Life in the Mind of a Modest Genius

PPP Love

Contrary to what Blonde Chick has eluded to, I do still occasionally look for the good Pay Per Post opportunity.  Sure, it's a shameless tactic to get some money by letting sponsors advertise on blogs.  That's one way to look at it.  Or you can look at it that if you're going to blog anyway, why not get paid for a post or two?

To date, I have made a little over $180 from the whole Pay Per Post program.  Not bad considering all it took was me writing a few blurbs here and there.  Even though it could only be used via PayPal, that loot still came in handy to pick up some things online. 

It could have been much more if I had more traffic on my page.  The higher my page rank, the more opportunities I would have had available to me.  There were some that were paying as high as $1,000 for blogging about their products.  Don't think I'm not doing what I can to get that page rank up.  So far, it's gone from 0 to 1 and it only tooke me a year (yes, that is the thin aroma of sarcasm you're smelling)!

Lately, they've made the guidelines a lot more stringent.  They seem to be geariing their opps toward the higher traffic blogs and leaving out us little people.  They may come back around some day and then I can be back on board to dropping my nuggets. 

Mint Credit Cards

If there is one thing I hate about giving gifts it's that I never know the right thing to get.  Will they really like it?  These days, the best thing to do to avoid that is gift cards.  Well now you can go the extra mile and get a pre-paid credit card.

In September 2006, Mint launched the Mint Gift Card.  It's basically a pre-paid credit card that you can give as a gift.  Instead of the person being restricted to use a gift card at a certain store, they can use this card almost anywhere.  Check out these stats...

• 0% on purchases until 12/1/07
• 0% on balance transfers (2.9% fee) until 12/1/07
• 24 hour MINT Customer Service
• Up to 56 day interest-free period on purchases

Memorial Day is just around the corner...apply now!

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The PPP Drought

It's been a minute since I have done any more blog marketing on my site here via Pay Per Post.  I know some of of you were probably happy to see that.  You're probably thinking "Now I have to read commercials while I'm just reading a blog now too?!"  Don't front... you know you were thinking it.

As you may have noticed, I haven't been able to post as frequently as I would have liked to.  Or maybe it is a little difficult to notice because I do still manage to get out at least one a day.  The times at which they are released is a little more spread out now though thanks to having to wake up at 5am to catch the early bus and not getting home until usually after 6pm every night.

That was just one of the reasons the blog marketing here had become more infrequent.  One of the main reasons was that the PayPerPost site has gone a little more on the high-end side.  The opportunities to talk on certain topics have expanded to a wide variety of topics to pick from; however, most of the really good ones have pretty stringent blog requirements.  You have to have a certain page rank to get some of the juicy ones that would pay out upwards to $1,000 per entry. 

Page rank is the popularity of your page measured by traffic and/or direct links to your site.  Right now, mine has a whopping page rank of zero so the opps for me are pretty limited.  What sucks about that is there have been some really good ones I would have loved to comment on.  Not that long ago, there was an advertiser wanting to spread the word about their fraternity and/or sorority paraphernalia.  I could have done about two or three entries on just that one alone.

There are still some good opps available for us little people.  For that reason, I still will grab some from time to time for you to view.  Maybe one day my page rank will increase to one or more.  If not, it's not the end of the world...

Virtual Dress Up

Mariah is coming up on 16-years-old this year.  Yes, I am getting old.  She's at the age now where the normal teenage things interest her.  The days of her playing with dolls is pretty much over.  However, if she were a little bit younger, she could incorporate that hobby with the computer she uses so much and play some virtual Dress Up Games.

There's this site called thedollpalace.com where kids can go online and play Dress Up Games to make dolls and animated personalized avatars.  They can create avatars and then use those to participate in forums, games for girls and contests.

Now that I look at it, Mariah probably could still use this.  The dolls aren't really tailored to baby dolls like the kind that cry and need their diapers changed.  They have an almost teen look to them.  In fact, they even offer HTML codes for MySpace or as Instant Messenger icons.

The images shown here are a little misleading.  They actually have more to offer than just the princess and/or fairy looks.  There are celebrity sections where they can dress them up to look like movie stars (without the hoochie appearances).  There's even a guy's section (though not anatomically correct) so the little fellas won't feel left out.

As with anything online for children, you would want to make sure to monitor how they're using it and what type of forums they get into.  But that goes without saying.  Every good parent should already know that.

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Cable Guy Paradise

Nothing is worse than finding out your existing cable is 3' too short.  Okay, there really are worse things, but it is a pain when that happens.  Maybe it's just me but I've noticed that everytime I had to get a new printer, the cables they provided were never adequate enough so this was a common problem with me.

TCA-inc.net helps solve problems like this with their hdmi cables.  They offer cables that are longer length, tested and certified to maintain 1080p signal up to 10 meters.  Not only that, by integrating their HDMI Equalizer, you can repair your signal at the end rather than boosting the signal in the beginning.

You can see they have a variety of different cables to choose from for about every type of pc need you can think of.  Once my lappy is up and running again and I have the extra ends, I'll be checking there for a cable to connect the lappy to the big screen. 

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Catch You on the Fly

So I'm watching an episode of "Wife Swap" and one of the dads is going off on his teenage daughter.  It seems she managed to run up a $700+ cell phone bill.  $700!  That is the precise reason why teens can't be trusted with their own phones.  He realized it too as he took a hammer and destroyed hers.

They may not have been in that predicament if they would have done a little more research and got a better deal thru some place like Wirefly.  Wirefly is the leading online retailer of cell phones and wireless service plans, offering more carriers, plans and phones than any other online cell phone store.

Wirefly also offers unmatched resources to help individuals and families pick the best phones, the best carrier and the best wireless plans.  More than that, their cell phones are backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

They have great family cell phone plans (also called shared plans).  Take that "Wife Swap" family for instance.  If they really felt the need to get the teenage daughter a new cell phone, they could have taken advantage of this type of plan.  They would have gotten more minutes to share, plus the same great deal on cell phones for a fraction of the cost of an individual cell phone plan.  Now they very well may have had that and just weren't monitoring her overage minutes.  That's just on them if that was the case.

In addition, Wirefly is one of the most popular electronics shopping sites on the internet.  Their e-commerce platform is used by many other online cell phone retailers like Radio Shack, Motorola.com, Buy.com, AOL Mobile and other online brands.  Stop by there and see for yourself why they were presented with Keynote System's Web Performance Award for Best in Overall Experience.

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Longview Solutions

What is it?  Simply put, it was selected as one of the Top Business Performance Management (BPM) vendors for 2007 by BPM partners, a widely-respected analyst and consulting firm which specializes in BPM.

Longview Solutions makes best of breed strategic finance software for finance organizations of large global companies.  Since 1995, a growing list of their global customers, leaders in their respective industries, have been using their Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solution.

Offering services in consulting, learning and customer technical support, it's no wonder why Longview received a 4.4 out of 5 ranking in early results from the annul BPM Pulse Survey.  Longview Solutions will create and deliver a performance management solution that will help businesses drive performance with speed, visibility and financial integrity.

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The Young and the Restless

When Victoria Rowell recently came to Des Moines for our annual I'll Make Me a World event, of course they billed her as star of The Young and the Restless.  Seeing her in person reminded me that she must have been on that show forever.

That's the one soap I never got into when I was a shortie.  Shortly after that is when it became the main soap with a nice amount of Black actors and actresses on it.

This show's site has a special section where you can click on the links of indvidual characters.  You can find out things about Rowell's character like her history, past marriages, flings and relationships and relatives.  They should take it to the next level and have the capabaility to see similar things bout the actor/actress themselves.  Now THAT would be some drama!

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Gaspirtz Comics

I had totally forgotten until just recently that the Sunday paper still has a comics section in it.  Last time I read them, they just weren't as good as they used to be when I was coming up.  Plus, online comics are the way to go anyway.

Gaspirtz.com features award-winning cartoons, animated flash cartoons and funny pictures by cartoonist Oliver Gaspirtz. His work has appeared in many magazines included the National Enquirer, Sun and Saturday Evening Post.  He also used to contribute cartoons to King Features' syndicated carton panel The New Breed, before he decided to go internet exclusive in 2000.

I've been perusing the site and noticed that he has quite a few renderings that are religious-based.  Take this one for instance.  Don't let the smooth taste fool you though.  There is also some dark humor in his work as well.  Still funny stuff when you're looking for a laugh or two.

Dialaflight

The locks appear to finally be working on the car.  Just in time as the weather this weekend is going to be a "high" of 4 degrees.  I came across this website called dialaflight.com that's looking more and more appealing with temperatures like this.

They have great deals on things likeFlights to India or Flights to Caribbean where there are still a few seats available for a 7-night trip to the cricket world cup in April.  I don't care much for cricket, but I'd be down for taking a trip away from this ice bowl.

For your next exotic vacation, make sure to stop by by dialaflight and find the right bargain for you.  Winter would be much more bearable with a tropical reprieve.  One of their flights to Orlando could really hit the spot.

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