How Rappers Get Rich

 The BBC has an interesting article up about money and the hiphop industry today. Rap as a genre seems to attract a lot of very savvy businessmen, seems like. It reminded me of this Richest Royals in the World piece (incidentally my original post on that is one of this blog's most read: I guess people like hearing about the wealthy). The amounts of money talked about in both articles are just inconceivable to me! I can't imagine having that much. Heck when I find an extra $10 in my wallet that's good enough for me... :)

Goodbye Sarah Jane

 It was reported yesterday that Elisabeth Sladen, who portrayed the Doctor's companion Sarah Jane in both Doctor Who and later her spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, has passed away at the age of 63. After Nicola Bryant broke the news to Twitter, it was quickly confirmed by the Doctor Who Magazine and Mark Gatiss, then by BBC News shortly after.

 Elisabeth's name, of course, has been trending on Twitter ever since as people pay their respects. I want to add my voice to theirs: she was an amazing woman and actress, and will be sorely missed by friends, family and Whovians alike. Rest in peace.

The Royal Wedding

 Like any other American I'm more interested in Britain's monarchy than the actual British are. :P So I'm excited about April 29th! But I also noticed that a republican street party was banned, so that kind of sucks. So long as they're not interfering with the wedding why should it matter...?

 Still, I will be watching on the 29th. :) I want to see the dress!

Do Survey Sites Really Pay? The Truth

 I've always wondered how exactly survey sites can afford to pay their users, despite the money they themselves make on surveys and market research. Of course, as this article on paid survey scams shows, not all survey sites do pay, but what about the legit ones that do? 

 Someone clearly had the same question, going by How on Earth do Survey Sites Pay? It's a pretty thorough look at how survey sites get your money to you, and the different kinds of payment systems. As I'm not the most experienced in this area it was pretty interesting for me. I haven't joined many survey sites. Still, a good read!

Five Questions

...to ask yourself before taking a free paid survey. What can I say? The article makes good points. I think, like with lots of stuff like this, people go in expecting to amass a fortune within a week and fall prey to all sorts of nasty scams and email harvesting and before you know it you've got dozens of spam emails cluttering your inbox and you're not even a cent richer! :( This is one of my favorite articles on paid survey scams, for how thorough it is. Unfortunately people really do like to prey on those who work at home, so it gets tricky to find the real stuff. I've fallen prey to some scams in my time. :/ Thankfully none of those scams that actually try to take money from you though, like some of the ones mentioned in that article. I've been lucky in that respect.

 My weekend was fabulous. :D I went to the local park and since it's spring everything was in bloom! Maybe I'll take some pictures for this blog next time I visit.

LOL OMG: Is the English language dying?

 After the inclusion of "LOL" and "OMG" in the Oxford English dictionary it was suggested that Shakespeare would be rolling his grave, and that the English language is slowly dying.

 Has anyone making this claim ever read Shakespeare? Shakespeare would have adored this! The man made up new words all the time, and is in fact responsible for some of the words we use today: "critic", "generous", "lonely", "obscene", "sanctimonious" and countless others. If Shakespeare were alive today he'd probably be writing plays entirely in textspeak. 

 The fact is, the English language is constantly evolving and changing. David Crystal's excellent book The Fight for English documents the long history of the language, and do you know what the most interesting thing about it is? Throughout history people have been claiming that the English language is dying, that great writers of the past would be rolling in their graves, and that everything should just go back to how it was. But if everything did go back to how it was, I wouldn't even have been able to write the majority of this post. I wouldn't have the words.

Woman gets 52 plastic surgeries done

 This link was emailed to me, about a middle-aged woman who has had 52 plastic surgery procedures done! I opened the link expecting some kind of horror story like Jocelyn Wildestein or something in The Five Weirdest Plastic Surgery Procedures but what do you know, I was pleasantly surprised. She looks good. She even shows off her hands, which are usually a dead giveaway when it comes to age, but she's had surgery on those too and even those look young. I just don't know how she could stand the pain of so many procedures, but I guess the end result justifies the means for her? I'd certainly love to look like that when I'm her age.

The Great Work-at-Home Scam

 What's wrong with work-at-home scams? asks this article. Maybe a better question would be what's right with work-at-home scams? I know the banner ads the article references very well, and I'm sick of them too. But what really galls me about those adverts is they don't even try to be convincing. Who would believe you can make $77 an hour from home? Even proper work-at-home sites like the one linked will admit upfront that you're not going to become a millionaire using them. 

 Don't even get me started on those "flat belly" adverts. I am sick of the sight of them.

The French and the Dutch collide over the Caribbean

 St Maarten has just climbed to the top of my "must visit" list after the beautiful pictures of it I've been looking at. How many beaches can one island have? But what I'm really taken by is the part of the island called Anse Marcel. Look at those green hills! Imagine living there. I currently live in a big smoggy city where the only green area is the tiny local park, and even then the grass there is not so much green as kind of off yellow, lol. So I'm always jealous of beautiful places like that.

 What's your number one "must visit" place?