WE HAVE BEEN INVADED!

Yes, I was almost invaded myself this morning. I thought well, why not, the rest of the Internet community is always a buzz over selling blog space, I might as well get with it. To tell you the God's truth, and it's shameful, I had moved over to WordPress because I saw in ads that people wanted you to be familiar with it. Then I came back to Blogger and read about this new AdSense thing, and I had been a little bummed that I couldn't use the new Google AdSense I was just dying to try at WordPress so I moved back. Taking my blogs back and forth like a teenage newlywed going back and forth to Mom and Dad's after learning what marriage is really like. Well, now I'm back and I figured today I would get me some of that big money and sign on for AdSense. It was much easier than I had let to believe. I first looked it up in FAQ and boy did that confuse me. I ended up downloading some WordPress template that I had no idea how to install. Finally I figured out it was a "gadget" listed on layout and I only had to make a couple of clicks. And there on my beautiful page with a poem about my daughter and a picture of a wood thrush meant to represent her as she leaves the nest for good, was an ad, first about making big bucks doing some damn thing, and, the second one was about "blogging for dollars". I simply could not live with myself. And for what? Two cents a day? No thank you. If I sell out it's going to be for larger cash. You know I write now for Suite 101.com. I just started freelancing regularly for them. I feel like it's sort of a real job in that I filled out an application with writing samples and got accepted and all that. As you can see from link, I have a profile and a list of my articles and my picture and everything. Well, yesterday I almost pissed where I swim. I was anxious to fill up that list of articles written by me and was lunging around desperate for ideas. I hate when I get like that. I am totally burned out but won't admit it. I had spent three days on that 2,700 word "History of Coffee" piece. (I used three books for reference and a bunch of Internet sites.) I was crunchy. Anyhow, I started doing what I do when I am fresh out of article ideas. I went to 2007 Google Zeitgeist, Google Trends and Hot Trends for the day and previous few days, and then I went to AOL's blog on their day's trends. They were writing and listing bizarre celebrity spa treatments like fanny facials, snake massages, snake venom creams, cupping, nightingale dung facials, lava shell massage, 24-carat gold facials, human placenta facials, hyaluronic acid (key component of human tissue), and, oh, yeah, fish nibbling at your toes pedicures. And let's not forget Demi Moore's admission on Letterman this past March that she went to Austria to have leeches suck the old out of her and then she laid in a bathtub of turpentine to "detoxify" her body. Is a younger man's attention really worth all that? Well, I had names of which celebs did what. (Madonna-placenta, Gwyneth-cupping, snake venom and, I'd say, pretty much whatever; and I even got Oprah down for hyaluronic acid, although I like to think of her as too ethereal for all of that nonsense.) Well I had the thing pretty much written and went to paste it on the little machine that takes the articles. The f'n machine just spun around and the words went into cyberspace. I tried it about three times. It just wouldn't take my junky, crappy, low-life article that was only geared toward keyword optimization and nothing else much really. I woke up grateful today. I am ashamed and sorry, but I still may go write it for Helium. I spent too much time on researching who did what to blow it off completely. I only wish I knew if it were true about Halle Berry putting coffee grinds on her butt to get rid of cellulite. It sounds kind of out there, but what if it's true? Some so-called expert says that because coffee is a stimulant and a diuretic that when applied on the skin it increases blood flow and thus detoxifies and breaks up cellulite. Pretty to think so, eh? Oh, well, it should get me high ratings on Helium for the dish. Damn Helium. They owe me $70 for an article I sold on, get this, the body language of horses. Tell me that didn't take some research. I put in for it weeks ago, before the first of the month, as specified. I actually expected to see it in my PayPal account yesterday. Still not there today. No sign of it in my "earnings" report except as an "adjustment". I sent them an e-mail. If they don't pay up this entire blog may be changed to the Helium.com is a Con and a Thief etc. Blog, making sure I use all the right key words to get it Googled regularly. Ta Ta for now.

"I Look At All the Lonely People. Where Do They All Come From?"

Just a reminder for you poets out there, and those of you who have the heart for poetry but have lacked the nerve. The time is now. Poe announced today that tomorrow begins the annual 30 Poems in 30 days. See last year's line-up: You can post them or take up the offer to do the whole thing privately. It is an opportunity no poet at heart should miss. And September is a great month for poetry if you ask me. The leaves are changing. The wind is blowing that incredible new feeling of beginnings and green hope promise of better days and nights. Pick up that pen/cursor and follow me. And just who are all the lonely people the Beatles asked, and I ask you tonight after reading Google's Zeitgeist 2007. I read it, of course, along with AOL Top Searches, Google Hot Trends and Yahoo Buzz to see what's been going on and maybe still is going on that I can use for an article idea. Yeah, I know it sounds like cheating, but I just started writing for Suite 101.com and I want to see my articles page fill up. Under the category "Top of Mind" in the 2007 Zeitgeist are some disturbing searches. Now remember that these searches have to occur often enough to be recorded as a trend. No single fly-by-night searches count. I want to meet the people who typed these words into the Google search box and comfort them. Here's what they thought Google could help them with: Who is God? What is love? How to kiss? How to dance? How to levitate? not to mention, hello?, "who is this?" Maybe I will just let that last person be. They may have been over-served. But doesn't it just break your heart that people turn to Google to find out who God is, what love is and how to kiss? And just imagine the lonley, gawky teen or pre-teen who wants to go to the dance or just be popular but doesn't have anyone to show him/her how to dance. That is just so unkind of life. Well, frankly, neither did I. I never did learn how to dance either, and, believe me, I was embarrassed to death because of it many the time. I used to just cat around on the floor like I was Mick damn Jagger. Usually I had to be blind drunk to get up and get out there. Then I'd fall down or just plain make a fool of myself. One time I was so damn drunk I fell down and just kept dancing on the floor like it was part of my act. Tsk tsk. The memories of an alcoholic life are not attractive ones. I'm sure that last paragraph will be up on Google tomorrow morning. On a hunch I googled "MsRefusenik" for the first time yesterday. What an eye-opener that was. It was like I had been living with an evil roommate who was systematically sending random bits of embarrassing documents from my computer to Google. Shit I didn't even know existed. Real personal stuff too. Can somebody tell me how you get that stuff off of Google? The last time I had to get something off it was an application form to buy Phentermine with a made up, inflated weight and my age on it. I had to contact the pharmacy to say that I thought that medical records were confidential. Oh no, they assured me, from some foreign port city. Anything that is on the Internet is fair game for online publication. I haven't ordered anything online since. But I was able to get that awful thing off of there. I didn't even want anyone to know I was wasting my money on that crap. (But should you decide to waste your money on this not-bad speed replacement, be sure it is phentermine and not phentramine or some damn synthetic imitation that costs much less.) Thank God I get regular Adderall from my doc now. I really do have ADD. So who are these people who want Google to tell them how to kiss? Could they be any more innocent, sweet and helpless? Again, why is no one there to show them--even if only on their hand. Isn't it one of our inaliable rights? That we know how to kiss before we meet the boy or the girl? And Google just goes right ahead and tells them how to do it in no nonsence terms. There are two Wiki posts on it, and something called videojug has a video on how to kiss passionately. Do you think that is what Mr. or Ms. Lonely Hearts is really looking for? Do they have to be quite so corrupted so swiftly? I can barely stand to tell you what Google spits out for "What is Love?" That's right, the YouTube's Roxbury version of the awful disco song. On a less plaintive note, under Zeitgeist "Ringtones" I have some questions also. Just who are these people looking for "mosquito", "spider pig", "crazy frog", "office" and "silent" ringtones? Please don't stop searching until you find what your heart is seeking.