How many Happy Meals does it take to make someone truly happy? McDonald's is trying to figure out that formula by recruiting and educating "real" moms to defend its food as a healthful choice for their children -- or at least give them the assurance that the food is sanitary. A pilot program has recently been expanded in the Washington, D.C. area with five local moms who responded, among 83,000 others, to be taken on tours and pitched on how McDonald's fries are a "victimized food."

The program pitches the nutritional content of menu items and astounds customers with "real eggs!" used in its Egg McMuffins (the eggs are actually cracked and fried, although scrambled eggs are sent in already liquid form to franchisees). McDonald's says it is undergoing this program to bring "transparency" (and, likely, buzz on blogs and other social media networks, including its own web site about the project). But it must have chosen the moms with care; none of these seem concerned with what the chickens are eating, or how the cows were slaughtered; they're more focused on whether restaurant workers are using gloves to assemble salads from bagged lettuce (but, umm, what about the lettuce's treatment before it got to the bagging facility?). Once these questions have been answered thoroughly and with photo ops!, the moms are satisfied, guilt assuaged and prepared to inspect the hands of the servers on their next visit with eagle eyes.

If you write for a living, then you know only too well, that proper spelling, grammar and punctuation are essential to your craft. If you write for work or business purposes, then you know that accuracy in writing is a critical part of your skill set.

Through your school years, your teachers must have tried to impress upon you the importance of proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation in your written work. What they probably didn't provide you with however, was a body of evidence to support their assertions. Few writing instructors actually provide examples of how one small word, or the placement of a comma, can cost hundreds, thousands, or even multi-millions of dollars.

An example of the tremendous power of one word, can be drawn from my own experience. It occurred deep within the text of a final divorce decree which I signed. The original document, which arrived from my former spouse's attorney, had a sentence in it which declared that I agreed to pay, "...all debts incurred by her..." Knowing that was not what we had agreed upon, I simply struck out the word -her- and inserted the word -him. As near as I can figure it, changing that one word saved me at least $11,000.

A developer outside San Diego is hoping the old buy-one-get-one-free deal will lure customers. If you buy a $1.6 million home in San Pasqual Valley, he'll throw in an Escondido row home, which he values at $400,000. The San Diego Union Tribune says the Michael Crews Developers insist the prices are legit, not just holdovers from the boom. They say the rowhouses originally sold for $540,000 but now are going for $400,000.

They told the paper only one person has made an offer -- and they don't want to take on an extra house. Instead they want Crews to take their old house off their hands. In this real estate market, who wants more house, even if it is at current prices? But meanwhile this offer is making the rounds in the blogs and on TV as the latest internet craziness.

Of course this all seems desperate. But that's making Crews a star for today. But is it a ham-fisted and awkward kind of promotion? No, for that you'll really need to check out the Michael Crews blog. He "blogs" in press release style that Michael Crews Offers Two Homes for the Price of One. In February, 2007, he offered homebuyers a free truck. What's the most fun is to check out the comments on his stories like this one entry from two years ago . An anonymous commentator says: "Did you know that the San Diego Business Journal recognizes Michael Crews Development as one of San Diego's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies?" then goes on to spontaneously spout some other marketing stats. Later another obviously totally random person who has nothing to do with company exclaimed "I didn't know Michael Crews Development had won such an incredible award. I do know they have beautiful new homes for sale in San Diego County...."

Our man Abelicio Padilla has been blogging about his personal financial situation and he has been seeking advice for making sound money decisions. I wrote this piece as my input into his situation. If you'd like more background before you proceed, read Abelicio Padilla's interesting blog posts here.

Now here's my input:

It sounds like you have a plan Abe. However, I'd like you to think a little more about if you really want to sell that house. The market is down right now which means you probably won't get your best selling price for it. Also, did you consider that if you sell the house, you'll lose your mortgage interest deduction when you file your taxes? That deduction loss will cut into the monthly savings you expect to get by selling. Even though you won't notice it month to month, you'll feel it when you file your yearly income taxes. Consider also the upset that moving can cause. It's expensive. It will disrupt operations. In the long run It could cost you more than you think.

I'm writing about women's incomes -- what were you thinking?

In a recent scan of Donald Trump's blog, Trump University, I read a blog post the Donald wrote regarding women who earn better incomes than their male partners and what that disparity can do to the men in their lives. Referring to a report provided by Psych Central, Mr. Trump admonishes the partners of women who earn higher salaries to swallow their false pride and examine the upside.

It would seem that being the husband of a woman who is the major bread winner can have some pretty serious health consequences for the man, at least that's what the report points out. However, it's my opinion that men who develop health issues because they begin to earn less than their sweeties are men who already have issues wedged somewhere deep within their mentalities and they should consult with someone about those issues.

There sure are a lot of tech and gadget minded people out there. From true geeks to just the tech interested people on the user end, we abound in gadget literate people. The bloggers on our sister blog, DIYLife have done a great deal of touring around the blog-holds of the Internet and I would now like to bring you on a tour involving six tech, do-it -yourself, and gadget blogs which they've introduced to us or have helped us to become more familiar with.

There's something in my blog list for almost everyone, you'll have to look at them all to decide which ones are for you. I present them in no specific order of value. Some of these blogs are from our own Weblogs Network and the truth is that they are all great. I'm also providing links to some outstanding material from and about these blogs for you to review.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how business bloggers can make money directly and indirectly from blogging. And it's clear that there are many opportunities for established bloggers to be seen and heard around the globe.

A survey of American journalists shows that blogging is having an impact on news reporting. Not only is it helping news to travel faster, blogging is also influencing the tone of articles. Journalists are looking toward blogs for ideas and content. While only a small number of journalists say that blogs are helping them find exclusive stories, many are still using blogs to get a feel for the context of a story or a new angle for a story.

The survey found that almost 70% of reporters have a list of blogs that they check regularly. Over 20% said they spend an hour or more per day reading blogs.

Blogs are becoming a must-have outlet for advertisers and, with that development, recreational bloggers with an interesting message are finding themselves earning pretty impressive paydays on a part-time basis.

Easy to use advertising systems like Google AdSense are allowing people to set up a blog with advertising in just a few minutes. Create high-quality content that pops up in prominent searches and gets linked on more prominent blogs, and you could be well on your way to a substantial supplementary income. Best of all, you need almost no technical expertise and, with sites like BlogSpot and WordPress hosting blogs for free, you don't need any capital either.

If you overextended yourself financially this holiday season and are looking for a low-risk business venture to try to add some extra income this year, don't try multi-level marketing. Try blogging!

A couple books that might help you get started if you have a hobby or other interest that you think could make a compelling blog: Start Your Own Blogging Business and Blogging For Dummies.

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