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I have fond memories of waking up early on Saturday mornings and softly tiptoeing out to the family room to watch early morning cartoons when I was in elementary school. Then in high school I became more interested in the action-oriented TV shows in the evening. A little while later, I found that I just didn’t have the time to dedicate an hour or so a day to sitting and watching mindless entertainment at a given time slot, and so I no longer watched TV at all. Gone are my days of watching those humorous cartoons and ridiculous heroes every week.

I recently discovered the online film scene, though, and it’s fantastic. Short films, up to about 20mins in length, just posted online for all to download. Many of them are better than the professionally produced, high-budget TV shows that stream so liberally to your TV box. Every one is a labor of love, so even when the production values aren’t high you know that someone has poured themselves into the product, which brings satisfaction beyond that of watching some stale TV show now into it’s 19th series and just churning out the money makers.

Cartoons were my first port of call. It’s been a long time since I’ve been awake and free early enough in the morning to watch some animated entertainment (and besides that, the cartoons on TV now are largely trash). A friend introduced me to my first online cartoon, the enormously popular and hilarious Homestar Runner (http://www.homestarrunner.com). This site is fantastic. There are longish cartoons and games, with new ones being added every now and then, but the main reason to visit and continue to return is a lovably vicious character named Strong Bad. The creators of the web site answer roughly one email a week using this character that basically insults people in the most hilarious ways possible. It’s all quite family-friendly and is more than worth a bookmark.

More animated wonders and filmed entertainment can be found at Atom Films (http://www.atomfilms.com), which has become a free service recently. Also worth a look is Ifilm (http://www.ifilm.com) that offers the lower-bandwidth streams of films for free.

Be slightly wary here though as there is an uncensored section and occasionally some videos will show up on the main page that aren’t entirely family-friendly. These two sites showcase hundreds of short films, from animated to live action, from musical to martial arts. They host music clips and film festival winners as well as some non-professional but often still high quality work.

For the action fans there are a number of ‘Stunt Crews’ out there, risking life and limb for the sheer giddy thrill of looking really cool on tape. They’ll have you wishing you were just half as talented as they are. One particularly active and talented group goes by the name of The Stunt People (http://www.thestuntpeople.com). They have a large number of videos available online, most running for about 20mins and almost all of them jam packed with martial arts and tricking entertainment. Of similar style, although not quite as stunt-oriented, are Jabronie Pictures (http://jabroniepictures.com/). These films all contain some violence and occasionally some coarse language, so you may want to screen them before showing them to younger children.

There are those who claim that TV can be used to keep up with the events unfolding in the world, the people who watch the news when the ‘Simpsons’ is on the other channel. For those socially minded folks, a quick search for ‘News video streams’ reveals a large number of pages, such as http://www.humanitas-international.org/newstran/streaming-tv.htm that contains a large list of streams, providing news updates on demand.

So if you’ve got a little downtime and there’s nothing on TV, try shifting on over to your computer and basking in the wonderful entertainment provided by many talented people who just want to share their creativity. Or, keep yourself current with happenings around the world. It’s fun and free. What more could you want?

About the Author: Daniel Punch |M6.Net |http://www.m6.net |Daniel Punch spends far too much time looking for free entertainment on the internet.

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Who, do you think, should win the Oscar this year? Who has been the best male actor in film this year? Should it be Don Cheadle, in Hotel Rwanda, Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator, Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby or Jamie Foxx in Ray.

What about Leading female Actress? Who gets your vote? Annette Bening in Being Julie, Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace, Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake, Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby or Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

How about you? Have you given an outstanding performance during 2004?
Did you created a breath-taking, unforgettable performance during the past year to get a nomination for the Life Performance Oscar?

When you accept that your role in your life is to give the best performance you can. To be you. To focus on your natural talents and your relationship with others will improve. Then others will nominate you for a Life Performance Oscar.

So how has 2004 been for you? Did you really touch your potential? Or did you accept second best?
When faced with all the other actors on the world stage, did you fall into the trap of:

•trying to compete with them? Or did you stick with your unique part and deliver to the best of your ability?
•spending your time wondering what others thought about you? Or did you aim to reach your potential and allow others to re think their roles as a result of interacting with you.

When you accept your role as an actor on the world stage then you have no one to compete with but yourself. When you accept that you are an unique individual, with your own skills and abilities, there is no need to compete with anyone. You just need to evolve your uniqueness.

You, after all, have something important and great to give the world so why try and be like someone else. Why try to mimic their role?

In a film or a play each actor concentrates on delivering their role to be the best of their ability. Life is no different. To ensure you have a successful life all you need to do is concentrate on your role and deliver, to the best of your ability. To be a great person you just need to produce a great performance. You have the skills and knowledge all you need is the courage to deliver.

When you go for it, you will be successful and, who knows, maybe next year, you will be nominated for the Oscar in Life performance.

Good Luck.

Graham and Julie
www.desktop-meditation.com

About the Author: To see more of our work please go to:www.desktop-meditation.com

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Do you find yourself looking for a way to make some extra money?How about creating a website on something that everyone includesin their life, Music? The opportunities are endless and what’sgreat about it is that you can make money on it while you’reeating, sleeping, or just sitting around watching TV.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a lot of work in the beginning to geteverything started. Once you get your website built the way youwant it though, all that is left is maintaining it to keep it attip top shape. From there you’ll be making money off of it24/7. So, how do you get started and how do you make money offof it you may be wondering?

To start off you need to purchase a domain name, which is yourwebsite URL. You can do this at GoDaddy.com for a cheap priceof $9.20 per year. Now you have your website name, the nextstep is to pick a host for your website. This is where you willbuild your website. You can do this at GoDaddy.com starting at$3.95 per month, or choose to go to another hosting company asthere are many out there.

From there you are set to build your website, now how do youbegin making money off of it?

There are many ways to make money off of your website. One wayis to join affiliate programs through companies around theworld. How an affiliate program works is you join under thatcompany and refer people through your website to their website.Then, as people go to the companies website through yours,whatever the person buy’s you get a certain amount of money offof their purchase.

The amount made varies from company to company and it evenvaries among the different products sold. The big namecompanies you’ll often make less money off of, such as Best Buyand Circuit City you’ll make approximately 3-7% on all sales.Smaller companies some times offer more through their affiliateprograms, but people sometimes will opt to go to the well knowncompanies instead.

For a music website you’ll obviously want to join affiliateprograms dealing with entertainment of some sort. Bestbuy.comand CircuitCity.com are good ones to join, but can be difficultto get into when you’re just starting out.

One good one can befound at:

http://www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/buy.html

Clickbank.com is an affiliate network that is extremely good tojoin as you instantly gain access to you choice of over 10,000digital products to sell on your website. There are ninecategories associated with clickbank.com, but categories tofocus on with a music website through clickbank.com would be funand entertainment and sports and recreation.

Where you find the registration form for the affiliate programsis on the companies’ homepage, and it is usually listed on thebottom of their homepage as affiliate program. When doing amusic website you don’t have to just stick with music affiliateprograms either. You can focus on entertainment as a whole thatway you can join affiliate programs for games, movies, postersand more.

Another way you can make money through affiliate programs istwo-tier programs. Two-tier programs are programs that you makemoney off of people signing up for the affiliate program throughyou. Not all affiliate programs offer two-tier programs, butthey are out there and signing up to affiliate programs withtwo-tier programs is to your benefit. A few entertainmenttwo-tier programs that I have joined include;

www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/allposters.html

www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com/mp3dollars.html

The best thing with affiliate programs is that they are free.You make money off of selling companies’ products and it doesn’tcost you a thing to register under the company. Another bonusto affiliate programs is that there is no limit as to how manyyou are allowed to join and put on your website. The sky is thelimit with affiliate programs and money can be made 24/7 on yourmusic website today at the cost of nothing.

About the Author: Jeff Schuman is the creator of Best-MP3-Music-Downloads.comwhere you can buy CD’s and find all of the best free musicdownloads. http://www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com

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You have to find radio airplay time if you’re going to be heard and we’re not just talking the local college campus. The trick is called promotion. Now that doesn’t mean you just put your press kit in an envelope with a demo and hope they take pity on you. Perhaps you call a station and they give you the standard pitch of, “Send it and if we like it we’ll put you in rotation.” After a few months of never hearing your music, you automatically think you’re not worthy.

First, don’t buy that. You’re one of hundreds, maybe even thousands depending on your city. Your disc will probably end up in the trash or, for more enterprising DJ’s, on Ebay in a one-cent CD sale. If you want to be heard and make potential sales, you have to stand out from the crowd, and in this jewel of an article, I’ll show you Five(5) Knock ‘em Dead Ways to Do Just That!:

#1 - Get your CD into the right hands. The intern that’s too busy to getting coffee or typing up a report for the station manager isn’t going to be the one making the airplay decision. So find out who the head honcho is in that department and touch base with them. If the club you’re playing at charges an admission or you have a show coming up offer to send the stations tickets to give away to listeners. Now keep in mind you can’t give the tickets to the staff, since that’s illegal and called payola, but you can offer free giveaway items to your potential audience.

#2 - If you’ve got one station in your pocket, then drop names. Let them know that WABC is playing your music and it’s getting a great response.

#3 - Make genuine friends in the business. If you’ve got a disc jockey that’s got you in rotation and really likes your sound, get to know them. Find out why they enjoy it and see if they’ve gotten any responses from listeners.

If they haven’t, ask if perhaps they might Q & A their callers about your music so you get a feel for your target audience. It’s not a bad idea to ask them for a testimonial or quote if they’re well known in your area if you know them personally. People help people. That’s a fact so if you treat your area disc jockeys like a living and breathing human and not dollar signs, that’s a foot in the door. Another good source is club owners. If they play your music and the fans go nuts ask them to say a few words about your sound that you can pass along to prospective stations, but be sure to sit down for a drink with them. Ask them about the picture of him and the woman and two kids behind the Magic Kingdom. Don’t be fake, but be genuinely interested.

#4 - Network. Find out if someone you know (or someone they know) has connections to the music stations. Remember six degrees of separation - you’re only six people away from knowing anyone on the planet and yes that includes station managers, concert promoters and record execs. The trick is it takes a great deal of work and time, but if you’re serious, it’s well worth it.

#5 - Go local, state, national. Don’t think you’re going to skip your local and state stations and be the next Matchbox Twenty. It doesn’t work that way. Start small and then get big.

Making contacts and getting names can be tough, that’s why you should start with a tested and proven music industry resource like The Industry Yellow Pages - Music Industry Contact Directory at http://www.TheIndustryYellowPages.com

The TIYP is helpful and loaded with contacts you can start using immediately without doing all the legwork yourself.

About the Author: This article was written by Ty Cohen, the music industry’s most recognizable voice!Ty is the C.E.O of Platinum Millennium Publishing, Platinum Millennium Records as well as owner of www.MusicContracts101.com and www.MusicIndustrySuccess.com .Some of his work includes: books, directories, mini-courses and software programs including the titles: “How to Make a Fortune in the Music Industry by Doing it Yourself” and “How to Make $500,000.00 “or More” A Year in the Music Industry by Doing it Yourself”.For nearly a decade, Ty Cohen’s Get Amplified! Newsletter and series of Free Music Industry Success “Mini Courses” has helped over 40,000 independent musicians, singers, rappers, composers, record label owners, producers, managers, agents and others reach their music business goals. Using a unique combination of tested and proven music business success resources, which includes a series of books, directories, software programs, videos, seminars and newsletters, our goal is to educate and empower musical individuals just like you with the tools needed to succeed!To find out more about Ty Cohen, his services, products and how he may be able to help you succeed in the music industry go to http://www.MusicIndustrySuccess.com and sign up for his free limited edition music industry success 10-part “Mini-Course”, it will work wonders for you and best of all, it’s FREE, but EXTREMELY VALUABLE!

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Throughout the past few years downloading music on the internethas increased in popularity. At the same time though, it hasbecome illegal through many companies to download music asmusicians and artists have been losing money on their CD sales.With many people being sued in the past couple years fordownloading music, is it really possible to download musiclegally anymore? If so, at what price will it cost you todownload music?

As music sites such as Napster and Kazaa and many more haveattempted to create sites to download music for free, they havejust increased the problem that much more. Some of the users ofthese programs have learned the hard way that music does notcome free, as they were sued for illegally downloading music.

Today there are many sites in which you can download music atwhere they claim it is 100% legal. The latest music fileformats used are Windows® Media (WMA), Advanced Acoustic Coding(AAC) and Atrac 3, and are very popular as it increases thesound quality making it closer to an actual CD bought in stores.Another great advantage is that many sites such asSonicSelector Service on MSN allow you to preview the musicbefore buying it. Many sites today also offer a three-day trialof their music downloading site, and then after that you willhave to begin paying a monthly fee. So it is possible todownload music legally online, but at what cost?

Pressplay.com offers unlimited music for a price of $9.95 permonth and then you also have to install the software from theirsite. The downloaded music is non-burnable and once yoursubscription runs out you no longer have access to any of yoursongs. Rhapsody at listen.com also charges $9.95 per month fornon-burnable music, but instead of downloading the music youdownload a music player that gives you access to the songs.

Now you can download music and you know the basic price permonth for non-burnable songs. However, most people downloadmusic so that they can burn their favorite CD with a variety ofsongs.

Transferring these songs onto a CD or a personal MP3player will cost you even more. Many sites offer packages forsongs capable of burning as oppose to a set price per song.

For example, Pressplay offers 5 burnable songs for $5.95, 10burnable songs for $9.95, 20 burnable songs for $18.95, and thenon top of those prices you are still required to pay the monthlyfee to use the program. MusicNet offers a package for $17.95 amonth that comes with unlimited downloading music and 10burnable songs.

There are other sites such as apple.com/itunes that is priced at99 cents to download a song and there is no monthly fee, but youmust own a Mac in order to do this. Sites such as mp3.com,peoplesound.com, and soundclick.com all offer free music todownload and burn. The catch is that these sites offer amajority of unknown artists and songs.

With the exception of the last few sites I have mentioned, youwill find a relatively large selection of music to choose fromin all of these sites. Not one of the sites offers less than300,000 songs to choose from with all of the biggest names inthe music industry such as Eminem, Britney Spears, and evenoldies such as Elvis, The Beatles, and Frank Sinatra.

There are websites out there that are 100% legal for you todownload music at. The question now is how much money are youwilling to pay to download all of the hottest songs today, andare you willing to pay extra to put those songs onto a CD?

About the Author: Jeff Schuman is the creator of Best-MP3-Music-Downloads.comwhere you can buy CD’s and find all of the best free musicdownloads. http://www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com

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Not today from the capital of Malopolska is considered an ideal place to rent her apartment in Krakow for many years and this attracts not only to the Poles, but also residents of other European countries. In the town can be found at many hotels and guesthouses guaranteeing luxury apartment Krakow for years is geared for tourism, and functioning in the city hoteliers and restaurators have much time to learn how strange and quirky requirements may be imposed by individual tourists visiting this city . It turns out at that summit of the requirements does not necessarily exclusive Krakow apartments had already been visited by many guests gived at least a specific taste, and thus owners of the premises and hotels can really little surprise. Characteristic is also true that not only excentric foreigners renting apartments in the city. Krakow is visited by hundreds of people for different purposes among many score are also young people choose the capital of Malopolska in place of his wedding trip. Also, spouses decide on a luxury apartment and Krakow, the city known as a particularly romantic and charming, it allows them to enjoy marital happiness. City also offers much more than just a luxury apartment. Krakow with its romantic premises, beautiful views and cultural heritage sites can fill in the time young people into permanent saving in their memory and making it even more than a dozen years after the wedding trip they wanted to return to the capital of Malopolska to once again here just to rent the apartment. Krakow is also frequented not only by tourists, but also by business people. The dynamically developing region with a proud stresses that they have a place increasingly ambitious investment every businessman going to a city is therefore seen as another guest at a decisive luxury apartment. Krakow is in a position to do so, moreover, indeed much to business guests were satisfied with the visit in the city. This raises special centres which are equipped not only in the exclusive suite (Cracow apartments seems to be very well understood the need for convenience), but also in conference rooms with high-quality equipment.

How is it that a little white boy from Kansas City has becomethe most well known rapper in the world? Starting from nothingand eventually moving up to a multi-millionaire, Eminem over thepast seven years has been in the eye of the public everywhereyou look. He has essentially entered a black man’s business andgone to the top over the course of a few years, but how?

On October 17, 1972 Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born in St.Joseph, MO by his 15 year old mother Debbie. Six months laterhis father was gone and this began the struggle for Marshall andhis mother; one that was just the beginning. Throughout thecourse of his childhood Marshall and his mother moved numeroustimes into different houses from Kansas City to Detroit. Themaximum time spent in one house was only 3 months, which causedMarshall to attend many different schools making it difficult tocope to the different surroundings and make friends. Every newschool he attended he was bullied as he was the new kid. Thiswas something that he could not change as he was never stationedin one school for a long period of time. At the age of 12 he andhis mother finally settled in a house in Detroit. He wouldlater use the bullying to his advantage fueling him to get backat all his bullies through songs.

By the age of 4 Marshall was already beginning to rap and putwords together rhyming them. At school he was rather successfulconsidering the circumstances, but it was lunchtime that heenjoyed as he often battled schoolmates through freestyles. Atthe age of 14 Marshall began to get serious about rapping andfelt that he had a shot in the business. When he got to theninth grade he failed it three times before eventually droppingout as he felt school was not for him.

When he turned 17 he came up with the name M&M for himself bycombining the first letters of his first and last name, whichlater was changed to Eminem. Now that he didn’t have school asa distraction, he focused solely on rapping with the goal ofmaking it to the top. He faced constant struggle on the way tostardom as he was continuously rejected by most rappers becauseof his race, despite his true talent. This grew anger inside ofhim that he uses in his music today. Knowing that it wasn’tgoing to be easy and that he would have to work, Marshall forcedhimself onto radio shows and freestyle battles to proveeverybody wrong.

He eventually got a first album titled“Infinite”, but it only sold 1,000 copies. It wasn’t until 1997that Marshall would make a name for himself.

In 1997 he was married with a child trying to support his familywith very little cash to do it with. He went to the RapOlympics in Los Angeles hoping to win the cash prize of $1,500for first place, but instead was spotted by a few sponsors fromInterscope. Furious that he had come in second, he later foundout about the sponsors and he gave them a copy of the “Infinite”tape, which was later sent to Dr. Dre. Dre was extremelyimpressed with the talent of Eminem and got contact of him,where the two recorded his second album; The Slim Shady LP. This album set the tone for his style of rap, as he lashed outon everyone that had bullied him throughout his life. It was adifferent style than anyone had ever heard, which brought him tostardom.

Eminem is by far the most popular rapper that is seen most inpublic. He has been seen in Rap Pages, VIBE, Rolling Stone,Spin, The Source, URB and Stress and continues to strive formore. He became the first white person to ever be on the coverof The Source. Throughout his life he has starred in the movie“8 Mile” based on his life growing up, has had over 20 guestappearances on TV, has featured on numerous different rappersCD’s, and has recorded 5 CD’s of his own. His second LP, “TheMarshall Mathers LP”, sold over 8 million records in the UnitedStates alone, 1.76 million copies in the first week setting arecord for a solo artist. This album became the first rap albumever to be nominated for “Album of the Year” at the Grammies. Hewould go on to win 3 Grammies for the album that night. In theyear 2002 he made $29 million in earnings of his fourth album“The Eminem Show LP” and touring for it. Then on March 23, 2003the song “Lose Yourself” from his movie “8 Mile” became thefirst rap song to ever win an Academy Award.

While being known for his explicit behavior and horrendouslyrics on his albums and in the eye of the public, it isdifficult to overlook all that he has achieved. Coming fromwhere he did and rising to where he is currently, it isremarkable what he has done not only for himself, but the rapworld as well. While it is hard for most to like him, there arenot many that do not at least respect him for what he hasachieved as of now, and what he may do in the future to come.

About the Author: Jeff Schuman II is the creator of Best-MP3-Music-Downloads.comwhere you can buy CD’s and find all of the best free musicdownloads. http://www.best-mp3-music-downloads.com

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