I just spent the last few days squashing some of the remaining bugs on my site, and I’m telling ya, these were cyber cockroaches from hell. I stomp one bug, and another one shows up, stomp that one, then another shows up.

It’s the kind of thing that could suck up whole days of my life if I’m not careful. I see a problem and I think “ohh, let me just tweak this one lil’ thing, shouldn’t take more than a few seconds…” Next thing I know it’s Wednesday, and I had started tweaking that lil’ thing on Sunday. Whether it’s some coding error with a plugin, a flickering bug in IE6, or the layout being a few pixels off in browsers like Safari, I was just resolved to fix every remaining issue on my site so I could finally put it behind me and delve into my real passion, which had always been writing (blogging).

As for web design and all that that entails, it was a good learning experience but man, I have just about had enough of this crap. Next time I want my blog redesigned, I’m hiring a super web guru from Silicon Valley to do it for me. I of course expect to be making some money off my blog by that time, so I should be able to afford it when the time comes.

I hope.

Using the awesome and very promising OIOPublisher Direct plugin, I can now sell ads and other services directly to potential advertisers without the need for a middle-man, which means I’ll keep 100 percent of the profits I make. WOOOOO!!! I’m gonna be rich! Filthy, stinking, disgustingly rich out of my greedy butt, depraved mind! BOOYAH!!!!

Well maybe.

It’ll be interesting to see how I fare with this, but at the very least I’ll finally have total control over what gets placed on this blog. There’s a lot of bad hojos and jojos out there looking to bam-bam your jam-jams with their scam-scams, and advertising networks like Google’s Adsense have done very little to stop them. With this solution I’m hoping the quality of the ads and goods that get served here will be far better than what most readers and visitors usually see elsewhere, and will help to complement this site rather than detract from it.

Well, I can dream anyway.

If you’re interested, I’m offering rock bottom prices right now since my traffic and readership is um, *ahem*, not quite where I’d like them to be right now. You can choose from link ads to paid posting to video ads, and more.

Click here for details, and if you’re interested in installing OIOPublisher on your own blog, let me know and I’ll give you some pointers. Initially it was designed for WordPress 2.1 or better due to its native cron support, but after working with the developer for a few days, he was able to come up with a solution to run cron jobs on Wordpress 2.0.X blogs by using the WP-Cron plugin. Muy coolio.

I recently got temporarily banned from a “conservative” forum after challenging one of the members for making disgusting comments regarding his lifestyle. He basically bragged about being a heavy drinker and for sleeping around with as many women as he could mathematically fit within a day.

Normally this would get a yawn from me. I am from New York after all. But here’s the thing: he called himself a Christian, and a devout one at that.

Say what now?

Since when did God start giving thumbs up for behaving like a drunkard and a sex maniac? Was there a footnote I missed in Revelation that said, “Oh by the way, all those commandments I mentioned earlier about living a sinless life? Just kidding!”

Dudes, seriously, what is this? It was so outrageous I initially thought he was just joking. When it became clear that he wasn’t, and even worse tried to defend it, I finally called him out on it. I wasn’t nasty about it (though I could have been), and even used Scripture to back up my points and explain why I felt he was wrong.

So what happens? The board starts coming after ME. Well one “Christian” in particular, who I’m sure had also expressed the same reservations and concerns about this guy behind closed doors, yet decided to take his side and attack me because of an unrelated post I had made a few days earlier that she thought was distasteful. So, my lacking tact was somehow worse than a guy who brags about smelling like the women he slept with the night before?

O-kaaay.

Then another “Christian” (who also happened to be a mod) starts blasting me in private messages (PM), telling me that I go too far, that I should have taken it to PM, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah bladdy blah blah. Not one person, NOT ONE, ever considered the idea that maybe, just maybe, I might have had a point. And I did have a point, but I was the only one who was actually willing to say anything about it publicly.

I’m not the kind of guy who likes to murmur behind closed doors. I’d rather bring things out in the open, that way there’s no doubt as to where I stand on things. And believe me, there was no doubt then when I made that post. But once again, because I said what I felt was the truth, I get my arse put in a sling. So much for contending for the faith once delivered to all the saints.

The cowardice and hypocrisy of that board astounds me to no end. They were perfectly willing to express the very same concerns I did behind closed doors, but to actually tell it to Man Whore’s face was another matter, and even worse, they pretend to be on his side through it all. These are Christians? Good grief, the word has lost all meaning.

Hypocrites, In-Your-Face Perverts, and Cowards. That’s what the church today is all about, and why I no longer want any part of it. Yet in spite of it all, I really do believe there are good Christians out there, some of who even frequent this blog, and while they’re not perfect, they’re still trying to do the best they can in a screwy, psycho world. I have nothing but heartfelt admiration for them. I only wish we weren’t so spread out away from each other in distant lands. Oh well. At least I know they’re out there.

And yeah, I admit I’m hoping that amongst them all, the girl of my dreams is still out there as well, waiting for me.

It was quiet yesterday at work. My boss hadn’t said a thing, and nobody came to clean up the mouse poo either. I’m assuming this means the men upstairs haven’t spoken to my boss yet about anything. Guess they don’t want show they can be bossed around by a lowly civilian, so they’re dragging their heels. Oh well, if the mice continue to use our area as their own personal restrooms for another few days, and upstairs still doesn’t do anything about it, I may have to call OSHA. If it comes to that, I can probably expect some real fireworks then.

Like a good possible-future-but-not-likely attorney, I realized if I was going to make a solid case for discrimination, I needed to give my boss and upstairs enough rope for which they could hang themselves. As of now nothing really happened that was actionable. One of the elements needed to make a successful cause of action is show that there had been harm. So I asked myself, “Where’s the harm here?” The only thing I received thus far was an idle threat, but my hours hadn’t been changed, I hadn’t lost any pay, and I hadn’t been disciplined. So rather than be a good boy and inform these lovely folks what rights I’m entitled to under the ADA, I think it’s best to stay quiet and see just how far they’ll take their threats.

I also realized with some sadness that as long as there would be this much turmoil in our division, I’d never be able to attend law school. All the added stress would make me flunk out my first semester for sure. I needed some stability at my job before I could take such a risk, and with them jerking me around about changing my schedule and creating other needless chaos, who’s to say that even if they agreed to a schedule change, that they wouldn’t pull the rug right out from under me the minute I started school?

Oh well. It ain’t over till it’s over. For now I just have to keep rolling with the punches.

Well my Match.com account expired today. About a month earlier I plopped 30 greens to subscribe to the service because I came across a profile that really interested me. She hit on all the right notes: pretty, ultra-conservative, clearly expressing devout Christian beliefs, and was an intellectual at heart. I’ve scoured hundreds of different profiles and this was the ONLY one that came even close to what I was looking for. Only downside: at 26, she was already divorced with a kid.

Well alrighty then. Given the scarcity of morally upright, conservative Christian women out there, I decided to give this one a shot. So I signed up and emailed her. She sent me a note a few days later to let me know she received my email and found it charming. She was busy with work and with issues between her ex and son, but she expressed a desire to get to know me better once she had more free time. I wrote back and told her she was in my prayers, and I looked forward to getting to know her better as well.

1 week goes by. I send her another friendly note to let her know I hope she’s doing fine, etc., etc., and again that I looked forward to hearing from her.

Another 2 weeks go by. I think it’s safe to say now that she blew me off. 30 bucks I spent to email this woman and I don’t even get the friggin’ courtesy of a response, even if it’s just to tell me she’s no longer interested?

Love it.

The lack of posts haven’t been due to a lack of a desire to blog, but rather a lack of endurance. I’ve noticed lately that minutes after I would wake up in the morning, I’m about ready to collapse right back into bed and continue sleeping for the next 5 days. Since I’m not exactly in peak condition, I don’t have as much energy as I should have, but for the past few days I’ve barely had any energy at all.

Maybe it’s because my job sucks. Maybe it’s because I’m just tired of life. Maybe I just need to get out more often and get some fresh air. Or maybe I just need to stop saying maybe.