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Showing posts with the label panhandling

Hypnosis (A Fun-Raising Experiment)

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  You are getting sleeeeeeepy...      Good afternoon, dear reader and welcome… Now that I have you all focused (or experiencing an epileptic episode from the above light show) , allow me to explain to you why we are here.      Several years ago when I started this, I activated and allowed ads on the page in an attempt at what I thought would monetize a talent. Do you know how many tens of thousands of eyeballs on stories it takes for that to actually work?   Wait…   That is tens of thousands of eyeballs who ALSO periodically click on ads as well.      Needless to say, that wasn’t it.   A couple of years ago when I came back from my new job/hospitalization hiatus, I realized something.   Two things, actually… 1 – When I am using my phone an encounter a page with ads on it, I am more inclined to say “fuck that” and close. 2 – When I am on either of my computers, I have adblocker set to gestapo and I haven’t known what an ad on a web page looks like for several years. “Alexa,

True Story©… Credit Repair

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       If I could use these powers for good, I am not all the way sure I ever actually would… Wait, put a pin in that.   It will come back up on the final exam.        My city has spent the last few years basically criminalizing homelessness.   The able cannot feed them of their own free will unless they have an organization or church allowed to do so.   They themselves cannot have signs specifically requesting money when standing on the corners and the most insidious is that they have to go downtown and get a PERMIT to stand on the corners with the signs! More recently, there have been signs going up on signs in medians that there is to be no standing there.   This was presented as a necessity to keep traffic safely and unobstructedly moving.      In that last point, I saw an opportunity… The “opportunity,” as it were, involved a newly minted lack of competition for eyeball equity on the corners where drivers become a captive audience. WHAT?!!? Thank you for asking.  

MAKE THIS GO VIRAL!!!

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^^^ That's in all caps, so you have to do it!      Every day or three, I am forwarded a message with the words “let’s make this go viral!” Every day, I refuse to forward that message or participate in the “going viral” of said message. Why? Well, my blog has (as I type this sentence) 919 published posts since February of 2009.  My most popular post has 13,774 views and most of those came from a guy sharing the post on a forum because his car was featured.  Not viral. Since my return last year, my most popular post was the Good Times post a couple of weeks ago [link] .  Still not viral.     I make a point every couple or few weeks informing the populace that I will not participate in the sharing of articles (usually unread by the sharer) , pictures (usually not understood by the sharer) , videos (usually unwatched by the sharer) or any other posts until I see one of MY posts “go viral.” I will share what interests me, I will share the stories I have read, I will