randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

Per the press release below, PayPerPost has raised $7M, and now they’re challenging those of us who are a part of their blogger directory to post what we think they should do with it. Well now, that’s a fun question. I think they should give it to me. No, I’m just joking. But I would love to see more opps promoting PPP, that pay $10 or more. I love grabbing PPP opps and promoting the site and their services. What else would I love to see PPP do with that $7M? Well, personally I had a lot of fun with the PayPerPost puzzles and the chance to grab $1000 for being the first to put the puzzle together and catch the opp. I’d also love to see them do some more scavenger hunts — I only had the chance to see 1 that they did, but it looked like a lot of fun, and I think that it was a really cool way to put their name on the street and bring in more posties, as well as a nice way to give a current postie a chance at a good time and some cash.

As far as the website goes, I really don’t think they need to make any changes, to be honest. At least from my perspective. They’ve done a lot to make it easy to use and easy to determine whether or not you qualify for the various opps. It’s great, and I love it.

I also think they should buy each of the staff members a hat with a farm animal on it. Just because it’s funny.

The PayPerPost Revolution Accelerates, Sponsored
Blogging Marketplace Secures $7 Million Series B

Draper Fisher Jurvetson leads round and joins Board of Directors

ORLANDO, FL – (June 12, 2007) – PayPerPost, the leading marketplace for advertisers to reach bloggers and other consumer content creators, today announced it has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an investor in the company’s Series A and one of the world’s leading high-technology venture capital firms. The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million, giving the company considerable resources for further development as the industry’s leading Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace. Additional participants in the round include existing investors Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.

“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost. “Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. Our content creator and advertiser ROI metrics clearly demonstrate the upside for PayPerPost’s model. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”

Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its groundbreaking service, which has enabled Consumer Content Creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media. The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader. Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s innovative marketplace. PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.

“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”

To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. Bloggers and advertisers can easily sign up at the site and begin leveraging the self service marketplace.

packing sucks.  i’m feeling all kinds of overwhelmed by it, to be honest.  trying to figure out what to pack and what not to pack.  then trying to focus on packing it and getting frazzled.  the house is a disaster area at the moment.  the yard sale last week was a good thing.  got rid of a lot of stuff that was quite useless.  the rest went to the curb with a “free” sign and it’s gone.  even the christmas tree got picked up.  i have books to take to a used book store (or sell), and stuff to take to goodwill.

The Police have been highly influential in shaping the music of others. Most of the people I know are musicians, and almost every one of them has been influenced in some way by their music. Whether it’s the sound, the lyrics or the overall feel of the music. One very unique thing about The Police, is that even people who don’t like the band or their overall sound like at least a couple of songs. There aren’t very many bands for which that’s true. With most bands, you either like them or you don’t, and there’s nothing in between. Because with most bands, there’s an overall sound that they stick to — The Police are different. They change their sound (if only a little) not by years, or even by albums, but by songs. They’re the epitome of diversity of sound. While all of their music falls into one genre, they go to the extremes of the genre, which not only keeps regular fans interested, it draws new people into the fold. Everyone should have at least once Police CD in their collection.

Personally, my favorite Police song, is Sally. I know, I’m an odd bird, but I love it. It’s not on the new Police CD, and I can’t really blame them for not putting it on there. Several of my favorite songs are on this CD, including Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. I just love that song. It always makes me feel happy and special. Especially if someone sings it to me.

i gotta go up to 7-11 in a little bit.  need some packing tape.  i also need cigarettes.  and maybe a snapple or something.  i’ll get gage some skittles and he’ll be happy to ride along in the stroller.   the good news is that walking up there is good exercise, and pushing the stroller loaded with a 40 lb child makes it even more effective.

i can’t get anymore boxes today, so i’ll see about doing that tomorrow.

in the “getting rid of stuff” department, i’m thinking about selling the kaboom.  it’s a great thing to have and i love it.  but i think either that or the stereo needs to go.

Maybe it’s because we spent so much time at the beach when I was a kid — afterall, every summer and every winter we went to Florida for vacation (and a few times in between), and no matter the season we visited the beach; I’ve got a tremendous desire to live near a beach and enjoy it as often as possible. Walking, swimming, even biking along the beach. I have fond memories of long strolls on the beach, collecting shells and enjoying the sand and he water. Or flounder fishing in the middle of the night. I want my son to have similar memories. In a perfect world, we’d move somewhere coastal, and everyone would get their own beach bike so we could cruise along the beach together. It would be a lot of fun, and good exercise to boot. Personally, I love this women’s blue cruiser from Xyzbikes.com. The prices are great, not so expensive that I’d be afraid to go anywhere in public with the bike, and from everything I’ve heard these are really good high quality bikes. Not so much for speed, but for leisure — pleasure riding. I like that a lot. More people should ride for pleasure. America would have less of an obesity problem.

i think i need to go thru my books again, and select more to get rid of.

i also think i need to have another yard sale and get rid of some of the bigger items… 1 of the bookshelves, the dining room table, washer & dryer, etc.   could probably stand to get rid of some of the pots and pans as well.

got some payperpost payments this morning that were very nice.  so after i get postage printed out for some books i gotta mail, i’ll get that transferred over to my checking account.  money = good.

gage doesn’t understand the concept of rewinding a video.  he thinks that if you eject it and push it back in, it should start over again.  it’s frustrating to him to have to wait, and to me, since when i stop a video and attempt to rewind it he ejects it and pushes it back in, and then throws a fit when i try to rewind.

remember those videotape rewinders they used to sell?  they were usually shaped like cars for some reason… i need one in the worst way.  seriously.  i think it would make life easier.

the portable dvd player is also dead… i don’t know why.  it keeps saying no disc.

in other gage news, gage got to play in water outside today.  he made lots of mud, and came in covered head to toe.  but he was also all smiles, and that’s what’s important.

When my Rockett Mafia co-horts and I started writing to Marines who were overseas in Iraq, I created a postcard on the computer and sent it to one of them. It had a riddle I’d made up on it. The question (on the picture side of the card) said “How Marines does it take to change a lightbulb?” On the other side, before I wrote in my message, I wrote the answer, which was “Lightbulbs? To heck with lightbulbs, we have night vision goggles.” It went over pretty well, I think. I still hear from the person I sent that postcard to over 2 years ago. Every now and then I wonder what it would be like to have night vision gear. I’m a big fan of David Morrell, and that kind of stuff is huge in some of my favorite of his books. Opticsplanet.com actually sells that and much much more. They have all kinds of military, hunting, SWAT and security products — I love to browse their selection, when I have more disposable income I’ll probably buy a few toys to play with.

i took this earlier this week. it’s a close up of a rose from the yard. we’ve got 4 bushes that are red, 1 that’s pink and 1 that’s yellow in the yard. this was the first rose to bloom out of all the bushes. i got this before the bugs got to it. you can even see beads of moisture on it. it rained a little while before i took the picture.  after i took this picture, i cut this rose off the bush and brought it inside along with a bud that was just starting to open.  they were promptely eaten by ziggy — i forgot that he has a thing for eating household plants (which is why we’ve never gotten a poinsettia around xmas).

Most people have an idea rattling around in the back or their heads for a business that they’d like to start, unfortunately it’s not easy to find information or help getting things started. I know that I’ve had a few things rattling around in my overactive little brain. For instance, I’m pretty good at decorating those brooms that they sell in craft stores for weddings, as well as wedding photo albums and I’ve got a few ideas for ribbons/cords for handfasting ceremonies. I would LOVE to start up a business selling those items. I’ve also been contemplating (for many years) doing a “lunch lady” kind of business, providing good meals to local businesses. It’s definitely something I need to get a lot more information on before I can begin to think about it. From both a business and a heath department standpoint. California Inc. has a good amount of information and offer help setting up your own business for a nominal fee. Before you even get started you can check out their information on different business structures to help you decide what type of business it is you want to start. On a personal note, I must say that I really appreciate companies setting sites like this up for those of us who just can’t wrap our heads around all of the forms and things that are required. Just because I’m not good with forms, doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be good at running my own business or that I shouldn’t have the opportunity to try.

short and stout.  this is my handle…

and this is a note from my shrink!  he says i’m getting better.  last week i thought i was a toaster oven!!

sorry, i couldn’t resist.  i love the animaniacs, and gage is constantly playing with my old animaniacs happy meal toys (yes, i have happy meal toys!).  it’s pretty cute, actually.  he prefers them to all the matchbox/hotwheels cars that he has, although he plays with those too.  he also plays with a bunch of my pez dispensers.  they have no candy in them, but he’s still interested in playing with them… which is nice.

or is there almost no pain greater than banging your toe on the coffee table (or similar hard surface)? i just went to put my foot up on the coffee table and damn. banged my two little toes good and hard. hurt like hell.

in the process of boxing stuff up. it’s not fun. there’s a lot of stuff. maybe i should have another yard sale this weekend, lol. call it a moving sale — everything must go, $1 or less. could you imagine all the ones and quarters i’d end the day with?

gage put his disney sing along video in and keeps handing me the remote control. i’m not sure what he wants me to do, it’s playing so that can’t be it. maybe he wants the volume adjusted, but he’s giving me the vcr remote.

I love Stephen King. He’s been my favorite author since I swiped my mom’s copy of Cujo and read it in terror and pure enjoyment at the tender age of 8. As a matter of fact, I have my mom’s copy of It, which she purchased when it was first released in paperback. It’s dogeared and falling apart, the cover is held on by sheer will and packing tape, but it’s my favorite of his books. I was watching The Stand this weekend, thinking about the fact that so often during the summer the television networks get together and declare it a “Stephen King Weekend” where they air movies based on King’s work all weekend long. During one of the commercial breaks, they showed a preview for the upcoming 1408 Movie. I knew within about 5 seconds that it was based on a Stephen King short story. One that I happen to love. And I’m awaiting the release of this film EAGERLY.

While a lot of the elements in King’s work are often difficult to translate to film, I’ve found that the short stories translate best. There’s room for expansion without taking away from the original story, whereas converting a full novel into a movie (not just King’s, of course) the screenwriter and/or director has to decide what elements of the story to eliminate. For good or ill, I love most of the movies based on Stephen King’s work — even the stuff that is generally considered a poor translation.

The 1408 Movie really looks like it was a great translation to film, and that the director added/expanded on some fantastic elements in the film. It’s gonna be so good. I can’t wait. Now I just have to find someone to go with me.

If you haven’t read the short story (shame on you!), it’s about a man known for debunking paranormal claims who decides to check out a room noted for it’s “spooky activity.” Much terror ensues, and to be perfectly honest, no synopsis I could give would do justice to the story. You really should read the story. It’s in King’s book of short stories “Everything’s Eventual” and let me tell you, that one’s got some of his best short story work.

not the imitation food product…

while i understand that as long as there are places for people to post links to whatever the hell it is they’re peddling, which of course could be anything from prescription drugs, random sites that steal your personal info and porn… why does a post about autism warrant a comment with a link to a porn site?  seriously.  the comment’s been deleted, of course.  this is my blog, and i reserve the right to delete anything i damn well see fit.  i could have laughed it off if it was on some other post.  but a post on autism?  that’s just low.

These days, just about every adult in America is swimming in a sea of Credit card debt. I know I have it. Mine started in college. They give credit cards to college students pretty easily, which is nice when you really don’t have a way to pay $100 a book for your classes. Take a full load of courses and that adds up like you wouldn’t believe. Then there’s supplies and food, and that’s to say nothing of the occasional night at the movies or coffee with friends. Unfortunately, most college students can’t afford to pay more than the minimum monthly payment. Fortunately, these days there are a lot of companies out there that can help people consolidate their debt. Secureloanconsolidation.com can help you — they even enable you to look for a local source. Not just credit card either, they do mortgage refinance, home equity loans and even payday cash advances. Hopefully, lots of people will take advantage of the services they offer, and we can all get out of debt.