The Jeffrey And Tracey Info Emporium

Following is an excerpt from The Trivial Times . Some consideration must be made for the many memory inconsistencies of Thick Mick. He does his best! —————————————————————– ————— Mick here, It’s hard to believe, I know, but Civilisation was man-made, and my great grand uncle won a Nobel Piece Prize for his part.

Wind back your time-piece to the year 6000 B.C., and be careful not to break the spring as I did.

It was winter, as usual, and though our daily lives appeared to be the will of external forces, some special people had the foresight to make decisions that would affect todays’ population.

Though I get over-paid for my column, please be patient as I take you through it.

There was a particular Pagan ritual that provided us with fun, on the face of it, but was actually a brainstorm that ensured the current judical system of today.

It was known as THE GAME. This wasn’t a nocturnal activity, or a matching of skills for that matter.

We had no skills!

It was latin for “MAGE” or “Mag”, and was a much finer publication than the trivial times, even with the chisel marks. The Mag was the prize for a one thousand feet free-fall dive into a pool. We had no spring boards either, or indeed, restrictive swim suits.

The pool was not like the modern olympic standard pools of today, which drain chlorine-laden storm water to the innards of the earth.

The pool was a simple lava pool!

All the local “bullies” were encouraged to participate, and always agreed to agressiveness, with unknown results.

This was BRILLIANCE” and “VIRAL”, and “LOW BUDGET” entertainment. The prize still hasn’t been won.

One after one, they lined up to win the prize. One after one, they failed. The trick was to hold your breath, I think, and no-one copped onto it.

As a boy of eighteen, I could never figure out why such men of Herculean physiques failed to win the “Game”. It took me many years of research to dicover that the solution was in the stone, and indeed, only understood it properly, a few minutes ago.

Legend had it that instructions were actually carved into the tablet of granite, but they were written in “Javascript”, a language with origins from the island “Java” (this island is still in existence, before I broke my spring, anyway).

Wasn’t I a lucky boy that my true nature wasn’t discovered as quickly and easily as I discoved the solution, for I would surely have drowned!

“Swimming and stones are not exclusive”, I remember some old lad saying at a time more trivial than now.

Mick Savage. Indepth columnist with THE TRIVIAL TIMES. savageswimming@thetrivialtimes.com

Copyright The Quipping Queen 2005.

WANTED: SUPERWOMAN/MAN

Or, if you can leap tall piles of filing in a single bound and save someone’s bacon…you’re hired!

By Theolonius McTavish, a Superman aficionado of sorts, and an acquaintance of someone called the “Guru of Glitch”, (who can transform mountains into molehills with the click of his glass slippers and whoosh of his magic wand if feels really inspired).

The following advertisement appeared in the local newspaper of a quaint community known to be the capital of flakes, fruits, and nuts on the West Coast of Canada.

Title: Superwoman/man (2005-30)

Closes: 10/31/2005

Location: Victoria , BC (Canada)

Length: Permanent FT

Description:

Are you faster than a Pentium 5 computer? Can you leap tall piles of filing in a single bound? If so, then read on……PLACEMENT GROUP VICTORIA is now accepting resumes on behalf of their client, one of the most well known companies in Victoria and located in the downtown core. This new full-time permanent position for a SUPER ASSISTANT is a fantastic opportunity for someone with the following qualities:

-Multi-tasking is a natural ability and you do it with a smile

-You look forward to balancing your cheque book and it actually does!

-You’re so organized that you don’t know what a “junk drawer” is

-Your sense of humour is understood by many

-Your past employers have often commented on your “old fashioned work ethic”

-Changing a light bulb, ensuring your boss gets to their board meeting on time, delivery of that last minute order and analyzing/editing that monthly report are all common daily occurences that you don’t think about twice

-You have an eagerness and enthusiasn about you that is contagious

-You’re proud of your ability to spell…….correctly

-You are able to communicate with all types of individuals

Competitive salary ($30k to $40k) plus excellent benefits package.

If you believe that you fit this profile, then explain how in your cover letter that you’ll be submitting along with your resume.

Requirements: * MUST currently reside in the Greater Victoria area * MUST have a valid driver’s licence and reliable vehicle * Excellent knowledge of Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint (testing to be completed) * Hight accurate (testing to be completed) * Aptitute for numbers * Strong written and verbal communication skills * Dedicated and loyal individual looking for a long term commitment * Thirst for learning and experiencing new and exciting challenges

Mailing Address: Placement Group, 1027 Pandora Ave, Victoria, BC (Canada)

Needless to say, the Guru of Glitch, sent along the following short note to express his enthusiasm in seeking such a challenging position.

Name: Ovid Publius Hadweenzic IV

Title: SUPERMAN - “GURU OF GLITCH” (…although everyone prefers to call me “GOG” for short)

Availability: Yesterday, (provided of course I can use my posh powers of persuasion to convince “The Great Pumpkin” that Halloween comes but once a year, and that I’m needed the other 364 days to troubleshoot for trolls and tackle titillating tasks at your esteemed firm).

Background, Experience & Qualifications:

A contrarian (by nature), and a magna cum laude graduate of the Druid Academy of Computerized Martial Arts & Feng Shui (by design), my mentor, Master Whatnot, told me that being fleet of foot I was probably faster than the speed of light on a slow day and more endurable than a shooting star in a dense black hole of a cosmically-impaired universe.

As for leaping over tall piles of filing in a single bound, I prefer eliminating all the easy solutions first …like tossing the blessed bumpf into the proverbial “File 13″ …after which I do something infinitely more productive and pleasant, (a ripsnorting ritual known as “jumping for joy”).

So, rather than bore you with my achievements (such as my “Grade 2 McLean’s Method of Writing Award), certificates (my most prized one being, “Communicating With Your Pet Rock”), handy dandy diplomas (like my rigorous 3-year program, “Celebrity Pet Grooming & Massage Therapy”), plus ringing letters of endorsement (from “Mugwumps Anonymous” and the “Croquet Club of Boring, Maryland”), I think it more appropriate to summarize my scintillating skill sets:

– A “Master of Multitasking” - having the legs of a centipede, the neck of a giraffe, and the tentacles of an octopus certainly helps me navigate my way through the trials and tribulations of every day life, not to mention perform mundane tasks like fetch coffee and water plants, or smile sweetly and kick butt if required in a tight pinch.

– “Balancing acts” come second nature to me and, as a tried-and-true tightwad treasury officer, I never let rubber cheques bounce around in bank accounts any more than I would recommend my boss eat another rubber chicken lunch…even if it is for a good cause!

– “Junk” - Yuck! I don’t eat “junk”-food, I never open “junk”-mail, and I have certainly never owned a “junk”-drawer…but I must admit, I do have one small shortcomingcoming …the other day I dropped my old clunker off at a “junk”-yard in order to collect a modest charitable tax receipt.

– “Old fashioned work ethic” …if by that you mean, do I wear shoes (as opposed to bare feet to work), a clean shirt (as opposed to a pizza spattered cotton t-shirt), and whistle while I work (at my 12-hour day minimum wage job that I’m ever so pleased to have)? …the answer’s a very simple, sharp and succinct … “yes”.

– “Changing light bulbs” - no problem, (although I’ve always found the “perpetual light of the Lord” to be a longer-lasting solution to wandering around in the dark than using a light bulb, a propane lamp or a flickering candle).

– Spelling and grammar are a passion with me. (I sleep with a dictionary and thesaurus under my pillow at night — to keep the gremlins of grammar at bay, which is probably why I can also spot at least five typos or spelling errors in your jolly job description.)

– Ability to “communicate with all types of individuals”, (well let’s just say that I have the eyes of an owl, ears like a rabbit, a nose the size of an elephant, and speak Pig-Latin which allows me to slip unnoticed into petting zoos, board rooms, and political backrooms. I don’t really want to toot my horn or namedrop but, one of my nearest and dearest friends is none other than “Francis the Talking Mule”!)

And since you’re probably wondering about my level of energy, I’ve been told that my eagerness and enthusiasm for life is akin to the “boobonic” plague, (or it’s close second cousin, the pandemic boisterous birdbrain flu. PS: I never use pills — even the little blue ones!)

A dedicated serial monogamist, I can assure you that loyalty and commitment are in my veins, (at least that’s what the lady from Mind’s Eye Hynotherapy told me about my past, present and future lives.)

Let’s face it, I’m so hungry for learning more about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that I could eat a horse! And may I also point out that my thirst for new opportunities and challenges can never be quenched with a Sprite, a Snapple, or a sip of Shiraz. (Now pint of Guinness …well that’s an entirely different matter …but never on company time!)

In closing, I just want to say that having a giggling Guru of Glitch on your management team will not only save your bacon but also trounce any testy troglodytes or truculent trolls who are looking for a good time at your expense!

Ciao plus a bit of Ta Ta, Pip Pip and All That

Ovid Publius Hadweenzic IV (aka GOG)

I felt queasy contemplating the nerve conduction test and electromyelogram (EMG) I was about to have. The nerve conduction test involves taping electrodes to the skin and sending a small jolt of electric current to them. During the EMG, the doctor inserts tiny needles into various muscles and examines the signals displayed on a laptop screen to see how quickly they respond to stimulation. These tests help to determine if there’s any nerve impairment or damage. Now, I’m in no position to belittle anyone else’s phobias, but I must confess to feeling a bit resentful - they’ll give Valium to claustrophobic patients before a non-invasive MRI, but they just laugh when I suggest they might want to sedate needlephobic me prior to an EMG. “Oh, it’s not that bad,” they tell me.

I finally confessed to my husband just how apprehensive I was feeling, and suggested that if he felt inclined to come along and hold my hand, I wouldn’t object. He had another appointment across town, but promised he’d do his best to make it back in time to provide moral support. Unfortunately, I got to the doctor’s office a little early, and they took me back right on schedule! How often does that happen?

The nurse asked me to don a hospital gown, assured me that the test “wasn’t that bad,” then checked to see if my hand was warm. Warm? Fear doesn’t lead to warm hands. Fear leads to hands that are cold as a corpse. So for five minutes before the test, I had to soak my hand in a tub of hot water! I started to get chills throughout the rest of my body, but at least my hand was warm.

The doctor was pleasant and had a good sense of humor. He tried to distract me with soft music and laughter as I tried to explain to him how much more effective nitrous oxide might be. Meanwhile, the nurse was taping electrodes to various points on my arm and hand.

Zap! My fingers curled reflexively and my whole body responded with a sympathetic convulsion like a freshly-caught fish gasping for air. From the very first time I grabbed hold of one of those gags that delivers a shocking sensation when all you’re expecting is a friendly handshake, I’ve been a little leery of electric currents running through my body. It’s not exactly “painful,” but it’s not a sensation I’d seek out for kicks. The dastardly duo repeated this procedure several times, moving and re-taping the electrodes to vary the twitching in my arm and fingers. The good news? My results were “normal.” In layman’s terms, I guess a “normal” result is something in between my whole arm laying still as a dead mackerel and my hand curling up in a fist and punching the doctor in the nose. Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. It would’ve been purely reflexive, mind you. Nothing personal.

The bad news? Since the results were normal, we got to go on to the EMG. If the results had clearly shown a problem, we might have been able to skip the next part. And to think I tried so hard to pass the first test!

Okay, so now I’m hyperventilating and the doctor is telling me to breathe. “Breathe?” I think. Sounds like some exotic foreign word. Oh, right, BREATHE. He sticks the first needle in. I whimper a little and start to tear up. I’m acting like a two-year-old. Objectively speaking, it doesn’t hurt all that much. No big deal. I’m cool. Oh, yeah - gotta remember to breathe.

The doctor finishes with the first probe and inserts the second. I can’t remember now whether it was the second or third - but the one on the inside of my forearm hurt like, well, my mother says that’s unprintable. It hurt. Twelve hours later, it still hurt.

I find I can’t breathe and talk at the same time. While he’s moving the needle around in my arm, the doctor asks, “How old are your kids?”

“Kids?” I have kids? “I don’t know,” I whimper, my voice barely audible. I don’t care, either. Just move the damned needle! “Twelve? Five? Something like that…”

“What’s your favorite radio station?” he asks.

“Oldies?” I gasp. Why do doctors always ask inane questions during unpleasant procedures?

“Okay, lift your right hand.” I comply. Anything to get this over with. “Now, move it around–” I move it around. “–see if you can pick up the Oldies station!”

I start to laugh hysterically. And cry. “You are a funny man, but I hate you, you know.”

“Almost through, and you’ll be cured of your fear of needles. Think of this as therapy!”

I’m thinking “go to hell,” and worse, but I just smile miserably. Soon we’re down to the last needle, the one he’s going to insert in my neck. He starts prepping the area with alcohol, then presses on the vertebrae one by one with his fingertips.

“Oh wait, please, stop - don’t touch me!” I turn over in a panic. The doctor assures me he’s going to insert the needle in the muscle tissue, not the spinal cord. I know that. But when you’re needlephobic, a needle you can’t see, anywhere near your spine, is twenty-five feet long and has sharp, rusty teeth.

“We can stop right now if you want to.” His voice is sympathetic. No more jokes. Oh, sure I wanted to stop, but then we’d either have incomplete results and an uncooperative patient on record, or I’d just have to muster the courage to come back and finish the blasted test.

“No, just do it and get it over with,” I mutter. I focus on trying to bite through my own lip as he slips the needle into my neck. I feel like the world’s biggest chicken.

Looking back on this whole ordeal, the probe in my neck is the one that hurt the least. I hardly felt it. And within a minute, we were done. The doctor informed me that I had some nerve compression and damage from the pressure in my neck, but no carpal tunnel syndrome. “Consistent with what the MRI showed,” he said.

“So, if the MRI showed it, then why did we just go through all this?” I asked. He explained that the MRI showed pressure on the nerve root, but didn’t show if there was nerve damage or the extent of it. As for the needlephobia, he pronounced me “cured.”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” I said.

“Nurse!” he called down the hall. “Schedule her for another ‘therapy’ session next week!”

“Okay, okay - I’ll lie. I’m cured. Hallelujah! You’re a miracle worker!” He smiled. I thanked him. I told him in no uncertain terms that while I thought he was a very nice, funny man and a good doctor, I hoped I never had to see him again.

Just as I was sitting up, getting ready to slip out of the gown and back into my t-shirt, my husband showed up. “In time to pick up the pieces,” as he put it. Does the man have good timing, or what? Just as well, I figured - he did show up in time to take me to a nice lunch (we hadn’t had a date in - how long?) and graciously listened to me whine about it all over again. I couldn’t very well have done that if he’d been there to witness it with his own eyes, now could I?

The secret in comedy writing is association. Let’s see how this technique generates hilarious result. By association means by pairing or combining thoughts, images or even words together.

The most popular and obvious form of association in comedy is INCONGRUITY; by pairing of opposites or contrasts. Like fat and thin, black and white, new and ancient and the list goes on. By juxtapositing two opposites it creates incongruity. This premise can whip up endless potential humorous ideas. Examples like a tall reek-thin man standing beside his rotund wife, a caveman using a handphone, a smart-talking donkey with a dumb owl or a devil having a friendly round of poker with an angel. As I’ve said before “anything goes”. But of course not all incongruities will produce funny result.

Another obvious source of incongruity is the OXYMORON. Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two seemingly contradictory words are combined. Examples like: open secret, good grief, original copies, small crowd or alone together.

Similarly to the technique of incongruity, is the REVERT. Here you take a normal situation and reverse it into its opposite. The most popular example is the bride carrying her groom into the room. Just take any ordinary situation and turn it around and see whether it can engender laughter. Like instead of having a bird in a cage, have a man in a bird cage, with the bird watching outside. “Anything goes”!

Use the association technique to light up your creative fuse and set it ablaze with ideas. Spur your brain to make new connection or new associations with opposities that will attract laughter.

“Calvin, go do something you hate. Being miserable builds character.”

The words of Calvin the comic strip character, from Calvin and Hobbes, in one of the all time funniest examples of the medium, by Bill Watterson.

In the strip Calvin’s dad is looking for his glasses when Calvin walks in wearing them, doing his best Dad impersonation.

The last panel has Calvin’s dad a little embarrassed trying to justify to himself why Calvin sees him as a curmudgeon…

…and Calvin’s mom laughing hysterically on the floor.

Even as I type these words I’ve got a big cheesy grin on my face at the thought.

But think about it for a second! “Being miserable builds character.” Huh? Most of us take that statement pretty much as a truism.

We may not put it in those exact words, but the thought pattern is generally “if you want to get ahead, you need to be willing to suffer and pay the price.”

There is a little kernel of truth in that statement. Most of get ahead in life by moving out of our comfort zone…of doing things that don’t come easy to us.

But miserable? That sounds like a long time of suffering and despair. Yuck! That’s not what most of us sign on for.

Here’s my take on it…humans have an essential nature of seeking, love, excitement, challenge, and ultimately peace.

Our ambition is what separates us from our four-legged brothers and sisters.

Our true character is developed when we live lives of purpose, service and striving. Being miserable is what people do when they’re so unhappy that they don’t see a way out…

…or when they’ve lost their sense of purpose and become resigned to wallow in their own self-pity.

Working hard and developing your skills and patience builds character. So does being joyful, loving and grateful for the blessings you’ve received.

Being miserable doesn’t build character. Being miserable builds misery.

Today’s topic, ladies and gentleman, is: Time. We’re going to talk about time today because I never seem to have enough of it. And I figure that if I dedicate a whole article to the subject of time and stress some of it’s finer points, then perhaps Father Time will show his appreciation by granting me a few extra hours each day. This will allow me to be able to complete a couple more important tasks each day such as hitting the ‘Snooze’ button on my alarm clock at least 15 more times each morning. And speaking of snoozing, there will be none of that during today’s lesson which will begin right now:

Time is defined by the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as: ‘A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.’ This definition leads us to the obvious question: If a definition contains 20 word, 5 of which contain 10 or more letters, and it still doesn’t make much sense, isn’t it time to get another dictionary?

Of course, dictionaries aren’t the only people who have trouble with time. The ancient Mayans, for example, struggled to understand time for centuries and never got it quite right. One look at their calender clues you in to this fact. The Mayan calender had 18 months, one of which was called ChikChan (short for May), and each month had 20 days. There was even one month, Wayeb, that had only 5 days. As you can imagine, this horribly inaccurate calender made scheduling important events like the Super Bowl next to impossible. It also left them wide open to insults from other ancient civilizations, like the Sumerians for example, who had fairly accurate calenders.

The Sumerian calender had 365 days per year and even incorporated a leap year. Sadly, there was no Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Day, or Arbor Day incorporated into the Sumerian calender which is why the Sumerian civilization was eventually wiped out. Such flagrant calender discrimination, even in the Dark Ages, could not be tolerated.

Since we have covered all pertinent information available about calenders, I think it’s high time we expand our understanding of time by discussing another mechanism by which we mortals judge the passing of it. But first, does anyone know where the phrase ‘high time’ comes from? Is there such a thing as ‘low time’. Feel free to ponder these questions quietly as we move on to discussing: The Clock.

A clock, for those of you who don’t know, is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as…Wait a second! Let’s not even go there. We’re already pretty confused as it is. Let’s just all agree that a clock is a device that has lots of numbers and two arms and makes it’s living by juggling minutes and seconds.

I feel the extreme need to insert a time cliche here. This cliche makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and probably has pagan, barbaric origins, but I think it summarizes what we’ve learned thus far in our discussion. So here goes our first time cliche ‘A stitch in time saves nine’. And now back to the show.

There have been numerous different kinds of clocks throughout history. Many of them made absolutely no sense whatsoever. A good example of this is the ancient Egyptian water clock, which was basically just a bowl with a hole in the bottom of it. There were markings on the inside of the bowl that measured the passage of ‘hours’ as the water level reached them. One of the obvious problems with this clock was the fact that whenever working-class Egyptians wanted to get off work early they would keep taking little sips of water from the bowl/clock throughout the day. This was one of the reasons it took so long to finish the Pyramids.That and the lack of power tools.

Time doesn’t permit us to talk about the other types of ancient clocks like obelisks, sundials, and hemicycles. And there definitely isn’t time to go into merkhets.

Speaking of merkhets, a close cousin of the clock is the watch. The watch is the time-telling device that most of us use today. We do not however, use it to tell time. We use it to do numerous other tasks that watch manufacturers have incorporated into watches like instant messaging, reading email, and fast forwarding the DVD player. There’s even a new watch on the market that comes equip with a radiation detector. And you laughed at the Eyptians for drinking from their time-telling devices.

Obviously, time is not something that can be explained in just one lesson. There’s a ton of more interesting stuff we could go into about time but, frankly, I don’t feel like taking the time to look it up right now. I believe I’ve achieved my goal of using as many time cliches as I possibly could in one article and now, I think it’s time to call an extended timeout on this whole time subject. I’m sure when I do write the follow-up to this article that it will be just in the nick of time. Probably sometime around Wayeb 1st.

Timothy Ward invites you to subscribe to his humor column ‘I Never Said I Was Normal’ at timward.1afm.com

PUBLISHING GUIDELINES. This article may be used in print or electronic publications. Publishers are requested to email the author (quippingqueen@yahoo.com) with a copy of the article reprinted in their publication, or a link back to the author’s blog at (www.quippingqueen.blogspot.com).

WORD COUNT: 577

While many disparage the advent of glitches in our wired world, the only way to find solace and sanity is to return to the ancient teachings.

“Haiku”, (a Japanese style of poetry), offers readers a way to experience the daily dilemmas of our digital community from a novel perspective.

So, for those of you who have no intention of going back in time or, unearthing the gold-leaf tomes in your basement, just tune in to the Happy Haiku Harridan for your daily dose of wonky wisdom.

Below are a few little gems by anonymous authors. I’ve also added a few of my own for good measure.

1. The Web site you seek cannot be located, but countless more exist.

2. Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return.

3. Program aborting: Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too much.

4. Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.

5. Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.

6. Your file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone.

7. Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.

8. A crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone.

9. Three things are certain: Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has occurred?

10. You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here.

11. Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, but we never will.

12. Having been erased, the document you’re seeking must now be retyped.

13. Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared.

14. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

15. Silence. A strangled modem forgets — that it should blink.

16. Behold the ego. It sits in glowing emptiness. Cursor be damned!

17. A dingbat flaps. Windows is crashing. Oh what a pity.

18. Dead PCs. Cube farms empty. Have you called 911 yet?

19. Morning spam. Harbinger of good and ill. “Norton” nixed them all!

20. He says a word. And I say a word. Upgrade chat to phrases.

21. Faceless 404 again. Lone pixel in the bit map. Welcome to ‘Geekville’.

22. Oh the winds that blow - can you ask them - which file is next to go?

23. Alone, on the web. Where to now? Who moved my e-cheese?

24. A lightening flash across your screen. Windows closes. Dial 411 for Godot.

25. For love and for hate, I trap a bug. And offer it to Bill.

26. A golden bug. I hurl it into the darkness. Is “McAfee” working?

27. A dead Trojan Horse. And yet, isn’t there something remaining in it?

28. Adjust your browser. Sorry, settings are gone. Try another universe!

29. Darkened screens - become modern grapes of wrath - reaping bitter whine.

30. On my screen, the frigging fish tank. Is that Tony Tuna I see?

___________

NOTE: These one-line-wonders adhere to well-established politically-correct plain language policies, comply with all equal opportunity humor legislation, and subscribe to the “best practices” embodied in the Safe Chortling Code of Conduct for Geeks, Nerds, and Dweebs.

For more information on weatherpixies, please visit: www.weatherpixie.com. Installing atmospheric icons will ensure the safety of garden gnomes from the Norse God of Thunder a.k.a. ‘Thor’ — “A Disaster Dude” if ever there was one …known to fry computers and plants with alacrity and equanimity.

About the Author

Victoria Elizabeth, alias the “Happy Haiku Harridan”, publishes musings about life’s little oddities in her bodacious blog called, “The Quipping Queen” (www.quippingqueen.blogspot.com). In her “other life” she is a business development consultant…you know stuff like how to grow money trees with oodles low-hanging fruit.

If written correctly, classified ads can be a very effective
way to make money and build your business. That’s the key,
they have to be written correctly. A poorly written classified ad will do nothing more than waste your hard-earned money!

In this article, I’m going show you the proper way to write
a classified ad–the kind that Will make money!

Here’s the secret: You MUST write every single classified ad
using the following classic AIDA formula:

A=ATTENTION
I=INTEREST
D=DESIRE
A=ACTION

Let’s break down each letter:

A=ATTENTION: The very first thing your classified ad must do is get the attention of the reader. The best way to do that is with an effective headline.

Because your classified ad will probably be competing with a
sea of other classified ads, nothing is more important than
your headline.

An effective headline will attract the reader’s attention,
and also target the audience for which it was intended.

The best way to write good headlines is to ALWAYS answer that one question your reader wants to know: “What’s in it for me?” Answer that question as clear and concise as possible and you will consistently write good headlines.

Here are some examples of good headlines: Collect Coins For Fun And Profit! Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books! How To Make Your Website More Profitable! How To Write Classified Ads That Make Money!

Notice how in the above examples, you don’t have to guess what the ad is all about. The headline pretty much tells you. Don’t try to be cute. Just spell it out in your headline.

Next, we come to the second letter in the AIDA formula:
I=”INTEREST”. After you get your reader’s attention, you
want to get him “INTERESTED” in your product or service.
You do that by telling him what your headline promises. Let me illustrate what I’m talking about, by using one of the above headlines as an example:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books!
No experience Necessary.

By adding “No experience necessary,” you build interest, because your reader is thinking, “No experience necessary. I can do this!”

Next comes the third letter letter in the formula:
D=”DESIRE”. You have to make your reader “DESIRE” whatever
it is that you’re offering. And the best way to do that is
with benefits! Let’s continue to build on the classified ad we started:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books!
No experience Necessary. Over 1000
money-making titles. Small investment!

By adding “Over 1000 money-making titles. Small investment!” You’re making your reader desire what you’re offering. At this point your reader is thinking, “I can make money selling books. It doesn’t cost a lot to get started, and I don’t need any experience!” Those things are all “benefits.”

Again, just tell your reader what your headline promised.

Push his emotional “hot buttons”, by using magic selling
words like, revolutionary, new, amazing, free, guaranteed,
security, love, sex, make money, etc! Example:

Make $50,000 Yearly Selling Books!
No experience Necessary. Over 1000
money-making titles. Small investment!
FREE information!

By adding magic selling words like “money-making” and “FREE,” you’re pushing your reader’s emotional “hot buttons!”

Finally, we come to the last letter in the formula:
A=”ACTION”. You want to close your classified ad with a call
to action! In other words, tell your reader what you want
him to do. For example, “For details click here!” or “Write
for more information!” Example:

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Adding “Click here,” is a call to action. You’re telling your reader exactly what you want him to do.

In closing, remember, when writing a classified ad, always
use the AIDA formula. It will rarely let you down!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer,
publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be
reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net
Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net

I approached the cell where they were holding Tonto. I had some feeling of fear at the
prospect of being locked up in a 6×8 cell with the man who shot the Lone Ranger. The
guard asked me if I wanted to go in and I mentioned this.

” He also scalped him. Allegedly, that is”.

I went on in and stood there observing the man who shot America’s greatest hero. He
didn’t look all that mean or dangerous.

“Tonto? Can I ask you a few questions!”

“Tonto. It’s always Tonto. Never sir or Mr. Tonto. Just Tonto. Why couldn’t they give
me a name like Geronimo or Crazy Horse or Sittng Bull, something like that. I guess
Crazy Horse isn’t so great either but Tonto? That sucks, man”.

“Did you shoot the Lone Ranger?”

“I scalped him too, the do-gooder. All the time it’s ‘Tonto do this ‘and Tonto ,’ do that’. I
finally had enough of it. And that’kemo sabe’ stuff. What does kemo sabe mean?
Nothing. It was just something I had to say at least once a week.”

” What about the Faithful Indian Companion thing?”

“What about it? Everyone thought I was gay to tell you the truth. Ever notice how I
never got the girl? Huh? Ever notice that? LR never got the girl either but that’s because
he had a thing about Silver”.

“Sounds like you’re going for temporary insanity”.

“No , I’m not. I just got tired of the whole thing. He got to wear these nifty clothes
while I wore beat-up old buckskins. Man, those things were hot. He got two guns while I
got one, although I only needed one as it turns out. He got silver bullets! Why? That
doesn’t make sense at all.”

“He was your friend’.

” Friend? What friend? I saved his life not the other way around, I could have left him
lying in that canyon to die is what I could have done. Maybe I should have. No, no. I had
to nurse him back to health and tell him about the silver mine and go along with the mask
and all that. Why? Who cared what he looked like? He didn’t care that people knew what
I looked like.”

“That really bothered you?”

“Sure it did. Here we’d be camped outside some town. Why? We had all kinds of money.
Why camp out on the ground.? I’ll probably get chillblains whem I get old. Anyway, HE
would go to town without the mask and have a good old time. So, I got to sneaking in
after he’d leave. I go right up and stand with him. Men would point at me and know the
old prospecter was the Lone Ranger. And they didn’t give a ratass about him .”

“You two rode the west fighting for justice”.

“You been watching too much t.v. We rode around getting into trouble is what we did.
He rode a big white stallion and I rode a little paint pony. That’s another bitch I had. He
also had all the money. Everytime I had to buy something he gave me the money. I found
that silver mine, not him. But no, he had the money and I had squat.”

“How do you think the trial will come out?”

“There won’t be no trial. If I don’t get lynched I think the charges will get dropped. It
wouldn’t do his image any good to have people think his faithful Indian companion
would shoot him. We start shooting this year’s episodes next week and they need me.
Did I say shooting? Ha-ha. Tonto made a joke.”

That’s Tonto’s Lament.

dizzyDragon

About the Author

Some things are off the wall and this author takes advantage of it. It gets harder and harder to make things up when real life is getting so weird.

I don’t try to offend but I don’t try not to, either. It’s all clean enough for my grandchildren to read (Uh, I married young and so did my children). They wouldn’t understand it but they could read it.

Some consideration must be made for the many memory inconsistencies of Thick Mick. He does his best!
——————————————————————————–
Mick here.
It was a long, long time ago. Sweden, North Europe, Scotland, Ireland, North America and Canada were part of the same mainland. This mainland existed before the crustal plates separated, and before the Atlantic came into being. To give you a reference point in history, my great grandfather was just a young man.

I remember with joy, the historical accounts he impressed on us, as we ate around a primitive butane barbeque. To clarify that, we sat around it eating, rather than eating the grass and sundry bushes around it.

Well, he told us with crystal clarity how he used to cycle from Canada to Sweden in five hours, with no more than one puncture repair kit, and a bicycle, presumably. He didn’t have to tell us every single detail!

The roads at the time, weren’t much like the motorways/highways of today. Instead of the quartz and limestone impregnated asphalt of today, they had a simple sandstone. Incidentally, this was readily available from Japan which was only a few hundred yards away, at the time. Punctures were common place and both courtship and commerce were reliant on a high performance repair kits.

On one particular day, I recall him saying, he went for a cycle to discover new continence continents, and ended up in Venezuela or something. Feeling peckish (understandable after an eight hour cycle against the wind ), he went into a burger joint. He often remarked “Burgers in Venezuela invariably have more grissle (cartilage, in English ) than venison in Boston (American, in America )”.

I’ll never forget his adventurous accounts of punctured rubber, mutilated beef, and Brazilian bicycle clips!

How would such an adventurer find time for my great grandmother to be, you might well ask? Well, she had a few bucks behind her, and some clever measures were needed to guarantee possession (old word for love ). Wait until you see the genius of this globetrotter/globepeddler, depending on air pressure status within the inner-tube.

In a bid to “mask” the stench of sweat (essential for long distance ), he used a “primitive talc” powder, or “de-odorant dust”. By inverting his bicycle and hand peddaling it, he was able to make dust out of any material by pressing it against the high-speed spokes. The material he chose was similar to what we know as conventional coal/graphite/carbon.

Hence, the term “CARBON DATING” was coined.

While a little messy, he invented a perfect product to “soak” the “SOUP of ADVENTURE”.
As with any back passage, more material will be forthcoming. Thanks for your understanding of times past, however trivial, Mick Savage.
adventure@thetrivialtimes.com

About the Author

Thick Mick is “an expert columnist” on historical matters, with The Trivial Times