Keiron’s daily take on life, the internet and the world around us!

New Yorkers (and visitors to the area who had the foresight to carry things around that irritate them!) have said goodbye to their bad memories from 2009 in a public shredding ceremony in Times Square.

photo credit: Ben Brown

Items that got shredded included:

• Letters from ex-lovers,
• Photos of ex-lovers,
• Redundancy letters,
• and newspaper clippings of bad days for people’s favourite sports teams!

This is the third event of it’s kind!

One “shredder” placed a piece of paper into the shredder that simply said “Writer’s Block” – she hopes to write a musical this year.

For items that could not be shredded, the Times Square Alliance were most helpful in providing a sledgehammer and a large waste-container.

What would we have in the UK, maybe the “Pointless Kitchen Gadgets Destruction Day?” – Let me know in the comments!

TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer’s field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR – THE BELL DOESN’T WORK)

I’ve had a really busy week this week, so busy that I didn’t notice it was the Business Startup show at Olympia yesterday and today, I debated getting on the road early this morning and coming back early but as I have family here for the weekend it seemed a little silly.. So a little blue yesterday I browsed the web for some startup information to make up for it.

That’s when I came across 24 Hour Startup, where a group of people from Nonsense have decided to build a web-based startup and launch it all in 24 hours.. I love this idea!!

At midday yesterday they didn’t even know what they would be building, as of this morning it has a name, a logo, code, and it’s own blog, AND it will launch in just 3 hours time! This is an amazing achievement and if Neil Cocker’s estimates are anything to go buy it could make a lot of money (hey why aren’t I doing this?!).

Now as I was feeling blue yesterday and they’ve brightened my day, I’m hoping they’ll let me have the Blue gift for writing this blog post and putting it out on Twitter! Plus I think was @dr_hue’s second friend!?

It usually is!

As usual, I’m always on the look out for a bit of a business opportunity and when one appears I give it serious thought, so last week when I spotted a website for sale for £995 I asked for further details.

The website in question was an information site in many ways, with Google Adsense Ads, Amazon links and Clickbank links… Sounds just the sort of thing I’m interested in and when I found out it had been making close to £2000 in the last six Months that really grabbed my interest!

I’m the sort of person that likes to mitigate as much risk as possible, and having just read Theo Paphitis biography this week I was determined to make sure this was the right deal for me! A few questions later and the seller had produced me a nice little spreadsheet that suggested he had only ever spent £200 on advertising… £2000 in six months, I’m very interested – so I asked him for some proof of those numbers.

At this time the price dropped to £695, great! I enquired about escrow and asked for the proofs I required… The seller agreed to escrow payments and provided me with a Word document of his bank statement – how very trusting.

I went a little further and did some research on the domain name, it appeared to only have been registered a month ago! The explanation for this was that he had just renewed it… I hate to say it but owning a hosting company the alarm bells started to ring!

I’ve asked for screenshots of Google/Amazon or access to the account (I’d accept doing it over VNC or Netmeeting) it’s not forthcoming, I’ve gone back to the bank statement this morning and noticed it includes very few other transactions than the one I’m interested in (does this guy spend no money?). The seller can’t produce statistics on visitors for me…

It’s a shame as I was genuinely interested, and would have been interested if it was making a lot less too…
(Oh and it’s £500 now!)

I realise it’s been quiet here again for some time (at least on the writing front)– I’ve not had much to write about…. I’ve been super busy getting myself all sorted out!

The hosting business is about to become a limited company, I’ve gone part time at work, I’ve demolished my Mum’s garden and somewhere in the midst of that I’ve found time to book a holiday!

I’ve got a busy couple of weeks until we’re away so don’t expect too much (see what I’m doing, apologising before I don’t post!) until my accounts are out of the way – I’m automating lots more this year to try to stay on top of them (he says very hopefully!).

The automation has taught me a lot though – I maybe ought to look for other people that need their Quickbooks life simplifying!

On that note – I have a list as long as your arm to start and I want to settle down with a beer this evening – so I shall catch up with you all soon…

I made this post from posterous, a new service I’m testing – let me know what you think!

Posted via web from keiron’s posterous<

I made this post from posterous, a new service I’m testing – let me know what you think!

Posted via web from keiron’s posterous<