Hey guys, it’s reached 41c here today so I reckon we are going to have a real bitch of a summer. It’s so damn hot in this office that even the thermometer died from heat stroke. At least that’s what I thought, but it turned out that the damn batteries are flat. Either way it’s damn hot in here.

Anyway, all this damn heat is going to result in a short post, one whose only intention is to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope that next year will bring you some of the things you’ve been wishing for, let’s face it if we’re greedy we’ll probably end up with nothing.

Here’s to good health and a blogging good year.

Should I be lucky enough to attract some comments with post, don’t be surprised if I don’t reply to everyone individually.

The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is!

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

Hey guys, it’s Christmas morning here in Australia, and the kids, 21 year old son and an almost 18 year old daughter are still in bed.

I shouldn’t even be on right now and I reckon the wife would have a few words if she found out but I just had to pop in to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas, and I hope that everyone has a blogging good year.

Oh, it wouldn’t be the same if I din’t leave an ad in the post for someone to click on, and I know no-one will but that the heck.

The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is!

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

I would like to thank Rose for her post Christmas Holiday Themes For Wordpress, as it motivated me into giving WassupBlog a Christmas theme. This would be my third theme modification, as I’ve already made one for Easter and Halloween. Naturally, the FlexSqueeze theme makes it all so easy that I actually look forward to playing around with it to blend it in with the holiday seasons.

The first thing I had to do was to find a suitable header. I finally decided to borrow one from another theme as I felt it set the right mood. Then I reduced the width of the blog so that it would display the Santa image that I chose for the background.

Adding An Image To Comment Box

I thought it would be pretty cool if I could jazz up the comment box a little by adding some snowflakes so I had a little look at the CSS file to see what I could do. For those of you who were wise enough to purchase the FlexSqueeze theme I thought you might like to know how I did it.

You will need to edit the ’style.css’ file and I strongly urge you to make a backup before playing around with it.

First find the following lines;

#commentform input, #commentform textarea {
padding:5px;

Below that add the following;

background: url(images/bg-snowflakes5.gif);

Substitute ‘bg-snowflakes5.gif’ for whatever file you want to use as your background, remembering that the file has to be uploaded first in order for it to work. This is a cinch using the upload feature that comes with FlexSqueeze!  I suggest you use a very light colored file otherwise people will not be able to see what they are typing.

Adding An Image To Your Post Background

To add to the Christmas look of the blog I decided to change the background of the post area, and for this I chose a lovely snow scene. If you would like to do something similar to your blog then once again you will need to add a little bit of code to your ’style.css’ file.

Find the following lines;

#content {
width:935px;
position:relative;
float:left;

Just below that enter the following line.

background: url(images/bg-snow-scene.jpg);

Once again substitute ‘bg-snow-scene.jpg’ by the image you’ve selected.

It is important to remember that these modifications to the ’style.css’ file of this  theme will most likely not work on your theme. These modifications can still be done on most themes but you will have to find the right areas that need to be changed.

Apart from these style.css changes all other changes were done via FlexSqueeze’s option page.  The images were all obtained from Free Web Images And Clipart , except for the header which I got from leadcamp.com.

Oh, one last thing. In case you are wondering how I got it to snow, it was by using the Let It Snow plugin.

EDIT: I’ve deactivated the plugin as I noticed it caused a bit of drain on the CPU, and possible made the blog somewhat slower. Even so, I reckon the blog may still remind people of Christmas.

The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is!

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

Yep, it’s poetry time again. This one is a little different and has absolutely nothing to do with blogging. I am and always have been a firm believer in God and Jesus but am not one to force it down peoples throat. I could never understand those religious zealots who continually try to force their ideals on others and have always felt that they are doing more harm than good.

Too bad that they don’t behave as Jesus did while he was amongst us. The only time that I can remember when he was angry was in Matthew 21:12

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

Other than that, He would go about preaching, and those who would listen did. There was no brow beating and the disciples certainly weren’t in the habit of whipping people into submission.

Anyway, I digress and certainly don’t want to start Bible bashing. Without further ado, I present to you

The Child Of God

I am a child of God
I am saved for I believe
For those who judge me
Judge not lest thou be judged
For with what judgement ye judge
Ye shall be judged
Fools, know thee that only He judges
For there is no mote in God’s eye
Only He sees clearly to judge

There are many who profess to be saved
They are the haughty fools
Those who judge others
Not knowing their own lives
They raise their placards
Full of hateful slogans
Rather than bring others to God
Their actions turn them away
Better to offer another path
For those finding themselves in strife

Ours is not to force these to believe
But to lead the way in the hope
Those who follow may be saved
Those who do not may not be ready
Their time may not be ripe
And none on earth can judge them
Many are those who believe
Who visit the House of the Lord
They tithe and profess their love of Jesus
On the pedestal that they place themselves
They see not the plight of the needy
That of those less fortunate
When they do stumble upon the homeless
Living in their poverty and filth
They draw back in disgust and horror
And no helping hand is offered

Hypocrites, they are like the Pharisees
And yet even I cannot judge
Not knowing how I would I react
Were I to meet those in need
Even non-believers may offer a helping hand
Yet many live in the fear of salvation
They ban religion from state schools
And crosses are removed from gravesites
On the pretence of offence
Many wrongful acts are committed
And innocents on both sides suffer
Atrocities occur in the name of religion
Yet none by the will of God
Mankind is the root of all evil
For heretics who preach violence
Have a personal agenda
Inflicting pain and death
On infidels and innocent alike
All in the name of God
A God who does not need man
To fight for his righteousness

From birth until death we decide
Upon the path we shall take
Though He is a merciful God
He has left us to our own devices
But we are not alone
The Spirit talks to those who listen
But many fail to follow
For the path is too hard
Though the prize is worth the hardship
Many will be lost to the glory and vices
Offered by Satan and his followers
Some call it a conscience
But whatever the name
The choice we make is our own.

So, why a poem with obvious religious overtones? I can safely say it was all Eren’s fault. I’ve been a regular reader of her blog Embracing Home, although I haven’t commented nearly enough. Still, there is plenty of time for that. Anyway, it was her last post titled How to cure and heal severe anxiety. I enjoyed that post and found it very thought provoking, and it sort of inspired me to post this poem.

The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is!

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!

As time flies by so quickly that it’s almost imperceivable to the average person, one comes upon that special time of the month where those of us post our stats for the month that’s left us in it’s wake.

That month just happens to be October and I really expected to have a pretty dismal earning report to post. This is because October turned out to be so busy in my personal/business life that I didn’t do all that much blogging, or even commenting.

And yet, once I checked all the stats, although it was less than the previous month, I was very pleasantly surprised.

• Adsense: $24.87
• Voxsant: $0.14
• Kontera: $0.07
• Clix Galore: $0.25
• Chitika: $0.90
• Infolinks: $2.46
• Advertisers: $10
• Commission Junction: $100
• E-Junkie: $39.00
• Jumbo Affiliates: $8.10
• RegNow: $0.00
• Paid Posts: $0.00
• Commission Monster: $7.43
• Amazon Associates: $0.00
• CashBurners: $0.00

TOTAL: $193.22

Just shy of $200 by a few bucks, but considering that my Adsense earnings was up I was pretty rapped with the month’s takings. I’ve decided to give Kontera the flick as it really isn’t performing all that well, and give it’s spot to Infolinks.

The biggest earner, once again was Commission Junction, and I reckon it has a lot to do with my ‘Pop Quiz’ that I have below my header, so even though I’ve had a couple of people tell me that I should change it, I reckon I’ll leave it be awhile longer.

The FlexSqueeze Theme gives my blog that professional look. I loved it so much that I bought the developers license. It's the easiest most customizable theme I've come across. See how easy it is to change your theme's appearance! Compare it to Thesis to see how much better it is!

I highly recommend you to get your FlexSqueeze copy today!