http://www.uk-prizedraw.info http://www.onlinegiftsuk.info This is Danyl Johnson's audition. Enjoy! For any massive fans of Danyl visit http://www.danyljohnsonfansite.net for more

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you reading this and I wish I had a lot more subscribers to my blog because this is a heartfelt message that I felt I needed to get across.  On my page you will see a photo of a little Princess named Griselda.  You will also see that Griselda passed away recently.  What you don’t see is the spirit of a fighter who fought the hardest fight of her life and emerged victorious for a while until God decided it was time for her to leave her earthly life and join his kingdom.  Griselda’s family has been hit much harder by the state of the economy than a lot of us I suspect and while they struggled through a memorial service and cost of same, they need help with the cost of a grave marker.  Times are extremely hard for all of us right now but when I look around at people in fast food restaurants or even in stores, I want them to ask themselves, do I really need that Big Mac, Fries and a Soda, or even that new pair of jeans or should the cost of that value meal or pair of jeans go to someone who is really in need?  What I hope that they hear from the little voice in their head is that right now I need to make a difference in anyway I can because that family could be me or my family.  None of us knows what direction our lives are going to suddenly be shifted to.  $5, $10 or whatever could help.  Such small amount could really make a difference in their lives and yours.  Please, please, please do what you can!  Just click on Griselda’s photo and it will take you to Team Griselda’s site.  There you can make a donation through PayPal from the comfort of your home or if you prefer via mail…

Donations can be sent to:

Team Griselda

P.O. Box 261

Gilbert, AZ  85299

Borrowed from Aunt Mom's Post:


My #2 on my friends list is the NEW page for Griselda. It is there to make it EASY for all of us to send something to help with the cost of her grave marker.   A PayPal account is set up so you can donate that way. An address is provided in case you'd rather send a cash, check or money order. 
The family has to have $1,700 dollars for the headstone. That is a LOT of money to each of us but not so much for ALL of us. Get it? We know as well as anyone knows that money is TIGHT right now. BUT, I sent some money and when I can, if it is still needed, I will send more. 
I imagine that there is a blessing in store for anyone and everyone that gives to this cause. 
To lose a child, live with the grief and have no money for a grave marker would only add to the torture. 

Let's help give this family something BEAUTIFUL to remember Princess Griselda.   No amount is too large or too small. If you can mail a dollar, do it. PLEASE!   AND, send this on to your friends and family. We never met Griselda but we fell in love with her.   We feel like we are honoring MILA, too, since she brought Andi and Griselda together. So, while those angels explore Heaven together.... let's do something to make life easier for some grieving parents.

User-Generated Content may have changed the internet, but sites like YouTube are suffocating under the costs of storing it.

By Farhad Manjoo Posted Tuesday, April 14, 2009, at 6:17 PM ET

YouTube's losses are unsustainable .  Everyone knows that print newspapers are our generation's horse-and-buggy; in the most wired cities, they've been pummeled by competition from the Web. But it might surprise you to learn that one of the largest and most-celebrated new-media ventures is burning through cash at a rate that makes newspapers look like wise investments. It's called YouTube: According a recent report by analysts at the financial-services company Credit Suisse, Google will lose $470 million on the video-sharing site this year alone. To put it another way, the Boston Globe, which is on track to lose $85 million in 2009, is five times more profitable—or, rather, less unprofitable—than YouTube. All so you can watch this helium-voiced oddball whenever you want.

YouTube's troubles are surprisingly similar to those faced by newspapers. Just like your local daily, the company is struggling to sell enough in advertising to cover the enormous costs of storing and distributing its content. Newspapers have to pay to publish and deliver dead trees; YouTube has to pay for a gargantuan Internet connection to send videos to your computer and the millions of others who are demanding the most recent Dramatic Chipmunk mash-up. Google doesn't break out YouTube's profits and losses on its earnings statements, and of course it's possible that Credit Suisse's estimates are off. But if the analysts are at all close, YouTube, which Google bought in 2006, is in big trouble. As Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the rival video-streaming company Fliqz, pointed out in a recent article for Silicon Alley Insider, not even Google can long sustain a company that's losing close to half a billion dollars a year.

But YouTube's problems point to a larger difficulty for many Web startups: "User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross. Two years ago, Time magazine named "you" its Person of the Year for doing your small part in fueling the Web 2.0 revolution. The magazine argued that by collecting and distributing the creations of millions of individuals, the Web is upending the way we learn about what's going on in the world around us. There's no doubt this is true; you experienced the presidential inauguration through millions of pictures captured by ordinary people, and a lot of what you learn these days comes from articles put together by the anonymous hordes who power Wikipedia. Yet even though they've changed the way we live, sites that collect and share content produced by all of us haven't done the one thing many tech evangelists said they'd do—make a ton of money. Or, in many cases, any money.

There's a simple reason for this: Advertisers don't like paying very much to support homemade photos and videos. As a result, the economics of user-generated sites are even more crushing than those of the newspaper business. At least newspapers see a proportional relationship between circulation and revenues—when the paper publishes great stories, it attracts more readers, and, in time, more advertisers. At YouTube, the relationship can be backward: The videos that get the most clicks—and are thus most expensive for YouTube to carry—trend toward the sort of lewd or random flavor that doesn't sit well with advertisers. Look at some of the site's hits over the last few days: a clip of a guest fainting on Glenn Beck's show filched from Fox News; a video of a Brazilian soccer coach punching a referee, also recorded from TV; a cell phone capture showing Britney Spears misidentify the city she's performing in; and a shot of a "boob grab" among spectators at the Masters golf tournament. Would you pay to stick your product's logo under any of them?

Probably not—YouTube sells ads on fewer than 10 percent of its videos. Credit Suisse estimates that 375 million people around the world will play about 75 billion YouTube videos this year. To serve up all these streams, the company has to pay for a broadband connection capable of hurtling data at the equivalent of 30 million megabits-per-second—about 6 million times as fast as your home Internet connection. All this bandwidth costs Google $360 million a year, the analysts estimate. Then there's the cost of the videos themselves: Even though many of the site's most popular content is uploaded for free from users, Credit Suisse says YouTube spends about $250 million a year to acquire licenses to broadcast professionally produced videos. Add in all other expenses, and the cost of running YouTube for one year exceeds $700 million. But the company makes only a fraction of that back in advertising—about $240 million in revenues for 2009, according to the report.

YouTube isn't alone in Poor House 2.0. Yahoo bought the popular photo-sharing site Flickr in 2005, and though the service might be marginally profitable, it certainly hasn't added appreciably to Yahoo's bottom line. (Yahoo similarly doesn't break out Flickr's financials.) Facebook provides an even better example. The social network is running up a huge tab to store and serve up all the photos, videos, and other junk you stuff into your profile. Last year, TechCrunch reported that Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity, $500,000 a month on bandwidth, and up to $2 million per week on new servers to keep up with its users' insatiable photo-uploading needs. (Members post nearly a billion photos every month.) But Facebook gets relatively little in return for storing all your memories. Ad rates on its network are terribly low, the company doesn't make a profit, and it hasn't shed any light on how it will make good on investments that valued the company at $15 billion.

For all the frenzy surrounding citizen-produced media, the content that seems to do best online is the same stuff that did well offline—content produced by professionals. My colleague Jack Shafer recently listed the many services that people are willing to pay for online. They include music from iTunes, game videos from MLB.TV, reviews from Consumer Reports, and articles from the Wall Street Journal—and nothing made on some dude's cell phone. Or look at Hulu, the video site that shows TV shows and movies. It attracts far less traffic than YouTube does (and thus pays far less for bandwidth). But because advertisers are willing to pay much more to be featured on its videos, Hulu is on track to match YouTube's revenues and with much lower overhead.

YouTube has been trying to catch up to Hulu in the non-user-generated video business. It has signed content-licensing deals with several ..Hollywood.. studios and recording companies in the hopes that it can attract an audience—and advertisers—for the kind of quality programming we now run to Hulu for. But as Benjamin Wayne points out, those deals won't solve YouTube's fundamental problem; even if it does begin to make respectable profits from, say, showing old feature films, it'll still have to keep paying huge infrastructure costs to host the world's home videos. It's possible that over the next few years, Google's engineers could find a way to reduce dramatically the costs of hosting such a service. (They're capable of amazing things.) But that proposition is iffy. As ....Wayne.... argues, there's a very real possibility that YouTube as we know it is doomed. The company may have to institute restrictions to keep its bandwidth in check, or it could unveil any number of pay-per-use schemes (as some other video sites have done). Then the video free-for-all that we've grown to love will come to an end.

That would be unfortunate. Time wasn't wrong: YouTube and its fellow user-contributed sites really did change the world. Too bad nobody could find a way to pay for it.

Ordinarily it's hard for me to get passionate about politics because after all these last eight years have been a huge disappointment for me.  But this current campaign has not only given me something to be passionate about but has renewed my faith in this country.  On 9/11, we were attacked right here on our soil and we lost so many loved ones.  We vowed to go after those who were responsible but eight years later, we still have not captured the main person responsible for the horrendous acts perpetrated on us.  Mother nature's rath has been fueled by global warming a lot of which has been contributed to the way we have polluted this planet.  Gas and food prices are at an all time high and the real estate market has forced many out of their homes that they worked hard to acquire.  We are spending 10 billion dollars a month in Iraq, yet many people still do not have health care.  Even then, some who do have been denied radical life saving treatment because it would constitute a lack of insurance profit.

When asked, John McCain did not know how many houses he owns.  THAT'S INSANE!!!  My parents were common working folks who were die hard Democrats.  My Mother was ill quite often and inspite of working double shifts, my Father often took her to the hospital without sleep and without complaint.  I am a die hard Democrat who cares as much about my neighbor as I do myself.   I can not relate to what it's like to be wealthy.  I chased that American dream when I embarked on buying my house at the age of 25 making $3.10/hr.  Yes I was  making $3.10/hr. and it was a very hard struggle.  To me, the Republican party has always been about wealth and power.  So how on earth can they relate to the way I was raised.  How can they relate to people who struggle every day just to put food and medicine on the table or sometimes have to choose between the two.  I am angry that our service men and women are dying in Iraq while Osama Bin Laden still has not paid for the lives of our loved ones that were lost as we watched those planes hit the twin towers, not to mention the plane that was downed in PA and the one that hit the Pentagon.  I fully support our troops and this country for all the greatness it was founded on but my anger has not diminished. Joey and thousands of others like him experienced a terror before their last breath that none of us should have to experience.

I listened to the speeches that were given at the Democratic National Convention and the ideas and plans that were talked about are the same ideas I have, that I want for this great country.  I had hoped for a Obama/Clinton ticket because I felt that would have been the best of both worlds but that was not to happen.  I WANT CHANGE and I want that change as soon as possible.  Each night before I go to bed, I pray that all of our lives will be better, that there will be a better day.  Enough of the current state of this country is enough!!

I WANT CHANGE!!!  They say more young people are getting involved in this campaign in record numbers and supporting Obama and Biden.  That is because they want change too.

THIS is the team that I feel will make that change happen.

Some friends and I went to see Miranda Lambert perform at the House of Blues in Atlantic City Thursday.  I had a meet~n~greet pass to meet her...very sweet girl.  She put on a very good show!  However, the opening act John Eddie, I didn't care too much for.  The group are good performers but I guess it was the fact that the lead singer used the "F" word too much for my taste.  He even sang a song called "F...ing Forty".  I'm not prudish in anyway but there were kids there and even he said I probably shouldn't sing this song but I'm going to anyway.  Given the mixed crowd, I thought that was very inappropriate.  Sure kids hear it all the time but does that make it okay.  To me it doesn't.

Anyway, yesterday we spent some time lounging around a roof top pool at our hotel and then on the beach.  It was a fun and relaxing time, one which I could get used to doing every day!  Then, this morning I woke to find that the commedian Bernie Mac had died at the age of 50.  I knew that recently he was battling pneumonia but they said he was better and would be released from the hospital.  I cried and I wondered why it hit me so hard.  It was like losing a friend or family member.  After a while, I started to remember that my Mother passed away after having had pneumonia.  A week after she was released from the hospital, she was still short of breath but the doctor said she was fine.  Then she was gone.

I'm still crying and I will stop eventually but for now...

Yesterday, I was sitting in my living room when I heard a knock at my door.  I went to the door to find 2 young ladies. They said hi, we're__________ and __________ and we're in a contest to win a $5000. scholarship but we can only win with your help.  What kind of work do you do by the way, the one young lady asked.  My reply was met with awesome!  I could help them earn points by subscribing to some magazines, one for each young lady.  Now mind you, I'm all for education so why not.  I was asked if I had a pen as only one of them had a pen and by the way, can we pet your dog.  I politely said no, went inside to retrieve a pen, closing the door behind me.  The one young lady started making out my order and I asked what school they went to.  There's only one high school in this area and she did not say the name correctly.  (first alarm went off!) She said they both live on ___________ street.  She then asked if they could have some water.  Now mind you, ___________ street is only a couple of blocks from here.  The other young lady asked me to see what time it was.

Now it's time to compliment my shoes and the one young lady hands me the invoice to sign after asking for my address. Seeing that they supposedly live nearby, you would think they would know which street they were on and the number of my house is very clear. (second alarm)  I noticed on the invoice that she had the name of the city/town wrong.  I gave her a check for the subscription.  The other young lady didn't know the zip code for the invoice and on hers for the city/town she just put NJ.  Imagine that!  I handed her a check for the other subscription.  I asked the one young lady how soon the magazines would start to arrive.  She said the company holds the checks for 8 days so they should start in about 3 weeks.  You would have thought I had just handed both of them winning lottery tickets! 

Now here's where the really good part comes in.  After I went back inside with my receipts in hand and went to my computer, I went to the website for this company that supposedly has been in business since 1999, distributing magazines at a rate of 20 - 30% less than the newstand price.  And lo and behold there is practically nothing there.  No programs that they offer through subscriptions that kids may benefit from...AND it says magazine subscriptions should start to arrive in 2 - 4 months...AND when I clicked on contacts, it said numbers coming soon.  However, on the back of the invoices it says you may cancel your transaction within 3 business days.  So what did I do?  I did what I hope others might do in a similar situation.  I put a stop on the checks, which cost me nothing and I will be mailing in my cancellations tomorrow.

It's really sad if these kids are part of the scam (scam is how I see it) but what's even more sad is if these kids are being scammed into thinking they might win something that they never will. 

We went to get something to eat and hung out a bit.  Then Charmaine and I took Sheron to where she was staying out at Opryland and it was back to the room. The next afternoon, we headed to the River stages.  Bo Bice was onstage performing when we got there.  I can't remember the order of who we saw and I know I'm going to forget some but we saw Trent Wilmon, Ray Scott, Mark Wills, Darryl Worley, a young girl from Australia and Buddy Jewell. (though he wasn't last, I purposely wrote him in as last) I had picked up some poster board and made a sign that said "New Jersey (heart) Buddy Jewell".  Buddy rocked as his daughter watched from the back of the stage!  I'm not sure if Buddy saw the poster.  I was hoping he would and that it would be shot by the videographer and shown on the big screens so everyone could see how much we love Buddy.  After Buddy sang a few songs, he was joined by Ray, Mark and Trent and they really tore up the place!!  We stuck around for a little while more and then we headed to Fuel.  Fuel looks a lot smaller than on TV.  Chelsea Lena was onstage performing.  If there were a way of bottling the talent that was in town during Fan Fair, it would be OUTRAGEOUS!!!!  Nothing would have been better than to have somehow magically seen and met all of my friends here and at DR that were down there then.  But of course, that was not possible.  We got something to eat and then we met up with Lori, Tracy and Taylor (my friends from WI).  We hung out a bit and Tracy gave me his CD.  Trust me when I say the whole Stefans family is talented including Tyler!  Most of the restaurants had an hour and half wait to get seated and Lori, Tracy and Taylor wanted to eat so we said our goodbyes at Joe's Crab Shack and Charmaine and I decided to do some people watching from the steps of the Tatoo place at the corner of 3rd and Broadway (I believe).  Then we headed back to the room in Brentwood.

The following day, we decided that we were getting too worn out to go to the River stages and my back could not take more frying.  So we did our laundry and hung in the room a bit.  We had plans to see Olivia West perform at the Bluebird Cafe.  I hadn't printed out the details and brought them with me because I knew that was one thing we weren't going to miss.  I thought I remembered that the show started at 7:30P but something told me to call the Bluebird and I'm glad I did because I learned it was to start at 6:30P.  We got directions from the desk clerk and we arrived at about 5:30P to ensure we'd get a seat.  We took our seats and I was looking around for Olivia.  There was a lady standing at a table talking to another lady and when as she was walking to the bar, a man tried to give her a drink order.  She said she wasn't a waitress, she was the entertainment.  OMG...Olivia's photos do not do her justice.  She is one very pretty lady.  I went over and introduced myself and chatted a bit.  She introduced me to now friend, Melissa Bauer, singer/songwriter.  They sang wonderfully and the band was right on!!!  Before you knew it, the set was over. :(  Olivia came over and said that they were going across the street for food and cocktails and asked if we'd like to come hang out.  Olivia, Aaron (her husband), Melissa and some of the band mates and friends (hi Miranda!), myself and Charmaine ended up going to a Mexican restaurant, where we were joined by her two adorable little boys.  We ate and chatted for quite some time.  It was so nice meeting them all.  It felt like Olivia and I had known each other for some time.  She is one of the sweetest people I've met in a long time and it was facinating listening to her talk about how she got started in the business, etc.  After hanging out together for quite some time, we headed back to the Bluebird to get the rental.  We took photos together and hugged goodbye.  It was the coolest thing!!  Inspite of all the artists I've met in country, there was only one other that I ever got to hang out with and spend that kind of quality time with and that was BlackHawk.  I can now truly consider Ms. Olivia (Livi) West a friend and I sincerely hope I get to see her again soon!!

It will take a while to get my film developed but the memories of this trip to Fan Fair will live with me forever.

You may notice that my mood while writing this blog has been bummed.  It's because every time I go to Nashville (about 7 times now), it gets harder and harder to leave.  I even told the desk clerk that I could have my dog shipped here and stay.

We had to find a rest room and we stopped to check the schedule posted outside and it appeared at one point that they were not going in order.  We grabbed something and returned to catch Angela Hacker's performance and I asked what time Marty was going on.  The girl said that Marty had already been on but she thought he was still around.  She found him and we said hello and chatted a bit.  I was bummed that I missed his performance as he had sang "I'm Available". :(  I had bought Marty's CD some time ago so a photo was in order.  Like Richie, I knew Marty would be as equally nice and he was!  After watching a couple of other performances, we went for something to eat.  I knew I was going to miss Greg Alan's performance but I didn't eat much at Trisha's party and I was starting to get light-headed.  The performances we saw were on the lower level whereas the restaurant was on the first floor.  After eating we walked around a bit.  It was SO good to be back in Nashville after a long time away and there were so many people this year!!  We made a stop in Tootsie's, Legends and The Stage.  I believe it was in Legends that we caught Jypsi.  Those gals and guy rocked!  After retrieving the rental, we headed back to our room.  It was a fun day with more fun to come!  Friday morning, it was off to the Waffle House for breakfast again.  Then back to the room to get ready for Buddy Jewell's party which was to start at 2:00Pm.  We got directions to Bell Rd. and to where the party was to be held. ***Before I forget, we did see Richie's performance at B.B. Kings and he was really good!!!  Because of time constraints and the number of performers, each artist was permitted to do two songs and one of the ones Richie did was "Man Enough to Cry".  Oh, when Richie started to sign my CD, he asked what my real name was. LOL  Who would assume the name Cheryl?  If I were to utilize an assumed name it would probably be Lana...it's much more intriguing.  After which we saw a couple of more performances including a guy named Nick Nicholson. I'd never heard of him before but he was rather good, as well as a very young girl named Natalie Rose.  We also got a few free CD's.

We arrived at Buddy's party and he was in the banquet room setting up the audio system.  Since they were still preparing the room, we had to wait a little while before being let in.  It was then that I met Diane and Jim from NY.  Diane and I first became acquainted on DR.  Very nice people!  At most parties, the artist makes an entrance from elsewhere but since Buddy was already there, he stayed and walked around mingling with everyone.  Buddy is such a sweet guy and his pretty wife and beautiful kids were there too.  There was a silent auction for St. Judes and Buddy made available his new CD in it's stripped down version minus the art work.  I love "This Ain't Mexico".  Charmaine asked someone if she could video tape Buddy's performance.  So before Buddy started to sing, he said by all means video him singing and please do put it on youtube! (publicity is publicity and he's not with a major label right now)  In between songs, Buddy drew raffle tickets for door prizes.  Afterwards it was photos and autographs time.  When I got to Buddy, I asked about an email I received that was supposedly from him.  He said he did write and he writes all of his emails.  I just love Buddy, he's like a big old teddy bear who's losing it's stuffing and he looks really good!!  I thanked him for the party and gave him a hug. The auction had closed and it was soon time to gather my winnings and for us to leave.

Speeding things up now...before I left home I printed up who was going to be where performing, as much as I could anyway.  On Indian Rodeo's My Space, it said he'd be at the Ernest Tubb Record shop this day from 6:P-7:P  So we headed on downtown where my friend Sheron (hey sweetie!) met us at the shop.  How disappointing it was when we found out it was the day before.  We hopped on over to the Cadillac Ranch where I knew Billy Reasons would be performing and sure enough he was on stage singing.  Good job Billy!  After which Ansel Brown mingled with people introducing himself and I got a hug...woohoo!!  Ansel is really animated on the stage and really sings to the audience!  After his performance he said he'd be signing autographs.  I bought a denim jacket 2 years ago with the hopes of getting a lot of signatures on it to someday donate it to a charity auction.  This one I will not be wearing.  Charlie Daniels was the first to sign it.  I had Ansel and Angela Hacker sign it.  The following day we returned to the Cadillac Ranch and Brynn Marie was on stage singing.  She then came out front and signed autographs and was joined by Billy and yes, I got their CD's and autographs.  Brynn is as pretty in person as she is in photos.  Billy even signed mine "to his DR Buddy"...