Something That Happened.
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Thursday, September 11, 2003
I've had a few.
But then again,
Too few to mention!
written by Paul Anka
This is not to replace your love for your God, or your spouse, or your family. I'm simply saying that we all need to give ourselves a bit more self-love at this time of year. (No, not that type of self-love !) Too many of us beat up on ourselves throughout the year, and then nearly destroy ourselves at year's end. No wonder there are so many suicides during the Holidays; the messages bombarding us are to Buy Buy Buy and to Give Give Give -- but what if you have nothing to give but love? If you have a dearth of that good stuff, then you'll have a bitch of a time spreading it around to your neighbors.
So be good to yourself, whether you're Christian, Pagan, Wiccan, Athiest, Hindu, Islamic, Mormon, Podcastin, or otherwise. Don't take the pills, they won't do you or anyone else any good; you'll simply miss out on the Next Big Thing (which may turn out to be Your Next Big Thing). Just do things your own way, singing that little hymn as you do so:
What has he got?
If not himself,
Then he has naught.
To say the things,
He truly feels,
And not the words,
Of one who kneels.
The record shows,
I took the blows
And did it my way!
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
I bought my mini, but not through this process. I'll admit, I didn't try very hard to get the 10 or 20 others to join the program. Yes, I posted a few self-made banners on my website, but when I really considered all the work I'd have to do, all the folks I'd have to convince to participate in this
It all reminded me too much of those "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes" scams I'd first encountered as a child. I remember the slight feeling of disappointment I'd had after first sending in my S.A.S.E. and a dollar only to receive some vague flyer in my return envelope. Even more, I remember "investing" another $10 or $20 I'd scrounged only to receive some lame book describing the process of placing ads in various newspapers with the same message I'd received and then asking them to invest more of their money for some lame book and who knows what else.
In some sick and twisted way it could be argued that this was making money stuffing envelopes. It seemed ingenious in a way, getting potentially thousands of others to send their dollars and stamped envelopes my way so that I could return some ridiculous information they probably had already figured out themselves but had long before decided was an illegitimate way to make money. It seemed wrong; it was taking advantage of people's ignorance and weakness for easy money. I felt burned, and I knew that I'd been suckered.
Burned as I felt, I wasn't ready to let go. I'd already invested a considerable sum of money in this scheme, young and unemployed as I was. I wasn't ready to let go until I'd made an attempt to recover some of my lost funds. So I executed the first part of the process, placing a free ad in the local Pennysaver magazine advertising the same ad I'd been victimized by, "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes", along with a request for "one dollar and a self-addressed stamped envelope". The first part of the scheme. I intended to get my twenty dollars back. I wasn't going to go any further than that, I did't think.
But I'd only placed the one ad, and so only received two or three envelopes. I placed my flyers in the envelopes and then mailed them out. I didn't really feel bad about this until I received an angry letter in the mail a week or so later from one of the folks I'd mailed the flyer to. He wanted his dollar back. He wanted his stamps back. He wanted his money bad enough to threaten me in his letter. That's when I begin to feel bad, and so I never placed another ad.
Technorati Tags: scams, Make Money Stuffing Envelopes, free Mac mini, something that happened, spamming, pyramid schemes, Rebate Processing
This might not be the best place to answer the question you posed at I've Tried That, but I'll take a shot anyway. While allowing commenters to link their URL to their name might encourage spamming, we don't think it has an impact on search rankings. I'm not positive about this. But we've never had a problem with it. We rank pretty high for some searches despite lots of links in commenter names. And anyway, building more of a community and reciprocal linking by allowing those URLs is important enough that we're willing to take the risk for now. It's one way to meet good bloggers like you. As I said, though, it's been a non-issue so far.
Seriously, though, thanks for your comments. I think I wasn't clear about what I meant in regards to linking to other websites. I agree with you: I believe it's important to link to other sites. You're absolutely right about reciprocal linking, and it can only improve your blog's ranking.
What I was considering was more about the other parties. When you link them, it may improve their ranking, and you wouldn't want to improve the ranking of scammers sites, would you? But this is pure speculation: I don't really know how search engine rankings work. For all I know, you may be harming the scammers' rankings by linking to them from your site (because the keywords that bring up your site probably include the terms "scam" and "scammers" and such).
For anyone reading this and interested in reading the other part of this conversation.
I understand your point now about linking to scam sites, and it's a good one. Based on what little I know about Google magic, a link from a well-ranked site does indeed improve a linkee's rank. We'll have to be careful about how we link and to whom.
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I once posted, in this space (this right column), the following:
If I had friends they would be listed here
That particular bit o' text, that silly and idiotic phrase, was repeated a dozen or two dozen or so times and was intended to be temporary. I had been working on a project -- a new layout for this blog -- and had intended for that text to be placeholder content. That is, the text was supposed to temporarily replace the content that had previously occupied this column (which was a list of links to friends -- that is, other blogs and web sites I linked to). I didn't know what content I was going to place into that (this) space, so I placed a bunch of duplicate phrases here as a placeholder so that I would remember to fill in this space again later.
At the same time, I thought I was being cute with the heading:
NEW & IMPROVED FRIENDS!
The fact remains: I still don't know what content to put here,
in this column. Links again? Pictures? Video? Audio? Ads? Oh, hell no! It hasn't come to me yet, but I'm sure it will eventually, and when it does it'll come quick and (as usual) with consequences.
©2009
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License*.
*Basically, this indicates you may do whatever you like with the content on this website except profit financially from it. However, if you are from one of the poorer nations of this world, particularly Nigeria, please contact me with as much e-mail as you possibly can detailing financial offers I may take into consideration. I am particularly interested in the transfer of large sums of money. Please also keep in mind the fact that my penis is quite tiny.