Jun 25 Dear Police Officer,
I would just like to say that I am thankful that you are around. You provide some semblance of safety and law in this crazy world. All sorts of characters cross paths with you on a daily basis, and you face the type of unknown danger that I will likely never experience.
And yet on that note, I would like to say that you have no right to take taxpayer money and leave your stupid car on just so you would not have to experience 15 seconds of discomfort when you get back into your car. As gas is so expensive nowadays (and even worse such that I want them to Give It Back after money that they have been Sneakily Selfish in obtaining), I know that there is definite waste going on over there.
I could not even believe that you would leave your car in such a state. As I walked from the bank to Jamba Juice, I happened to walk near your car. I heard a sound that seemed as if something was going on. I doubled back just to check if my suspicions were true. Yep, there your car was with its engine running and nobody in the car. And you were nowhere to be found. I had seen you earlier sauntering into Corner Bakery for who knows what. Let’s hope that there was some sandwich-snatcher there that you had to apprehend.
Some thoughts crossed my mind such as I wonder how crazy it would be to open the door (for you must have left it open if your key was in the ignition) and take off with your car or how lazy and in need of comfort must you be to do such a thing! Sure I understand that at 80 degrees in California, you’ve got it bad. Real bad. Life is hard and A/C is the only thing that can save you.
But you did all of this on my dime. Yes, mine. I do not give money to the government so that you can do this. Okay well I mainly give money because I have to. But if I did have a choice, I would not give it so that you could do that! Please think about what you’re doing next time. Or I’m going to have a talking with you. Alright, I’ll probably just rant about it again on my blog. But it will be an angrier one!
So stop it. No one likes a leach leech. They just want to squash them. Or if you’re Bear Grylls of Man vs Wild (rawr!) fame, you’d eat ‘em.
Sincerely, Derek
Jun 23 Is it just me, or is it tiring listening to things getting hyped up? More specifically, I’m rather tired of reading and seeing the iPhone everywhere. If you don’t know, the iPhone is the new upcoming cellular phone that combines the media and ease of use of an iPod with the web browsing and touchscreen of a smart phone.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Well I’m sure that it will be nice, but it’s not going to be the end all to everything. I don’t even get why there is such a tremendous amount of hype! Everyone is completely enamored with Apple products all of a sudden even if they’re simply a good-looking product that does not even have anything new to offer (look up Apple TV). Sure they have some real nice products, but not everything that they touch is going to turn to gold.
Smart phones have existed. Touchscreens have existed. Phones that can play music and video have existed. Devices that can access the Internet have existed.
So the only new thing is something that does these things from Apple. How novel. How worth $500. Coming this upcoming week to an Apple fanatic near you.
Jun 22 Trying out a ReviewMe to see how I feel about it. I like ReviewMe’s set up because even though they offer to pay you for reviews, they are in no way forcing your hand in what you say. So good or bad, that’s how they roll.
One thing that’s pretty big (okay huge in some places) nowadays is making money off of the Internet. Qoo Forum is an approach to the issue that (as far as I know) is pretty unique. They are trying to start a forum where people can talk about anything they want to. Where does the money making come in? They propose that if you attain a certain point (currently 50 posts) then they will allow you to have a chance to have ads from your Google AdSense Publisher account be placed on the forum itself.
As I described in Inconsiderate Internet Browsing, advertisements work just as they do for other media. Advertisers get to show whatever they want and in turn they pay for that right. Specifically for the Internet, this means that you can get paid for views or you can get paid for the number of clicks on your advertisements.
The look of the site is nice and clean that is easy on the eyes, even if it does seem a little cartoonish because everything on the site has their edges rounded.
As you can somewhat see, they are trying to reach out to as many categories as they possibly can. There are forums within the Qoo forum ranging from music to gadgets to making money to sports! I think that this might be a problem for them in the future. Granted it allows for growth in any which way. However, just like other things with no purpose, it might fall flat on its face just because it does not have a single intention. I know that I have gone to forums simply because they were forums that were much more centered around a main topic. That might have been software or cars, but I went to that forum because there were people there that knew more than I did.
I’m not sure that’s the kind of people that will be attracted to this site. It seems as if the people that will post here are simply people that are in it to get money for themselves. It’s hard to attract the stable reliable posters that are able to answer people’s questions with that kind of mindset. The reason is that those people who frequent forums to help others do so out of the goodness in their hearts. They like helping others. They are not people who are out to make a quick buck.
However, it does seem like they might have something if my thoughts on people is off. The advertisements in each thread are pretty well placed. They blend well with their styling, but they are slightly off-putting because there are just so many of them.
So if you can get an advertisement there, you do seem to have a reasonable chance of making some money. I’m sure that Qoo will also be having much of their own advertisements placed in the site as well (of course they’re revenue sharing, not revenue giving).
This is all of the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mentality. And that’s not too bad of an idea because it seems like it was easy to set up with existing tools. They’re utilizing vBulletin for their forum software, they had to think of an interesting domain, they need the hardware to host it all, and then they can utilize Google’s existing ad network!
Some things that I saw while looking around where that I wasn’t actually sure how likely you are to get your advertisements on the threads that you start once you hit that magic 50 post level. In the FAQ it says in one place “Currently, you are entitled to 50% chance of showing your ad code within the threads that are started by you” whereas in a similar section it says “Once you have reached that level, your ad code will be applied to all the threads started by you.” That’s confusing to say the least. Additionally I noticed some grammatical errors along the lines of some of the items that I mentioned in Learn Some English (Part 1). They should get someone to give it a good read through and through to give it a more professional feel to it.
All in all, I think that the Qoo Forum has an intriguing idea that might turn out to pan out for lots of people. However, seeing as how they are brand spanking new, I’m not sure how well they will actually do. They are working off of people’s greed, and seeing as how that is very apparent in many people, they just might do alright.
Jun 21 I went to go get gasoline yesterday on the way home from work. Of course I dreaded it. At least it’s on the way down right now. But when I got out of my automobile to start pumping the liquid into my vehicle and my money into the machine, I saw something that took me aback. There, above the very machine that was essentially taking my money was a television! It was complete with sound and a fairly sharp display!
Technology is amazing. They are able to put a television in a gas station!
But then I thought for another second and realized that they must have used some of my money in order to install all of these televisions! Sure it’s nice to watch the television for about 2 minutes, but I’d much rather have the money that they used back! Just goes to show you that those gas station owners sure aren’t on hard times.
