Kelly's World

Competition
Sponsored by Tomoson.com

Weirder Than Marshmallows Book of Essays by Dan Fogg

This is the fifth book I have read as part of challenge no. 21 of my 52 things in 52 weeks challenge.

Bet you haven’t ever really thought about what goes into marshmallows, have you?

The ingredients of a marshmallow are fairly simple. Corn syrup, sugar, dextrose, corn starch, water, gelatin, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial and natural flavor, and blue 1. Most of those are self-explanatory. Corn syrup for flavor, sugar because that’s what the marshmallow is, corn starch for shelf-life, water to puff the thing out, gelatin to hold it together. Nobody knows what the compounds are for, and nobody really cares. Because, come on, why would you care what you’re putting in your mouth?

The ingredient I have a question about is the blue 1. Food coloring. Blue food coloring. Now maybe I’m wrong about this, but marshmallows are white, aren’t they? And white is achieved by a lack of color. So what color did those little puffs of sugar have to start out to require the addition of blue to neutralize it?

I’ve only just started to get into chemistry as part of my uni, and a few of our experiments involved the modification of a colour of an item using various other chemicals. Reading this introduction from Dan literally made me stop for a bit, and wonder why blue 1 would be needed. Seriously…anyone know? Did anyone else ever actually stop and look at ingredients for any food item in particular, only to wonder why a particular ingredient was actually necessary?

The rest of the book is a collection of stories ranging from the ponderings of other everyday occurrences that we never stop to really think about, or the bizarre moments in life (being certain you were in a specific place at a particular time, and someone else who was there at that exact same time not ever seeing you). There’s a lot in there that you’ll find that you think “oh yeah – why is that?”

This was the first time I’ve used an e-book in my 52 in 52 challenge, but when an offer was made for me to receive the book for free in exchange for my honest opinion, I definitely wasn’t going to turn that down! Reading an e-book was quite a different experience to be honest. I used my iPhone, and I definitely struggled as it came in a PDF format (on the iPhone you can’t change PDF font sizes using iBooks). However, if you had a dedicated e-book reader with a larger screen (iPad, kindle etc) you wouldn’t have the same problem. In addition, if it came in a format that was a bit more friendly to the iBooks app so that I could change the font size then it would be a lot better. There’s a kindle version so I would expect this problem would be resolved using the Kindle app (it’s only $7.99 USD on the amazon store) instead of the iBooks app, and therefore a lot more iPhone friendly.

Overall the book was quite enjoyable to read, and I found with the portability of the iPhone I was able to read little bits here and there. It’s not a book that will keep you gripped to your phone until you’ve finished it, but it’s still great for those moments when you want something light-hearted that will give you a laugh here and there. There was also one moment in the book where I finished the chapter, sat back and realised how lucky I am. I won’t give it all away, but the writer, Dan, lived his life in a wheelchair and shared a story of one of those moments where he completely relies on others for assistance. It truly made me feel blessed that I have every limb in my body, and my own problems seem greatly insignificant. Sometimes we all need a bit of a wakeup call so we can reevaluate our lives, and realise that most of our problems really are quite small in the grand scheme of things.

But enough of being serious.

Thanks to NightFire Publications, I have been given the opportunity to give a copy of the book to one of my readers (in PDF format still though – sorry). The contest will be open for 2 weeks, and finish at 12pm (EST time – don’t get me started on daylight savings in Australia, honestly). To enter the competition you can do any of the following:

Feel free to enter multiple times, as each entry will be given a specific “entry number”. At the end of the competition a random number generator will be used to determine the winner. So go on, get entering! It’s free, so you have no excuse!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Panasonic Australia. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love photography. I love the ability of capturing moments and places, and sharing your viewpoint with others. In a single photograph, you can inspire emotions and feelings, and take people to places they’ve never been before. But there’s a difference between photography and simply taking photos – photography has a deeper purpose and meaning than a snapshot. You’re capturing the essence of your subject.

Panasonic recognise that, and have started a competition for the everyday photographer. The competition is called LUMIX Life Focus on Australia, where entrants are asked to take a photo showing the soul of Australia. The winner’s photo will be published in a coffee table book also featuring the works of some top name photographers, including Ken Duncan (of whom I’m a huge fan), Peter Eastway and Bill Bachman. I get a kick out of people looking at my photos on Flickr, I can’t even begin to imagine how amazing it would feel to have my photo in a book with such quality professionals! Ken Duncan hand selects the winners as well, so if I won it would be even more of an ego boost in my book (pun intended, sorry).

LUMIX Life Focus On Australia starts April 1st 2010 - The Video

The competition runs from April 1st through to June 30th. There are monthly giveaways (the Lumix DMC-GF1, which I have to say looks pretty impressive) along with the final prize at the end of the comp. The grand final winner will also receive their own copy of the book, available in bookstores and selected camera outlets from November 1st, 2010. Proceeds from the books will be going to a good cause, the Walk a While indigenous arts educational program.

There are only three requirements for the competition:

1. Entrants need to be from Australia
2. Photos need to be focused on Australia
3. Photos have to be taken using a Lumix camera

More information on the competition can be found at the following locations:

• LUMIX Life Focus on Australia website
• Panasonic twitter account
• Lumix Flickr group
• YouTube account
• Facebook page (Panasonic Australia on Facebook).

Props to them for being in touch with this generation, they sure know how to reach their audience!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

This year I’ve really been focusing on my blog more, trying to make the effort to write more posts. To help “fund” this interest (sorry for the terrible pun) I signed up for google advertising, and a sponsored blog post site, SocialSpark. Not only do I benefit by earning money from my blog, but the actual thought of earning is enough to persuade me to continue writing. I truly enjoy writing, and sharing all my pointless experiences with the world, so it’s pretty ideal.

I had been looking around at paid blogging sites, but they all required the user to just sit around and wait for a specific opportunity to be presented to them. Not fun. Looking around on socialspark.com I was impressed to see it was completely different – the advertiser posts the opportunity in the “marketplace”, and if you’re qualified, you take it. Done! The advertiser benefits by having multiple people take up the opportunity, and the blogger has the flexibility to select only topics which they can connect to, and find interest in. No doubt it ends up with more fascinating and useful articles.

Signing up was simple – create an account, paste some code in your blog, and verify it. Done! Then you browse to the marketplace and see what’s available. The first offer for all users is to write a sponsored post about socialspark.com, exactly like this one. So I confess, I’m earning money right now (thanks for helping me out).

It’s also like a social network in itself though. You can become “friends” with other bloggers, which theoretically is a new way to connect with other people out there. From browsing other users I have already discovered a couple of blogs that I’ve subscribed to. I’m still new to the service and working my way around, so I’m still yet to discover the power of the network, however having the ability to find new people and blogs definitely doesn’t hurt.

Of course, there are a few rules when it comes to submitting an acceptable post. There is a full Code of Ethics available if you wanted to peruse it, but really, it comes down to a few major points:

1. Letting your readers know it’s a paid post. For example, at the top of this post you will find full disclosure that this is a paid blog, however;
2. You must be completely honest with your readers. If I had signed up for socialspark.com, but had some major issues with the site and had noted it on this blog, they would appreciate the feedback and I would still be paid. This isn’t a service where you get paid for lying to people, and I’m definitely not interested in that.

Time will tell on how valuable this service will be, but given I’m currently saving for a wedding, every dollar counts.

If you’re you’re also interested in earning money from writing, click here to sign up. And most importantly, I’d love to hear your opinions on paid blogging. If you think it devalues the blog and you lose respect for the writer, I definitely want to hear from you. Let me know!