younger might want to check out the possibilities at http://www.advantageprocessors.com/careers.php. If you like what you see, go for it. And the next time I can’t understand my credit-card bill, perhaps you won’t mind if I give you a call.

Five Dollars

I got out of the car and walked into the store. I like to shop late Sunday night when the rest of the town is asleep. No crashing into carts. No long lines at the check-out counters. I walked through the warm spring air into the all-night supermarket.

I collected the few things I needed and pushed my cart up to where a young man stood ahead of me. Beyond the cash register, two other men were clowning around. These two men were talking about five dollars. I paid no attention to the details. It was a pleasant spring night. People felt like clowning around.

One of the men was about forty. He looked stocky, not too heavy, but well built and strong. The other man was twenty at best. Slender, average height, quick and agile, a good-looking kid. He carried a bag of groceries in his left hand. A pretty young woman stood there waiting for him.

Then the younger of the two men suddenly threw out his right fist, putting all his weight into a blow that Sugar Ray Robinson would have laughed at. But the older man didn’t laugh. The amateur roundhouse caught him in the mouth and blood soon spotted his T-shirt. I pulled out my cell phone as a manager shouted, “None of that in here. That stops right now.”

The young man and his companion turned and ran out the door. The other man, despite the fact that blood continued to fall on his shirt, was still talking about the five dollars. “I didn’t steal anything,” he said repeatedly. “I have my own money.”

A policewoman arrived within sixty seconds. She hadn’t used her siren. “Let me look at that mouth,” she said to the injured man. “We’ll worry about the five dollars later.” The microphone attached to her lapel picked up every word for the dispatcher. “One ambulance,” the policewoman said as the man continued to talk about the five dollars.

One of the women who worked for the store gave the man a clean towel to put on his mouth as he continued to say, “I have my own money. I didn’t take any five dollars from anyone.”

The man in front of me paid for his groceries. Commerce stops for nothing. He stood there tentatively, probably wondering what to do next. I paid for my groceries, and we finally walked out together.

“I didn’t see any reason for that young fellow to hit that man,” I said. “I don’t know what the trouble was, but he didn’t need to hit him.”

“Oh, you know how these kids are these days,” he said. “He lives in the same apartment building I do. I talked to him earlier today, and he was just fine. The police will know who he was.”

He started to walk toward the apartment building beyond the store as I unlocked the door of my white Toyota. “Be careful,” I said.

“I’ll be okay,” he said.

I got into the car and locked the door. In the distance, the sound of an ambulance siren was coming my way.

I looked at the clock on the dash. It was almost 12:30 AM. The next morning, I would drive down to southern Iowa. I would put flowers on the graves of my parents and grandparents. I’d remember how hard their lives had been. At 12:30 AM, it was already Memorial Day, 2006.

I started the car and drove slowly home.

Diamonds

Ever been married? Who hasn’t? Ultimately, my marriage didn’t work out, I have two children who sparkle like diamonds. If I could have afforded it at the time, their mother would have had a diamond engagement ring that sparkled like her two children later did.

As it happens, had I known of Abazias engagement rings, http://www.abazias.com/, their mother could have had such a ring, for Abazias specializes inexpesive loose diamonds, as shown at http://www.abazias.com/splash_diamonds.asp. This allows you to design your own engagement ring.

I’m not claiming that a diamond engagement ring from Abazias would have saved my marriage, but it wouldn’t have done any harm. My children are now adults, and I am happily single.I’m not the innocent young man who married so many years ago.

And as it happens, I have a special friend that I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t have to buy her an expensive ring to prove anything to her, but maybe this time I should look at a cheap diamond at http://www.abazias.com/couplesdiamond/couples_diamond.asp.

Car Trouble

Have you ever found yourself in need of money when payday seemed like a century away? I have. Something is always going wrong with my car, but I get paid at the first of every month and the car gets sick in the middle of the month. One solution to this frequent problem is to go to National Payday online at http://www.nationalpayday.com/. That’s where you can obtain a loan that will help cover your expenses until payday.

National Payday gives first-time customers a cash advance of up to $300 without a credit check. Returning customers can request even more. (My car always needs more.) Go to http://www.nationalpayday.com/faq.htm
for more information, or go straight to https://www.nationalpayday.com/nat/new_app/app_step_1.asp
to apply.

Now please excuse me. I must try to start my car.

Gold

For thousands of years, people have conserved their wealth by converting it to gold. The ancient Egyptians, for example, were among the first to mint gold coins. More recently, the United States backed its currency for over a hundred years with the equivalent amount of gold held in reserve. The United States remained on the gold standard until the 1930’s.In the present era, the Monex Deposit Company makes gold available for purchase by the general public. You may purchase gold in either coins or ingots. Monex will deliver the gold to whatever independent bank or depository you prefer. Monex also provides other precious metals and will deliver them as safely as with gold.No one would suggest that you put all your wealth into gold, but consider purchasing this rare and beautiful metal as a safeguard for whatever amount of your accumulated wealth you wish. In unpredictable economic times, gold is one of the only sure guardians of your wealth.

The Demise of Film Noir

Prior to the widespread availability of television, American men and women read short stories or novels for entertainment. Dashiell Hammett, the inventor of the hard-boiled detective story, made his living at times by writing short stories for the many mystery magazines available. He also wrote five novels. Hammett began his career by stating that he was going to take crime away from the upper classes of Agatha Christie’s novels and give it back to the common people, who were really good at it. Raymond Chandler acknowledged his debt to Hammett and went on to elevate the mystery story to the level of literature.

With all this popular fiction lying about, it didn’t take movie makers long to see that mystery stories could be turned into popular movies. In this fashion, film noir was born. The novels of Hammett, Chandler, and many others were adapted for the screen.

Then television happened. Television shows require no literacy, intelligence, or effort from the audience. Readers of mysteries, mostly men, stopped reading and started watching television. TV cop shows of no artistic merit led to the death of film noir. The wise-guy detective gave way to movies about cops who shot first and never asked questions. Compare The Big Sleep with any police movie of the present era, and you can’t fail to see the superiority of Chandler’s Phil Marlowe as adapted for the screen.

Film noir died from multiple wounds.

Heart Rate Monitors

Having reached the age when the condition of my heart is a matter of concern for me (and my doctor), I go out five days a week and huff and puff my way along the sidewalks of my neighborhood for thirty minutes. After ten or fifteen minutes, I stop to check my pulse, which should be elevated to at least 100 beats per minute. According to my doctor, this regimen will lower my blood pressure, lower my pulse rate when not huffing and puffing, and keep me alive long enough to collect my fair share of my retirement annuity.

All this is just fine. I check my pulse while exercising, but what is that pulse the rest of the day? I don’t know. I never remember to check. How do I know if all this exercise is doing any good? I don’t know. I need some accurate way to check my pulse when exercising and when not. I need to know about Heart Rate Monitors.

At this point, EverthingFitness.com enters this heroic narrative. Like many Americans, I’m a gadget freak. If you want to give another gadget freak a Christmas present that will help improve his or her health, consider a heart rate monitor from EverythingFitness.com. Strapped and strapless monitors are available from a variety of suppliers. If you’re seeking a gift for a biker, rock climber, or an old huffer and puffer like me, you’ll find what you need at EverythingFitness.com.

I intend to draw the attention of my children to this matter. You must have at least one friend or relative whose health would benefit from a heart rate monitor.

Online Marketing Degree

If you would like to obtain a marketing degree, but don't have the time to attend classes at a traditional college or university, you might want to consider the option of earning your degree through online courses. Students in search of graduate and undergraduate degrees are taking increased interest in this form of learning. Unlike students in traditional campus settings, these students pursue their higher-education goals online, without having to leave their jobs, families, and homes. One educational institution that offers accredited online learning opportunities is Capella University. Capella provides its 16,000 current students with undergraduate degrees in information technology and in business fields such as marketing. Students who already hold bachelor's degrees can pursue advanced degrees in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology. Altogether, Capella offers 76 graduate and undergraduate specializations and 16 certificate specializations. The university is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. If you see the need for higher education in your future, you should consider Capella University. For more information, please visit www.capella.edu or call 1-888-CAPELLA (227-3552).

Business Planning Help

Growthink, which offers planning services to both small and large businesses, has just completed Business Planning Help.

The Help Center provides free reports, calculators, sample plans, directories and other tools to help entrepreneurs and businesses develop their business plans and/or raise capital.

Growthink’s Business Plan Guide is one of the company’s most popular reports. This report is downloaded from the Web over 50,000 times per years. Let me mention just one segment of this popular report.

The 2006 version of the Business Plan Guide begins with a compelling prologue, “Why Business Plans Fail.” That title is sure to catch the attention of any serious member of the business community.

After surveying a broad array of financial sources, Growthink lists ten reasons why businesses fail to acquire the monetary support they require in order to succeed.

Here’s only one of the reasons: “Focusing Too Much on the Future.”

l’ll say no more. The interested business person can read just as well as I.

Link Popularity

If you want to increase the link popularity of your website, you need to know what will help you the most. To begin, you need to attract search engines such as Google. If you do, these search engines will drive traffic to your site.

Google used to place greater importance on Page Rank than it does now. This change occurred because many clever people found ways to manipulate the Page Rank of their websites. Google still considers the Page Rank of a particular site, but it has also increased the importance it places on the total number of links received. It also considers the quality of the pages where links appear.

Google has recently begun using Latent Symantec Indexing (LSI). LSI determines how words are related to each other. Many website owners believe this refers to the words in their own sites. But Blogitive has analyzed these relationships and concluded that LSI focuses on the pages that links are coming from.

Given all these considerations, a website becomes more popular if it contains content not easily obtained elsewhere. And the best source of this content is blogs. Search engines go after this content like hungry children at a birthday party.

Blogitive was created to form a network of blogs containing unique content. It now has 2000 blogs in this network, and you're reading one of them. If you submit a web release (a short press release) to Blogitive, its bloggers will write about your web release and link to your website in any way you want, thereby increasing the link popularity of your site.

Literary Journals and Money

In over thirty years of submitting short stories and essays to literary journals, I first found it impossible to get my work accepted at all, regardless of the issue of payment. My work slowly improved over the years, and I now find that I’ve acquired a modest reputation and can get my stuff accepted about one time in every ten submissions. The odds have improved from zero to 10 percent.

Regarding the question of money, I’ve learned that even when I get my work accepted, I almost always receive nothing in payment except copies of the journals in which my submissions appear. Even prestigious literary journals pay very little. If you want to publish something of literary merit, submit to literary journals. If you want to make money, go into public relations.

Orlando Vacations

Why would anyone want to take a vacation in Orlando? Disney World is the first answer that comes to mind. If you've already taken the family to Disney World, you may wish to learn that Orlando has 52 theme parks altogether. And beautiful ocean beaches await you only 40 minutes away. To top all this off, consider the fact that Orlando vacation home rentals are lower than those for most other popular vacation destinations. With rent like that, you can stay even longer to enjoy Orlando's many attractions.

Still not convinced? Consider this. Because the theme park business is so competitive, most parks are continually adding new rides and new attractions. So if you haven't been to Orlando within the last 3 to 5 years, the whole family still has a lot to see.

Best Gadgets

Are you the sort of person who wants to own the latest technological product before anyone else? Do you ever buy the best gadgets available and then think of ways to improve them, only to find that no one wants to listen to you? May I introduce you to Ron Sharon, the owner of Zetta Global? At Zetta Global, Mr. Sharon has established ZTMax, a major professional importer in the high-tech industry. After I introduce you, he won't run away and hide. ZTMax is "constantly on the lookout for the latest technology to offer our growing clientele," Mr. Sharon says.

As one example, ZTMax has begun selling the Multifunctional Digital Mini Speaker. This sleek mini speaker is digitized to provide a superb listening experience with your favorite music. Priced at $49.95, with its built-in lithium battery, this speaker can deliver hi-fi music for up to 10 hours. Do you have any suggestions for improvement? May I again introduce you to Mr. Sharon? He wants to listen to you.

The Maltese Ingot

The Maltese Falcon is my favorite hard-boiled detective novel, and its film version is my favorite example of film noir. John Huston, who directed the film, had the good sense to remain faithful to Dashiell Hammett's book, in which a hapless collection of thieves travels the world in search of a life-size statue of a falcon, a falcon dating from the time of the crusades and made of solid gold.

For investors looking for gold bars of a safe and more conventional sort, the Monex Deposit Company (MDC) will not require you to follow the script of a Hollywood motion picture, regardless of its many excellent qualities.

MDC has been America’s precious metals investment leader for thirty years. The firm can obtain precious metals in coins or bullion. It can then arrange to have the metals delivered or deposited in a bank or any other secure depository of your choice.

Many authorities believe that we have entered a period that makes investment in silver bars and U.S. silver coins especially attractive. The world’s demand for silver has exceeded production every year since 1990. The U.S. government, which once held the world’s largest stockpile of silver, is now a silver buyer. MDC can help investors take advantage of this opportunity.

For individuals who prefer to protect their wealth and preserve their purchasing power by investing in gold, MDC can obtain it for you in either coins or bars. For gold falcons, you'll have to read a book or watch a movie.