THIS DAY goes down in history. My first REAL merchant mega order!

Over $900! I about fell off my chair when that came in

And some people wonder why I like being a merchant. LOL. Here - here’s the difference.

If a $900 order comes in and you’re the merchant:
1) See order, rub eyes, confirm reality - 1 min.
2) Fraud Check - This place come up in Google? Addresses match? 2 min.
3) Email warehouse. I can really get this stuff can’t I?! 50/50 chance. This is the “crunch time” question.
4) Play game while waiting for response, which’ll be about 2 hours. Antsily wait for the email bell to ring. 1 1/2 hours.
5) Minimize game and read the email! YES, it’s a GO! 30 secs.
6) Wait for the Settlement Report from the card place. YES. (Wait time depends when order comes in.)
7) Put virtual money into virtual pocket, sans cost of merchandise, shipping, and insurance. (2-3 days for money to hit my account.)

But, if you’re the affiliate, a $900 sale usually goes like this:

1) $90 appears in account as commission. Seems like a lot…unless you know what the merchant’s getting…then it’s kinda puny! Anyway, $90 for stickin’ up a link isn’t shabby. So start to yell Yes~
2) Remember that lots of merchants get their butts puckered when they have to authorize a payment for $90 on one sale. And, that it doesn’t usually happen. Instead of yessing…get antsy.
3) Stay antsy for a whole month. After all, as an affiliate, the payment won’t be authorized until the month ends!
4) Keep ticking off the days. Day 20, day 21…day 28…
4a) One of two things will happen. Either they’ll pay up, or not. With a big order like this? Usually NOT! If they don’t:

5) Day 29 or so, money disappears from aggregate figure. Merchant reverses! Excuse? A fake one. Insert any fake one, “can’t ship, sold out,” “invalid CC,” or just plain “other.” What’s “other?” I always call that the, “we don’t wanna pay” reversal reason.
6) Flame the merchant on ABestWeb.
7) Possibly, get better excuse out of ‘em. But…not the money!

Alternate scenario:
5) Day 30, they pay.
6) 3 days after that, the commission finally appears in the bank.

So even when they pay, you have to wait, on tenterhooks, for a WHOLE MONTH! Which seems like forever!! All over $90!

Despite this, affiliateism was a “good dog.” But the merchant side…THIS is a HORSE.

I just happened upon a post from someone saying that she got a, a, a, a,…a…job!

A few short lines. She’d been called back to a job she’d worked the year before. Seasonal place. So she’d be online less.

A tragedy, right?! Not making enough money online to keep her freedom!! Pwned by the system! Horrors!!!

NO! That’s not how she reacted at all. What the heck? She posted a celebration smiley. A CELEBRATION smiley! And later said that she hoped “it would become permanent!” Said it was “fun,” they dress casual, that they have lots of parties.

She’s been Borged by the evil empl*yment system, to the point of thinking that jobs are some kind of a good thing. *tears of anguish* A lost soul.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing to be done for these–the willingly enslaved. I could point out that with self-employment, you not only can dress casually, you don’t have to dress, period. (Surely you don’t think I’m sweating through unneeded fabric, here in the 92 degrees…) And if you’re the partying type you can party every day of the week, as long as you can do it and still get your moneymaking tasks done. And self-employment’s as fun as you want it to be.

But I’d just get this whine, “but it’s not staabblleeee!” Pah. The only thing that’s stable is death. And while employment is the living death, and like being buried, it’s not “stable” either! The employing company may go out of business at any time, or have layoffs, or any of a number of other things.

It really makes my soul cringe to see anyone so lost that they think getting a job is something to celebrate. It reminds me of how my history books used to be able to pull up examples of people saying that they “liked” being slaves. They said that stuff when there was no hope for freedom. Being glad to get a job is a similar response to hopelessness, the response of a person who doesn’t even dream of being able to make enough money without one.

And that’s sad.

If you’re drowning in debt, the obvious solution is simple: Declare bankruptcy! Debts disappear like magic.

So why don’t more people do that?

Usually, the thing that holds people back from just cutting the albatross loose, is that they have things that can be taken away if they declare. Houses, cars, expensive “toys” like motorcycles…even some furniture is repossessable. So bankruptcy’s only “good” if you’ve got nothing worth repossessing.

So what to do if you’ve got stuff you want to keep, but can’t afford all the bills?

One solution that some find works for them, is a debt consolidation loan. These loans are used to pay off all your other bills, leaving you with one, typically lower, monthly payment.

You can get quotes for debt consolidation loans at SecureDebtConsolidation.com. They even have a nationwide directory. So if you want a lender in your state, you can look up, say, Michigan loan consolidation lenders or lenders in your closest city, like Pontiac loan consolidation lenders.

Their site also lets you connect with professionals who deal with debt consolidation loans, as well as those who specialize in types of debt like credit card debt and tax debt.

It’s worth a look if you want to pay off your bills and have a lower monthly payment.

Ever wonder what it’d be like to be a spider?

Think of how the typical spider operates: First, it goes through a fair bit of work, building a web. Yet, it manages to accomplish this feat in a day or so.

Then, it gets to sit on its *ss, in the web, most of the time. Hours and hours pass. The spider doesn’t move, and appears perfectly contented with this.

Finally, an insect gets stuck in the web. Suddenly, ACTION! This formerly comatose-seeming spider races over to ensure that its free dinner doesn’t get away! It quickly ties up the prey and delivers one or more paralyzing bites.

Then it eats.

After that, a few minutes’ worth of maintenence to restore the web to full integrity…and then, back to sitting there.

Sounds beautiful, huh! The perfect slacker’s system.

So, I duplicated it!

Here’s how to be a human spider (no, not the Spider-Man kind…):

1) Put up a merchant site. Takes about a day.
2) Advertise it. That’s good for a few minutes of effort…the ads themselves do the rest of the work, there.
3) Sit around waiting for sales. Since you’re human, you get to have entertainment during this period. So, play some games. Set up an email-checking program that’ll ping you when a sale notice comes in. Preferably one that’ll make a noise that can be heard despite a game running at the same time.
4) When a sale happens, jump up and put the thing in a box. Get it to whoever’s going to deliver it.
5) Go back to your game.

There is just one catch: That between-sale period. I don’t know how a spider can sit there between bug-catches, with absolutely NO entertainment, nothing to read, etc. for all those hours without going absolutely batty!

Heck, I’ve always got a game on, and still I get bored outta my gourd. It’s actually Boredom Plus. Unlike regular boredom, there’s the distinct experience of waiting added to it.

So, how to alleviate this unexpected unpleasant side-effect of a perfectly-done DeWorkeration? There’s only one solution I can think of: Sell more stuff. Set up MORE merchant sites. So there’s more sales, and less waiting. One thing that’s different about the spider is that spiders can only run one web at a time. I can run lots.

Of course, I could just wait until the first two build up enough to constantly bring in sales all day, but nah. My human-ness is showing: I want it NOW! And I can get closer to that “now” by just selling more stuff, through more sites.

My credit cards are just gonna looovvveee me financing Site #3 with them…or shall I say, using “leverage” to “expand my operations?”

Usually when I buy something, I just go to the merchant site and do it. But, sometimes there are actually promo codes worth finding.

I was looking at CouponChief.com again, and I found some Amazon coupons I wouldn’t have expected. For example, there are coupons for specific brands of items that Amazon carries. Some of these coupons change monthly, so check back at CouponChief to see which specific ones are active.

I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, so next time maybe I’ll look for a coupon first!

During the recent troubles with the computer, I’d switched back to my old keyboard. This was because the old machine I was using didn’t have enough USB ports to attach my new one. Then, when I got the good computer working again, I didn’t want to bother switching the keyboards on my desk again, so I had just kept using the old keyboard. After all, it had been working fine.

I was starting to think that it had just needed to dry out after it had gotten wet, after all. I remembered that I’d given it days to dry when that happened and it had stayed wonky, but it was fine now…
…
………. *shifts eyes*

Well, Old Man Murphy–the dude with the Law–must have overheard my speculations.

The other day, I goes to make a forum post, and suddenly the computer starts going into “standby” mode! What the heck?! Finally I determine that this happens every time I hit the “p” key. HMMMM…

So I close all the windows, and then hit “p” again. Nothing happens. Good. Maybe that got rid of the weird glitch.

Open forum screen back up, go to post entry box. Start typing. Seems fine…then I hit a word that needs an apostrophe. Oh it types an apostrophe, all right–on the line above where I intend it to be! But finally I get it to cooperate. This is getting aggravating. The task of unburying the keyboard cord from the desk junk is looking less daunting…

An email comes in that needs a response. I try to type one. I find that several keys have apparently “double mapped” themselves: They do two things when pressed. The caps lock key now also types a semicolon when pressed. The apostrophe also triggers the effect of the up-arrow button. And random silliness happens when nearing the end of a line.

Fortunately, the fix for this was quite simple: Put my new keyboard back on the computer, where it belongs! End of problem!

It’s so nice when the glitched part is easy to determine, and cheap enough to not have to care what the heck is wrong with it. That old keyboard now = a frisbee, or maybe something to dismantle when I’m especially bored.

I just got asked how I’d accomplish dangerous missions if I was a spy–and, of course, accomplish them without revealing my true identity!

So…I suppose it’d depend on the mission. Personally I think I’d specialize in assassinations *devilish grin.*

I’d bring my computing background into the picture, mixed with some of the weird news and cuckoo conspiracy theories I’ve read about. A good mixing, and that’d turn some of that into reality.

For instance, the Target just may happen to “win” a new keyboard. And, whether he/she needed it or not, the Target would probably be curious enough to plug it in and test it…and get zapped to death by the 100,000-volt charge I had rigged it up to deliver…heheheh…

Don’t want him dead? Just want to know what he types, or maybe some similar info? Keyloggers and virii are boring and old hat when it comes to actually getting such info. That’d be just be too easy, to make a decent show episode out of. Fiction is supposed to be exciting and daring! So…better to use a hypnotic desktop pattern, or zombification screensaver, to send the Target into a trance and make him enter all the relevent info into a CIA-run phishing site! After that happens, no real need to keep the mark around any more, is there? After all, he may “wake up” and start telling the world. So time for the fatal-seizure-inducing screen pattern to start showing. Oops…I wasn’t supposed to assassinate this one. Oh well.

How about getting the data out of some foreign government (or competing domestic intelligence agency) that’s onto the above kinds of shenanigans? Easy enough. Factoid #1: Immigrants often don’t know the language of the country they just came to. Factoid #2: This often limits them to jobs like janitor. Factoid #3: Nobody thinks the janitor has any sense…otherwise he wouldn’t be a mere janitor. Right?

So, easy as pie to use the above 3 assumptions to just walk right into the foreign installation, using being an immigrant as a cover, get a janitor job, and proceed to listen/read/snap pix/videotape away! Of course, I would really be fluent in the language.

People never give low-level employees enough credit. So I’d probably be able to keep the place infiltrated for years…provided I could tolerate doing the cover job that long.

Do you enjoy thinking about spies and how they work? Then check out USA Network’s Burn Notice. It’s a show about a spy who gets fired (gets his “burn notice”) in the middle of an assignment. All of his background ends up toasted, so he can’t just go get a regular job. His bank accounts get frozen, too! The show follows his adventures as he tries to find out the reason behind his burning…while also using his spy skills to be a private eye in order to avoid ending up totally broke. And, he has to go about all of this without revealing his true identity as an ex-CIA operative!

Goofle and the other engines are ignoring one of my pages despite it having lots of links in, the page being unique, and all that. For them to get clues, they need links on sites that are actually getting spidered. Like this blog! I see G-bot and Yahoo’s bot in the log files all the time.

So. Here’s yet another link for the page I’m trying to get into the indices:

CHECKS

And some people wonder why I like being on the merchant side instead of *constantly* dealing with this kind of utter crap (engine obstinacy)?!

Oh well, meh. Up theirs, I’M going to think up more stuff to sell as a merchant. Merchant-side is nice. Jealous types can keep playing Gravitar if they want to. Personally, I like my games on Easy and with the God Mode ON!

But I would appreciate it if G would fork out a #1 for that page (or at least index the thing), or I wouldn’t be posting this. Even so, I’m on the lookout for another hit merchantside product. I thought I had Product Line #3 in the bag a couple of months ago, but I couldn’t get a deal set up. But I’m sure there’s other things out there, that have people looking for them, and aren’t saturated to death.

It’s just a matter of thinking of the item. The reason that such items *aren’t* saturated to death, is that they’re not too easy to think of!

Shipping stuff is usually a pretty boring affair. But sometimes, unexpected humor happens.

I use DHL for a lot of my shipping, and they get the packages where they’re going. But one of my recent packages sure had a heck of a scenic journey getting there!

First, a little background. Imagine MI for a moment. It’s got the lower peninsula (the big mitt-shaped part) and the upper peninsula (the thin, kind of rabbit-shaped part that a lot of map sketchers seem to forget about). The two are seperated by a couple of big*ss lakes at the top, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. There’s a bridge where those two lake meet. This bridge is on a big Interstate highway, I-75.

So you can pretty much guess how to drive to the U.P. from practically anywhere in Michigan…right?!

Well, DHL didn’t guess it. I got an order from someone way up in the hick in the UP. So I give the box to DHL to save a couple bucks over what the USPS wants, and, like usual, I track the box. I’m as addicted to tracking shipments as I am to watching the log files…maybe even a bit more. It’s fascinating, and I soon learn many of the hubs that packages should go through.

So first, it hits Southfield, MI. No surprise, that’s the main routing hub for boxes going out of here. They all end up in Southfield if they go via DHL.

I’m figuring that the next stop will either be somewhere in the UP, or maybe they’ll send it down to South Bend IN where the megahub is, and back up to Niles MI (the 2 are across the border from each other about 20 mins apart)…and then on up to the UP.

But…this box inexplicably did not appear in IN or Niles after the usual gap of 6 hours or so. HMMMMM…Oh well, it was time for bed so I quit watching for that night. I figured it’d be scanned in by the next day and might even be showing as “out for delivery” from some hick hublet by then.

So the next day, I looked, and it was in OHIO! Ohio?! Yep, Wilmington Ohio. Nearest big city…Cincinnati!! WTF?

And, I noticed that the expected delivery date had been quietly moved up another day. Somehow I think it ended up in Ohio by accident… It sat in Wilmington for a while, and then showed that it was in transit again. Where would it appear next?

Wisconsin! A place called Appleton, which is southwest of Green Bay. So…they’re surely going to bring it further north, to another hub, right? WRONG!

They sent the poor sap to-the-door courier out from Appleton WI, at 5:38 in the morning!! And, 5 1/2 hours later, the package was finally delivered.

According to calculations, it ended up traveling about 1600 miles to get to a place that’s about 500 miles away. Somehow, I don’t think DHL made any money on that delivery.

Next time I see how they charge something like $40 for overnight express to places you could get to in a day anyway (an option I’d never choose)…I’ll know what kind of expenses those customers are really subsidizing!

Payday loans. The thought conjures up images of little shops in broke areas, high interest rates, and having way too little buffer left in the bank.

But, any broke person will tell you that he can’t exactly build a buffer when buying the next dinner after the bills are due, means picking cans! So, what is a person in such a state to do when his only way of getting to work–his car–breaks down, and the mechanic says it’ll take $250 to fix it? Or if some other similar emergency happens?

Suddenly that payday loan place comes back to mind… These are the little loans that serve as a “cash advance” on your next paycheck. Obviously, they’re for those who do employment, or have some kind of fixed income. You even have to prove it! (Us self-employed people would have to start pickin’ more of those cans, if we needed to pull money out of the air somehow.)

But wow…the locations some of these places are in! Isn’t there some way to avoid those areas, and still get some money pronto? With the Internet, the answer is YES! You can get fast payday loans online by going through PaydayCashAdvanceLoans.biz! Their site connects you with lots of payday loan lenders, so you can find the best one for you, and go with them. No having to walk into who-knows-what “on spec.”

Of course, not all physical payday loan stores are in bad areas. Amazingly, I found that there are some Novi payday loans places! LOL I never would have guessed. Novi, MI is a well-to-do looking area of large homes and McMansions!! Ha ha looks can be deceiving, it seems! And some of the banks involved are really big ones!

So whether you’re in a city or in a place that looks like it’d never, ever have a payday lender in it, check out PaydayCashAdvanceLoans.biz. You just might be in for a surprise at how available they are in your area!