Dolores Monet - At The End of the Day

Turn off the Television - Too Much TV

2011-10-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

In this hectic world of over stimulation, when our senses are bombarded with traffic, job demands, family duties, media,health and financial concerns all banging on the brain's door for attention - don't we need a little break once in a while? Do we have to find a fallen log in a neglected woods for one moment of peace?

Not long ago, a doctor's waiting room was a peaceful place. Maybe you were feeling poorly or had some health concerns, sure. But you could sit in the quiet waiting room, a plain uncluttered place, paging through old National Geographic magazines, or chatting with fellow patients.

Now, they have the TV on. running constantly. Waiting your turn in the ER? Fox News is yammering about Democrats. Waiting for the doctor to check your BP? The idiots on Jerry Springer are fighting and screaming right over your head because the only place left to sit is under the screen. "Everybody Loves Raymond" seems popular with health care professionals too; maybe because it's more fighting and screaming.

Going out to dinner at the local eatery? The TV is on. At one popular local restaurant, I was about to bite into my tuna sandwich, when I glanced up to see a lung being dissected on the over hanging TV.

What is wrong with people? In a time when medical evidence shows that too much TV has a detrimental effect on both children and adults, why are we constantly subjugated to the infernal racket and quickly changing images on TV? And why does it walys have to be loud, irate, and obnoxious.

Maybe it's a ploy by pharmaceutical companies. Maybe they give health care providers, restaurants, and car care businesses free televisions - all a covert plant to drive us all crazy so we have to be medicat4ed with those expensive prescription drugs they advertise on TV.

Unless, maybe we are all way past crazy. Maybe that; why my BP is often so low. I've learned how to turn off my senses and retreat from all the noise by going into a self induced, partial catatonic state.You gotta find some peace somewhere.

Peace out -

Dolores

(Public Domain Photo thanks to wikimedia commons)

HubPages Subdomain Switch and Me

2011-09-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of people, Google's Panda update hit me hard. Not the most prolific of writers, I was content with my earnings, realizing all the while that if I actually got up off (or is it on) my ass and produced more content, I would attract more traffic and earn more money. But it was good.

The Panda slap left me disillusioned and disappointed. Resentment took turns focusing my anger, in turn, at HubPages, Google, and myself. I read up on what other, more knowledgeable writers had to say and paid close attention to the changes HubPages made to the site in their attempt to improve the quality of production down on the old content farm.

Spring of 2011 brought a new look to HubPages. Writers were given a subdomain. Hopefully, instead of being dragged down (or hauled up) by the other writers, search engines would look more at the quality of each writer's work. And, of course, quality is very subjective. The subdomain switch garnered both approval and disapproval from some of HubPages best and worst writers.

I wrote less, fiddled around with my blogs, and attempted to clean up my articles. My HubPages spring cleaning just meant that I refreshed my hubs, checking spelling and adding a bit of information that should have been included the first time. I deleted a few stinkers. I cut down on some of my Amazon capsules after seeing that too many made the article look messy.

When HubPages made suggestions, I attempted to comply. They had a new vision of the site focusing more on magazine type articles and discouraging personal, blog type hubs.

HubPages new subdomain switch worked well for me. My traffic improved, more than twice what it was prePanda. What will happen tomorrow, or next week is impossible to say.

I read lots of complaints in HubPages forums. But the happier folks did not say much. Maybe they got sick of their articles being ripped off, their content stolen by copy-cats and thieves. I don't blame them.

But for now, I am happy at HubPages. Things are looking up down on the old content farm.

How to Change the Font in Your Blog Title (for Idiots)

2011-06-14T04:16:00.001-07:00

As you may easily surmise, all this internet stuff is a mystery to me. Despite nearing 1/2 million views on HP alone, one would think that I'd have picked up or at least attempted to learn something a bit more complicated than popping buttons.

But no. In anticipation of creating another blog that offers some actually helpful information, I decided to mess around with this one just to see what I can do. I'd like to build a blog around making stuff and move away from the blatherings presented here where I so depend on the kindness of strangers.

So, I added the sunset so befitting the blog title. Now, that was not hard. Then, I decided to change the font of the title. I goggled 'how to change the font in a title of a blog' and read several lists of instructions that went like this:

)-+rk@%^&*Fu{boo(+#>insert font of your choice here
pX>&)_@..Wdbbbk#$^<;;''|\\\|**-s&!!?ZZzzgah)(+or-)
up['efgahble3*)!,f3&9pVi#$(ll(-'$^,,!!??Zhi
bbn..!%h-+=!!?:$t^&*)_+!&**hbb&-+#$%?!;hj<.:+!?i#

I finally found one that was slightly less intimidating, that did not remind me of how they used to depict curse words in old comics. Then, below,I saw and read one more:

On the Dashboard page, Click Design. Click Template designer button. Under Advanced options browse the fonts, select one you like (you can even change the color) and save. Do not be scared away by the word "advanced."

How simple is that?

Why are we presented with a plethora of complicated code, of large clumps of nearly indecipherable code that may as well be in Chinese (they be hieroglyphics above) when, if you are asking such a simple question, there is a huge change that you don't understand all that technical language?

Of course, I should learn some HTML, or whatever. Of course, I am an idiot. That's why I am asking questions.

Lark Rise to Candleford Saved My Life

2011-05-31T13:35:00.001-07:00

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but, at the end of the day, watching Lark Rise to Candleford is like taking a tranquilizer before bed without the next morning zombie-like effect.

For years, my husband and I have been watching lawyer/cop dramas at night. Just looking for a story to wrap up the day and forget our troubles, we've subjected ourselves to child abuse, unfairly accused people driven to suicide, torture, kidnapping and more torture, and the sheer torture of watching the authorities accuse everyone they meet in the course of an investigation of the most hideous crimes imaginable. It don't make for sound sleep and a relaxed mind.

I can' t help but wonder if the popularity of the profoundly awful reality shows indicate that people are sick to death of murder and mayhem, brutal criminals, and obnoxious authority figures.

And when we do fixate on a show, it's the kiss of death. Producers should run pilots by us. If we like it, they could save a lot of money and ditch the whole thing.

Somehow, by accident, we stumbled on Lark rise to Candleford. Drawn by the picturesque setting - every scene looks like a 19th century painting and many scenes resemble my favorite art, 19th century landscapes and impressionist landscapes.

Set in late 19th century England, a cast of characters live life full of the simple day to day problems sans electricity. In our first episode, Laura lost a package she was supposed to deliver, damaging the self respect she had earned by assisting the controversial post mistress of Candleford. Following episodes introduced plots filled with tenderness, unfulfilled desire, fear, shame, and my all time favorite poignancy.

None of the characters are fabulously beautiful, although the late Victorian/ early Edwardian outfits certainly are. The serial follows the inhabitants of a market town, and a nearby hamlet called Lark Rise. Even the names of the places are poetic. Drawn from a memoir written in the 1930's and 40's by Flora Thompson around her youth in Oxfordshire, England, the quaint setting and people belie the complexity of the simple dramas enacted in the show.

Characters are complex and varied with personality traits that are both annoying and endearing. Dorcas Lane,the post mistress, has inherited her post office from her father. She is a strong minded feminist, a kind hearted employer, busy-body, a love sick spinster, both generous and petty, straight-laced and silly.

The Pratt sisters are self righteous, pretentious pains-in-the-ass as well as loving, ambitious, and foolish.

Lark Rise to Candleford is a BBC production (of course) that our local PBS station airs in the afternoon. We tape it to watch at night. When I first fell in love with LR2C, I googled it only to learn that the BBC has already canceled it! Four years of kindness and poignancy is all we get.

Verification, Bin Laden, Obama, and God

2011-05-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

Certain people are out there demanding verification these day - verification on the death of Osama bin Laden; verification on the verification of Obama's birth certificate.

Now, verification ain't a bad thing. There's been a paucity of that what with the ability of any idiot (like me) to post information on the World Wide Web. Google is supposedly attempting to address this issue with its new Panda Update (along with trashing some democratic sites like Hubpages, but that's another story).

News organizations have, in the past few years, closed news desks and cut down on the number of bona fide journalists - people whose investigative work was verified by fact checkers, leaving us with a hodge-podge of questionable information. So, this sudden demand for verification may be a good thing.

But, how far can we take it? Would it really verify the death of Osama bin Laden if the US government posted photographs of his mutilated corpse? The man was shot in the face. The resulting image would be gruesome, inflamatory, and unseemly. Photographs of a mutilated corpse prove nothing.

Al Qaeda has verified the death of Osama bin Laden. But should we believe them? Should we believe the President of the United States? Frankly, most of us have trouble believing anything today. (Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him?)

The whole mess reminds me that I'm glad I believe in God. Like Job, just take everything away, and I'll still have faith in the unprovable.

So, in the immortal words of Tiny Tim (no, not the singer) "God Bless us - every one."

Deathers are the New Birthers

2011-05-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

Sure, you've heard of the Birthers, whose big noise recently declined into a low buzz. Now, we've got the Deathers, a rag-tag bunch of wacky Repubnuts who refuse to believe that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Just when you thought - okay, shut that bunch down, now we can talk about real issues, the fundamental concerns of the actual Republican Party - real serious people with important issues like cutting taxes for beleaguered zillionaires and making sure abortions for 14 year old rape victims are not funded by the government.

The Deathers, however, are not quite the untied front as the Birthers. Some only want to see a photograph of the deceased Osama bin Laden. Others will not believe a photograph. People just don't look like themselves when they're dead, especially after being shot in the face.

Maybe they should have captured O. b. L. alive, which certain people wouldn't believe either. They could have forced him to appear on a nationally televised interview with Barbara Walters. She could have asked him the tough questions like, "Tell us, what makes Osama bin Laden tick?"

(The answer, of course, is a time bomb. But I digress.)

Deathers have lots of interesting takes on the death of the Al Qaeda leader and ex CIA operative once known as Tim Osman. Like the one where bin Laden has been on ice; that is actually kept in a large block of ice somewhere and a transformer blew the electricity producing a nasty thaw. Then there is the one that has the United States Government as a front for the Vatican, and a bunch of Jesuits in body armor captured bin Laden years ago. Or the right wing talk show host who claims that President Obama unlawfully assassinated bin Laden on a giddy whim after incurring lots of laughs in a recent roast.

Let us recall back in the early days after Obama won the election, when the Right Wing talk show hosts encouraged their fellow Americans to stand against anything and everything the new president said or did. The Deathers dogedly follow that sage advice. Let's band together for our country, sabotage the presidency, oppose good ideas, disbelieve anything we hear that we don't like, even if we would like it if our guy was behind it.

Now that makes sense! (Not)

Hey, Facebook now has a message board entitled Osama bin Laden Not Dead. Deathers are the new Birthers!

The Google Panda Update, Content Farm Slap and me

2011-03-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

Google's Panda Update and content farm slap has a lot of us home writers in a whirl. Our little cottage industry now threatened by the Big Boys has left us quaking in our boots, or should I say beddie slippers.

The folks up at Big G seem to be moving forward with what they like to call noble intent - an attempt to weed out the chaff, the spam, the rubbish, and the tons of copied material that clog up Google searches. They claim that Google cred will be given to authoritative sites instead of a bunch of back water yah-hoos spewing content for the various farms that have been created to earn a bit of pin money from Google ads.

Call me naive, but my little plot on the HubPages content farm offers some high quality produce. Sure, there are weeds growing around the edges of the field. I am hoping that the HP staff drags out the heavy machinery to winnow out the chaff.

But authoritative? Back in my early days on the farm, I wrote a self-help piece that was plagiarized by a bonafide psychologist on her very 'authoritative' site. The work of the peasant was passed off as her own. The work of a backwater hayseed (me) spooned out and served up by a professional, the kind of site Google hopes to grant authority.

So go ahead, Google something - how to do something, help for a home project, hobby, or a new passing fancy. You will find authoritative sites by commercial interests, companies, and corporations who exist to sell you a product. That is not information, that is advertising.

Remember Alta Vista? Once a font of information, they went commercial - do they even exist anymore?

Sometimes those little people on the content farms know something. They research and write some pretty good articles with unique content and info, giving you a helpful introduction to a topic. Sure, they rub elbows with jerks and copy-cats. I guess we are known by the company we keep.

But authoritative? When I go into Home DePot, I get my best advise from other costumers.

Extreme Make Overs Home Edition - Baltimore NIMBY

2010-08-09T16:59:00.001-07:00

Big excitement came into the Baltimore, Maryland neighborhood of Overlea when the popular TV show, Extreme Make Overs Home Edition roared into town rerouting traffic and creating an urban style, commercial looking building right smack in the middle of a charming neighborhood filled with early 20th century homes.

Oh, sure, it's for charity and all. I mean, who doesn't want an industrial warehouse full of troubled kids in their neighborhood? And what at-risk kid doesn't want to live in a brand new home that looks exactly like a factory? Or an old fashioned orphanage?

Strolling the old Baltimore neighborhood, I bumped into Mrs. E, out watering her roses. I asked what she thought of Extreme Home Makeovers and the new place they'd just created.

"Oh, yes, I've always wanted to live a few doors down from a youth center for kids with problems, especially behavioral or emotional problems, she chortled, obviously pleased.

"And I am so durn sick of all these cute houses around here, taking walks down a street that looks like small town America. Now, I've got that brick and what-ever-it-is thing, I feel like I'm living in old downtown, back when they used to have all those warehouses. And I love warehouses. Who doesn't?"

The other great thing about the building is that there is little to no parking, except for the driveway which has been piled high with rubbish for a month or so. The pile of trash is just the thing to attract rats and make those city girls feel like they are still at home. If home was a large rejuvenated factory made into dentists' offices.

I've always wondered about that Not In My Backyard crowd. I used to think that they were mean and selfish. Now, thanks to Extreme Make Overs - Make the Neighborhood Look Like an Industrial Park, I know just how they feel.

24 - Finale, Movie, and the Ulitmate Question

2010-05-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

As we entered the final moments of the hit TV show '24,' we saw President Taylor huffing with moral constipation. An angel (Jack Bauer) sits on one shoulder whispering - so hard to hear on our volume afflicted Sharp TV - for her to do the right thing. President Logan sits on her left shoulder, a snide, simpering devil urging her on toward greater (or would that be worser) evils. Sorry, but at 8:15, I predicted the outcome.

Of course, President Taylor stands up and admits the cover-up of crimes behind the Peace Agreement. A trail of dead bad guys line the alleyways and department store isles of Manhatten. President Hassan, who even when he stared to seem like a bad guy, you knew he was a good guy (and the good guy aide who was really a bad guy and you knew that because he was good looking and 24 always features a good looking bad guy) died for Peace. You needed a score card to sort out so many presidents.

And when the chips were down for Jack Bauer, who comes to save him, why Chloe of course, as me must! The ultimate friend, loyal, trustworthy, and brave!

As Taylor finally responds to the hoarse whisperings of the bloody angel on her cell phone, and Jack is persued by a Nazi-like I'm-just-following-orders government goon squad, we see his battered face peering up at the security cameras. Those security cameras can pick you up hunkered down beside a pile of rubble behind a forgotten warehouse in a back alley of anywhere. That's the scariest part of all.

And Chloe, despire her Asperger's, cries. That's what it all really led up to, the Asperger's girl crying. 24 gives our gal Chloe the last words. Something real memorable like - 'You are my friend, Jack!'

So, how the hell are they going to make a move out of 24? The whole deal was that it was a real time drama that took place in 24 hours. Are they going to make a movie that lasts 24 hours? Or will it last for 90 minutes. Or 124 minutes. Then they'd have to call it 1 and a 1/2 hours. Or 124 minutes. It just won't work. It's over, folks.

And we are left to ponder the ultimate question - how many people will name their daughters Chloe?

Facebook Rejection - Ovations of Friendship Cruely Dismissed

2010-05-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am on Facebook. There is my face, looming large. And my list of friends, some of whom I barely know. One of the ones that I barely know, I wrote a review of her book. the review has garnered 831 views so that's cool, the helpful community thing. One person even bought the book through my page so I earned a $.75 commission!

I received a 'friend' request from some guy I may or may not have been in high school with who was all about closet organization. Dweeb. I am so totally not into organized closets. Hit the ignore button!

After connecting up with people from the 3rd grade, and several actual friends and relatives, I decided to take a walk down memory lane. My brother-in-law, Rand told me that he found Ginny W_ on Facebook, but he did not 'friend' her.

"Oh my God!" I remembered Ginny W_! she was one of those girls in the old photographs that my kids want to know who she was. We didn't really like her and she didn't really like us but we hung out because my mother said we should be friends (in 1967) so it was cool.

So, I located her on the Face Place. Rand said that she lived in town and when her face popped up, I knew, despite not having seen her for 43 years, that it was she. Same owlish face, which after 43 years made her look interesting and intelligent.

I friended her. And waited. I even left her a message in case she did not know who I was. I reminded her of the beach and my sister, and my friend Leola, and the boyfriend that I eventually married.

She dismissed my overture of Facebook friendship. Our shared past obviously meant nothing to her. Or, maybe it did. Maybe she peered down her owlish beak and said:

"Oh, her! I never really like her or the other ones either. They were weird. She must be desperate. Loser." And promptly hit 'ignore.'

I have been summarily dismissed. But, that's okay. I never really liked her anyway. Bitch.

A Top Hubbers Top 10 Tips on Writing for HubPages

2010-04-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, HubPages does work!

I write for HubPages. After flailing about for several months, I decided to pay attention, follow guidelines, and attempt to actually earn some money. And it's working! I am often featured on page 1 of HubPages and have had, for a short time, the #1 article on HubPages - that's best of 500,000 articles, thank you.

HubPages works for you if you work for HubPages. Just like your grandfather told you, there is no such thing as a get-rich-quick scheme. Making money by writing articles (called hubs) on HubPages take patience and some effort. Here are a few tips if you want HubPages to work for you:

1) Read tips presented by people who are successful on HubPages - that is hubbers in the over 90% score range. Do what they suggest.

2) Read top rated articles on HubPages. Ask yourself what makes this a high quality article.

3) Write high quality articles of at least 250 or more words. 500 is better. Write well. Be unique. Never copy someone else's work. Spell check.

4) Use a title for your article that completely describes your topic. Be specific. Be wordy. Target your intended readership.

5) Present information in an easy to read, organized fashion.

6) Feature an image beside your second text capsule. When published, Google ads will appear to the right of your first text capsule. These are usually the ads that people click.

7) Sign up for Google Adsense and some of the affiliates HubPages offers - Amazon, EBay, and Kontera. I make most of my money through Google Adsense clicks. I must admit I never bothered with EBay or Kontera. Remember, thought, that HubPages gets a percentage of your ad click income.

8)Build some links. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, ezines articles, shetoldme, Stumbleupon and other link building sites. An article with high quality links will increase traffic to your page. Just having high quality links will improve your statue in the search engines.

9)Establish a niche. Become an expert in your field. Write high quality content on a topic that interests you.

10) Read and comment on other people's hubs (articles) and become a part of the HubPages community. Offer and receive support from some very nice people.

See you on HubPages!

How to Make Money Writing Articles for HubPages

2010-04-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

Writing articles online for HubPagescan be very rewarding for people who like to write. It's great to have people actually reading your stuff. And you can make some money.

However, there are a few myths and pie-in-the-sky ideas out there. The main one that I have learned is that it isn't easy. The reason I know this is because I have made a little money writing articles online. I am no go-getter. Never was. Of course, I could go all out and increase my income but I do not have what it takes - ambition, a strong work ethic, time, and dedication.

If you thing that you are going to start writing a few articles and that in a few short weeks, the money will start rolling in, you are mistaken.

I started writing for HubPages (http://hubpages.com/profile/Dolores+Monet)and dithered about for the first couple of months. I did not research the best techniques to increase traffic or to monetize my hubs - what they like to call articles on HubPages. But, after a while, I did see a dribble of money come in on my ad clicks. This little bit encouraged me to persue those ad clicks and to increase traffic.

In February of 2010, I figured out that I had made enough money writing for HubPages to buy a can of beans a day; if I bought those beans at Aldi's or one of those grocery stores where they just open the food boxes and plop them along the isles.

By March of the same year, my income increased such that I could have bought a can of beans a day at the Giant. In April, the can of beans could have come from Wegmans!

Why the sudden ability to upgrade my bean shopping? There are several reasons for this:

1) It takes some time for the search engines to recognize your work and move it forward to the first couple of pages. When you start writing articles, you may show up on page 17 or even on page 123. When people look stuff up, they usually read the first few articles. Some folks are obsessive enough to dive deeply into later pages but most do not. After you have established a niche by creating informative, well written, unique, high quality articles, you will move up in the search engines. More readers = more ad clicks.

So just keep writing. Build up some quality links to your articles. Do not hold your breath waiting for the world to beat a path to your door. Have some patience. Rome wasn't built in a day.

2) Write articles for people who may actually want to spend money or click your ads for further investigation. If you write about Dumpster diving, or how to be a mootch, or how not to spend money, how do you think that you will make money?

Before I started writing articles for HubPages, I did not even know what ad clicks were! I didn't care. Now, I do.

3) Read up and research on search engine optimization and how to increase traffic to your articles. Follow the suggestions of people who know what they are talking about.

I can see it now. Soon, I'll forgo those beans and base my income on chicken wings. Then, it will be chicken thighs. Then, free range chicken thighs.

Coments From Hell

2010-04-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

The incident had nothing to do with me or mine. I was driving along the sun swept road, bordered now by flowering trees, over a bridge, beneath which passed what seems, sometimes, like half of humanity.

The news announcer on the radio mentioned a horrific accident. A cyclist killed, another hospitalized with charges pending against the driver of the car who struck the two men. Hope Hammershield was the name of the driver (not really), a 64 year old woman from H_ Maryland. An invisible boot kicked me in the chest at this name from the past, an uncommon name. I knew this woman.

Arriving home, I checked out the local news online. After a brief and vague description of the accident, there appeared an area for comments.

After the first few comments, I scrolled back to reread the article. The news report never mentioned that the driver was impaired, distracted, or driving in an aggressive manner. It stated that there would be an investigation. The article did claim that there was little to no shoulder on the winding country road and that the bicycle of the deceased man was jammed in the hood of Hope's car.

Back to the comments. People railed against the driver - Hope, a kind and gentle woman who spent her life in the service of others, teaching children with developmental disabilities. I knew nothing of her personal life, whether she went home each day, shed her gentle countenance to become a raging fiend, or whether she was what she had always appeared to be, just a nice, descent person. A lovely woman.
Yet the comments poured venom on her. People called the accident the malicious act of an aggressive driver, someone who hated cyclists. They called her a moron. They claimed that she was impaired, perhaps drunk. They said that she had no regard for humanity. None of those people claimed to witness the accident. They assumed these things and vilified Hope.

My heart went out to the accident victims and their families. And I could only imagine being hope, her horror at that moment, an unyielding horror that must crush her with relentless self recrimination and guilt and shame. I imagine that gentle soul dragged to the police station and jail and pilloried online.
Of course, I wasn't there either. Perhaps she was distracted - a slant of sunlight, a momentary glance at the buttons on her radio, at the beautiful scenery along that road. I don't know what was going on in her mind at the time. I don't know if she wast texting or drunk or both. But neither did the commenters.

I've heard it at funeral parlors: He's dead. He died because he was fat; he didn't exercise; he exercised too much; he smoked; drank; didn't eat the right kind of foods; was reckless; feckless; stupid. If the dead person is under 75 years old, it was his own damn fault.

How convenient. Maybe it goes like this:

I am not stupid. I don't text message while driving. I take my medicine. I don't take medicine. I don't live a sedentary life. I don't eat too much or too little or pick up a storm drain to help a child to retrieve a ball. I don't show up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I never make mistakes, get distracted, eat a second slice of chocolate cake.

Thus, I will not die. I am safe. I will never cause a terrible accident in which someone will die.

What is missing here? Where is the compassion? Even the phrase ' there but for the grace of God go I,' implies that God has kept me safe and sound yet kicked someone else in the ass because they deserve it. The deserve to be poor, sick, out of work, in trouble because they are bad.
But not me. I'm perfect.

Amazon Affiliates and the Case of the Disappearing Cookies

2010-03-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

(wikimedia commons archival photo)

I used to love cookies. I was the kind of mom who had a fresh plate of cookies when the kids came in from school. Homemade. Always.

Now, cookies are my enemy. They cut into the profits. The technical cookies, left behind like Hansel and Gretal leaving a trail of cookie crumbs to find thier way back home.

Cookies are bad. People have installed so many security devices that my cookie trails are eaten up by Adaware and Spybot like hungry birds. It sounds like life in the Jetsons only less fun.

I am an Amazon Affiliate marketing toad. If you read one of my articles and clikc on an Amazon ad because you are interested in one of the fine products offered there, you need to buy something right away. Hurry!

If you decide to think about it, maybe come back the next day and actually make a purchase, too bad for me. Tough darts. The security devices that protect you from pop-up ads (Hot Barnyard Babes!) have swooped down to gobble up the crumbs. And I don't get my cut.

So, you say, forget about it. Ditch Amazon. Quit. Sayonara, baby! But, see, Amazon does not pay me until my commisions have reached $100.00. If I quit now, I will lose the pittance that I have made - enough for a dinner for three at a roadside diner.

I must keep selling, hoping the ad clickers are impulse buyers, the kind that drove the economy in the last decade. Maybe, at the end of the day, I am like Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glenn Ross, a wrinkled pork-pie hat on the seat beside me, some blue-eyed young turk mouthing off in the background - he's going to get the leads, he's going to play Jackson Pollack and get himself nominated for best actor at the Academy Awards.

It's like indentured servitude. If I work hard enough, churn out articles fast enough and often enough, articles that entice people to buy, buy, buy, I'll earn my freedom. I will recieve my $100.00. I'll be free!

But, maybe, I'll forget to check my earnings. Maybe by the time I look at my Amazon account, I will have that $100.00 and another $15.00, starting the whole crazy cycle up again. That $15.00 is enough for two lunches at the roadside diner.

Modern Technology and the Rebirth of Obsolete Crafts

2010-03-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

As we enter the third millennium, we're suddenly up to our collective eyeballs in technology so advanced, we can barely keep up with it. Tech classes at universities are changed by the time a person completes a four year, or even two year course of study.

Eighty-year-olds who, when they were born, ate food kept cold on a block of ice, tippy-tap away at electronic keyboards and concern themselves with search engine optimization. My own son, who lives six hundred miles away, called to tell me about an incident in my own neighborhood, two blocks away. He had the information before I did, thanks to gossipy friends on Facebook.

Most of my life, I've been called a technophobiac. I can barely figure out how to change channels on the TV. And here we are in an age where today is already yesterday, and tomorrow is already here.

Yet:

Years ago, I wanted to learn how to make my own soap. I went to the library and found a book or two. But, I wasn't satisfied with the information. When I want to learn something new, I like to digest tons of information, especially if I want to do something that has an element of danger. When you make soap, you use lye, a potentially dangerous substance. You can burn yourself, blind yourself, or poison yourself and your family. So, I backed off.

But, thanks to the information explosion on the Internet, I was able to sift through tons of information I needed to feel comfortable making soap. Now, I make all my own soap. It's great stuff. Other people like it. So, here I am, performing the arcane task of making soap.

I've communicated with people who have learned how to really make soap from scratch, all on the Internet. The render their own hog fat into lard and use wood ash to do whatever they do with old ashes to make lye.

I know people who decided to move into a cabin in the actual middle of nowhere (along with their solar powered lap-tops). They learned how to go about living pretty much, except for the lap-tops, like people lived in the 1500's, by reading about it online.

More and more folks have taken up old fashioned skills like knitting, smocking, cross-stitch, felting, preserving foods, making their own clothing, socks, their own lotions, simple salves and medications (some kind of boiled willow bark tea instead of aspirin), herbal tea blends, wine, beer, and whiskey - by learning how to do it online.

And while 1964 seems so long ago, so basic, so quaint compared to 2010 - modern people have embraced arcane, obsolete skills with a passion. Technology has allowed us to return to traditional crafts in a way we'd never dreamed of in 1964.

Why Are We Here - Why Do Bloggers Blog?

2010-03-09T07:26:00.000-08:00

I suppose everybody asks the question sooner or later - what am I doing here? We ask it in the first grade. We probably asked it the day we were born, we just didn't have the language yet. We ask it on the job. After so many years of marriage. We look up and down the streets where we live and there it is, the same question.

But I am asking the question right here, the part of me that's invested in this project, a blog.

Okay, so you go into any project with some idea of why you've decided to approach it. Unless you're one of those people who rush forward blindly, shoved by an instinctive drive just to do. Anything. A sort of unthought out mania that drives people to do things like paint their house purple or dig up the entire back yard in order to grow arugula hoping to sell it at the farmers' market but run out of gas before the first crop comes in.

People have blogs or write articles online to express themselves. Empty nesters suddenly h;ave time on their hands; retirees decide they are fonts of wisdom. Others need an outlet for political rants or paranoid theories. Suddenly, there is a free avenue for expression.

Other have faith in get-rich-quick schemes or just hope to make a little pin money on adclicks. I, myself, since my first entry into the world of online writing, have earned the equivalent of a can of beans a day. Not too shabby. If you like beans.

Then, there is the little discussed mental aberation called hypergraphia, the drive to write continuously. Not all hypergraphics are Joyce Carol Oateses. Many write inarticulate drivel, pen gibberish that floats mostly unread out in cyberspace.

Hypergraphia may be America's best kept secret. It isn't even recognized on spell check! Millions of us churn out words, the letters on our keyboards eroding under our fingertips by the maniac outpouring of cyber jabber. And the folks at Google encourage this quiet perversion in the persuit of ad click revenue.

The new salesman of America isn't tearing his hair out in a minimalist office cubicle or driving around town with a Homburg hat in the passenger seat; tying and loosening his tie repeatedly like Jack Lemon in Glengarry Glen Ross with sweat stained armpits, grinding his teeth into nubs as he's pressured to close the deal.
It's a quiet act of desparation. Finding your niche market, tearing through the pages of Vanity Fair and Vogue to see what's going to be hot this coming season and reading up on the latest trends in search engine optimization.

But is that the worse thing in the world? Not long ago, the folks at universities and businesses complained that people couldn't write anymore. They seemed to have lost the capacity to make use of their own language. First year Armenian immigrants made better grades in English class than people who spoke English since they were 15 months old.

At least, now, people write. Everybody writes. It's popular and fun! So they tell you to write in language best understood by 6th graders. so, you write up memior pieces about how lovely your grandmother was only you didn't realize it until she was dead. Or how you were abused by your step-father but pulled yourself up by the bootstraps to become a functional person who appreciates rainbows and takes in one-eyed cats.

At the end of the day, at least we are writing. We are making use of the English language. Letter writing might be dead but article writing rules!

Things to Be Scared of If You Are Not Already Afraid

2010-03-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

In a former post, I expressed concern over the climate of fear in America today. If you are not afraid, maybe you want to get in on the action. Here is a handy list of things that you can be afraid of so you don't feel left out:

The cencus taker is casing your home and life bent on identity theft. So she's a thick in the middle 50 year old woman in sturdy walking shoes - an ideal front man.

Reptilian Shape Shifters - it's worse than you think. The ghost of your grandmother that both quickens and warms your heart strings? Do not engage in conversation. Don't seem glad to see her or ask how Uncle Vincent is doing. She's probably not really your dead Nana, but a reptilian shape shifter out to harvest your soul or come to add you to the entre list on an alien menu at a trendoid pan-galactic restaurant in the sky.

The kid across the street who wears the unattractive hairdo may be plotting the next Columbine.

The swarthy people who moved in next door and the lady wears a scarf on her head? They may be planning on how to blow up the local shopping mall. Not that anybody is actually in the mall shopping anymore.

The shy man down the street, probably a child molester because shy = sneaky. After all, shy, quiet people can take medicine for that and become friendly and outgoing.

The African American teenager who checks out his reflection in your car window doesn't really care how good looking he seems to himself, but is looking for a way to break into your car and steal those Judy Garland CDs.

That huge whirly thing in the sky over Norway last fall. It sure was pretty but nobody's saying a thing.

2012.

Magnetic Polar shift might have something to do with solar storms or 2012, or the magma seems to be dancing a new step and confusing the hell out of the Earth's core. It's like everything is being yanked in one direction then switches to another like if you don't know how to do the Electric slide at a wedding but try anyway, then they all start moving in your direction. Only on a much larger scale.

Global warming, that hot button issue, may turn Vegas into a swamp. Fertile areas will turn to dust. I'll suddenly have that waterfront home I've always wanted but will have to spend all that money on flood insurance and deal with tourists and their incessant need for directions to the nearest public toilet.

Flu pandemic, the coming plague. First it was Noah's Great Flood, then the Black Death, the Flue of 1918, WWII. Certain parties on both sides of the political spectrum look foreword to a mass eradication of humanity. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are making mega-bucks gearing up for the next panic.

Communists. You thought they were pretty much out of the picture but the corporate megalith needs something to balance things out, or get everybody to forget about them and worry about people who can't afford their heat bills and decide to put on red bandannas and throw trash cans through the windows of Starbucks.

Identity theft. I see another person, a criminal. She looks exactly like me but better because she's had a string life and buys top of the line make-up and a$60.00 hair cut. she's got all my special numbers and secret passwords. And she's living high off the hog on my credit : jewelry, vacations in high end resorts. She drives a snazzy car and generally whoops it up while I get my kicks buying 1/2 price Wheat Thins at Aldi's. And I get stuck with the bills.

Zombies.

Paranoia Strikes Deep - Baby Boomers and the Culture of Fear

2010-03-03T08:02:00.000-08:00

The boogie man will get you if you don't watch out. As the Greatest Generation leaves us behind, Mommy and Daddy dying, leaving the Baby Boomers holding the bag, said boomers react in a most peculiar manner. This is the generation that rose up against their parents and the status-quo, the generation that was going to make things right and fight injustice to create a world of peace and joy and brotherhood. And as the parents fade into the plastic faux woodwork of nursing homes, the baby Boomers are ruining the country.

You'd think that the US would have changed into a better place, all about fairness, spirituality and plants. When the Greatest Generation with their 'we can do it' Rosie the Riveter philosophy feared nothing but fear itself, America today is in love with fear. Whether we actually feel the fear, or are being instructed to my certain groups of other baby Boomers, we're all shuffling along in the shadows, looking over our collective shoulder, toting lists of secret passwords like children at playing ineffectual spies.

One of the biggest expenses today is security - personal security systems, Homeland Security and the long drawn out war to keep America safe by destroying a country that had nothing to do with 911.

A terrorist is an idiot on a plane who sets his own underpants on fire. So we want to introduce full body scanners at $200,000 a pop so total strangers can view naked granny in case she's wearing a plastique corset. Don't worry about whatever it is they scan you with - it's nothing! You don't worry about dental X-rays, do you? Of course, there aren't a lot of people who get dental X-rays several times a week.

Our children have become fat, lazy, ADD afflicted diabetics because they aren't allowed to play outside in the dangerous sun. Or because the neighborhood may be harboring child molesters asking kids to help find fictitious kittens.

Urban children are kept indoors because the streets are full of gun toting gangsters swathed in hoodies, scuttling through the shadows in fear of other hoodied hoods. Meanwhile, the poor kiddies huddle in front of the TV or a video game, slowly loosing what minds they have after living on a diet of strange foods that would have been unrecognizable as food 80 years ago.

Schools are cracking down on hugging! Officials have noticed a marked increase in hugging. Young folks seem to hug their friends in greeting! A Highly inappropriate and dangerous activity.

Meanwhile, the Baby Boomers hunker down, waiting for the ax at work, watching their 401K dissolve. Pensions are a thing of the past. The sword of Damicles hangs over Social Security and we'll all have to sell apples on the street corner to make ends meet because nobody will hire us except WalMart and how many greeters can crowd the doorway?

While people who used to hate the president feared he was either stupid or in cahoots with the opposition, now he's portrayed as an imposter - a secret Muslim terrorist commie who is probably an illegal alien!
Fear is all around us. It's the driving force in America today and, at the end of the day, I'm sick of it.

Here Are Some of My Paintings

2010-02-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

1) Church Point, St. Mary's - Path

2) Church Point, St. Mary's Before a Storm

3) Church Point With Old Cypress

4) Dream Meadow 2

5) Blue Meadow

Thank you for viewing some of my paintings. All have been painted with acrylic on salvaged door panels.

Confessions of an Etsy Deadbeat

2010-02-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

These days, everybody and his brother has got some racket going on online - selling grandma's frayed electrical appliances on EBay, churning out misinformation to article markets for adclicks, then scribbling more articles for back links.

I first entered the melee with thoughts of selling my quaint little landscapes on an online craft marketplace called Etsy. Success stories were prominently displayed about how stay-at-home moms established hot little businesses knitting and selling beer can jackets out of unraveled socks, or gluing felt kitten heads onto dollar store gloves. Wow! These gals were raking in the dough.

Cottage industry is back! the Internet has suddenly made it possible to eke out a pittance just like they did in pre-industrial England. Shades of respectable farm wives tatting doilies by the fireside on cold winter nights. Who could resist the allure of such an arcane life-style? Not me!

So I fiddled around and created my own special shop called Rustic Path Studio. I had to hurry. In no time at all, customers would swarm down the rustic path, all clamouring for paintings smeared on salvaged wood door panels. Everyone would want one!

I messed around with the banner - oh wow - a slice of sky form one of my very landscapes. How clever I felt. I messed around with the font to get it just right. Then I displayed three painting (that's right, count 'em - 3!) and was charged a nominal fee.

Just like all the other sites, on Etsy, you have to wander around and look at everybody else's stuff, and tell them how cool it is. You have to look at the actual high quality products as well as the crap. There were tons of anamai type prints, and kittens and puppies, and paintings that looked like they had been produced in a kindergarten class for special needs children.

But not mine. Mine were special. I refreshed often, at a new charge of yet another pittance, so that my fabulous art kept popping up as new stuff even though it wasn't just in case that one person who actually liked those rather scary looking trees would wander in at that very moment. If you really want to go crazy, you can keep refreshing until the pittance becomes a financial burden.

And yes, there was some beautiful work displayed by my fellow Etsiers. Fabulous paintings that, when I checked just were not selling for no other reason than not enough people were spending money or maybe that the world is up to its eyeballs in talented people. Painting that were so lovely, I became outraged at the dearth of customers for such wonderful artists and cursed all the cheapskates who refused to patronize the arts. Maybe, I need a shill. I could get my friend, Leola, to buy a painting and rave about it and I could pay her for it just to create a buzz.

Then I lost interest.

I paid my bill. Yes I did. $1.20 did not exactly break the bank. The folks at Etsy made it very easy. It wasn't them. It was me. I guess.

I took my stuff off of Etsy, figuratively closing the old wooden door on the shabby, yet charming imaginary shop. Imaginary weeds sprouted, obscuring the imaginary rustic path, lumpy bricks interplanted with imaginary creeping thyme. I hit the submit button for my final payment and wandered off into another part of the great cyber-marketplace.

Next billing cycle, there was a reminder in my email. I owed Etsy $1.20. But I already paid them!
So I went back and paid again. Maybe I'd made a mistake. After all, I didn't really have a clue. This time, I sent them an email informing them of my ignorance and confusion. If I sent them an extra $1.20, it wouldn't put me in the poor house.

By this time, I'd moved on to greener pastures, articles on Hubpages, hoping to make some pin money with my writing. I forgot all about Etsy.

Next billing cycle, there it was again. $1.20. I double clicked. Rustic Path Studio was defunct. Or was it? The whole thing just seemed too confusing.

I kind for feel sorry for all the people who have actual jobs answering the questions of idiots who are too impatient or stupid to read the instructions which are usually written so a second grader could understand them. It must be repetitive and frustrating. I imagine some nice young office geek tearing at her hair, close to tears, yelling, "can't these people read?"

I don't think Etsy is some kind of nefarious operation established to scam knuckle-heads out of their pocket change. It wasn't them. It was me. Of course, they could have answered my emails in a way that made sense and inform me what the hell was going on.

Well, they ain't going broke not getting my $1.20 for not displaying my paintings for the better part of a year. I figure that if I totally ignore them, they'll go away.

Every once in a while, I open my email and there it is - Your Etsy Bill. Screw it.

But something deep inside, some little spark of old fashioned decency and morality make me pause. I don't want to be a dead beat. I want to do the right thing and be a responsible person. I have an online reputation, after all.

I hit the delete button.