The Big DumpTruck

I didn't realize you guys were bigdumptruck-less for a chunk of the weekend until I got my daily traffic report email and it said that my hits were about a third of what they normally are, making me think there was some sort of problem. Apparently, there was some sort of problem. Luckily, it appears the hosting company found their plunger and released my website, and it is now available again.

I just got paid four days ago and I'm already counting the minutes until next payday. For those of you keeping track, I only get paid once a month. It SUCKS OUT LOUD. I hate it. I'm no good with getting paid once a month. I had to set aside a chunk of change for getting the furnace fixed out of this one and there's just no cheese money left. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining about a lack of cheese money when some people can't buy groceries or pay rent, but dang it, I strongly dislike not being able to spend $10 on myself without feeling very guilty.

And on that topic, we were going to look for a nice rubbish container for the kitchen, and we were at Lowe's and the cheapest one was $79. The one we liked was $99. Hello?! A hundred bucks for a trash bin? And it isn't even one of the "survives a nuclear blast" kind that you want to buy for putting out at the curb. This is just a bin with a foot pedal for the kitchen. I could buy a grill for less money than the trash can!

Needless to say, we do not have a hundred dollar trash bin this morning.

Labels: money, shopping

We filed our taxes about a million years ago. Or maybe it was a week ago. Anyway, we are due for a refund and I would really like for them to pay me because I have some bills that aren't going to pay themselves, doncha know! Plus Mr. Dump's vehicle was making a $386 noise. When he took it to find out what the problem was and get an estimate...oops, we fixed it without calling you to tell you how much it was going to be. That's so not cool. I won't name the place because I really like them, and the work they do, but this was a big stinkball to have to pay it today.

Also, for those of you in the Leominster area, we popped in to the Blue Marlin for lunch. You have GOT TO SEE THIS PLACE! The decor is beyond excellent. I'm not even going to spoil it for you, but you have to go. I know, it looks ultra swanky from the outside, but the menu is definitely not. Heck, I could have gotten a hot dog for lunch. Or dinner (because the menu is the same). Go go go and then come back and tell me what you think of the place. (p.s. I can highly recommend the clam strips.) Everything is freshly prepared on-site except for some of the desserts, which they get from Auntie Ellen's Creative Confections next door. Oh, by the way, we popped in there to check it out. Take your wallet and GO. We took the triple chocolate mouse and the bananas foster cheesecake home with us, and we couldn't decide which was better.

Labels: food, Leominster, money

I keep hearing these radio commercials for a company where you can send "your unwanted gold jewelry" and they will pay you for it. So many, many things wrong with this. Where to begin?

Okay, first off, who has unwanted gold jewelry? Even the stuff I don't love I will hang on to, because, well, it's gold jewelry. Really, let's just be honest and say the target audience is people who are very hard up for money and happen to have some that they can sell. Or worst case (and you know this is happening) some little crackhead is stealing from grandma's jewelry box for drug money.

Now gold has value, and given the quality of it, you can bring it to many jewelers who will weigh the gold and tell you what it's worth. Some of them will even buy it from you (maybe not for full value - I wouldn't know, I haven't been selling my jewelry). And you can go to a pawn shop for the same thing. In both of those cases, you are right there in front of someone making the transaction. At what point do you figure you'll put three necklaces in an envelope, send it to the radio company, and they'll pay you for 2 necklaces? They say that all shipments are insured, but how does that work? How can you prove that you sent three? Does the person at the UPS store have to sign something as a witness?

I'm sorry, but does anyone really think that sending something in the mail to the company name advertised on the radio isn't going to be noticed by anyone handling the envelope? There are dishonest people everywhere. Anyone who has ever heard the commercial is going to know there is gold in the package. I'd say the chances of you getting ripped off (by any definition of the phrase) is pretty high.

So let's solve that problem. If you have unwanted gold jewelry, you send it to me, and I'll send you back an autographed photo of me and my dog. Because the autographed photo is priceless, you will definitely be making a good decision to unload all that "unwanted" jewelry in my direction. Oh, and if you have unwanted diamonds or sapphires, I will throw in a 2 minute phone call to your cell phone. I am so giving.

Labels: commercials, money, scams, scary

Just got a note from Amazon that I didn't make enough money from referrals to get a payment this month. I've gotten the same message for the past several months. The big problem with that is that the minimum threshold to get a payment is only ten dollars. Ten bucks! Wow, it appears nobody is using the old DumpTruck to drive to the Amazon mall. And nothing from the other clickable ads that are over there on the right that I'm not allowed to talk about for fear the company in question will send me to Six Flags to have my feet cut off. And I beg you, do NOT go over there and start clicking because the sudden upswing in traffic will probably set off some kind of alarm that I picture being akin to the ones in the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. Don't harsh my mojo by clicking or they will kick my butt out of the program. But say, in a week or two, if something comes up that looks interesting (and by interesting, I mean something that you really and truly are interested in learning more about or purchasing) by all means. That's what it's there for. I will throw in a few key words to make it interesting. Gumballs. Sandals. Beach weather. Inflatables. Home brewed Beer. (Wow, that would make for a heck of a party, eh?)

So maybe I should come up with some other methods of making money by doing nothing. Possible options include

• Wearing only clothing that has the logo of your company on it.
• Using self-tanner but blocking out the name of your company on one leg, your URL on the other. Subtle, yet sophisticated.
• Using your company's website as a template for the BDT so people will be confused and think they are on your site. I haven't worked out all the kinks on this one so maybe you should just pay me to self tan.

Other ideas?

Labels: advertizing, Amazon, money

I was thinking of not renewing my bigbadwords.com domain because I actually haven't used it. I will admit, in trying to create the perfect site I sandblasted the WordPress templates and style sheets to bits, and then ended up with redirects not working properly, among other things.

It's a mess.

I did have a lot of luck with the Nanowrimo blog I set up as a subdomain, so there's always that. Anyway, the domain was up for renewal, and I just don't have the cash to renew something that I'm not using, even if it was only $15. So I went to my hosting company to just back everything up and let it die of natural causes when I noticed that I had a $15 credit on my account. That's right, they had credited me with $15 because someone out there knew who my host was and put my domain in the referrer field when they signed up for service. DUDE! Do you know how awesome it was to be able to renew the domain? And now I promise that I'm going to perform a "do over" on the site, and get something going over there, even if it's mightily scaled back of what I had planned out last year.

So just as an FYI, if anyone is looking for ultra cheap yet very good hosting, I highly recommend PowWeb. And when you sign up, for goodness sake, you need to either give my name or "BigBadWords.com" (Not this site, which is under a different hosting company because I'm too damned lazy to actually move it over to another host, given there are years and years worth of files I'd have to worry about.) If I get another $15 referral fee, I'll consider setting up another subdomain that we can all play with, a la the nano blog.

Labels: blogs, money, referral_fee

I am on my own site a lot, and I tend to use my links to find stuff at Amazon because it's right there. You know, I'm all about ease of use. What I realized is that Amazon dinged me on my commissions for all the times I clicked my own link to buy something. That's not cool. Granted, in the old days, my readers used my links for EVERYTHING and one time I got a check for almost a hundred dollars. That certainly helped out with my hosting fees back in the day.

So instead of using that link when I'm buying stuff (and trust me, I buy a lot of stuff) I am looking to use someone else's link to buy stuff. If you are an Amazon Associate, drop a comment with your link and I'll check out your site. If you are already making money from advertising, be honest and mention that. I'll share the love around, but I'd rather hit the little guys first, as I'm a little guy. I make ZERO money doing this, so I know what it's like. And conversely, feel free to use my links when you are shopping. What are friends for?

Labels: Amazon, money