Highena

How many black dots do you see?

I don’t know about anybody else, but looking at this makes me feel like I’ve just had a bump on the head.

For more optical illusions visit Amazing Illusions.

They say that everybody has a book in them, meaning we all have a story worth telling. I’m guessing it takes at least six months, possibly even years, to complete a good novel. Then, if you want to make a living out of writing, you have to find a publisher or an agent who believes in your work. In the past that was more than half the battle - actually getting published.

With Lulu you no longer have that uncertaintity. You just have to upload your work, design a cover and set a price. There’s no set up fees to start, and you own the rights to your work.

Lulu also has workshops to teach writing skills, a forum, and Lulu TV and radio.

I was browsing through the top 100 bestsellers and couldn’t see any established authors (or at least none that I recognised), and it doesn’t give sales figures, so it’s not possible to gauge how much people are making. Maybe the forums give a good indicator of this.

It certainly seems like a good idea, and could possibly be the future of publishing.

So, if you have a novel you wrote that’s gathering dust amongst the rejection letters, get it uploaded to Lulu. Who knows, maybe those publishers and agents didn’t know a bestseller when they saw one.

Although Adobe Photoshop is undoubtedly the daddy of photo editing software, for the simple jobs like cropping, resizing, brightness and contrast I always use Google’s free Picasa.

It’s not only very easy to use, it looks so damn cute as well. And all your photos are automatically stored on there for easy browsing.

Rather than pay the $999 for Photoshop, there’s also Gimp and Paint.net, which are also free and allows you to work with layers.

I just typed “Highena” in Google to see if the site was up there yet, and we’re on page 1 at number 4. Just above, at number 3, is this:

MySpace Profile - Edra Lynn Highena, 24 years old, Female, Bitch, NG, I eat babies…

So, I clicked on it…

And here’s what Highena looks like:

Myspace profile:

Status: Single
Body type: 3′ 8″
Ethnicity: Black / African descent
Religion: Mormon
Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius
Smoke/Drink: Yes / Yes
Children: Proud parent
Education: Post grad
Occupation: Eating the young ones. Scavengin’. You know…

Weird, huh?