It's Wednesday. Do people still call it "Hump Day"? I haven't done the whole Monday to Friday 925 thing since 1994. People wore round glasses and women had shoulder pads in their blazers the last time I worked in an office. Call me out of touch…

Odds and Ends:

1. My catch chases his tail like a dog. It's hilarious! Can anyone point me to a YouTube video of a cat chasing its tail?

2. Monday was the second highest traffic day ever for this blog. Welcome to all the new readers, especially the RSS subscribers!

3. I've been seeing an Osteopath for the past 3 weeks for my chronic shoulder. I'll have a report shortly on it for you.

4. People have been asking me about ghostwriters. I use Need-An-Article.

5. People have been asking me about the forum. I have locked it until I can find a spam-free solution, I'm gonna test vBulletin next. We were getting 20-30 pron and pharma spams per hour last week, all automated in its posting. Feel free to leave comments on the blog instead.

6. Online porn is dying. The adult industry lost an estimated $2 billion last year to torrents and piracy. With the boom in amateurs posting their sex lives for free on YouPorn, its killing the paid industry, similar to the losses suffered by Hollywood and the record labels. There is massive money loss and pain and suffering amongst movie stars, musicians and silicone-enhanced starlets. Where there is pain there is generally opportunity to sell information. Where else is there pain? Mortgage brokers? Real estate? Think on this one.

7. There are only 26 days left in the month, 10 days until the magical Dec 15th manual shut down switch. Don't start anything new if you can finish off projects for 2007. Sneak away for 90 minutes this week for a Starbucks and work on your plan for 2008.

8. Don't send me anything for Christmas. I need nothing, I want nothing. Give it to a homeless shelter. Christmas is a horrible time to be homeless.

9. I will have a limited number of leads for weight loss in early 2008. These are US-based people complete with name, mailing address, phone, email and who have downloaded a special report on losing weight safely. You'll get them 24-36 hours after they read the report. If interested leave me a comment with what you think is a fair price per lead.

10. One of the coolest things I have seen is the ability to pre-order books on Amazon. I just got an email telling me that a book I pre-ordered in June just shipped. It's Eddie Bravo's "Mastering The Twister".

11. Thanks to Rook Sales and Marketing PTY LTD for buying me a Corona through Paypal! Much appreciated amigo.

Peace!

Dead end jobs.

Working at Walmart
Vinyl record engineer
Buggy whip salesman
Working as a Bell long distance 411 rep
Travel agent
Rotary telephone repairman
Pop star with coke problem

And now… being a TV news anchor.

Have you seen News At Seven yet?

Two talking avatars read you the news that YOU want and show video clips in real time. Custom content topics suited to your needs, consumable while you do other tasks. Very cool. Its still in beta….you get to be one of the first to try it.

You'll one day tell your grandkids how tough you used to have it…comic books came on paper and were a dollar, we walked to school uphill in the snow barefoot both ways, and humans once read the news on a box called a telmibishon.

My body is aching…I've spent the last 2 weeks training with our amateur mixed martial arts team. We're getting ready to head down to Mansfield Ohio for a big MMA card on the September long weekend. As assistant coach one of my duties seems to get the crap pounded out of me by kids 15 years younger than me and 40 pounds heavier. Sure makes my fight game improve, just in order to keep my head attached to my neck!

We took a few rookie fighters down to Geneva Ohio a few weeks ago for a card. These road trips are always a blast. The evening of the fight always concludes with a massive party of some description. Geneva is a lake front resort town with an insane night life!

I'm hanging out drinking my 5th Budweiser eating a Gyro around midnight with our tribe of fighters and coaches at one of the lake front bars. A rough looking biker dude and his bleach blond biker babe ask me if the Gyro is any good. I endorse it highly to them. They can instantly tell I'm from out of town by my accent (and the fact that I have all my own teeth!). I nod and mumble 'Canada' in-between bites.

'Canada' must have been a trigger word of some sort. This biker dude starts off on a rant of such spectacular madness that I have rarely seen or heard its equal. I was under the mistaken confusion that Geneva Ohio was big-time Republican country. You know, "George Bush A-O-Kay!" kind of place…man, was I wrong.

This bizarre biker dude went off with the zeal of a fire and brimstone street corner preacher. He explained in great detail all of the most intricate conspiracy theories imaginable. Since I was enjoying my Gyro and Bud, I let him fire both barrels. Soon he wasn't just lecturing me and his old lady…he had a small throng of enthralled listeners at the bar huddled around him gleaning his wisdom!

He touched on everything…JFK…UFO's…FEMA…Skull And Bones Society…The Freemasons…The Illuminati…Dick Cheney…the face on Mars…the pyramid on the back of the one dollar bill…he even explained the mistakes in The Da Vinci Code.

This dude was breathing through his ears, because he didn't need to take a single lung full of air during his monologue. I kept looking over at his wife/chick/old lady to see if she realized that her old man/dude/freak was insane…but she acted like he was Dan Rather reading the evening news.

After about 15 minutes of listening to a regurgitation of the Nick Cage National Treasure movie script, I got bored. There was enough of a crowd that I was able to finish my Gyro, and slip out like a ninja clutching the neck on my Budweiser.

Are you into conspiracy theories?

What's your take on it all?

Leave me your thoughts below.

TIME TO LAUGH: here is a hilarious clip by comedian Lewis Black. As always, LANGUAGE WARNING!

Have you ever had a great idea?

Did you act on it?

I had an idea about 10 years ago for a TV show. We'd take 4 or 5 bottom rung celebrities, and a hot blond chickie poo host, and send them into haunted locations to spend the night. I called it Celebrity Ghost Hunter. I told a couple of buddies about it over a beer one night. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to 2000. MTV has a short lived show called Fear. It was exactly my show. Fast forward to 2006. Vh1 has a show called Celebrity Paranormal Project. Exact same idea as my show. You get to see 90's hip hop artist Coolio, boxing legend Evander Holyfield, playboy bunny Nikki Ziering, and even Wee Man from Jackass running around old cult compounds and insane asylums scaring the bejeebus out of themselves.

My buddy Marlon Sanders told me once that every brain on Earth is interconnected with some sort of invisible energy. If you have a great idea for a new invention, a whole bunch of people on the planet have that exact same idea. Who ever acts on that idea by pumping more energy into it usually gets out in front of the pack.

I still haven't given up on my Celebrity Ghost Hunter idea. Now that there are 500 TV channels, and an infinite number of internet channels, I realized that chasing ghosts might have a broader appeal than just the B list celebs.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

I'll share my ghost story with you. It happened a few years ago when I was helping my good buddy Jack Squatro build his downline in network marketing. We were doing an in-home presentation for a friend of his in Hamilton Ontario named Matt and his wife.

We sat at the kitchen table drawing circles and explaining the plan. As we wrapped up we were visiting, drinking tea and shooting the shit. I heard a young child's voice from upstairs say loudly, "Daddy!"

Matt's wife's face turned very serious. She looked at Matt and said, "That's not our child's voice!".

Matt did this weird shoulder shrug. I laughingly said, "That was a ghost for sure!". I looked at Jack. He gave me a bizzare look. In my classic oblivious-to-the-world manner I just kept visiting, drinking tea and laughing, not noticing the mood in the room had changed. 10 minutes later we jumped in the car to head back to Toronto.

Jack spilled the beans during the car ride. When Matt and his wife had moved into the century home, they had heard strange bumps from Day 1. One night when his wife was walking down the main staircase, she looked into the hallway mirror and saw an old woman standing on the stairs behind her! She turned around, shrieked…and no one was there. (cue scary music!)

I told Jack that the hairs on the back of my neck had stood on end when that ghost kid had said "Daddy!". Jack gasped, really loud like an asthmatic fish out of water…."Dave, dude, that voice didn't say Daddy! I clearly heard it say Mommy!"

Jack and I went back about a month later to show the plan for Matt's guest. The meeting was totally uneventful, we signed up the new couple, drank some tea and hung out. As Jack and I were getting our shoes on in the hallway, I asked Matt if there had been any cool close encounters. He shrugged and said things had been really quiet. At that exact moment, the light above our heads turned off for 2 seconds, then back on. Jack, Matt and I looked at each other…no one had turned off the light. I laughed out loud! Excellent….

The third visit to Matt's house I had to skip at the last minute, so Jack went alone to show the plan for Matt. Jack called me from the road that night. The guest had no-showed, so he and Matt sat in the living room having a coffee and hanging out. Suddenly a little boy, roughly 4 years old with red hair ran into the living room, past the two of them, and directly into a wall, vanishing!

Jack turned to Matt and said, "Did you just see that?" Matt shrugged his shoulders…"Maybe…what did you just see?"

Jack and I haven't been back to Matt's in some time. We're hoping to visit this summer, armed with a video camera and some ghost hunting equipment. Who knows, perhaps Celebrity Ghost Hunter might happen after all?

Do you believe in ghosts? Leave me your thoughts in the comment field below.

For those of you who love ghosts, I found some compelling video footage of a ghost, complete with audibles, so turn up your speakers. If you have a bad heart or are easily scared, watch at your own risk!

"Man, it's a hot one…like seven inches from the midday sun…" - Rob Thomas, my hot wife's favorite singer.

What's the deal with this "dog days of summer" stuff? Google to the rescue.

Turns out those crazy old Roman pagans called this time of the year the "Dog Days of Summer" because a mysterious star named Sirius (the dog star) would rise and fall during this period. It was the brightest star in the sky…maybe it was producing the extra heat? The poor Romans…the intense heat drove them crazy and made them have orgies all the time.

Strange thing is it wasn't the Romans who named Sirius the "dog star". It was the Egyptians. It was linked to their god Osirus, who had the head of a dog. When Sirius was rising, it was a time of prosperity for their crops.

Funny thing about Sirius…a remote tribe of Africans worship the star and said aliens visited them a few thousand years ago from Sirius. They somehow knew that Sirius had a twin star orbiting it, even though there was no possible way to know it was a binary star without a super telescope.

Strange, eh?

Stay cool brothers and sisters…milder weather is no doubt ahead!

I did a Google search for "smell that" to see if DidYouSmellThat.com would show up. The first page of results were for classic rock legend Lynyrd Skynrd's song "That Smell". I was no where to be found.

I'm not sure if anyone under the age of 30 that reads this blog has heard of Lynyrd Skynrd. No, I haven't misspelled their name. Check out the lyrics and do not surrender to astonishment…

Artist: Lynyrd Skynyrd
Song: That Smell

Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you're in my way
There's too much coke and too much smoke
Look what's going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Angel of darkness is upon you
Stuck a needle in your arm
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose
One more drink fool, will drown you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Now they call you Prince Charming
Can't speak a word when you're full of 'ludes
Say you'll be all right come tomorrow
But tomorrow might not be here for you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Hey, you're a fool you
Stick them needles in your arm
I know I been there before

One little problem that confronts you
Got a monkey on your back
Just one more fix, Lord might do the trick
One hell of a price for you to get your kicks
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Ever have one of those uber-eerie coincidences that make you positive the universe is giggling at you?

I'm on total gamma-charged freakout right now…let me share it with you.

On Saturday I was lying on the couch having a "recharge day", watching the British Open. Around 2 o'clock I haven't shaved or showered, look like a bum, and am nestled into the ass-groove watching golf on my 60 inch screen as it drizzles rain in sunny old Scotland. Falia hisses at me to get off the couch, and come with her to the mall. I grumble, complain for 3 seconds, pop on a hat and we go to the store. She drops me at the bookstore as she runs off to do her thing.

What book do I feel like reading today?

I've been planning some major life changes for 2008. Martial arts has been the best thing for me mentally in the last decade. I feel so much better than I ever have. What else can I learn that will fire up the old fear factor of trying something new? I remember an old saying, "If you aren't living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!" What can I learn that will challenge me and scare the bejeebus out of me?

I find myself in the ARTS section.

Documentary film making?

Sure, sounds like a blast. I think I'll learn how to make movies!

I buy two books. The Mad Hot Adventures Of An Unlikely Documentary Filmmaker by Amy Sewell and Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez. I devoured them both over the weekend. Making movies is hard work…perfect!

For the past two days I have been thinking up cool ideas for a movie.

Get ready, here comes the wild part….

The phone rings today.

It's Steven Greenstreet from Salt Lake City. He's a documentary film maker working on a brand new film about the childhood obesity epidemic in America. He read a press release from my martial arts store about how kids are flocking to dojos and are finding dramatic health changes through working out with martial arts. He wonders if I might have some footage that might be useful for his movie.

Spooky….

I contain the freak-out energy for a few minutes as we visit and talk shop. 48 hours ago a crazy idea popped into my head and I decided that I wanted to learn how to make documentary films. And out of the blue a real live director calls me on the phone and asks me to send him some video clips to screen for a new film.

I mean COME ON!

(cue the Twilight Zone music)

Here's a really eerie twist…this afternoon at practice I was wrestling a 17 year old kid who's 245 pounds. He should walk around at 185 or 190. As this fat bugger was trying to choke me I thought to myself, "This fat bugger is trying to choke me!" He'll be perfect to get on the video clip with a handful of other teens we have at the gym who are shedding the pounds at light speed and are having a blast doing it.

Ok, that kind of wraps up the "Woo-Woo" for today. Man, it was like a jolt of electricity shot through me when I realized who I was talking to. Super freaky stuff going down. Who knows, maybe in a year or two you'll see me bodyslam Michael Moore at Cannes or take down Morgan Spurlock at Sundance!

I just realized that now that I've put it out there…I'll have to trust that the path will reveal itself, eh? Share your thoughts with me, leave me a comment below!

WARNING: this post contains ZERO marketing tips today. Only read ahead if you are not offended by rock and roll!

In January of 1992 I moved to Winnipeg Manitoba. I was living in a house with 5 other guys, and my rent was $200 a month. I drove a two-tone van. I call it two-tone because it was blue and rust. It used to be a prison work vehicle. I bought it at a government auction for $800. The thing was huge!

I was managing a local Winnipeg rock band called The Ballroom Zombies. I hauled gear, helped set up gigs, put up flyers around town, and promoted the shows. Every dime of money made by the band went into gas, gear and Molson Canadian…by 1996 I was making a six-figure income in network marketing and financed the bands first album. Again, every dime made by the band went into gas, gear and Molson Canadian….ah, the financial glory of the Canadian indie rock scene!

Fast forward through time to 2007. The Ballroom Zombies have broken up, but Robin Black, their charismatic frontman has gained national rock notoriety with his solo projects and a few TV show appearances. Robin Black, a true renaissance man, not only rocks hard and appears on Much Music but is a black belt in taekwondo and a blue belt in jiu jitsu.

I'm gonna kick his Canadian glam-rockin' tattooed self all over the dojo today! We're training together for 4 hours at Kombat Arts as I get ready for my NAGA Grappling Tournament next week in Ohio.

While I'm practicing getting out of armbars, here's a YouTube Video of Robin Black and The Intergalactic Rockstars for your viewing pleasure…whatever you do today, make sure you rock hard!

This weekend I saw a guy walking a super-muscular dog on a chain. I had to look twice to make sure it really was a pitbull. The provincial government recently enacted legislation to ban the entire pitbull breed in Ontario.

I did some checking on top breeds for 2006 compared to 2005 in terms of popularity. Here are the top 30 dog breeds most-searched by Lycos users for the past four weeks ending February 18, 2006 compared with 2005 ranking in parenthesis. Some of the breeds are the fashionable brand new mash-ups. As you can see the Pitbull was the most popular searched dog term last year. (does anyone really use Lycos anymore to search for anything?)

1. Pitbull (3)
2. Puggle
3. Bulldog (1)
4. Chihuahua (6)
5. Greyhound (5)
6. Boxer (15)
7. Rottweiler (10)
8. Beagle (8)
9. Dachshund (11)
10. Pomeranian (27)
11. Poodle (9)
12. Pug (4)
13. Yorkshire Terrier (28)
14. Mastiff (14)
15. Labradoodle
16. Great Dane (12)
17. Papillon (26)
18. Golden Retriever (2)
19. Boston Terrier (25)
20. Shitzu (16)
21. Akita (18)
22. Doberman Pincher (29)
23. Siberian Husky (22)
24. Collie (24)
25. German Shepherd (7)
26. American Staffordshire Terrier (23)
27. Border Collie (21)
28. Australian Shepherd
29. Basset Hound (17)
30. Welsh Corgi (20)

It's another face-melting day here in Toronto…temperatures around 45 Celcius with the humidity! (that's 110 F for the Americans and Upper Voltans)

I opened my mail this morning to find a bright red envelope…Joy oh Joy! It's my copy of Yanik Silver's Underground Secret Society Dossier! Every month he sends classified documents to sleeper cell operatives like myself. He tries to "wake us up" (get it, sleeper cell, good huh?) to new and innovative methods of marketing. It's always packed with ah-ha! moments. (you can get a free month at http://www.undergroundsecretsociety.com — no affiliate link, add this to your learning library!)

This month's issue talked about "Contest Marketing". I am a huge fan of contests. Back in the nineties when I was actively building my direct sales organizations I deliberately tried to win every possible contest I could. I think over the years Falia and I earned 4 or 5 free cruises because of production contests. Did you know you get to eat 15 separate meals on a cruise?

Anyhow, back to the contests. I am wracking my brain to design a cool contest for my Internet Marketing Interns. If you're not a part of the Intern Program, you should be! You get 4-5 emails a week in a totally free internet marketing training program. It has a real focus on creating immediate traffic through Web 2.0 techniques and immediate income through blogging. You can sign up for a no-risk trial here: Free Internet Marketing Training Course.

The contest for the Interns would run for 1-2 weeks, short and sweet. They'd have to complete 3 or 4 tasks related to Web 2.0 promotion. And as a reward they'd qualify for either a draw for something cool, or everyone would win something smaller and maybe 2 or 3 grand prizes.

I need your opinion.

What 3 or 4 marketing tasks should the Interns have to complete?
What prizes should I offer?

Leave me your thoughts in the comment field below. Be specific, think zany, crazy, off the wall, think Web 2.0, think torturing poor interns, think huge amazing prizes! What ideas can you share? Let me hear from you!