Editorials by Bob

I just need to vent a little today. It's not the normal function of this blog, but I need it right now.

I got an email from GoogleAds saying my account had been terminated, apparently because I'd been clicking on the ads myself.

This is upsetting for two reasons. First, I'd managed to earn about $20 in the past month since I'd joined the program, which (according to the email) will be returned to the advertisers. Second, in so clicking I'd actually found at least three companies I'd decided I wanted to do business with as soon as I got a little in-pocket money, plus three or four definitely worth considering.

I bookmarked one of the former, but the rest will have to forget it.

It's probably my own fault, because I didn't read the policies closely enough and thought I could buy stuff from people who advertised on my on blog.

This isn't the first time, though. I've been looking for work for over a year now, and though I keep turning in applications I have yet to get an interview. While the loss of my last job wasn't my fault (it was a specific other person's whose identity I don't know), it took me ten years a lots of help to get it.

A few years back I had a music site at MP3.com, with lots of listenable tracks and several CDs. I suck so badly at marketing that it couldn't even sustain itself. I still have copies of most of the audio CDs, and one CD with all of the old MP3 tracks on it. What's especially sad about that is that, in my Business minor at college (which I didn't want in the first place but was forced into), the one business course I really did well at was Marketing.

Do I, maybe, have a birthmark on my forehead that reads, "HATE ME" or "REJECT ME"? Or is there something in my nature that makes me just screw everything up as soon as I touch it?

Well, at least there's still the LinkSys affiliations (the companies down the left, with the identical-sized mini-banners) and the Amazon links. I don't expect I'll be able to screw those up too badly. (If you want to give me a bit of encouragement, maybe you could link through to them from here and buy stuff from them that you're already inclined to get, especially from Wal-Mart and Amazon, who have "pick up at the store" options. But only if you want to. Oy, there goes my screwed-up marketing skills again....)

I hope.

And I still have a few job applications out, and a few I'm going to turn in this week. Maybe I'll get an interview there.

Maybe.

And I'm trying to send out my plays to theaters who accept direct submissions from playwrights. Perhaps one of them will like what they see enough to want to produce it.

Perhaps.

Or maybe not, perhaps not, or whatever.

I really had hoped to use some of the money from those ads to go see the Albany Civic Theatre production of Rope, the play on which my favorite Alfred Hitchcock film was based. But now it looks like that isn't going to happen.

(For those of you reading this via BlogExplosions' Battle of the Blogs: I don't mind being on the losing side as much as I am. I put 11 credits up per battle, and I get at least 15 views out of it, which is 4 more than I get on regular surfing, not to mention that people are actually reading what I write and might even click on the ads. So I figure even if I lose the battle I'm still ahead.)