Sometimes I find the decision process to be hard – what to buy, what to wear, and what to use are common questions I face each and everyday.  What I really don’t want to do is throw my money in the garbage – rather I would like to spend it wisely.

Years ago, one of my friends suggested that I checkout the consumer reviews about the product that I was interested in and see what other people say.  You see, if most of the product reviews are negative, then I won’t buy that product.

On the other hand, if the news and opinions I read about a certain product are positive, then I will most certainly buy it.  In some respects, these opinions and reviews take place of asking your friends for advice, and help you make smart decisions.

Recently, I have also been relying on website reviews to help me find good websites to visit.  Not only does this save me time, but it keeps me away from the bad sites out there – all I want to see are the best ones anyway.

When all is said and done, I rely on these reviews so much that if they weren’t there, I just don’t know what I would do.

Some of you may be familiar with Internet marketing – you know doing things such as article marketing, directory submissions, social bookmarking, and forum posting.  Most of us webmasters do it on a daily basis, but for those of you out there, do you know what the goal of Internet marketing is?

It’s easy.  We want higher search engine rankings.

You see, the higher rankings usually translate into more traffic and possibly sales on our sites.  Think of it this way – if you were to build a store in the middle of nowhere, would anyone come to shop?  Probably not – unless you advertised and let people know you are there.

So how do you do Internet marketing?

Well there are many ways.  What I would suggest is that you take a look at some of the online media sites and watch some videos – they will fill you in on how and why you want to do some Internet marketing.

I was surprised to see that there was nothing for sale on the website last week, which I usually use to purchase my scrapbook supplies. They usually have tons of sales every week, so I was more than a little bit disappointed.

When I enquired about it, I was told that their digital media had failed and so they had not been able to post their sales, but would be happy to let me know what was on sale if I wanted to call a customer service representative.

I called and got a list and decided that maybe if I looked these items up in the archives of the website, I may be able to see a picture of them and thus be able to decide if it was something I wanted or not.

I did a free search and came up with some great pictures of what was available and what was for sale. I made my order and decided that it certainly wasn’t the tragedy that I had thought it was at the beginning of my search.

It is because of my addiction for net gossip that I recently found out that one of my favorite actors had passed away. I would have obviously found out anyway, but I found out before any of my friends knew, and it made me so sad.

I have always kept up on the entertainment reviews, and for this reason, I get a lot of stuff emailed to me on celebrities. It is not always a good thing, as it would have been easier to find out from someone I love than to read it on my computer screen.

At first, I thought it was some kind of sick email joke, but when I checked out sources, such as ratingzone, I found out that it was completely true. I had a good cry and then started calling my friends to let them know.

Some days, I wish I had just stuck to having reviews of movies emailed to my account and stayed away from the gossip. Sometimes the truth really hurts and it would be better to keep our heads buried in the sand and ignore the reality of life.

While out inline skating today, I accidentally lost my watch when the strap broke.  I must be a fool, as I was wearing my Rolex watch out while exercising.  Definitely not a smart idea.

But, I had to replace it before my wife found out.  You see, she gave it to me as my anniversary present on our fifth wedding anniversary, and she would be furious if I didn’t come home with it.

With my wallet feeling a little too light for the shopping I was about to do, I entered a watch store.  Just five short minutes into my shopping, I realized I didn’t have enough cash to buy the real thing, so I asked the sales clerk if they sold replica watches.

I was directed to the watch replicas they had in the store and I was able to find a perfect Rolex replica watch that was a very close match to the one I lost.  I bought it, put it on and came home.

So far, she hasn’t noticed that anything is different – this will give me time to figure out when would be the best time to tell her about what happened.

I never thought that I would ever sell jewelry – but here I am an electronics and designer jewelry salesperson.  You see, I really applied for the electronics position, but as it turns out, the guy that sells you a plasma television, also sells you a diamond ring.

Perhaps it was my lack of research before applying for the job, or the blind eye I turned towards the jewelry case, but there it is.  I look at it as more of a challenge learning about the unique designer jewelry that we carry – I don’t mind getting paid to learn something new.

We learned today that out of all the jewelry that we sell, we sell more luxury jewelry than we do the cheap stuff.  Today we covered the major gemstones, diamonds, and how to size jewelry for the clients.

It sure felt like a crash course in jewelry sales, but it really wasn’t that difficult.  I think the real challenge for me will be to familiarize myself with the pieces themselves – the terminology that goes with jewelry will be easy to pick up.

I did not know how to use bookmarks on my computer until just the other day. I am one of those people that have sticky notes all over my desk and computer monitor with website names written all over them. And then, magically, a friend pointed out that I could bookmark these right in my computer.

I have a lot of fun websites written down on my sticky notes and sometime, when I mix them up, I get really angry that I don’t have a better way to organize them. It was so handy to learn that I could do this without the paper trail.

I, obviously, will not pretend that I am very good with the computer or even understand what all the Internet buzz is about, but I enjoy tinkering in my leisure time and I am sure as time goes by, I will learn more and more.

I am interested in learning about different website ratings. I had a friend ask me if I was on Facebook. I had never heard of this before and then found out that anyone who was someone was on Facebook. I am on there now.

I am really trying to slow down and smell the roses. My life has gotten so busy lately, that I am always in high speed mode and it is starting to cause me nothing but grief. Just the other day, I had to hire a NYC traffic violation attorney to get me out of a pickle that was of my own creation.

The good thing about it is that this particular Bronx traffic violation lawyer happens to be my brother, and like usual, I got to kill two birds with one stone. He got me off on my violation charges and I got to visit with him, which is something that I don’t get to do very often.

I tried to talk him into becoming a Manhattan traffic violation attorney, since that is where I live and thought we could see more of each other. He was probably right in his response that I would still be too busy to make the time. Now, I am starting to berate myself. My niece will be grown before I know it and I will never get that back. Bring on the roses.

I look around me and see a bunch of sheep.  Whether I am out for coffee, out shopping, or even out playing with the kids, I am surrounded by sheep.  What I mean is that everyone is doing what they are told to do – go to school, get a job, work, and retire.  To me that really doesn’t sound like fun.

Now, I don’t mean that I want to stay at home and do nothing.  I am not thinking that being a burden is the way to go, rather I am suggesting that I should think outside the box.  While most people are off getting an education for their career, I am networking by meeting other people.  It is these people that I connect with that will help me move ahead of the herd.

So what is your next choice?  Will you meet and grow rich, or just be another sheep?  It is up to you to decide.

I was going through some business reviews the other day, to find out exactly what was and was not needed in our community. No, I am not starting a business, but am curious as to what is needed out there.

There are, I deduced, way to many eating establishments here. I figure that there are no real profits to be made by opening any more of these, unless it is a well-known franchise. They are the only ones that could even hope to survive this market.

The reason for this is that franchised restaurants have completely different profit systems than privately owned ones and it takes fewer customers to make a profit, as you have a big company backing you.

In my opinion, franchises are the best investments that one can make right now, if they want to own an eating establishment. I know that is the only thing I would even consider.