I’ve been dabbling in the world of affiliate programs as a way to make some extra money lately, and so far I’ve already made 10 bucks by getting an affiliate sale for the folks at Clicky. I decided the easiest way to break into this field though was to just sign up for affiliate programs advertising products and services that I actually use. So far I’m using Hostgator for my web hosting, Go Daddy for domain registration, and Clicky Web Analytics for tracking my site stats. I’m pretty happy with all of them, so I can feel comfortable enough whoring for all of them without feeling too guilty.

I wouldn’t use Go Daddy for web hosting though. I’ve heard too many complaints from people using their hosting packages, and for the most part it’s too basic for those of you who are truly serious about building a good website, especially one that might be PHP-SQL driven. Still, I signed up for their affiliate program since I’ve had a good experience registering my domains with them.

But, in order to do that I had to first apply to become a member of Commission Junction, one of the largest affiliate networks in the world. When I got accepted I went to access my account page and almost went insane. CTRs and EPMs and EPCs and what the F___ is everyone talking about here??? There was so much information jam packed into one page I had no clue where to begin. I finally managed to figure out how to generate an affiliate link after tearing my hair out for an hour, which wasn’t easy considering Go Daddy apparently felt the need to provide 3 million different types of affiliate links and banners that I could use to promote their goodies. Ugh. All this business crap gives me a headache.

Eventually I’ll post review articles relaying my experience with these companies, which should serve as decent landing pages for all those interested in using the same services. I also added their banners at the footer of my blog now, so feel free to click on them and gimme some lovin’.

Seriously though, if you want to try out a service for free, Clicky is your best bet. You can use their premium service for three weeks without paying or providing any payment info, a smart move because they even hooked me in after my premium trial expired. The stats they track is not as exhaustive as Google Analytics, but the design is done so well that you can find out just about everything that’s going on (real-time) at your blog/website with just a quick glance. They have a basic version that’s free, while the premium version is less than $2 a month (if you sign up anually). Again, I’ll write a more extensive review in the future when I have more time.

Ok, I think I’m done whoring for now.

I’ve been surfing through quite a lot of tweetheads at Twitter, and adding a few of them as friends, but for some reason the number of friends for my profile stayed the same no matter how many people I added. I chalked this up for being a time delay before the server updated my profile, but I finally had the presence of mine to try it again using IE7 instead of Firefox.

Yep, you guessed it, adding friends doesn’t work if you’re using the Firefox browser. Not only that, you can’t delete tweets either. WT*??

Give me a flipping break Twitter. Are you guys such anal fart knockers that you can’t even make your website standards compliant for REAL browsers?? Get a fricking clue already you schmucks.

Sheesh, 20 minutes of my life wasted and now I have to do it all over again.

I quickly noticed when I stopped by the greeting card section of several stores that there were hardly any stepfather cards for Father’s Day. Don’t these greeting card companies realize we’re living in the 21st century now? You know, where more than half of marriages end up in divorce, and a kid could grow up having 3 different stepfathers by the time he reaches his twenties? Really people, this isn’t Norman Rockwell’s country anymore, so get a flipping clue.

I must have eyeballed hundreds of different cards looking for something appropriate. In the end I finally gave up and handed my stepfather a re-used Christmas card instead.

Fortunately he got a chuckle over it.

Ok… am I the ONLY one who gets more than a little frustrated when trying to use MyBlogLog? I understand the idea behind it, but it gets tedious clicking on a reader’s avatar, then having to click not once, but twice just to see that user’s blog, and so on. It’s just a lot of click, click, clicking every dang fricking way, and I have to hope the reader I originally clicked on posted some helpful info about who he or she is and what kind of blog he or she runs, otherwise, I’ll have no clue who or what just visited my site. It doesn’t help that the pages of user profiles and their respective blogging communities look exactly alike, making it disorienting to navigate (hmm, was I here already? I can’t tell…) Up until recently MyBlogLog didn’t even have a tags system, making the act of trying to find like minded readers and bloggers with similar interests by using the search query alone a frustrating endeavor as well. When you’re viewing a blogging community there’s a list of readers, but all you see is the username and avatar. Not very informative or helpful, especially when there’s a TON of readers. Usually I just end up clicking on avatars that depict a cute looking girl (yeah I know I’m pathetic, bite me already).

Oh well, maybe I’ll get the hang of it eventually, especially if the tagging system matures enough to make finding like-minded readers a bit more easier.

Lies, betrayal, and deceit at long last put the final nail in the coffin of my law school dreams.

Well I wanted an answer, and after 18 months I finally got it in spades. When it happened, my anger once again reared its ugly head as I began to shake my fist at God for all the grief He’s allowed me to endure, but afterwards I began to resign myself to my fate. In a way I’m glad it’s over. While I may be destined to drift through life with no sense of purpose or meaning, I was at least relieved of the trauma 3-4 years of law school would almost certainly have brought me.

But after taking communion and reflecting on the events of the past week, I was directed to read Psalms 73 and Psalms 92, verses that talk about God taking vengeance on our enemies. So maybe this isn’t quite over just yet.

In any event, I wonder why I had to enter my thirties still without any clue as to what career might best suit me. I grew up falling in love with the notion of solving mysteries and clearing cases, and because of it I always thought law enforcement was where I belonged. For whatever reason I loved the idea of justice, of being the guy who could help put right where people did wrong. The shows I watched and the books I read all fed my passion of uncovering hidden truths, exposing lies, solving crimes, and of course, catching the bad guys.

I started college with my heart set on what I thought was the right profession. I had dreams, aspirations, and eagerly looked forward to a promising future in the career of my choosing. I saw myself being well established in the profession by the time I turned 30, married to the love of my life, and perhaps even a father to several wonderful children.

Instead, graduation from college would see me become unemployed for almost 2 years, then evicted illegally onto the streets, and finally trapped in a dead end job as a no name clerk. At 30 years of age, I had accomplished nothing. I was a failure. I was nothing more than a vagabond with a job, a helpless prey to my enemies.

It was evident that only God could salvage the mess that I had made of my life. And it is what I hope for, in spite of all the fist shaking.