Make Money Online

We've recently joined this organisation called My Homepages Friends. What it claims to be is a opportunity to make money while searching the Internet, something most of us do a lot anyway. All you need to do is log onto the website, by clicking here, and complete the simple form. You then get a page asking you to change your homepage to the My Homepages Friends search page.

At the moment this is fairly basic, they seem to be developing it as they go along, but they have some gadgets, and promise online shopping and a blog. They promise to pay around 2p for each search, and in the few days I've been a member this has amounted to the princely sum of £1.20. Payments are made when you reach a threshold of £20.

There are a couple of catches, it works best with Internet Explorer v7 or Firefox, as you define your search box in the top right hand corner, and you can only search with Yahoo!, with whom they have made an exclusive agreement. If you want to Google, any searches won't count towards your total.

You can see your search totals as you go along, although in monetary terms these are 1-2 days in arrears. They say one day, but we only saw our income from Thursday and Friday appear the following Monday. As well as getting 2p for each search, 10% of any referrals that you make are added onto your account as friends. Payments can be make by bank transfer or by PayPal. I wasn't sure about entering the bank details, so I joined via PayPal.

MyHF discourage repeat searches, or not following a search through with a click, and can terminate accounts for misuse. They will also flag up searchers who just sit and make random searches each day. But if you make your usual searches, then this can gradually add up. It's no Get Rich Quick scheme, but could be a useful little bit of pocket money.

Incidentally, rather than making the My Homepages Friends page your homepage, an alternative is to save this in your favourites. My home page is still our broadband provider, but if I want to make a search, or log on to see my results, I use the Favourites page.

 

Technorati Tags: make money online,my homepages friends,search,yahoo,blog,affiliate,favourites,paid to search

Sex or Football?

One casualty of Euro 2008 was the Festival do Filme Erótico de Madrid. Normally, this annual festival attracts over 50.000 visitors, but sadly this year, only 15.000 turned up.

What most irritates you?

I was awoken at 4am this morning by a mosquito buzzing around. I'd already been feasted on twice while I was sleeping, for some reason they ignore everyone around here and just pick on the fresh English meat, but I couldn't find the little sod. I could hear the high-pitched whine of his little wings, but eventually just had to 'deny' his existence in my mind and make believe he wasn't there, otherwise I'd never have got back to sleep. (Postscript: Got him in the end…)

In Portuguese, mosquitos are melgas, as opposed to moscas (pronounced 'muscas'), which are flies. Melgas is also used as a slang term for an irritating person who hangs around for no apparent reason. One of our friends calls his girlfriend 'melga', but as a pet name. Flies are everywhere in Portugal, and getting rid of them can be a major effort. We call flies potos, (pronounced, putus) which is a slang term for kids, like annoying 14-16 year olds who hang around in shopping centres, playing crap music at top volume on their tiny little mobile phone speakers. Incidentally, this is as opposed to potas, (pronounced, putas) which is a slang term for prostitute, a distinction which was lost on me for quite some time, until someone kindly pointed it out.

We used to get potos coming to our bar in the afternoons, they were the groups of kids who would come in after school and sit around drinking one cola between seven of them, before going home. Occasionally they would go on the computers and collect more friends on their hi5.com profiles, which is like Facebook in the UK.

Still, I digress. The appearance of the melga got me wondering about the most irritating things in the world today. We've covered a couple already, moscas/melgas and potos with mobile phones, but what else is there?

The following is not a definitive list by any stretch, I’m sure there are many more that can be added, so over to you. In the meantime here's my list:

Chain emails, containing PowerPoint presentations with pictures of babies/sunsets/landscapes, etc with text in a script font saying how wonderful friendship/the world/god is before telling you to pass it on to 10 friends and you'll receive good fortune/money, etc. These get deleted. Instantly.

Facebook/hi5 applications. No, I really don't want to add another cuddle or funwall application, I don’t want to be poked or prodded or be asked by some total stranger if I want to add one of the over 20,000 applications (yes, that many) that are on Facebook. I really don't want to know which celebrity couple we are (Tom and Katie, dammit) and vampires and zombies were deleted from my profile long ago. All I want is to stay in touch with my friends, and add the occasional photo, is that too much?

Internet money-making schemes. In our present situation we've been looking at all avenues, and have inevitably come across these money-making websites. Why do they all look the same, like the one's here and here, and why are they all so long, without actually saying anything. Does anyone actually read all of this stuff?

Bank commercials offering great returns. On the radio at the moment are loads of commercials for credit, loans, etc. One is a 30 second commercial from Millennium bank. The bit where they tell you that you can make loads of money with their new product is 15 seconds long, and sounds great (high interest, etc), but then there is another 15 seconds of verbal 'small print' giving the actual conditions that you can only achieve these savings if you tie your money up for a certain length of time, and if you invest a minimum amount, usually 1,000€, each month. In a country where the average salary is just over 800€ per month, this automatically excludes a lot of people, yet the idea is that people miss this bit and go into the bank, where they find they can’t get this product but we have this one… it’s not so good, but…

Why can't they just be honest and say 'give your money to us and we'll keep it and make loads of money for ourselves and chuck you back a pitiful return after a year or so. Oh, and by the way, if you earn less than 1,000€ per month don't bother because you're too poor. But you can give us your money anyway and we'll collect it all together and give 12 million Euro loans to our children.'

Commercial breaks on Portuguese TV. British TV used to be called the best in the world. I’m not sure whether that is true now, with Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity, and all of those cheap reality shows, but at least you don’t have 15 minute commercial breaks! In the UK, a break was just enough time to make a cup of tea, or get a beer. In Portugal, you can eat lunch, have a nice glass of wine, and still have to sit through trailers for the next Brazilian novella before your film continues. By which time you’ve forgotten what is going on. Alternatively you surf onto another channel and only remember what you were watching about 30 minutes later, by which time you’ve missed a chunk of the programme you were interested in. The only redeeming feature is the breaks are about 90 minutes apart, and we have a DVD recorder, so can record and fast forward through the boring bits.

Lists of the greatest… Be this comedy sketches, songs, or viral emails, just how irritating is it to see lists of things on TV hosted by some ex-soap star or d-list celebrity, with talking heads of other d-list celebrities reminiscing about great songs of the 1980's that you've never heard of or can't remember. Or lists created just for another excuse to show crap commercials from the seventies, or lists of stuff that irritates you about... Oh...

By the way, if you were wondering where the obligatory football posting was today, since Germany played like such a bunch of numpties yesterday I thought better not prolong the torture. Congratulations to Spain, the better team certainly won.

Technorati Tags: mosquitos,melgas,flies,irritating,list best,worst,portugal,TV shows,lists,commercials,facebook,emails,chain letters,euro 2008,Spain,congratulations

Scolari accusations of fraud

When he was manager of the national team, Luis Filipe Scolari was hailed as a national hero, taking Portugal to the final of Euro 2004, the semi finals of the World Cup in 2006, and of course to the quarter finals of Euro 2008.

But once he announced that he was leaving to manage Chelsea, citing money as one of the reasons, then the accusations begin.

Unsurprisingly the Portuguese FA came out and accused him and Chelsea of upsetting the team after the match with the Czech Republic, causing them to lose against Switzerland. This was despite Portugal having got through the group stages, and the team against Switzerland being woefully under strength.

Now a Lisbon paper, Sol, has accused Scolari of salting away funds received from a business venture in 2006 in an offshore account, and not declaring income to the Financas (the Portuguese Inland Revenue). As a part of a long-running national fraud investigation, Operação Furacão, the Departamento Central de Investigação e Acção Penal (DCIAP) are investigating. All Scolari has said is that he has fulfilled his obligations towards the Financas, and nothing illegal or fraudulent has taken place. No details of the amounts are available.

Whether this will cast a shadow over his deal with Chelsea is not known, this sounds more like a small circulation newspaper digging around for dirt now that Scolari has announced his departure. I can't imagine this ever having been reported if Scolari had not announced his intention to leave. I also found it ironic that it was a paper called the Sun that started this story.

Celebrities to take to the sky

Just when you thought that television had plumbed the depths of reality TV comes a new offering from ITV2, CelebAir. Apparently, ITV2 is in negotiations with Monarch airline to repaint one of it's aircraft in CelebAir livery and then to get 12 celebrities to be "cabin crew and complaints handlers while real passengers pay to fly to destinations, including Ibiza."

According to a spokesperson from ITV2 quoted in the Guardian, "This isn't frivolous or celebrity TV for the sake of it – there's a genuine outcome at stake - such as people's business trips and holidays... It won't be like a normal reality show, where celebrities are picked purely for their entertainment value and nothing else. This is a big project and not one we'll be undertaking lightly."

Not everyone is happy with the idea, though, in the Sun Bizarre reporter Gordon Smart sneered, "I HAVE never suffered from air rage before — but I feel it coming on. Annoying celebs are being hunted down from the panto circuit to appear in a new ITV2 show called CelebAir. Sorry to report, but they will be trained up as . . . airline trolley dollies," and they added some photos to show what it might look like.

Fortunately, none of the celebs will be flying the plane, I'm sure although John Travolta would be more than happy to climb into the pilot's seat, but you could see Jade Goodie telling you where the exits are, before trying to sell some of her perfume at 35,000 feet. Also, with the ITV2 website reporting that Peter Andre and Katie Price's reality show is in its seventh season (can this be true?) then perhaps Pete and Katie could combine their show with this one?

With this programme in mind, here are some ideas for a few other celebrity reality shows:

Celebrity Enduring Freedom: Join 12 celebrities who go through basic training before being shipped off to Afghanistan to fight the taliban and hunt for Bin Laden.

Celebrity Guantanamo: 12 celebrities are kidnapped at random off the streets and flown in secret CIA flights to Guantanamo Bay. Each week, one is evicted and flown to Heathrow, where they'll be picked up by Scotland Yard, interviewed by the anti-Terrostist police and held for 42 days before being released without charge into the custody of Davina McCall.

Celebrity Diva: 12 celebrities each act as a gopher for other celebrities, such as Mariah Carey and Diana Ross. Watch as egos flare.

Celebrity Office: 12 celebrities are employed by a fictional paper company to take part in a mockumentary.

Celebrity Russian Roulette: The public gets to choose 12 celebrities to take part, only one leaves.

Technorati Tags: Airlines,New Airlines,Celeb,CelebAir,Television Travel,fun,airlines,ITV 2,tv shows,Guardian,The Sun

Euro 2008 Final: Spain x Germany

That is more like it. After a lacklustre performance against Italy, Spain actually played a decent game of football last night in their 3-0 win against Russia. After dissing the Spanish team yesterday, I was happy that they played convincingly, with the game turning around significantly after Fabregas was substituted onto the field early in the first half.

It was surprising to see from the statistics that Russia was actually dominating the possession of the ball in the first half, but Spain came into their own with three fine goals, setting up what looks like being a thrilling final. As mentioned before, most of Portugal will be supporting Spain, along with our friend from Café Santo Antonio. I'll be supporting Germany, being in the minority as usual.

It was interesting to see the coverage of the match on the Portuguese TV. During the previous matches, when Portugal were playing, there were extensive reports from the big squares in Lisbon and Porto, with thousands of screaming fans. During the half time reports of the two semi finals, Euro 2008 might as well have finished, it was business as usual. Let's see what happens on Saturday night during the final...

Another team I have backed has lost...

I'm beginning to see a trend here. First I backed Portugal to win, but they were knocked out by Germany, and then Turkey to beat Germany, which never happened. Turkey made a valiant attempt, though. Briefly going ahead after 20 minutes, and then pulling back an equaliser to go 2-2 after 80 minutes. But the German team proved overwhelming in the end and Turkey let in a third goal in the final minutes of the game.

It was really sad to see them lose, they had done so well, especially in their win against Croatia - wasn't it Croatia who effectively knocked out England? The Portuguese commentators were saying that the German tactics were "efficient", there was no spirit to their playing. Whether this was pandering to a German stereotype, I'm not sure, but at the end of the day the German team won, which of course is the aim.

We went for a coffee at the Café Santo Antonio in the afternoon, the owner is Portuguese, and her husband is German. After the quarter final, she made him sleep on the sofa, and she was really behind the Turkish team last night. I wonder if he slept on the sofa again?

Now the next match is between Russia and Spain. Most of Portugal is supporting Spain, but I am in two minds. I am really not in favour of Spain winning, I'm not sure why, they have done nothing to me, but perhaps it is because they put on such a lacklustre performance against Italy. OK, so they hadn't won against Italy for over 80 years, but it was almost like watching England play their usual defensive "let's not lose, but we don't have to win," kind of game. On the other hand, I don't want Russia to win either. Mainly because Russia has already won the Eurovision song contest this year, so surely that is enough? I suspect that the final will be between Germany and Spain. If this is the case, I will be backing German "efficiency" this time, and I will be vastly outnumbered by all of the Portuguese. Still, It's my telly.

David v Goliath, again?

Tonight, the underdogs Turkey take in the mighty German behemoth in the first semi-final of Euro 2008. OK, a bit over dramatic, I think, but according to most pundits it looks as though the odds are in favour of a German victory.

Even the Portuguese, despite Germany beating Portugal in the quarter final, seem to be rooting for the Germans, so it'll be interesting to see the half-time reports on the news this evening. Will there be the thousands of people in the squares in Porto and Lisbon waving their German flags and cheering on the national team, or will it be a quiet Wednesday evening?

Personally, being English, I root for the underdog, so come on plucky Turkey, give 'em what for - as The Sun would say (if they weren't backing Germany also...) En buyuk, Turkiye, as they say: Turkey, the greatest.

Tales of Meco Beach is Moving...

Having blogged with WordPress on and off for a while now, it's time for a change. We are going to try another site, at Blogger.com, to see how easy this is. The WordPress site will be run alongside Blogger for a while, while we get to grips with the foibles of a new service.

Why the move? Well we are hoping to try new things with our blogging, and hopefully Blogger will be able to provide this. You may notice a Twitter widget appear, if we can think of things to say, or polls, blog rolls, etc., and hopefully the blog will get a little more exciting and interesting

So, please, give Blogger a go and let us know what you think.

See you there...

"And so, the end is near..."

So the time came for portugal to bid farewell to Euro 2008. In front of over 30,000 screaming fans last night, Portugal lost 2-3 against a superior German team. That is not to say that Portugal were outclassed, in my opinion, but that the Germans were just able to convert their opportunities better than the Portuguese team were.

Germany scored from two excellent set piece free kicks, and a third when Ballack made a lovely cross to Schweinsteiger to push the ball past Ricardo. In contrast, Portugal claimed two goals back, the second in the dying minutes of the game when Postinga converted a cross from Nani to head the ball into the net.

All in all it was an equally matched game, but on the day the German team converted their chances better than Portugal. Personally, I feel that there was some gamesmanship, when Chelsea announced that Scolari was leaving for Chelsea after the tournament, clearly he has more time to pack now. Chelsea should really have kept quiet about this until either Portugal were knocked out, or until the end of the the tournament. This was going to be upsetting news, and put a lot of pressure on both Scolari and the team.

Some will say that Scolari wasn't trying hard enough because he was going to Chelsea, but after the game last night Scolari denied this, saying; "If I hadn't announced I was going to Chelsea, we would still have lost the two games. We lost because we didn't do things right or with more quality. It was nothing to do with Chelsea. Some people will imagine it was, but that's not the case."

The other question is what will Ronaldo do now? Will he be going to Rael, or will he stay at Manchester United? According to him after the game last night, he'll be making a decision in the next few days. Stay tuned.

In other news, there were a couple of events during the match that show the crazy side of football. In Lisbon, a german fan watching the match in a bar was beaten up by Portuguese supporters when he couldn't contain himself after the second German goal. And in Porto after the match, a fifty-something year old man ran through a packed public square with a knife. Two people were taken to hospital with stab wounds.

Marcas Technorati: Euro 2008,football,Portugal,Germany,Ronaldo,Schweinsteiger,Ballack,Scolari

April 1st Already?

I'm not sure whether this is actually a joke or something serious that they are planning to do. But knowing companies nowadays, anything is possible.

There was a report on the news yesterday that EDP, the nationalised electricity company, want to add 1-2€ to everyone's bill to compensate for those people that have not paid their bills. So if you haven't paid your bill, don't worry because EDP will charge everyone else for your debt.

Can this be true?

In other news, with the increasing price of fuel TAP, the national airline, is being forced to cancel flights because either they aren't receiving deliveries of fuel, or because they can't afford to buy more fuel.

The Portuguese refer fondly to TAP as 'Take Another Plane', as the service for a national airline can be pretty awful at times. Having said that, apart from flight delays we've always had a pretty good service from TAP. Clearly Portuguese will soon be forced onto other planes.

Exclusive! - New Portugal Coach Spotted

Following the defeat of Portugal on Sunday, and the impending departure of Scolari at the end of Euro 2004 (or if Portugal are defeated by Germany on Thursday, whichever comes first), the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol (FPF) has wasted little time in searching for a successor.

In an exclusive, for the first time anywhere, we can reveal the new Portuguese coach. Spotted in Lisbon after the match against the Czech Republic, probably following a meeting with the FPF, the new coach was seen scouting out potential players.

Don't forget, you saw it here first...

The Sound of Silence

After several glorious days, weather-wise, last week, the omens were not good. It was a cloudy day here in Aveiro, with a light rain from time to time, and after the euphoria of the week everyone seemed a little jaded.

There was excitement about the match, of course, Portugal was through but Switzerland had failed to win a game, so it looked like a slam dunk (to mix sports metaphors). However, when the team came out there was a collective, 'huh?' What was Scolari up to, where was Ronaldo, or Simão, or any of his good players? OK, he's resting them, and besides it's only Switzerland.

Ninety minutes later, there was a stunned silence from the Portuguese fans, in fact after that ludicrous penalty we couldn't bear to watch any more. During the game, we were watching through our fingers, it was car-crash television, like watching Steve Carell at his most embarassing in The Office. At half-time, when the players came back onto the pitch, there was a shot of a clearly embarrassed Ronaldo waving to the crowd. Great, we thought, they're going to substitute their better players, but no.

With over 30 yellow cards, by the end of the game practically everyone had been carded apart from the goalies. The refereeing was appalling, each time a player fell, or dived, out came the yellow card. There were cards for dissent, cards for running in a funny way. The penalty was given for such a blatant dive, we wondered at first who was getting the card, and the Swiss players were congratulating each other on such a smart move. We were asking what on earth Scolari was up to. Even when Portugal was 1-0 down there was time to put in Ronaldo or Nuno Gomes, or any of his first team players. But no, he carried on playing a weak team, saving his better players for the quarter final match against the runners up of group B, whoever that is (probably Germany). It was like watching Switzerland play Beira Mar, or Sporting, the Portuguese team were so outclassed. The referee didn't help.

In the post-match press conference, Scolari apparently took on all of the responsibility himself. We were thinking that he was concentrating on all of the lolly he'd be making at Chelsea, but if I was Abramovich, I'd be wondering what the hell was going on.

Unlike the previous games, especially after the game with the Czech Republic, when the team guaranteed their place in the next round, there were no celebrations, no dancing in the streets or car horns blaring. There were just sullen people going home through the drizzling rain. Sad and alone.

Apparently that was not the only upset of the evening, as in a surprising twist Turkey beat the Czech Republic 3-2. So it looks like Turkey will be going through to the quarter finals instead of the Czechs. With a mistake from Cech costing them the game, it was not a good day for Chelsea.

Marcas Technorati: Euro 2008,football,Scolari,Portugal,Switzerland,losing,Ronaldo,Aveiro,penalty,soccer

"A good day to bury bad news"

The Guardian was reporting this morning of panic buying of petrol in the UK ahead of a possible strike by truckers over the high price of diesel (gasóleo). In Europe, including Portugal, the fishermen and trucker's have been on strike for a few weeks now. Since the beginning of the year the price of gasóleo has nearly doubled, from 90c in December to over 1,40€ now. The price of petrol is even higher, around 1,60€ in some places, making prices comparable with the UK.

But when you consider that the minimum wage is 426€ per month in Portugal, compared to 1,190€ in the UK, with an average salary of approximately 800€ per month, then increased petrol prices put a real burden on many incomes, and if the price of a litre of fuel is the same, or more than, the equivalent in the UK, then the economy is in real trouble. Fuel in Spain has been costing only about 1,10€ per litre, so many Portuguese living near the border have been crossing over to fill up, leaving huge queues at petrol stations (bombas) and empty petrol stations in Portugal.

The fishermen got what they wanted within a few days of the strike starting. Tensions were high with some fighting at ports between police and fishermen, though nothing like the street battles in Belgium. In the truckers strike, one trucker has been killed and three injured when they were trying to stop other trucks, and the government has now sat down with the trucker's, especially when the they vowed to ratchet up their action and paralyse the country. On the news this afternoon there were reports of milk being thrown away because there were no lorries to transport it, and one mushroom supplier lost 300.000€ worth of mushrooms because they were sitting in the warehouse.

While the strikes were on there was little news, actually no news, of further increases in fuel. But as soon as the truckers announced they were going back to work, the two main fuel providers, Repsol and Galp announced that they were increasing the price of fuel by 1c. .