I thought I would try my hand at carving the popular cannibalistic pumpkin that I’ve seen so many times before. Just as I was starting out, I realized that this was a good opportunity to document it with my camera. So below is a little tutorial I put together for anyone who might want to try this out. It’s not too difficult if you are just patient and take it slow.

STEP 1:
The first thing you want to do before setting out on this is to get the proper tools and items.
This includes the following:

1. Large Pumpkin
2. Tiny Pumpkin
3. Washable Marker
4. Large Knife
5. Smaller Steak Knife
6. Large Spoon
7. Small Spoon

STEP 2:
Take your washable marker and draw out the face on the big pumpkin. Make sure to measure the circumfrence of the tiny pumpkin and make the the mouth that you sketch on the big pumpkin large enough to hold that size.

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So you want to stop Graffiti in your neighborhood?

The other day, I was listening to one woman ask another about how to stop the graffiti in her neighborhood. It go me think just how one might go about stopping something like this. After all, don’t you basically have to catch the graffiti artist in the act to be able to tell him to stop. That’s a hard thing to do, because criminals are notorious for doing what they do when nobody is around.

Then I thought, how exactly do we stop criminals from breaking into our home? Well, obviously we have locks, but aside from that, we have alarms and stickers on our window that say we have alarms in the house.

So why not bring this sticker idea to the crime prevention of graffiti? It’s easy. All you would need to do is make a sign that says the following:

THIS AREA IS UNDER VIDEO SURVEILLANCE BY HIDDEN CAMERAS
Evidence of illegal activities will be turned over to the police for investigative purposes.

Now, this is not 100% sure to work, but at least having a sign that says that on or near the structure that is getting graffiti might act as a strong deterent.

The catch is that there really are no cameras. Just a sign. Since it says that the cameras are hidden, the graffiti artist might look, but will never find it, then they will get paranoid and leave.

If you decide to try this out, let me know. I would like to know if it works!

So you are considering getting a digital drawing tablet where you can draw on the screen itself. Before you start researching which one to get, you have to decide on one important destinction regarding which route to go.

Tablet PC or Wacom Cintiq.

The Tablet PC Route:
The Tablet PC can be a great tool for drawing. One of the first benefits that comes to mind for tablet PCs is the portability factor. You can basically take it anywhere you want, considering that you have the battery life to keep it powered. If you want to go to the park or to the beach, then just take it along with you and start sketching the ocean views.

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I have decided from now on that chopcow.com is going to be my home base. For years, I have been one of those guys who has so many sites and when someone asks me “Hey, what’s your website?”, my mind instantly goes numb, due to the over 200 sites that I own.

Of course, 200 sites sounds impressive to the inexperienced Internet user, but if you realize that they are all mostly mini-sites, then it’s really not that big of a deal. Each site takes about 1 hour to create, so in reality, 200 sites is like 200 hours worth of labor.

Ok, so now that I have my home here on this blog, I am going to use it to chronicle my progress with achieving my goal of creating the $1/day formula. I’ve researched this over the Internet for hours. I even found other blogs doing this same thing and I was always disappointed that after a month or so, they stop posting their progress reports. Perhaps it was too cumbersome to post an update. Whatever the reason, I do not intend to follow this same pattern.

I think I might fare better at keeping my progress reports updated, because I don’t follow any prescribed schedule for posting everyday. I will just post when something major has happened….a major development in my quest to create the $1/day formula.

To start this chronicle off, I should make it clear that I purchased 33 domains on October 1st, 2009. I already have a webhost reseller account, so I can create space for each of those 33 domains in seconds. The sites have all been set up and are based on keywords.

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I have done a lot of research on drawing tablets. I’ve also owned quite a few. Through all my experience with using and testing them out, my consensus is that the best brand for drawing tablets is, without a doubt, Wacom.

If you ask any professional artist who does their work digitally, they will tell you that their tablet is a Wacom, so if you are going to buy a tablet, get this brand. So the real question should be what type of Wacom to get.

There are two types of drawing tablets.

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I watched the documentary film Nostradamus 2012 last night.

What a bunch of crap. Throughout history we’ve been hearing this same thing. The world is coming to an end because of this or that. Does it ever happen? No.

Then in 1999, only 10 years ago, there were more claims and again, not a single thing happened on January 1, 2000.

The fact is that if the end of the world happens as a result of some cataclysmic event, like a huge meteor smashing into Earth, then what’s the worst that could happen? Death.

How will this be any different than a cataclysmic car smashing into you during your lunch break tomorrow. Either way, your life is over. Your dead. So why waste time thinking about it?

I think I know why some people waste their time.

Self-righteousness.

These people thrive on the feeling of superiority that comes with believing something that others don’t. They are looking to be the new version of Noah, warning us about the impending flood. They are living this fantasy where they are mentally projecting themselves forward in time to a moment where they can say “I told you so”. Are these delusions of grandeur? Absolutely.

According to the Nostradamus 2012 documentary, the sun will align with the Milky Way in 2012 and this is going to throw everything out of whack…or some nonsense like that. It was something along these lines. I fell asleep twice during the film (two 5-minute power naps), so I didn’t catch it all, but I didn’t have to.

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Creativity is like sculpting and to begin any sculpture, you have to knead the clay and mess with it before you can start forming it. I guess that’s what this first post is. A kneading of the clay.