When Payday Loans Could Come in Handy

Payday loans are simple. Often referred to as payday advance, this is a type of loan used to address unexpected expenses that crop up before the next payday. In other words, it can be your fast and easy solution to your immediate needs.While there are countless criticisms against this type of financial grant, there are numerous advantages as well. Probably the most important of all is the fact that it don’t need collateral and they do not require a bagful of documents. As such, getting a Canadian payday loan, for example, might be a great idea. As long as you have the discipline to pay off your loan on time, then you don’t end up suffering from enormous finance charges.Here are a couple of instances when payday loans would come in handy:Medical BillsYou cannot predict when you – or your loved one – will get sick. Sometimes, regardless of how well you take care of your body, and how many kinds of vitamins you use, sickness catches you right in the face. And in a time when prices have been surging, saving for medical expenses will be your last priority.This is when it would be a wise move for you to take advantage of payday loans. Anyway, by availing of this service, you promise to pay up your loan on your next payday. So, as long as no complications will come your way, you will once again be debt-free after your payday.Household BillsYes, household bills are supposed to be part of the monthly budget. You will be pathetic if you don’t set aside a certain percentage of your salary to take care of electric, water, phone and internet bills. So you would ask: why should you need payday loans to pay off household bills when they are supposed to be budgeted?Simple. Remember that payday loans are only – ideally – used for emergency. So when you’ve been billed way larger than the usual amount, then that’s the time when a payday loan will come in handy.For example, before, it is okay for you not to use air-conditioning units during summer. With global warming, however, it’s impossible for you to breath inside your home without the aid of these appliances. Naturally, if you’ve been using your aircon units more than usual, your electricity bills will go up. And this is something that you’ve not properly forecasted. As such, you will be over your budget and you would need additional funds to cover for the “over-sized” bills. And where can you get quick and easy cash than through payday loans?Payday loans are not that deceptive. Critiques label them as such because they lure low-income families to quick money in exchange for high interests. If they don’t have other sources for additional funds, naturally, they are prone to fall prey to payday loans.But this need not be the case always. As long as you know how to control yourself and as long as you can logically and sincerely distinguish “emergency” from “quasi-emergency,” then you won’t have to deal with financial problems emanating from payday loans.Payday loans are specifically made to address emergency needs. Only when you abide by this “rule of thumb” shall you be able to protect yourself from ridiculous finance charges!Money Loans Company – Payday Loans and Cash Advance20 Eglinton Ave. EastToronto, Ontario, CanadaM4P 1A9

My Buddy Mario – A True World Traveller and Conoisseur of Intercultural Experiences

In the 16 years that I have known my friend Mario I have heard many different tales of his world travels and he is one of those people who have lived, worked and hitchhiked through different exotic countries. Mario is a Toronto high school teacher and teaches French and world issues. He spent time living and working in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and Quebec and came face-to-face with often vastly different cultures.Mario is also an immigrant in two different countries, Australia where he moved as a small child in the 50s, and Canada, where he arrived as a teenager. Here is his story, the story of an immigrant, traveler and global adventurer.1. Please tell us a bit about your background. Where were you born and where did you grow up?I was born in San Vita al Tagliamento in northeastern Italy in the province of Friuli. But my parents are of Calabrese origin from Southern Italy. After his military service in the north of Italy my father decided to stay there due to his fondness for Friuli culture. In 1953 my father moved our family to Australia where he worked with a French contracting firm and we settled in Brisbane, Queensland when I was 2.5 years old. It was there that I had my first memories of the immigrant reality which was a very simple house made of wood. The roof leaked into our house and we had plants growing through the floor in the kitchen. The conditions were very basic, but this would set the stage for 11 years of a very challenging cultural adjustment period, following which my father moved us to Canada in 1964.At that time, Italians faced a lot of discrimination, even harassment or sometimes violence in different forms, physical and psychological. My family was actually the target of a number of different forms of attack because we were immigrants. It made for a rather paranoid existence, constantly having to looking over your shoulder.Remember, this was the 50s and Australia was still governed within the framework of the “White Australia Policy”, a form of institutionalized apartheid. I witnessed various acts of brutality towards Australian aborigines with whom I was often mistaken, given the darkness of my skin. The proximity to the sea, however, made me appreciate the beauty of Australia in its purest form. During this time I developed a strong sense of self-reliance and I learned the importance of defending myself.In the mid 70s I returned to Australia and I noticed that the work of many of those earlier immigrants had born fruit in the form of comfortable lifestyles and accomplished middle-class experiences. Italians had finally become mainstream and accepted. This also corresponded with Australia’s new multi-cultural policy. Australia started to open up to different nationalities, which made for a more tolerant society.2. You are a gifted multi-lingual individual. How many languages do you speak and what are they?English and Italian are my first two languages. I also speak French, Spanish and Portuguese at a pretty high level. In addition, I also get by in Indonesian and I speak basic German and some phrases in Russian. The sound of different foreign languages fascinates me and I also appreciate that speaking the language is the key to these foreign cultures. Apart from the initial period during high school when I was exposed to English, French and German for the first time, the rest of my languages were acquired through living in the culture.3. What was it like when you first came to Canada?I remember it being very very cold since we arrived in Canada on February 16, 1964. My first observation was a very abrupt introduction to the Canadian climate. For a good several years I found it very difficult to adapt to the climate. On the other hand, as far as culture went, I could finally tap into my Italian-ness. It was actually in Toronto that the whole notion of being an Italian took on a new meaning for me because I felt accepted. I felt embraced here and felt that I could express my Italian heritage which led to me perfecting my Italian, considering I had suppressed speaking Italian in Australia. Once we came to Toronto I felt a desire to further go into the language.High school in Canada was an appreciation of many other languages. We were offered courses in French, German, Latin and Spanish at the high school level. The school I went to reflected the transitional nature of Toronto at that time, which had been very WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) until the 1960s and from then on started to change into a more cosmopolitan environment. There were people of different backgrounds which made you comfortable expressing yourself. By the time I went to university I was fairly at ease with my own intercultural identity.My appreciation for Portuguese started on a construction job in Tecumseh, Ontario, where 2 gangs of construction workers, one Italian, one Portuguese, were confined to a very small house, provided by the construction company and were forced to live and interact with one another. I started to appreciate the similarities and differences with Portuguese culture, which I found absolutely fascinating. This was my initiation into the Portuguese language.4. What were your earliest travel experiences?Apart from the immigrant boat travels, my first travel memories were when I hitchhiked to Niagara Falls and Barrie, a medium-size town 90 minutes north of Toronto, when I was 15 years old. This gave me a sense of independence and the ability to design my own path on any trip. I felt in control and decided where I wanted to go. We did not realize that we needed a passport to cross into the United States, so we learned the lesson that you need your documents in order when traveling to foreign countries.The next big trip was at the age of 17, crossing Canada with a fellow student in a VW beetle. We went to Vancouver for one month, picking strawberries, working on farms to survive. The second leg of that trip was to Mexico via California. This was the period of Height-Ashbury, the Summer of 68, and we truly experienced Flower Power in San Francisco. This left a lasting impression on me because of the freedom and the camaraderie among the youth. Anybody would open their house to you and you felt a bond with many young people.The paradox of this period was that it was during the Vietnam War. So just as you had young people bonding with each other, believing that peace was the answer to the world’s dilemmas, people were getting killed on the other side of the globe. The administration in Washington believed that war was the answer and these young people had in effect opted out of the system.Mexico in itself was an eye-opener. It was my initiation into Latino culture and decrepit third world conditions of the masses. This was my politicization when I realized the plight of the majority of humanity and it made me even more curious to go back and get in contact with these people.When I came back from Mexico it was very difficult to adjust to mundane middle-class values, just fitting into my place into my system. So I dropped out of 2nd year university and continued traveling without a set itinerary.I went to Europe first, starting with London, worked in a hospital, and then spent 2 months traveling Europe on a Eurail pass. After Spain I visited Morocco where I met a guy called Giovanni Pozzi who turned me onto images and illusions of Afghanistan, a place he had been to before. This created a great desire in me to also discover that part of the world.After Morocco I intended to meet up with Giovanni and travel with him from Brindisi, Italy, overland to Afghanistan. In September of 1971 I visited him in Milan after having gone back to discover my Italian heritage, and I then linked up with him in Brindisi from where we took a ferry to Greece and began our overland journey in the direction of Afghanistan.We made it to the Turkish-Iranian border after a harrowing incident on a Turkish train which derailed. Unfortunately I had not learned the lesson of my teen years and had not checked out visa requirements for Canadians. Iran required a visa for Canadians, so I had to return to an Iranian consulate on the Black Sea where I obtained my Iranian travel visa. Somehow Giovanni and I got separated and this was the beginning of true independent traveling. I learned never to depend on other people’s information, always double-check everything yourself.3. Please tell us of your experiences and impressions during your first trip to Asia.After traveling through Iran for about a week, which was during the repressive reign of the Shah, I hitchhiked with 2 Pakistani truck drivers from Tehran to Mashad, the site of the Blue Mosque, one of the most beautiful mosques in the Islamic world. From there we went to Herat, Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, where I was privy to some of the most fantastic images of Afghan culture. I saw horsemen in bright green silk pants, in attire suited more to the Middle Ages than the 1970s. Afghanis appeared to be a very proud people, dignified and ferociously independent.After a short stay in Kabul I went through the Khyber Pass into Peshawar in Pakistan. This too was an amazing view into the gun culture of this region. Every man had a gun 4, 5 feet long and it was truly an overwhelming sight to see this much weaponry on display. Unfortunately this was to continue since a war would erupt between Pakistan and India at this time, and after leaving Pakistan I ended up traveling through India during a time of war.I was traveling on trains with a mobilized army, a people in frenetic motion not knowing what to do. The whole country was in a state of tension. Foreigners were asked to leave the country, so after a month in New Delhi I had to change my plans of visiting Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and take the next flight out of Calcutta in the direction of Bangkok. The flight ticket at that time cost US$80 one way in 1971. Calcutta was also the site of millions of refugees pouring in from what would eventually become Bangladesh. They literally overtook Calcutta. I was about to sleep outside when I was approached by a couple of Anglo-Bengalis who insisted that it was absolutely improper for a European to sleep on the ground that way. They then insisted that I go and stay with them for a couple of nights. Their only requested favour in return was to send them a Levi jacket when I’d get back to Australia.4. From India you moved on to Thailand. Please tell us about your experience in South East Asia.In Bangkok of 1971 I would stay at the Atlantic Hotel for $1 a night, Bangkok was still a relatively small capital at that time. I left Bangkok and headed south, hitchhiking where I was brutally initiated to Thai culture. I was at the back of a pickup truck and dangling my feet out of it, the pickup truck was passed by another vehicle whose occupants got out and threatened me, pointing to my feet. Luckily a young Canadian from Saskatoon, Murray Wright, was sitting in the front of my pickup and explained that it was a big mistake to show the soles of your feet. This is a major insult in Thai culture. I then realized that when traveling it is very important to understand non-verbal communication as well. This was a major lesson for me.This meeting with Murray was fortuitous. He had had an accident building a Japanese sugar factory and asked me if I would take over his job as a carpenter. This led to one month working with Thais and understanding to some degree Thai culture. It was also my first experience of amoebic dysentery, a tropical disease, which nearly killed me. This is how I was initiated to eating conditions in the developing world.

SEO Book – Can You Learn SEO From Scratch by Reading Books?

If you’re reading this article, most probably you already know (or at least suspect) that Search Engine Optimization is like a key to Fort Knox for any online entrepreneur. Why? Because proper SEO opens your website the door to leading positions in search engines. The higher your website ranks in search results pages, the more ready-to-buy users find you, not your competitors first. And they buy from you, not from your competitors. Your top position in Google multiplies the dough you get twofold, threefold and (pardon my play on words) Google-fold.OK, SEO is a rock-solid way to make your on-line business flourish. But what if you hadn’t even heard the word “SEO” till yesterday? The Internet sea abounds in screaming “SEO in two days” and “SEO book for noobs” headlines. But can you really zero-base learn SEO – for which SEO companies charge up to $5,000 a month – on your own? By simply reading about it? The answer is YES. SEO is no rocket science if you have the right source to ladle out your knowledge.So where is the knowledge treasure-house for a self-taught SEO?Some old hand SEOs would claim – the only way to get on-the-nose SEO tips is searching through forums and blogs, where professionals share their real-life experience.Well, digging deep into these sources can be very informative. This is a perfect way to enrich your SEO wisdom: pick up some useful know-hows and savvy tricks and techniques. But only if you already have your SEO-mindset stable. I mean, if you’ve already learned the basics of SEO science. If not, how can you tell a worthy piece of advice from useless scribbling by muddle-heads who often swarm on such forums and blogs? Besides, it’ll take you ages to gather the pieces of SEO-puzzle together and get a complete picture of how to SEO your website.SEO books are another pair of shoes. All you need is packed together for you. No surfing through dozens of websites. But here you should also keep in mind several important points:- The Internet world and SEO principles are changing at supersonic speed. What was good for website promotion yesterday may turn out to be a complete waste of time today. In what way would the authors keep up with this speed of changes? In no way, unless their SEO book is a day by day updated e-book. That’s why the SEO book you can really trust is an e- book- Does “Search Engine Saturation” or “Traffic Referral Rates” sound clear to you? Would you like your SEO book to speak the language you don’t understand? Definitely, no. You need SEO things made easy as ABS. So you need an SEO book that speaks plain English- The ultimate goal of your learning SEO is being able to actually optimize your website, not only use some SEO terms, isn’t it? If so, a solid-cheesy-theory book is a waste of your precious time. Make sure your SEO book gives practical advice and step-by-step guidance for your page optimization- On the other hand, learning something parrot fashion is also no good. You are to UNDERSTAND WHAT, HOW, and WHY you are doing. Otherwise, a small deviation from a studied scheme – and you are deadlocked. Pick up the SEO book that not only orders you what to do, but explains why you should do thisThese criteria considerably narrow your range of choice. One of the books I’ve recently come across that perfectly hits the spot is “SEO in Practice”. It is an all-round online SEO guide by a 9-year experienced SEO pro Dan Richmond. He leads you by the hand into the world of Search Engine Optimization, pointing each step you should take and clarifying all whys and hows so that a child could understand.To top it all, keep in mind: whatever way to dig into SEO you choose, it’s your zeal that grows the fruits to reap. There is no one but you to knock in the knowledge into your head.