Back when I lived in Finland, we used to watch soccer quite a bit when we weren’t playing hockey. Now, it’s hard to stay in touch with the sport living here in the USofA.

A really cool site that I found is this World Cup Blog. It’s well written, funny and gives insider information from all the Soccer teams. You can even buy your World Cup Tickets on the site.

I’m thinking of flying over there to meet up with some friends. This is one of the best sites for Cheap International Tickets / Airfare I have found so far.

Here are some posts worth looking at: Budweiser at World Cup and World Cup Beauty Pageant The World Cup Tags site makes it easy to follow along on any topic related to World Cup that you’re looking for.

Don’t forget to check out Eurailpasses too!

Germany or Bust for World Cup 2006!

My townhouse is now sale pending! It came kind of quickly but I guess that’s what happens (hopefully) when you list a house for sale. I was trying not to get too involved or excited until I know for sure that it’s done, check in hand and all, but I am very happy to be moving closer into town.

Unfortunately, it’s going to cost me a pretty sum to get into the areas that I’d like to be in. So, I may need to rent out a room. Any takers? Either that, or I’ll have a cover charge when people come over and hang out. But don’t worry - you’ll get at least 2 drinks for your $5.

This time, I’d rather compromise on the house, but not too much, mind you, instead of the area. Don’t get me wrong, Happy Valley is a very nice area if that’s what you’re looking for. It just doesn’t fit my lifestyle because I don’t have 2.5 kids yet.

Like I said, I was trying to not get too involved or excited in the early stages of things until it’s sure. But that’s kind of hard to do. Last night, I was up until 3am looking at stuff online and I’m beat tired now. There isn’t a whole lot for sale right now so I started looking through the old listings for curiosity.

From USAhockey.com:

The 2006 U.S. Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Team, which had advanced out of the Preliminary Round on Tuesday, fell in its first single-elimination game today, losing to Finland, 4-3.

This, after USA looses to Russia, and faces Finland, one of the last two remaining UNDEFEATED team in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

SISU!

This is the first time I’ve got a virus from visiting a web site. I was searching for “web stats” on google, and one of the results (about 13th) was http://www.supercounter.org. Right when the page loaded I was greeted by norton’s antivirus:

Scan type: Realtime Protection Scan
Event: Virus Found!
Virus name: Trojan.Ducky.B
File: C:\Documents and Settings\mika\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\P7J3TX0E\picture[1].wmf
Location: C:\Documents and Settings\mika\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\P7J3TX0E
Computer: MIKA
User: mika
Action taken: Clean failed : Quarantine failed : Access denied
Date found: Wed Feb 22 11:14:36 2006

I wonder if there’s a way to notify google about this malicious site - anyone know? It would be nice to have it removed from the search index.

From an email I got about a “New T-Shirt:”

rallyblogs.com is getting close to done. I’ve got all the back-end processes completed, but now I need to build some user interfaces and some automation. Presenting: rallyblogs - the guerilla news source for rally.

Yay! I’m up to making $9/day average with my Google Adsense / Yahoo Publisher mix. It isn’t a huge amount but it’s given me the initiative and motivation to ramp up some of my web work. Who wouldn’t want a bit of extra cash for a web site that pretty much just runs itself or one that you update anyway?

I’ve gotten a couple emails from people wondering why/how I have ads on some of my sites like this one. I also have them on a couple others such as rallyclassified.com or seafoodblog.org and how exactly I get the ads installed.

It is really simple actually. You only need one things to get started - a web site. Preferably something that has traffic because it’s all about the ratios. More traffic = more clicks = more money. And goo search engine ranking or referrals help a bunch too.

Then, you paste in your Adsense and/or Yahoo Publisher code wherever you want it to appear. I’ve included mine as an example here for both Yahoo and Google.

First, here’s Google:

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-5051799565436281";
google_ad_width = 120;
google_ad_height = 600;
google_ad_format = "120x600_as";
google_ad_type = "text";
google_ad_channel ="8108558064";
google_color_border = "CCCCCC";
google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";
google_color_link = "000000";
google_color_url = "666666";
google_color_text = "333333";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>


And here’s Yahoo’s Code:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
ctxt_ad_partner = "1835604550";
ctxt_ad_section = "24114";
ctxt_ad_bg = "";
ctxt_ad_width = 160;
ctxt_ad_height = 600;
ctxt_ad_bc = "FFFFFF";
ctxt_ad_cc = "FFFFFF";
ctxt_ad_lc = "0000FF";
ctxt_ad_tc = "000000";
ctxt_ad_uc = "999999";
// -->
</script>
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://ypn-js.overture.com/partner/js/ypn.js">
</script>


It’s been my experience that Yahoo pays more per click on average (some of mine are almost $2) but their targeting still needs a lot of work, and their quantity of advertisers is lower. Google ads seem to “fit” better with my sites, but hey - money talks too!

Go get-em Tiger!

I had this idea to test out and see what Google Adsense for Domains (originally Oingo) would do for my domains. Now, they want 750,000 page visits per month to even talk to you and I’m no where near that. I just wanted to see what it would do so I found someone who was using it, and rewrote the URL with one of my own domains. No, I’m not going to make money on it if you click through one of their links, some random company/person will, but I thought it was interesting especially since their backend accepts the request seamlessly.

Try it and see:
http://apps5.oingo.com/apps/domainpark/domainpark.cgi?client=WORL2323&s=seafoodblog.org
http://apps5.oingo.com/apps/domainpark/domainpark.cgi?client=WORL2323&s=yahoo.com
http://apps5.oingo.com/apps/domainpark/domainpark.cgi?client=WORL2323&s=google.com
http://apps5.oingo.com/apps/domainpark/domainpark.cgi?client=WORL2323&s=ioan-fodor.com

I sure hope so!! Here’s what weather.com says for the “severe weather alert” for the Portland area:

…A COLD WEATHER PATTERN WILL PLUMMET SNOW LEVELS OVER SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON IN THE WEEK AHEAD…

A DRAMATIC CHANGE IN THE WEATHER PATTERN WILL BRING COLDER AIR FROM CANADA TO SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON THIS WEEK. SNOW LEVELS WILL LOWER TO 4000 FEET IN THE SOUTH WASHINGTON CASCADES AND 5000 FEET IN THE OREGON CASCADES ON MONDAY…AND THEN THEY WILL PLUMMET TO 2000 FEET IN THE WASHINGTON CASCADES AND 3500 FEET IN THE OREGON NORTH OREGON CASCADES MONDAY NIGHT AND CONTINUE TO LOWER DOWN TO 1000 TO 1500 FEET ON TUESDAY.

THIS COLD WEATHER WILL INCLUDE SNOW AND GUSTY WINDS IN THE CASCADES…COAST RANGES AND FOOTHILLS OF NORTHWEST OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON WITH BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURES EXPECTED DOWN INTO THE VALLEYS. AN EVEN COLDER AIR MASS WILL BRING A CHANCE OF SNOW REACHING DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOORS THURSDAY INTO THE WEEKEND WITH TEMPERATURES WELL BELOW NORMAL.

I set up a voicemail to email (it attaches it as wav and emails it to me) for one of my online ventures. This way, I get to have a phone number on my web site but it doesn’t ring to my cell phone all the time, because that’s the only phone I own.

So, here we are! My first call from a customer.

Wonderfully enough, I’m making money without any phone calls so I don’t have to really care. Just thought this was funny.