Motivation is a funny thing.  What motivates some people just won’t work for others.  Take quitting smoking for example.  For some people, just the idea of being healthy is enough to make them quit smoking.  For others it’s the fear of death.  Some people quit smoking due to financial reasons.  Others - hell, they can be told “if you have one more cigarette you’ll get lung cancer” and continue to smoke regardless.

When it comes to internet marketing and the work I do, I’ve never been motivated by money.  I mean - I’d LIKE to make money on every website I run of course, and the whole concept of money and being financially secure is a motivation - but it’s not really about the almighty dollar for me.

A lot of different things motivate me.  For example, I love to write - absolutely love it.  I’ve been writing on the web since at least 1996, and for the majority of those years I never made a dime, mainly because it just doesn’t interest me.  That’s why I run sites like Poker Affiliate Bible - I make money from that site for sure, but that’s secondary to the passion and enjoyment I get out of writing articles.

Then there’s my latest site like Casino Answers.  When I write for that website and work on that website, the motivation I get from that is making it the biggest casino informational resource online.  I want people to say “Hey, you have a question about casinos?  This is the website you should check”.  Kind of like how Wikipedia is a reference for practically everything these days.  I do think that site will make me a lot of money, but again that’s a secondary reason to making it the best damn site possible.

As I think about it, there are websites that I HAVE created purely for financial reasons, and they have suffered because of that.  The websites I create due to passion are the ones that I make the most money from, mainly because I think you see it in the end results more, that those are the best websites.

The whole point of this post though is to talk about how different things can motivate you.  Since being back from London, I’ve found it hard to do work mainly because my wife has been sick, and she’s been home with my daughter every day since I’ve been back.  It’s very easy to get distracted with people around, with noise in the background, with the TV on etc.

Yet today I’ve become incredibly motivated, and despite both kids being home have managed to get a shitload of work done.  The reason?  Because I haven’t played XBox 360 a lot lately, and as most of you know I have a $3000 achievement challenge going on, and I want to get back to work on it.  Yet I can’t because of all the work I have to do.  So I’ve been working my ass off since early this morning to get everything I need to done, purely so I can play Xbox.

Anyway one of the things I finally did was get Scotsmanality back online.  No there is no articles there - it’s purely for search engine purposes.  I still get a ton of hits for that phrase, so I thought I’d get a site online explaining WTF happened to Scotsmanality, and get some search engine love in the process.

Holy shit - to say I’m hyped for this would be an understatement.

I was always going to go to it - fuck it’s only in Montreal a couple of hours away - but to actually get a great card, especially after the shitfest that was UFC 97 - would be very nice.

And just a couple of months away, it’s setting up to be an amazing fucking card.

First of all we have the rematch between Machida and Shogun which should be really fucking interesting.  Evans vs Rampage is also a potential fight.

As if that wasn’t enough, Cote looks to be fighting Belcher, Koscheck vs Daley is rumoured, and KIMBO FUCKING SLICE looks to be fighting Matt Matrione on the card.

Holy shit, what a show.  When it comes to UFC events there is no middle ground - you either get the shit seats to watch the big screen and soak up the atmosphere, or you get as close to ringside as possible.  Because the middle price seats are shit as you usually just end up watching the big screens anyway.

Ringside seats just became a fuckload more appealing.

Well I’m sure you all know about the tragedy right now in Haiti.  A 7.0 earthquake hit there on Tuesday, and there are a lot of people dead.  There are estimates of 100,000 to 500,000 which is just unreal.

I really don’t know what to say about it except it really sucks.  These are human beings, and their lives have just been taken away from them.  The people who have lived through it have most likely lost members of their family, their homes and so much more.

I’ve been on the internet for many years.  I’ve seen everything.  Goatse.  Two Girls, One Cup.  Cake Farts.  Guys getting their heads blown off.  Posts by Toptenguy on NPP.  All these horrible things - to the point where I’ve became desensitized to them.  Someone can send me a picture of - christ I don’t know - a kitten getting stomped on by high heels and I won’t bat an eyelid.

But this picture I saw today really got to me:

That is without a doubt one of the saddest and most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen.  I honestly don’t even know if that’s from Haiti - it’s being passed around the internet like crazy right now and no-one has said it isn’t from Haiti.  Regardless of whether it’s from Haiti or not, that’s the situation they are facing in Haiti right now.

Just sit back and think about the next week in your life.  Planning to eat out at all?  Going out for drinks?  Renting video games?  Buying DVDs? Going to hit the corner store and buy some junk food?  Picking up some weed to get stoned on the weekend?  Basically - planning on spending money on things that you don’t really need?

Put it off till the week after  Because Haiti needs it right now.  The International Red Cross is the best place to donate I believe, however if you go to any charity website you like/trust I am sure they have a special link for Haiti.

There are many worthy causes out there, but right now Haiti needs everything they can get.  Every little bit helps.

First blog post of 2010 - woot!

I had a quiet New Years.  Just stayed in with the family and watched Home Alone 1 & 2.  That’s the best way to do it - going out on New Years sucks.  All the pubs are absolutely fucking packed full of amateur drinkers, so it’s never any fun.

On the weekend I went up to Toronto to meet my old buddy Nate.  It was snowing like crazy, and the train took an extra hour to get there.  We watched the early football games, then headed off to the ACC to watch the Raptors vs Spurs.  The Spurs were shockingly bad.  They had Pizza Pizza there and the pizza was just COVERED in pepperoni and we were fucking starved, so ended up having 4 slices each.  Well after the game we are walking down that big tunnelled in area that leads to Front St, when we both at the same time just ran into a corner and puked it all up.  That was great.

Here is a picture from the next morning - pepperoni everywhere!

Overall it was a good night though.  After getting all that pepperoni out of our system, we went to Jack Astors and had a couple of Caesars to settle our stomachs.  I also had their wings which are pretty damn good.  We followed that up with some blueberry girlie drink, a pint of Keiths and then off to another bar where I had my first ever red bull, as we did 3 red bull & vodkas.  Unfortunately it never really impacted me as we went back to his place and I crashed immediately.

Watched TNA Impact & RAW last night.  RAW was fucking AWFUL.  The Bret stuff at the beginning was great, but the rest of the show was horrifically boring and for the show to end with Vince kicking Bret in the balls?  Fuck that.  Awful, awful stuff.

TNA Impact on the other hand was EXCELLENT.  It reminded me of the good old days where you never really knew what was happening next.  What I liked most though was that they didn’t blow their load on one show - rather they set a TON of stuff up, and planted a lot of seeds.  How does Hogan feel about the nWo?  What’s gonna happen with Jarrett?  Who attacked everyone backstage?  What’s Stings role gonna be?  What’s Flairs role gonna be?  Just so much stuff and I really fucking liked it, and can’t wait for the next Impact now.

…came two days ago, on December 23rd.

Me and Mason were sitting around watching Fred Claus, when out of nowhere he asked if we could go shopping to buy Mummy and Ella(sister) Christmas presents.  Now this in itself was really cool - at previous Christmas and Birthdays he’s never mentioned it and I bring it up and he’s never shown any real interest.

I asked him if he knew what he wanted to get them.  Now when I’ve asked what to get them for birthdays etc previously, he’s always said things he wants like XBox games etc, so I expected the same thing.  So I was pretty stunned when he quickly responded:

“Chocolates for mummy and a barbie doll for Ella.”

He was so sure of himself, he knew what he wanted to get.  It totally caught me off guard, and I thought maybe he had been suggested that by his teacher, or by Janise or something.  So I asked him “Where did you come up with the idea for those presents?”

His response was: “My brain.”

It was just such a cute thing - I dunno I expect if you’re not a parent you won’t fully understand it, but for me it was pretty much one of the greatest moments of my life, and will be a memory I cherish forever.  Today we braved the local mall and bought those gifts, then brought them home and wrapped them and they are sitting under the tree right now.

So yeah thank you Mason for my best christmas present ever - a memory and a moment in life that I will cherish forever.

Merry Christmas everyone.