These are my links for June 18th through July 3rd:

• The Improbability of God - very concise, understandable explaination as to why there is no god
• Godless Bastard - Atheism defined - and funny with it.
• Indochina: An Off-Beat Luxury Destination - Luxury vacations on a budget - Indochina
• The World Island - France and Spain Sold - Two majpor islands in the “world” development in Dubai sold
• There is No God - Penn, of Penn and Teller fame states why he believes there is no God. Makes sense to me.
• Mad Libs Creator Sells Out to the Sopranos - The Sopranos take over. Some serious real estate.

These are my links for May 31st through June 12th:

• A Perfect Gift For Your Daddy On Father’s Day - Father’s day gifts. More father’s day gifts that you can shake a stick at.
• Luxury Real Estate - Swimming Pools - luxury real estate, swimming pools around the world. The largest, most expensive, deepest, scariest pools
• Luxury Home Destroyed by Teenagers in Spain - Do not let your kids on facebook if you value your home lol
• Five Best Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras SLR - A good guide to the best digital SLRs
• Prada, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Dior, Chanel, Yves St Laurent :: handbags, purses and clutches - designer purse blog. Interesting new purses and handbags from all the top designers.
• Party! And raise money for TAPS at the same time - A fund raiser for TAPS tragedy assistance program for survivors

These are my links for March 21st through May 26th:

• French Riviera: Itâ??s the Pitts - the Jolie-Pitts, that is - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie buy a property in teh south of France. Serious news after several abortive attempts due to lack of a big enough wall to keep the oiks out. A $60 million mansion - finally !
• LuxuryProperty.com Breaks New Ground in Online Real Estate Marketing -
• Best Real Estate Videos - Bradford Squared - Incredible quality video of Bradford City Center’s regeneration.
• Worst YouTube Real Estate Videos part three - Why bother putting a sales video on youtube if this is the result? Would you buy from him?
• Versaceâ??s Lake Como Villa Fontanelle sells for $52 million - An awful lot of money for a house. Whichever way you look at it. Nice photos though.

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These are my links for November 5th through February 28th:

• A Dad’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy -
• The Best Forex Broker - forex advice
• 10 Ways to Make a Living as a Poet - poetry - good ideas for poetry
• Foreclosure Listing Sites?Where to find Pre-Foreclosure and Foreclosed Homes - Good warnings and advice about foreclosure listing sites.
• 2008 Motorcycle Guide - An awesome review of this year’s motorcycle ranges.
• Forex Trading Guide - An excellent guide to forex trading. Don’t open a forex account until you have read this.
• Sexy Football World Cup Fans - Some very sexy football fan photos

These are my links for October 24th through November 4th:

• Sexy Football World Cup Fans - Some very sexy football fan photos
• Traditional Roast Turkey with Pork, Sage and Onion stuffing - The best roast turkey you will ever have.
• The World?s Most Unusual Properties For Sale » IPI - interesting collection of properties fo rsale. Very good
• IPI - Nick manning, adult film star accuses his landlords of evictinghim because of what he does for a living
• Short Sale alternative to Foreclosure » IPI - Foreclosure may not be the only option

This little post is just to remind the search engines that this blog exists. I offer my services to the world in general and people in need of a writer in particular. I write for money.  I write mostly online, have a style that is all my own and am always on the lookout for paid writing jobs.

The only proviso I make is that when you have engaged my services, accepted my work as well written and in the style, length and quality you were hoping for, you will actually pay me. Not too much to ask is it?

I write knowledgeably on a wide variety of subjects, but have a particular interest in, and knowledge of, overseas property investments, tech gadgets, cooking, the martial arts, poker, travel, WordPress and mac computers.

I also create blogs from the ground up, fully installed, hosted, maintained, SEO optimised and promoted.

Please contact me for a specific quote.

As far as I am concerned, this is the ultimate pasta dish. This recipe is for a traditional lasagna with bolognese and béchamel sauce. There are hundreds of other ways of making Lasagna, but this is the starting point that all other recipes come from.

Although it is an easy recipe, it does take some time, because there are several separate stages to go through. Both the bolognese and the béchamel sauces must be made separately and the pasta must be cooked, although nowadays there are many ready –to-go sheets of pasta that do not need pre-cooking. For me, it is worth the extra few minutes becaue I have found the ready made sheets dry out and if you take the time to pre cook them, they absorb the flavors of the sauces better. You can use white pasta as I have done for this one, or you can use green spinach lasagna sheets for a different look and flavor.

One of the great things about this recipe is that, although it takes some time to do, most of the work can be done before your guests arrive and then the lasagna can be baked later, and it makes for great leftovers. It freezes well and can be kept in the fridge also. A few minutes re-heating time and away you go. This will feed a large family.

You will need:

Equipment:

• 2 medium saucepans for the sauces
• 1 large saucepan for the pasta
• A whisk
• 1 ovenproof casserole dish 9in x 13 in or similar
• A sieve
• 2 bowls

The exact size of the dish doesn’t really matter. If you have a 10 x 15 dish that will be fine too. But it does need to be about 3 inches deep.

Ingredients:

• 1 large bottle of wine (got to be a heavy red Italian wine, Chianti Classico or something similar)
• 1 serving of Bolognese sauce (see Spaghetti Bolgnese recipe)
• Fresh Parmesan cheese

For the béchamel sauce:

• 4 oz butter
• 2 heaped tablespoons flour
• 1 ½ pints of milk
• ¼ pint cream (thin cream, not whipping)
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried nutmeg or ¼ of a whole fresh nutmeg

Pasta:

1 lb or about 20 sheets

First pour a large glass of wine and sip. Now make the bolognese sauce. (see Spaghetti Bolognese recipe) and set aside.

Next, make the béchamel sauce:

Place the milk, butter and flour in a medium sized saucepan and place over a low heat. Bring slowly to the boil, whisking continuously. When the sauce comes to the boil, continue to cook for about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Now, cook the lasagna sheets. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add a little salt and olive oil. Add the sheets to the water one at a time. For fresh pasta, cook for 3 minutes, for dried pasta cook for 7. When they are cooked, remove the sheets one at a time with a fish slice or spatula and place in a bowl of cold water. This stops them from sticking together.

Next, take the white sauce, and sieve into a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, add the nutmeg and whisk again.

Now, take the ovenproof dish, and using a paper towel, butter the inside of the dish. Spread a layer of Bolognese sauce on the bottom of the dish, followed by a layer of béchamel. Now place a layer of lasagna sheets on top and continue layering until all the ingredients are used. There should be about 4 or 5 layers depending on the size of the dish used. Now sprinkle the top with a good covering of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. At this point, the lasagna is ready to be cooked and can be left until it is time to cook. If you are not cooking it immediately, place it in the fridge until needed. When you do cook it, bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes, or until the top goes brown. Serve hot with fresh bread and a salad.

Buon Apetito!

Samsung and Bang and Olufsen have combined forces once again, releasing a “music mobile phone” that combines an MP3 player with a sophisticated mobile phone. As usual, with B&O products, it looks awfully attractive and the technical specs are certainly appealing, but I think it’s a case of too little too late.

Designed by David Lewis with 4GB of memory and 13 hours of playback time when using headphones, a high speed USB connection, and a 2.26” color LCD display, but no headphones. According to B&O, “the built-in speaker will deliver an outstanding sound for both. Advanced audio engineering and top notch speakers are only partly to explain for the impressive performance. Bang & Olufsen’s ingenious acoustics are the other reason, featuring two high-quality speaker units which, controlled by advanced digital signal processing, deliver precise reproduction of what’s being said at the other end of the line – or played from your list of favourite tracks. That’s in addition to ICEpower amplifiers which enable a surprisingly powerful sound to emanate from such a small space.”

But, come on Mr. B&O, who on earth wants to inflict their musical choice on all and sundry. Is it just me, or is this one of the most annoying current trends. There you are, enjoying a cup of coffee at a local Starbucks and the next thing you know, you are listening to three other people’s musical preference. And no matter which way you look at it, it is just not possible to achieve quality sound from a speaker box this size. Buy some decent headphones people.

Published here.

Should you unlock your Apple iPhone or not, that is the question on every iPhone owner’s lips these days, and more than likely every potential iPhone owner’s as well.

Despite the proliferation of companies offering to unlock iPhones, if fact, some companies seem to have been set up recently with the sole purpose of unlocking iPhones, Apple recently threw a spanner in the works.

Apple warns that anyone who attempts to unlock their iPhone runs the risk of finding their phone irreparably damaged. They said that modified iPhones would become “permanently inoperable,” once Apple updates were installed.

Apple denies “doing anything proactively to disable iPhones that have been hacked or unlocked,” although this smacks of pre-planning to me.

It does make me wonder what Apple think they are playing at. Selling the phone off the shelf without a mobile contract and apparently setting the hackers a challenge by claiming the iPhone as unbreakable? Combined with releasing it with a single operator in both the US and European markets, it seems to me there was no other outcome.

Still, the question will have to wait until someone’s hacked phone dies before a decision can be made. Will it or won’t it? Watch this space. If your hacked iPhone turns in to a very expensive paperweight, please let me know in the comments section.

Published here.