Justin Germino Ramblings

I was dismayed when my wife told me that the Rosewood Grille had closed down in Las Vegas.  This restaurant was located right near the MGM Grand and boasted the largest lobsters you can find anywhere at a restaurant.

My wife and I ate there only once, where we ordered a 10 1/2 pound lobster that we split between us.

This of course was taken many years ago, and that lobster had claws that were bigger than our heads!

We had even talked about visiting Rosewood Grille again someday, but unfortunately that day will never come.  I don’t know anyplace now that did anything as extravagant or serve lobsters the size of English Bulldogs.

-Justin Germino

Honestly I can tell you I never get sick of looking at the ocean and being near the beach.  Something about the ocean itself feels so massive and the fact that it teems with life makes you feel like Earth is living fluid being.

This is probably one of the reasons I enjoy going on cruises with my wife as much as I do.  She loves the ocean even more than I do being the fact that she was born and raised here in the desert of Arizona.  I at least got to visit Long Beach and Rockaway Beach from time to time while growing up in New York but she hasn’t been to the beach as often.

I still enjoy digging in the sand and catching the little white sand crabs and have so much fun jumping the waves with my two boys.  I can’t wait for the weather to become warmer, it is still kind of cold to go swimming though I did go into the ocean in January for a spell it was pretty cold to stay in too long though. 

One day we will live next to the beach, it is in the plans and being able to just jog the beach every morning or evening while listening to the waves crashing is my idea of a perfect morning or evening.

-Justin Germino

Over three years of blogging has taught me that you have to think outside the box to stand out in a crowded market.  This means you have to be unique, original and different from your peers in the same space.  When you go into blogging know that there are already a thousand people who are writing about the same thing, so you need to make sure you bring something different to the table whether it be a unique perspective, entertaining personality or something shocking to get you noticed.

Be a Different Writer

Write so that your readers can connect with your work.  This means you don’t have to have a literary degree or advanced grasp of English and grammar but you do have to be able to weave a connection with words.  There are many successful bloggers who are kids, or International bloggers where their articles may be littered with fragmented sentences.  As long as they grab your attention and leave a lasting impression though it doesn’t matter if their articles came off as slightly less professional or amateurish.  One advantage of being a blogger is you aren’t expected to be a journalist, so you are liberated enough to share opinions, feedback and weave your own story and style to anything you write about.

Be a Different Salesman

You sell the same crap everybody else purveys, but you have to do it differently.  Choose stuff that your readers connect with you and your blog and don’t start a blog with selling off the bat, you have to build a fan base and a trust before you can convince people something is worth buying.  Use passive income earners like AdSense, or sponsored review services like SocialSpark, SponsoredTweets when you start building a little following and the earnings can be rewarding and keep you going.

You also don’t ever have to directly sell products, many bloggers make a good income with passive ad sales from being an Amazon Affiliate, or other retail outlet affiliate.

Be Outspoken

If you are a blogger you need personality and no matter what you blog about make sure that you speak from the heart and from your own perspective.  Share opinions, be honest and speak as you would to a friend in the real world.  Outspoken bloggers who are opinionated are the ones who get noticed, but don’t confuse opinionated with unprofessional.  Always maintain respect and professionalism so you keep a potential working relationship with advertisers and respect with your fans and readers at the top of your priority list.

Blog About Anything

Blog about anything you are passionate about, you don’t need a specific niche or category.  Just start blogging about the things you like, dislike, love, hate or what you find entertaining and make sure you engage your readers, ask for opinions and experiment often.  Mommy bloggers are among the most popular because they blog about any and all topics without sticking with one genre or another.  Don’t underestimate the power of personal blogs, but make sure if you are going to share anything you keep it to only the stuff that would entertain, interest or grab attention. 

Blogging Doesn’t Cost Much

There is a minimal investment in blogging and you can pretty much use a free cloud hosted blogging platform like Blogger.com or WordPress.com until you gain enough of a following to move to a self hosted platform (which you may never need to do).  One thing you should do however is always buy a unique domain name and keep it up, this way you can move it with you and keep its ranking, recognition and links intact.  Trust me on this, always purchase a DNS name and stick with it for the long haul.  I have known many bloggers who didn’t spend the $10 per year to get a DNS name up front and regretted it.

There is so many competing bloggers in the Internet, just know that you don’t have to be the best at any topic, you just have to be unique, original and be memorable.  Experiment, engage, shock, annoy, entertain and most of all display your passions and connect with your readers on an emotional level and you will gradually start to build a following.

-Justin Germino

I picked up a can of the [easyazon-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA”]Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix[/easyazon-link] the other day and I swear this was the most flavorful and best tasting nut mix I have ever had.  It has dried berries to add a sweetness that compliments the almonds and pistachios so well.

[easyazon-image-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA” alt=”Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix, 9-Ounce Cans (Pack of 3)” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51t99wQl5yL.jpg” align=”center” width=”500″ height=”498″]

I have eat a ton of trail mix brands over the years, but there isn’t too much salt, no chocolate or yogurt coatings and this just plain tastes exceptional.  Each can says it has about 8 servings in it, but I usually only get about 4 servings per can since I tend to eat two heaping handfuls in a serving.

If you are looking for a new nut mix that has cherries, cranberries, grain clusters, almonds and pistachio’s then the [easyazon-link asin=”B001EQ5DLA”]Planters NUT-rition Digestive Health Mix[/easyazon-link] is the right kind of mix for you.

How many of my readers have tried this particular flavor?  I have tried the Antioxidant and Heart Healthy mix before, both are really good as well.

-Justin Germino

With Twitter putting policies in place that allow it to expand into other countries but also comply with local laws that allow the censorship of tweets that governments flag as illegal Twitter has seen both attackers and defenders already over the past few days.

Twitter has legitimacy in wanting to expand and tap into a larger audience, with 100 million users, Twitter is about 1/9th the size of Facebook and only slightly bigger than Google+ and was around a lot longer than Google+.

Twitter also was the platform that most notably helped spawn revolutions in Egypt and protests in other countries.  The biggest fear is that now if people try to voice their opinions and calls for change, they will be blocked and shut down.

Censorship is not what most free countries tolerate or stand up for and the thought of Twitter potentially censoring tweets and removing them from countries where any outlet for free speech is a welcome and necessary option.

Twitter does however say it will investigate all “flagged” tweets and post any that were censored on another site mentioning what was censored and why.  They also state that they will allow the offending tweets to stay intact for other countries just not for the one where laws where violated.

We shall see how this shapes up and whether Twitter’s reputation will be damaged and possibly suffer a backlash with some people already declaring “No Twitter Days”.

How do you feel about the latest compromises Twitter is making in exchange for being more attractive as a social media network to more rigid countries?  Share your thoughts.

-Justin Germino

Was funny when my wife asked me why there were no songs on my iPod Touch and I told her I use Spotify exclusively for all my music now.  I pretty much don’t load iTunes at all to transfer music anymore to my iPod and only use the iTunes for apps, news, games that I occasionally play (I use my iPad for apps more than my iPod touch).

Spotify is pretty fantastic and though it doesn’t have everything I find new stuff is being added all the time.  Just a few months ago I didn’t find the Greenback Boogie song which came out a few months later and just was instantly available.

I have been a paying Spotify member for a long time now and have no regrets, they still need to add more Tangerine Dream albums but I already have listened to so many I haven’t heard before thanks to Spotify.

I really think that for people who think it is worth paying for Sirius or XM Satellite radio, Spotify is worth the $9.99 per month to get unlimited music streaming and even be able to store a hundred songs offline at any one time to listen while you are in offline mode.

Spotify now has apps too that provide extra detail like song lyrics, billboard charts and even more options for building radio features and your own stations.

I just wish Spotify app existed for the Kindle Fire so I can more easily build kids custom playlists and sync their devices.  I also would like to see Spotify contract with publishers and maybe allow audio books as well.  I would pay an extra $5 per month to have audio book access on top of my $10 per month subscription.

-Justin Germino

You know if you consider the fact that Naked Brand juices are $2.99 on average per bottle at Fry’s and cheaper at Walmart and you drink just 1-2 per day to replace a meal it is actually cheaper than buying a juicer and juicing your own vegetables that would give you the same nutritional value.

Seriously, my favorite is the Green Machine which in addition to having Apples, Banana, Kiwi, Mango and some Pineapple juice also has the following healthy ingredients.

Try putting all that in a juicer or blender and see how much it would cost you for 1 serving size?  They have over 24 flavors of juices including some smoothies with soy protein instead of milk protein.

My favorites are Orange Carrot, Blue Machine, Red Machine, Power-C, Mighty Mango and of course Green Machine.  I haven’t tried Gold Machine or some of the others but I haven’t encountered a Naked Juice that I didn’t like.

Because they are fresh juices with no artificial ingredients I can’t order them from Amazon.com and have to go to local store.  I usually buy about 4-5 bottles per week and drink one instead of a lunch on some days.

If you haven’t tried Naked Juices yet then you don’t know what you are missing.

-Justin Germino

With my Kindle Fire Giveaway having about a week left over on DragonBlogger.com I noticed that the official Kindle Fire fanpage on Facebook inches closer to 500,000 likes.

I almost never see any negative comment and majority of owners are passionate and love their tablet.

My kids love their Kindle Fire and every weekend I am preloading new music or switching out movies on both Kindle Fire’s that my boys received as Christmas presents.

There are new games added every week but I will admit that there needs to be a larger selection of high quality games, this will come to grow in time but in general I still find that Apple Store has a higher selection of quality games or at least licensed movie based games and such.  You won’t find any Superman, Green Lantern, Spiderman games on the Amazon App Store for example yet.

You will find Real Steel boxing game for Kindle Fire which my 5 year old loves, and you will find other excellent games like Battleheart but Kingdom Rush isn’t available yet.

The Kindle Fire is growing rapidly and is highly recommended if you want a tablet that is $199 and worth every penny.  Just ask any questions on the Kindle Fire page and you will get a glutton of people willing to share their advice, feedback or opinions.  Or if you already own a Kindle Fire, you can join my Kindle Fire Owners Facebook group and share your stories and ask for help.

-Justin Germino

[az_easel item=”B0051VVOB2″]

In addition to still running the Kindle Fire Giveaway on my technology blog which has around 6,000 entries so far, I am also giving away a free video game (winner’s choice) the game can be for any console or PC as long as retail value is $59.99 or less.

You still have time to enter either contest, go ahead and click on the banners below and enter to win either a Kindle Fire or Video game of your choice.

-Justin Germino

What other giveaways would you want to see on DragonBlogger.com technology blog?  Share what you want a chance to win.

One shorty award vote for dragonblogger in the blogger category and I thought why not see how many votes I can get?  I decided to see how many of my fans and friends would be willing to toss me a shorty vote and though I have no chance of reaching the 9744 votes that the 1st place person has, I thought I may just make the top 10 with about 270 votes being all that’s needed to place the #10 spot.

Nominate Justin Germino for a social media award in the Shorty Awards

So currently I am running in about #40 out of 1400 people nominated for a Shorty, and the voting ends on January 27th. 

My selling point on why people should vote me for a Social Media Shorty award is because few social media personalities can do technology, gaming, blogging, WordPress tips, poetry, movie reviews, make money online at same time. 

If you wouldn’t mind, nominate dragonblogger for a Shorty and let’s see if I can reach my top 10 placement.

-Justin Germino