The Deluxe version with bonus material is number 1 on iTunes and the regular album is #2.

According to Lana’s Facebook page the album is  “#1 in 11 countries”.

Lana has over 500,000 fans on Facebook and 158,000 followers on Twitter.com

Lana is scheduled to be on The Late Show with David Letterman on Thursday February 2nd (CBS).

Lana’s music video, Video Games, has been viewed online over 20 Million times.

Lana was also just nominated in the UK for the NME Award, for Best Track – Video Games and Best New Band…

Judi and I send out our best wishes for Healthy and Happy New Year.

I also want to thank all our readers, commentators and advertisers for another record year for us at theDomains.com.

2011 marked a record for traffic, posts and comments and I deeply appreciate that you chose to spend a part of your day over here.

2011 was a very challenging year for a lot of people and personally I’m glad to see it go.

2012 is going to be action packed for those in the domain industry pretty much right off the bat, with the new gTLD period opening on January 12, the SOPA hearing set for January 24th and Domainfest the first days of February.

Have a great holiday and we will see you on the flip side.

 …

In the last week since Bandit passed the response from the domain community has been nothing less than incredible.

I got a least as many personal emails,  as posts on the blog and even more on Facebook;  we got some flowers, cards in the mail, and a ton of calls.

Each one was greatly appreciated.

People we never met but read about Bandit somewhere or heard about him even reached out to us.

As they say,  Friends and foe, from close and far, some people we hadn’t seen or heard from in years, all got to us one way or the other.

Many shared poems, or verses or stories.

Dog lovers, pet lovers and lovers of life.

What an effect a ten pound ball of love had on so many.

There were some special people, people that without whose support we wouldn’t have made it through the week.

I will mention just a few.

Ray Neu and Kimberly  Howard.

Who could you ask to do the impossible and take care of your loved one and make sure they get to their final resting place safe secure and with love?

It was a duty I asked them to do because I couldn’t.

It wasn’t any easier on them, but they helped us in a way we can never repay.

Barbara and Howard Neu.

If you get really lucky in your life you will have as good a friend as they have been to Judi and I.

Many of the pics you see of Bandit, especially in the last few years, they were taken by Barbara; not only taken but arraigned, framed and perfected.

They are truly priceless.

Rick and Alina Schwartz.

Rick is a tough guy but he has a soft spot and he came up with a TRAFFIC award in Bandit’s honor within a couple of days of his passing.

Alina took it upon herself to get with John Feber and Jenna Wehner to set up a foundation for Bandit on microgiving.com on a totally gratis basis with 100% of all contributions going to the foundation.

Their support has meant the world to us. We can’t thank them enough.

Today we buried Bandit.

I was a gorgeous day, the service was wonderful and he is resting in a perfect spot wrapped in a Betty Boop blanket that Judi received as a gift.  He looked at peace and getting some rest after an exhausting life.…

He died like most of us would like to,  at home next to his loved one’s, Judi and I.

He went quickly and painlessly.

While most would point to the most incredible life he had, the places he went and how lucky he was to have a great life, we think we were the lucky ones.

Certainly he was a rare and precious gift from God.

We named him Bandit because when we saw him he stole our heart and we soon found out he had the same effect on thousand of people he met on his short time on earth.

There wasn’t a day or a place we went out with him where people didn’t come up to see him, ask what kind of dog he was, ask to take his picture , and to pet him and in turn Bandit would give them a kiss.

Over the years literally thousands of people all over the country and the world, stopped to chat with us.

We can’t begin to tell you how much joy, happiness he brought us everyday.

To us he wasn’t a dog, but a hairy child.

He was super smart, sweet, loving and we don’t really know what we are going to do without him in our lives.

Our hearts are broken.

Rest in peace our little boy, rest in peace.

…

I’m certainly glad I had the opportunity.

The last ICANN meeting in March of 2011, was held in San Francisco and the comparison between those two cities is remarkable.

Travel is always mind expanding for me.

To see how other people live, learn about other cultures and see how other countries operate.

Singapore is another one of these countries like Hong Kong and Panama, which has little to no income tax and which seems to be booming while our economy shows no signs of life.

Everywhere you look there is huge construction projects, busy restaurants and bars and overall a dynamic energy of success rather than a society trying to avoid foreclosure and bankruptcy.

I’m told that Singapore, unlike the US, which is as we all know $14 trillion in debt, has a huge surplus.

So much of a surplus that while many cities in the US are cancelling their independence day fireworks and celebration plans, Singapore is literally just pissing money away by already practicing on every Saturday night for its independence day celebration which is not until August.

To be clear I just watched for the second Saturday, a practice of the independence day celebration with fly overs of f-18 or f-22′s, helicopter demonstrations and fireworks even though their actual celebration is not until mid-august.

So you get the idea.

In the US a lot of cities can’t afford to celebrate independence day, while Singapore can afford to practice it’s independence day for 6 weeks.

Singapore like all countries have to make money and the way they choose to do it is by levying high duties on purchases.

That Mercedes Benz you can buy in the US for $150K might cost you $800K in Singapore plus $65K for a license plate for 10 years, but then if you don’t want or can’t afford to spend $800K on a Mercedes Benz then don’t, take the train, bus or buy a Honda.

Voluntary taxation.

No one in the US believes people will tax themselves but they will.

If people can can afford and want something they will pay for it.

Likewise if you have a Singapore passport you have to pay $100 to enter a casino.

I’m told quite unofficially that 2,500 Singaporean’s pay $100 each day for the privilege of losing money to the casino (actually to enter the casino) but once again that’s a choice not an obligation.…

Sheen’s mansion is on the market for $7.2 million.

TMZ writes;

“We’re told the YouPorn people have told Sheen’s people they hope to fulfill Sheen’s dream of moving in several porn stars to live at the mansion,”

“The YouPorn peeps told the realtor if Sheen accepts the deal, he can hang out at the porno compound as much as he wants.”

How long do you think it would take YouPorn.com to make back its money if they bought the house, let some porn stars live there and put cams all over the house?

My guess; less than a year.…

This past week I experienced a new Scam.

The unsolicited Skype Phone Call from a”System Repair Alert” wanting to fix my windows computer that had, as the phone call told me, been infected with a virus.

Since I’m running on an Apple I wasn’t too concerned, but listened to the entire pitch so I could find out who was sending out this pre-recorded Skype call.

The Call referred me to the domain name HelpHS.com which was spelled out during the call at least 4 times.

A quick whois check of the domain, found that the domain was just registered 4 days earlier at EuroDns on April 24th.

Smart that the registrant chose a non-US based registrar, stupid if the registrant listed his correct name address and phone number.

However since the name on the whois record is that of a famous US actor John Malkovich, chances are the name is not correct.

Other have already reporting the Scam on the Skype board, and on the Complaints Board.

It seems that EuroDns already reacted to complaints and pulled the site down as it no longer is resolving.

Nice to see a problem fixed without the need for government seizure of domains.

Bottom line, we have a new method  for those trying to screw us and its in the form of a Skype call.

Although it may have been  he 1st,  it’s surely not going to be the last time we will see this method being used so heads up.

 …

“wow…I am sitting through a really big earthquake in Tokyo!!!”

Ng wrote around 1 AM EST.

In another post an hour later after many well wisher comments, Mr. Ng wrote:

“Thanks everyone…I’m safe…for now… It felt like a 3-4 minute shake. All the locals here are saying it’s the biggest they’ve every felt. Waiting to see the tsunami aftermath. :/”

3 hours after his first post Mr. Ng wrote:

“unbelievable…another aftershock!”

Just a around an hour ago Mr. Ng updated his Facebook post:

“Thanks everyone! ”

“It was the biggest and longest shake I’ve ever felt combined with a series of aftershocks for the next two hours after.”

“Aftershocks are still occurring, but much less frequent. Outside of where I am, there are a lot of folks stranded with nowhere to go since all the subways and trains are shutdown. I’ll keep everyone posted.”

We send out our prays and hopes that Lawrence continues to be safe and well, and all our best to all the people who were effected by the earthquake, the tsunami that followed  and the aftershocks which are certain to come.…

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that animator Max Fleischer doesn’t hold a valid copyright or trademark for cartoon character Betty Boop, as he was unable to prove the chain of how the rights to the character was transferred over the years.

“If we ruled that Avela’s depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer’s trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain,” U.S. Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace wrote.

Max Fleischer created Betty Boop in 1930 and sold the rights to her cartoons and the character about 10 years after creating her. His family, in an attempt to revive the Fleischer cartoon business, incorporated Fleisher Studios in the early 1970s and attempted to repurchase the intellectual property rights to the character.

Ok So truth be known my wife Judi is a huge Betty Boop fan.

So although I’m sure there is a lesson to be learned here all I can say is

Boop-boop-de-doop

You can read a Reuters story on the decision here and the decision itself here.…

In its post DomainConsultant.com wrote:

”When it comes to domain blogging and matters of analysis and advice (beyond news coverage), the question then becomes: how do they make a living? Or more specifically, do they make a living off domains or blogging about domains?’

“Truth is it is not hard to tell.”

“Look for the ads. ”

“Count how many ads you see and the prevalence.”

“What about Rick Schwartz? Frank Schilling? Sahar?”

“See lots of ads?”

The post from DomainConsultant goes on to specifically exempt out of its “potential conflict of interest” blogs;  Elliotsblog.com, DomainNameNews.com, DomainNameWire.com and DnJournal.com:

“The caveat would be news outlets like DnJ or DNN or DNW or Elliot too - ad dollars allow them to focus on the news like sales and deals and domainers and even domaining”

Since I was not included in the exempt list I thought I’d write about some of my thoughts about blogging, advertising and conflicts of interest.

While the point of both articles was that if a blog has ads, then the content of the blog must be called into question (unless your on the exempt list).

Of course both articles simply neglected to point out that newspapers like USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have thousands of advertisers and sometimes they wind up writing negative stories about their advertisers if the story requires it.

Likewise TV networks like CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS  have thousands of advertisers and if they never  broadcasted a negative story on any advertiser, well they wouldn’t have much to report.

So all media outlets from time to time broadcast negative stories on advertisers when the story calls for it.

For example, Toyota spent tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions a year on TV networks only to have negative news reports hit every major network every night for months when they were having issues with their cars.

Why?

Because networks know what I know, that there are always more advertisers.

If a negative story has to be written, and that company goes away as an advertiser, then they go away.

More companies will come because ultimately advertisers only care about getting there message in front of an audience, in front of eyeballs and readers.…