Diary Complaints

My wife keeps a diary, and sometimes leaves it open with the last entry in view on the coffee table. I'm a person who wouldn't want to read another person's diary, even my wife's, diaries being personal. But out of a corner of my eye, on the diary page, I saw my name. I couldn't help reading.

"I can't let John's negativity get to me," the diary read.

What do ya' mean, negative? I thought. I'm not negative. Sure, I complain a little because I'm not a rich man. I have a relative who gets paid thousands of dollars, a lower-middle-class jerk who all he does is count couches at a furniture outlet. The guy thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good actor. That's how dumb he is, and he makes all this money.

I'm the only man in my family who could have taken the bad luck I've had without becoming a drug addict, or ending up in a lunatic asylum, and for this I'm called negative. I work endlessly without a vacation. I put up with a sassy kid and a wife who takes me for granted.

Me negative?

Grumbling, I moved past the diary and went outside to mow the lawn. The next day, Sunday, my wife left the house, and the diary was open again and there was a new passage.

"Why do I have to deal with such stress?" It read. "I can't stand this complaining. We've become more distanced than ever. Yet, John has such spirit and sensitivity........"

"Well, at least that last part is good," I told the diary.

"He needs to not feel the world is against him," the diary added.

The world's against me? I never said that. Remember when Cynthia (my wife's friend), that college, over-educated snob (she thinks she's better because she's a Hollywood script writer who knows the names of all the English kings). Remember when her father died in Hawaii, and I forgot, and she came back from the funeral and I innocently asked, thinking she had gone there on a vacation, "how was Hawaii?"

"Don't dare say that," Cynthia had bitterly snarled.

It was an innocent mistake. Cynthia had no right to get mad. But I took her guff. I wanted to throw her out a window, but I didn't. I just decided I'd never speak to her again.

Disgusted, I put the diary down and went and racked the dishes in the automatic dishwasher. Wiping my hands, I returned, picked up the diary, and flipped back a page.

"John doesn't listen. He interrupts and has to have the last word," it read.

"Bull!"

I took a pencil and made my own entry in the diary. I copied my wife's style of handwriting. "My husband is a handsome, muscular saint," I wrote. "I really should allow him some vices."

© Copyright 2004 by SammonSays.com

John Sammon is the author of two books and writes a weekly humor column you may access at Sammonsays.com.

Related Information of Interest:

It’s No Joke, Laughter is Awesome Medicine!
You go right ahead! Laugh and cackle to the point of losing your breath! Laughter has enormous amounts of health benefits ranging from affecting diabetes to lowering risks of heart attacks and everything in between!

In this modern world that we live in, full of medicinal remedies and medical breakthroughs, who would ever dream that something as simple as laughter could induce such amazing benefits to your health that could rival highly scientific compounds found in drugs of today?

The idea that laughter may have some serious benefits to our health may have been what spurned on many scientific research projects pertaining to the benefits of laughter on our bodies. Over the years, countless experiments have concluded with scientific data that laughter has one of the most astounding benefits for your health. We have heard about the positive impact animals and clowns have had on nursing home and terminally ill children. Scientists have taken that idea a step further. Experiments have been conducted on such things as type II Diabetes which is an increasing problem for many Americans today. A study done in Japan at the Foundation for Advancement of International Science, Bio-Laboratory, found that laughter helps regulate gene expression to help control type II Diabetes. This is a huge discovery. This means that laughter has such a homeopathic effect on even the gene expression on our DNA that perhaps if we were a happier sort the gene that causes type II Diabetes may possibly never be expressed. Granted, it will likely not take the place of insulin therapy, but it may be key in helping to prevent the disease.

Studies also suggest that laughter positively affects rheumatoid arthritis by affecting the level of the condition as well as psychological benefits in controlling stress and stress related conditions. Perhaps the biggest discovery, published by S. Karger AG, Basel, is that laughter is now being proven to alleviate some of the lasting effects of heart attacks such as less medication and fewer repeat attacks with humor therapy of just thirty minutes per day. Can you imagine the impact?

Go ahead and laugh. Point and giggle, do it with pride and do it for your health. You may be preventing Diabetes when you cackle aloud. You could be keeping yourself from having a heart attack or stroke when you belly laugh to the point of tears. It’s ok! It will be contagious and soon everyone around you will be laughing too. Life can sometimes be serious and tiring, but if you look around and can draw some laughter out of what may seem mundane you could possibly be helping your health. Learn a new joke and tell it to everyone you know no matter if you are a good joke teller or not! Join a Laughter Yoga class at your local ‘Y’ even! Go ahead, laugh! Your health can truly depend on it!

This article was written by Chad Ferguson of www.funnies.com/. Funnies.com is THE place to go for thousands of funny jokes, pictures, greeting cards and more. Laugh it up! Reproductions of this article are encouraged but must include a link back to www.funnies.com/

I Finally Took Guitar Lessons
I have a huge list of goals that I want to achieve during my life time. Some goals are small like learning to keep a goldfish alive for longer than a month. Other goals are more significant like traveling to all fifty states or learning a second language. As I continue to learn new things and accomplish goals on my list it seems that I also add new goals to my list so that it never gets much smaller or much bigger. I think I'll always have more goals than I can accomplish. I recently accomplished a goal that has been on my list since its beginning. I started taking guitar lessons.

Sound like no big deal? If it doesn't, then you obviously do not know me well. You have no idea that I have wanted to learn how to play guitar since I was eight and you have no clue that I have been saving my spare change for years to buy a guitar and begin taking lessons. You see, for me, starting guitar lessons was the sign of so many other things that had happened in my life.

Starting guitar lessons was a sign that I had been faithful to save spare change for over six years and it was a sign that I finally got up the courage to do something I am not good at. I have this tendency to only spend time on things I can do well at, so most of the goals on my list that involve learning new skills get left undone. So it was a real feat for me to begin guitar lessons. My first lesson symbolized my desire to stop living afraid of things that cannot hurt me. Guitar lessons are the first step in a direction I have been wanting to head for quite some time.

Starting guitar lessons has also helped me to cross off another goal from my list: getting over my fear of meeting and spending time with new people. The man who is giving me guitar lessons could probably go down in history as one of the least intimidating people on the earth, yet it is still significant for me to have taken this step. I will never forget the feeling of anxiety I felt as I knocked on his front door on the afternoon of my first lesson. I felt like my heart was going to pound out of my chest. Within five minutes I had entered his house, learned a little about him, began my first of many guitar lessons, and could cross off two goals on my list at the same time. Not bad for just five minutes.

Denton Krypps is an accomplished guitarist and an advocate for all people taking guitar lessons or learning to play another musical instrument. Discover more at www.guitarlessonsnews.info

Photography Q&A: The Basics Of Developing Photographs
* Can I develop my own photographs?

Yes, you can. By having your own darkroom, it is possible that you can develop your own photos. You first need to set up your own darkroom and buy darkroom equipment.

* What equipment and supplies do I need in a darkroom?

A darkroom requires many kinds of equipment to get you started in developing your photos. It is expensive, so you should prepare a sufficient amount of money to get into this hobby.

The darkroom necessities are:

• Enlarger
• Negative carrier
• Lens Board
• Lens
• Safelight
• Print trays
• Timer
• Thermometer
• Funnel
• Chemical jugs
• Developer, stop, fixer
• Printing paper
• Mixing rod
• Print squeegee
• Dust brush
• Graduates
• Negative Storage
• Dark Bag/ Dark room
• Film tank
• Film reels
• Film

Above is the equipment you need for a darkroom. However, you still need additional equipment to set up a complete darkroom above and beyond the former, which includes:

• Paper cutter
• Color print drum
• Motor base for print drum or rotary processor
• Color head or filters
• Color printing paper
• Color chemicals
• Jugs and graduates for color chemistry
• Color print viewing filter kit
• Light table
• Dry mount press
• Mounting tissue
• Bulk film loader
• Film cassettes
• Darkroom sink
• Water board
• Film drier
• Print drier
• Toners
• Jugs for toners
• Exposure/color analyzer
• Repeating printing timer
• Photo Oils/pencils
• Print tongs
• Hypo clear, photo-flow
• Easel
• Polycontrast Filters
• Film clips
• Print washer
• Blotter book
• Projection scale
• Antistaticum
• Canned air
• Loupe
• Cropping guide
• Film washer
• Cotton gloves
• Spotting dyes
• Spotting brush
• Contact printer
• Grain focuser

* What makes a good darkroom?

A good darkroom should be light-proof, spacious, have dry and wet areas, have ventilation, have bench space, be organized, have a safe light, and be comfortable to work in. Since you will be working with chemicals, it is important that you have enough space to maneuver to avoid tripping over dangerous chemicals.

Travis Partrige is a regular contributor to photographer guides and photography-related sites such as Photography Question and Answer. Website: www.PhotographyQA.com

Profiting With Affiliate Programs
One of the main reasons more people are not making money on the Internet is that they don't have a product or service they can market. Most people find it too difficult to develop a product, promote it with a website, and create a marketing plan to get it front of the right people. Most do not have the knowledge or expertise to even get started and are frustrated before they even begin. Does this sound like you? It was for me until I discovered affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs work like a joint venture where you partner with someone who has already developed a product, created a marketing plan and are promoting it with a website. Most affiliate programs will provide you with a product you can market, free website promotion tools, and free training to show you how to promote the program. You drive traffic to the website and they will process and fill the order, handle customer service, collect payments and handle returns. You keep as much as 50% of the profits for your efforts. It's a great way to start earning money right away!

Where can you find a good affiliate program? You will find thousands of opportunities using an internet search under "affiliate programs". Many of the websites you are visiting now may already have an excellent affiliate program established. You can join it and make money in an area that you enjoy or already have expertise in. The best site I have found for affiliate programs is clickbank.com. This site lists hundreds of successful affiliate programs people are using to make money with today.

Now I am going to let you in on a secret that can explode your affiliate marketing profits. Capture the email addresses of those interested in the affiliate program you are trying to promote. Why? You will develop your own opt in mailing list that you can send repeated emails to capture additional sales. You can also market other products and services to this list once it is developed. You will create an asset that can be used over and over again, multiplying your online income!

Promoting affiliate programs is an excellent way to start earning money on-line right away. It is also a great way to break into new markets. If you already have a large email list to market to, you can send out an endorsement email and generate sales within minutes. The possibilities are endless. Check out affiliate programs today!

To your success!
Steve Scoresby

For more FREE information on marketing affiliate programs, developing your own products, and setting up your own website check out www.internetprofitprofessor.com