My Warped Sense Of Humor

I was going through some old files tonight and came across this video I haven't watched in ages. It still cracks me up.

Okay, probably most people won't find this nearly as funny as I do. You probably need to have my peculiar mix of interests to truly appreciate it... but then again, it went viral and spread all over the web a few years ago, so there must be a lot more warped people out there besides me!

The guy who did the video is Gary Brolsma. It's called "Numa Numa Dance" and the song is "Dragostea Din Tea" by the Romanian pop band "O-Zone". I think the video was first seen on Newgrounds in December of 2004.

Come on, watch it once and just see what you think...



... then admit it, watching this guy is a hoot!

And if you don't think it's funny, well okay. But at least I'm not the Lone Ranger here, cause lots of other people liked it so much it not only went viral, but inspired a lot of clones and spin-offs.

And that's my bit of warped humor nostalgia for the day.

HALFWAY THROUGH 90 DAYS!

Somewhere between yesterday and today I reached the half-way point of this 90 Day Challenge. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

On a positive note:

· I do have the 8 sites up I’m supposed to have at this point.
· Jonathan is helping me with one site by writing the blog posts.
· The first little trickle of money has appeared from AdSense.
· I’m learning a lot.
· And I’m halfway DONE.

On the bad side of the ledger:

· I haven’t got near as much done as I’m supposed to have finished by now.
· By the middle of October I’m supposed to have yet 4 more sites up (and you can’t imagine how much work it is to do just ONE. I have an EIGHT page spreadsheet with instructions for the set-up).
· The work needing done is positively RELENTLESS.
· There needs to be a LOT more money coming in to even come close to last year’s winner, and more importantly, to make it worth the time I'm spending.
· It's really hard to keep up with this and do all the farm chores and household chores.
· Most people aren’t a bit interested in what I’m doing (but this is my blog so I can write what I want to).
· And I’m only HALFWAY done.

Thank goodness for RR who allows me to spout off in emails to her, though I’m sure a lot of what I’m talking about makes little sense to her. Still, she’s getting an education second-hand, and one of these days might have a chance to impress someone with what she knows about this particular subject. (She knows bunches about other things too of course. ;-) ) She gets out and about a lot more than I do, so she might have the opportunity!

And I suppose I should be encouraged because even though I don’t have as much done as I’m supposed to have finished by now, the first few pennies are dropping into the accounts. That means people are starting to visit the sites, as in, there is traffic. VERY important, because if no one visits the site, it doesn’t matter how good it is, you can’t make any money from it.

And I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m learning a lot. Stuff I struggled for hours to do when I first started is old hat now. I’ve got a grip on the different software and tools I’m using. I’ve adapted some things that didn’t work for me. I’m getting a feel for what I like and what I positively do NOT like.

Now if I can just survive 45 more relentless days of work.

The last few months have been an interesting journey. It’s been a lot like going to college, but without the fellowship and fun, ha! You have to pay to learn stuff. Some of what you paid for ends up being worthless. But other courses, seminars, etc. have been good enough that I gleaned useful knowledge from them, though I probably won’t use it quite as intended (adapt, adapt!). And then there are gems here and there that are excellent and have helped me a lot, and worth every penny.

I get discouraged with my progress, but I try to remind myself I’m essentially learning a whole new job or career or business or whatever you want to call it. I know a lot more than I did 6 months ago, but not near as much as I’m going to know in another 6 months. It’s the old, “The more I learn, the more I find out there is to learn.”

Fact is, there are lots of ways to make money on the internet. But if ever there was an area with a bunch of con artists, it’s for selling you on making money on the internet. “Push a button, lay on the beach, and bring in millions!” Uh-huh.

Well, the only way that is possible is if you’ve done a ton of work BEFORE you get to the beach. It’s not as easy as most of the guys selling you this stuff would like you to think it is. (If it was, most everyone would be an internet millionaire, right?) It’s most certainly NOT effortless. It takes work to make any money, whether you’re doing it on the internet or anywhere else.

And like any other way of making money, there are ethical ways, not so ethical ways, some that skirt right on the edge of the law, and some that you can actually feel good about doing. So do you want to go to work wearing a White Hat or a Black Hat?

The bottom line is figuring out what you actually enjoy doing, which things work, and which are bunk. Of course, the more I learn, the easier that is, but I’ll confess I’ve goofed here and there. I just have to chalk those experiences up to learning what NOT to do.

And just keep on trying, with or without encouragement.

Thoughts About The Mystery of Mailing CDs + Thinking About A New Picture

First off, as I was putting a Netflix movie out in the mailbox this morning, I got to thinking.... how is it that we get movies from Netflix in a flimsy paper envelope every week that are never broken, yet when Richard tries to mail me one in a plastic jewel case, with file folders and padded envelope protecting it, the post office somehow manages to bust it in two, while still in the case I might add!


That takes talent! But what I wonder is this - do they treat Netflix mail with greater care because they're a big customer? How does Netflix manage to mail all these CD's with no protection from breakage?


Surely the USPS, being a government run service, wouldn't be guilty of taking better care of a big company's mail than us regular little consumers, would they? (That was said with some major sarcasm, just so ya know.)


Secondly, when I turned on my laptop this morning I got to thinking I really needed to replace the picture on the "desktop" screen. The one there is getting pretty old, since it was taken while Richard and Chrystie and Ellie still lived in Texas. :-(


Here's the one I picked to replace it.

It was taken when I was in Canada this past April. Richard's good about getting pictures of Sussern Mama with Ellie. It's about the only time I don't scream about having my picture taken!

So there's my two thoughts for the morning, musing about mail, and thinking of new pictures. I know my having thoughts is a rare occurrence, so just thought I'd share them.

And now I must get back to work!

Ellie's Artwork

The mail carrier brought all kinds of goodies to our house today.

• A check for the last two boxes of wool sitting in the living room,


• 2 movies from Netflix,


• An envelope with tickets for our train ride in WV in October,


• A padded envelope with some coins Jess is collecting,


• Three boxes with stuff from Walter Drake - 1 with Spider Spray,


• Another box with an air deflector for one of the vents,


• And the last big box had a cheap over the door rack to put on the Bird Door for the parrot's climbing-around fun,


• Last and bestest, was a package from Ellie for "Sussern Mama".

Big surprise, but I opened it first! It took a while to get the padded envelope open, and get the three (yes, THREE!) stapled-together file folders apart. Inside was a great piece of artwork which now graces my bulletin board between the dining and living room.

This is the first thing I've actually put on the bulletin board. Guess I was just saving it for some "grandkid artwork."

That's the good news. The bad news is that there was a CD in there too, which I have no idea what was on it, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. However, never mind it was in one of those plastic cases for CDs, and never mind it had THREE file folders padding it, and never mind that the envelope was one of those padded with the air bubble wrap... somehow the postal service managed to break it right in two.

Bummer.

So for now I'll just enjoy Ellie's artwork. Thanks Ellie! Sussern Mama loves you!

Life in our neck of the woods...

We could have been in Gatlinburg this weekend. We had a wonderful invitation and I would loved to have went. But we also have 3 trips coming up during October and November, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the price of gas keeps going up, while Jess’s work is slowing down. Now is not the time for lots of extra spending.

Plus I’m still trying to work through the 90 Day Challenge. (Even if I can’t win, I don’t want to be a quitter!) Life is rather busy around here what with one thing and another.

And while parts of the country are getting lambasted with rain and high winds we’re having hot, dry weather. Weather wise, it’s summer here. It was way too warm out there today. Not thrilling, but better than being pounded by a hurricane!

Anyway, here we go, updates from our part of the world!

I’ve sold and shipped all the wool except for 2 huge boxes still waiting for payment. I’ll be glad when UPS can visit me one last time for one last shipment of wool. This has been a major project I didn’t really need right now, but never dreamed I’d get such a response to my small ad.

Jess didn’t have much work last week, but you never know from week to week what will happen. He talked to one guy Friday that might be giving him some work this coming week, so hopefully he’ll be a little busier. If he’s going to the office, might as well have something to do!

Jonathan got the permanent crown this past week on the tooth that recently got the root canal, and has an appointment for the next major cavity repair that will hopefully NOT turn into another root canal. Besides working at Toys R Us, he’s been helping me when I have technical difficulties, and he’s also working on a new website.

I worked on learning more new software this week. I worked on writing articles. I worked on building new websites. I worked on writing new posts. I worked… on a lot of things.

And of course if I run out of things to do computer-wise, there’s always cooking and laundry and other housework, and farm chores. Who has time to ever be bored? It’s sure not a problem around here!

Other glitches… the shutter button on my camera came off. A repair was attempted, but it didn’t work. I’m back to using my older digital camera. It has a small 1” screen which I have trouble seeing these days, and it doesn’t have as good a telephoto lens. I miss those things. Maybe somewhere down the road I’ll see if the camera can be repaired.

On a positive note, the bathroom is very close to done. It’s been a whole lot of money and a lot of work for such a small room. We need to do a few paint touch-ups, and I need to buy a new clock, but other than that, it’s done. Hooray!

Like everyone, we have our ups and downs, and stay way too busy, but we’re hanging in there and pushing on. And that’s the way it is here in our neck of the woods.

Word Play

Most of the people in this family like word play. Any sort will do, but we’re especially fond of:…

malapropisms (noun) Ludicrous misuse of words, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.

and

puns (noun).Play on words: a humorous use of words that involves a word or phrase that has more than one possible meaning

For instance, coming back from the grocery store this week, Jonathan and I passed a little cemetery. A sheriff’s car was parked there with the accompanying sheriff inside.

I said, “Wonder what the sheriff is doing parked there?” closely followed by, “He must have the graveyard shift.”

Jonathan picked right up with, “Yeah, he’s rounding up all the deadbeats.”

Come on, quit rolling your eyes; you know it’s funny.

Jess was talking to someone earlier this week who for the purposes of this blog shall remain anonymous. She has a daughter, let’s say late teens. They were talking about what she was doing these days, and “Anonymous” said, “Well, she’s not really interested in going to college. She just wants to get her ‘M’-‘R’-‘S’.

Now, you have an unfair advantage, You’re reading this, so it’s immediately apparent what she was saying. But hearing it, well, it takes a second for it to sink in and catch on that M-R-S means she wants her ‘Mrs.’ - she wants to get married!

I thought that was a good one.

Jess frequently mangles words on purpose to make crazy malapropisms. Another member of the family does it quite often too, but doesn’t have a clue they’ve done it, which makes it all the funnier, except you can’t laugh! Don’t want to hurt their feelings.

I reckon if there’s no time for any other play, word play will do.

Software Makes My Head Hurt

Instead of "Software Makes My Head Hurt", I wanted to used an alliterative title, just 2 words – Software _ _ _ _ _, but I don’t like that expression, even though it would be vastly appropriate to convey the type of situation I was dealing with all morning.

Now that I’ve got you thoroughly confused, welcome to the club. I’ve been that way all morning. (No comments about how I’m that way ALL the time please.)

I was working on my websites and suddenly realized that the buttons for subscribing to different feeds that should be in the sidebar of the home page were missing from more than half of them.

Why???

I checked the Wordpress plug-in that’s supposed to generate these buttons and put them in the sidebar. It was there on all the sites, same version, all activated. But it wasn’t working on 3 out of 5 sites.

Why???

I checked the code. It was the same for the sites with and without the buttons.. I checked it was the same versions of Wordpress. I checked… oh never mind what all I checked. If you’re not into this stuff, you wouldn’t understand it anyway. I’m working on it, but that doesn’t mean I really understand it either.

So I got someone up here who understands it better than I do. He informed me he doesn’t know .php very well. I informed him however well he understands it, it’s a whole lot better than I do.

He spent half the morning working on it. He worked on the desktop computer while I worked on the laptop. We poked around in code all over the place, trying to find the problem. We tried to figure out what was different about the sites. We tried to find documentation on the plug-in. We looked on forums. We tried everything we could think of between the two of us to fix the problem so this plug-in would work.

But we never did figure out why this particular plug-in wouldn’t work on over half the sites.

Finally, I asked Jonathan where the code was on the sites that DID work, and can we input in manually? Yeah, we could. Well, how about the graphics, can we add them too? Oh yeah, he knew were to find the graphics too.

The upshot is yes, we could input the code manually. And guess what? It didn’t take but 5 minutes to fix it on each site so that the feeds are now showing up in the sidebar WITHOUT that blasted “helpful” plug-in.

That’s technology for you. Great when it works, a pain when it doesn’t. And sometimes, it’s just easier to do it yourself than to try some great and wonderful time-saving device that isn’t a great and wonderful time-saving device after all. We wasted more time trying to make this time-saver work than it took to do it ourselves.

That’s why sometimes I use a pencil and paper instead of the computer.