Sweet Catastrophe

OMG! Pirates go to an ELEVEN! Pirates FTW!

Besides, the fact remains that Pirates and Ninjas have an evil enemy which will require them to join forces to stave off the madness that this enemy intends to inflict upon us all!

“Who be this ruthless force for wickedness in the universe?” ye may ask.

Clowns. They must be stopped!

It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, in case you didn’t know = P It all started with a couple of guys playing racquetball and somehow ended up here!

Visit the official site to play pirate games, and get pirate advice, and play around with the pirate translator. It’s the least you could do on this holiday! Have some respect, kids!!

Maybe I should go back to the dollar theater and drool over Will Turner some more. I mean, it’s pretty much my duty to do so on this beloved holiday, don’t you think? I wonder if we can find some reason to get Josh to dress up tonight. It’s strike night at the theatre though, so I don’t know if there will be much time for piratey fun tonight. We’ll see :-D

I’ll be all t’ pirate I can be today. Now where’s me rum?

Recently, what I consider to be one of the best moves in PayPerPost’s short history occurred with the introduction of PayPerPost University, and Postie Best Practices.

There’ve always been objective, grey areas in the ToS, and of course, there are always people who want specific guidelines, but sometimes you just can’t deliver that! I was beyond thrilled to see Best Practices put into effect.

For those unfamiliar with Best Practices, I’ll try to elaborate. Best Practices are sort of guidelines, on the best possible way to do something. For posties, this is the best possible way to maintain your PayPerPost blog.

Many people were concerned about not meeting Best Practices guidelines and being penalized. This isn’t something to be worried about! You won’t be penalized for not following a particular guideline, but if you’re consistently seeing that your blog doesn’t meet a number of those guidelines, it’s time to take a closer look and make sure you aren’t breaking the ToS. For instance, there are a few Best Practices describing what percentage of your blog should be non-paid content, how much space ads should be occupying in your sidebars, and how often other sponsored posts are placed back to back. Now, if your blog doesn’t meet one or two of those, that’s not an issue, but if your blog consistently has too many ads, more paid than non-paid content, etc, it may be a signal that your blog appears to be in violation of one of those grey area rules in the ToS– Not keeping a blog solely for earning money. See? It’s just there to help you out when you’re questioning the way you blog, or simply to help point out something that may have never occurred to you!

I’m really looking forward to more things eventually being fleshed out in the Best Practices. I’m thrilled to have them there at all, knowing that it really gives us another avenue to consider when it comes to rules and regulations in the PayPerPost world. I can only hope that in the future, the PayPerPost team will come to us before adding new ToS aspects so we can all decided together where it best fits, ToS, or Best Practices? Or perhaps, if the new issue brings up new things to be added to the Best Practices.

PayPerPost, I’m still looking forward to seeing what you can do with this!

Something came to pass on a favorite blog of mine recently that really struck a nerve. I haven’t commented there because I came in late to the game and didn’t want to stir the pot anymore after things had started to settle, and I’m not linking to the post or blog in question either, for the same reason. It’s probably not too hard to figure out.

This blogger created a video they found to be funny.  Now, while the subject matter wasn’t really my cup of tea, or something I’d normally laugh at, I still found humor in the delivery. Funny’s just funny guys….

Some people took offense to what was posted. That’s fine! They expressed their feelings about it. That’s also fine! The problem, for me, arose when people started showing annoyance, and anger and a host of other feelings towards the poster for posting in the first place, for not taking it down after a few people proclaimed their feelings against it, and for the poster finding their own work funny!

You have every right to be offended by something. You have every right to stop reading a story mid-sentence, or stop watching a video. In this particular video, it was apparent early on what the subject was–turn it off! And yes, you also have the right to be angry at the poster, but you really start crossing a line when you get defensive towards the poster for how they run their blog, and the content they choose for that blog. It’s none of your business. If you don’t want to read it, that’s fine! Don’t! No need to cause a huge fuss over it.

I think I find this even more infuriating because this isn’t anything new from this blogger, and their readers have never had a problem before. Taboo subjects have come and gone, and the most I’ve seen is a quick proclamation of someone not finding it funny, followed by an, “Oh well!’ That’s how it should be. Just because this time, a few people decided to really push their thoughts, it turned into a commenting uproar. I wish people would think before they choose a battle to fight. Really, what makes this taboo topic any different than any of the others you’d laugh at? It’s a personal preference, right? Then keep it to yourself, get over it, and don’t watch the damn video!

Okay….I feel a little better now. Those two cents were really cramping my brain.

…and counting. *sigh* This Page Rank Export List History reports the longest wait between PR updates has been 122 days. We’re at 144 days now. It’s generally every 3 months. WTH is going on?

This blog has no PR because I bought my domain shortly after the last update. I’ve been anxiously patiently waiting for the next update, but now I’m starting to get really frustrated!

I’ve been working really hard to achieve a respectable PR. I’m really happy with my Alexa Score! I’ve always been into blogging, but I’ve developed into what I call a semi-pro blogger. At this point, it’s become important to me to have decent rankings. I’m not expecting anything miraculous, I know I’ve got a pretty basic blog, but I’ve worked for what I’ve got, and I’m feeling cheated *pout*

The longer they wait, the more I start buying into all the theories that Google is doing away with PR. I’d be pretty pissed if I had to start from scratch on some different aspect to get a decent ranking. And I’d really like to know what kind of ranking my work has earned me!

I just wanna know, dammit!

I’d be lying if my desires had nothing to do with making money. In the PPP world, my old LJ somehow has a PR 3. So of course, I see opps available for PR 3s. Any idea how annoying that is? I just want a PR3….or a way to delete that damn blog from the PPP system…someone end the frustrations, please!

No joke, at least twice a day on this Oklahoma trip, I had to hear about how we all had matching luggage sets, and the HHR. Our luggage didn’t really match, but they were similar and mom kept grabbing my suitcase, even though it was like 2/3 the size of hers. We had the same type of sets, with the big suitcase, the shoulder bag and hanging makeup bag.

Anyway, that’s totally not the point. My mom texted me today to tell me she got a black HHR! No joke, my mom, who just paid off her car, now has a 2007 Chevy HHR! I don’t even know if the HHR stands for anything! I just know they look a lot like PT Cruisers, and my mom wouldn’t shut up about them during the trip!

I can’t believe she actually got a new car. I haven’t talked to her yet, so I don’t really know how it happened! She wasn’t planning on getting a new car, in fact, she was dead against it!

I’m glad though. She kept having problems with her transmission in the Cougar, and she’ll need something bigger if my brother keeps having babies at this rate!!!

It’s so close now.

I’m so excited! This season is looking pretty intense. That’s how I like my dramas ;)

I really hope they bring up that whole “worse than the boogeyman,” thing within the first few eps. I’d really like to hear who’s more badass than Sylar!

I hope I don’t have to work Monday night! =(

*Sigh* Ryan dropped a mini-bomb on me last night in the form of *cough* “good news.” What was his great news? He’s already got a job lined up for next summer! Woooo! That’s great; we’ve been talking about work a lot lately since things are really patchy with his current job, so it was definitely good to hear that at least one aspect of job life was covered. If the current job falls out, it’ll only be a few months of relying on pizza delivery to pay his bills. Awesome.

What might this great job be? Well, without getting into the complexities of his actual job, he’d be working on Kenny Chesney’s national tour. Greeeeeat! So for three months, you’ll be gone. “Nah, I’ll have breaks!” *more discussion…settling into the idea* “Rich was pissed when I told him about it.” –Rich is his advisor and one of his superiors in VSU Technical Theatre. This sent my radar up again and I asked why. “Well ’cause he knows if I take that I won’t be back the next semester.”

Alert! Alert! He’s talking about leaving school again! GAAAAH! Every few months, he comes up with a reason he might have to take a semester off. Every few months, I remind him that he’s being an idiot. I know he’s sick of school. I am too. If he takes a semester off, he won’t go back. No matter what, there will always be another job, tempting him away for just a little longer.

This tour would have him gone off and on from May to December-ish. The person who set it up for him thinks of it as a learning experience, but really, it’s a job Ryan’s all too familiar with and it’s a lower title than what he’s had for quite some time now. The thing is, it’s a flat-out professional gig. This is it. The experience would be great for him, to find out if concert touring is something he’d like to pursue, and no matter what aspect he chooses in his field, having this tour on his resume would really put him over the top. College kids just don’t get these jobs.

Obviously there are a lot of details to work out between now and then, and no decision has actually been made, but right now it’s looking like a good choice for him. No doubt, I’d hate it. I’d much rather us go in together to do what we talked about last year. We discussed working on one of those luxury cruises. He’d be working all the technical stuff for their entertainment, and I’d be working the retail area. We actually know a couple who have done this for a summer, and she ended up making more money in the retail aspect than he did in tech. The retailers make a commission on top of the pay they’re already getting.

I really wish he’d put some more consideration into that idea. I know taking a cruise in that manner isn’t totally ideal, but it’d still be a lot of fun for us and it’d be something different. He’s had a lot of great summer experiences, getting jobs that just aren’t ordinary. I’d really like a shot at something new, something to get me out of just the routine summer of working as much as I can, or taking more classes. I just feel like time is starting to run out on the chance to do things like that. We’ll see…

Catie found these Implicit Association Tests while she was doing some of her law research.

I’ve only taken two so far, but by the results I have a slight automatic preference to whites and straight people over african americans and gays.

There are quite a few other tests to go through.

I pretty much agree with the results of these two, though a portion on the sexual preference test had me a little confused. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not 100% accepting of extreme homosexuals. By extreme, I mean overly flamboyant gay men, or incredibly butch lesbians. In those cases, I really think it’s been a lack of exposure. I’ve just not been around many examples in South Georgia and I’m really just now getting a taste here in Valdosta. It’s still hard for me to understand a female flattening her chest and dressing to appear manly. It’s not something my mind is apt to grasp.

I used to tell Pete we were lucky to have come out of Douglas as open-minded as we could be. I still stand by that.

I think it was Catie and I who were discussing how weird things must be for all of our parents. Our generation, I believe, is really the first to have such a large percentage who understand alternative lifestyles. We’re in that big push towards understanding that sexual preference is just that, a preference; it doesn’t define someone. So our parents are on the edge, where they’re forced to learn to understand because they have homosexual children, or their children have homosexual friends. I can’t imagine how conflicting it is for them, fighting against the way they were raised.

I had a lot more to say than I thought about these tests.

I started applying for scholarships well before I even started applying to schools. There were a lot of great prospects, but even as a straight A student in high school, there just wasn’t a lot out there for me. I just didn’t stand out enough.

Now, I’m a full-time student, working enough hours to live paycheck to paycheck (this includes everything, my own utilities, my own phone bill, my own medical bills, etc…I pay it all on my own), and having enough time to also do all of my other life-chores–shopping, paying bills, laundry, cleaning, dishes…all of it. Basically, I do everything any other adult does, only I also go to school and find time for studying as well. My grades are definitely not amazing anymore. My intelligence hasn’t changed, but my ability to focus on specifics and learn new things has suffered. That puts me out of the running for pretty much any and all scholarships.

Or so I thought until I read about CollegeNET. Just in reading a small bit about them, I discovered, what I believe to be, a revolutionary way to pick scholarship recipients–the users pick them with scholarship election! Just that alone was enough for me to feel like this group was really on to something huge.

Looking more into it, this site is absolutely amazing. Their tagline is, “It Pays to Think.” How does that come in? From my looking into it, it’s a pretty basic forum system, only, the focus is on real conversation-starters, not just sharing information, or ‘general discussion.’ Issues are raised for people to discuss or debate intelligently. Users give votes to the people they feel are making the most sense, or even people they don’t agree with, but really appreciate their concise arguments and opinions.

If you’re a college student, or will be within the next year, you can sign up for a Candidate account to vote and be voted for. Otherwise, you can sign up for a Voter account just to vote and participate in the discussions. Both Voters and Candidates can begin discussions. You get points from participating and voting, and for the votes you receive as well! At the end of the month, the users with the top ’scores’ receive scholarship money! Currently, winners receive $5000, $3750, $2500, or $1250.

I’m forcing myself to hold off until tomorrow after class to sign up. I’ll be up all night if I sign up now. Ryan and I get into debates in Facebook groups all the time, so I think I’ll get him into this too. Even $1,250 would be enough to make a huge difference for me. I usually have tuition covered, so anything else I get can go towards books and other expenses. It’s hard to work up a decent amount of savings for unexpected expenses, but every little bit can really make a difference!

I’m SO proud of my aunt! She originally forwarded an email about the new One Dollar coin, and the absence of “In God We Trust,” from the new design.

I get these emails all the time about everything from common ‘urban legends’ to new forwards about this email scam that will give you money for forwarding, and this charity that’ll track emails, etc. In an effort to pass on a little knowledge that’ll one day stick, hopefully, I usually reply with a link to the article on snopes.com disproving the email.

This time she sent out an email shortly after the original, letting everyone else know it was false, and even linked to the article on snopes! I’m so proud!!!

It’s a pretty cool design. The phrase is actually on the ridge!