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 How to make 25 dollars with your blog This is how I made 25 dollars with my blog. There are three main factors in making $25 with your blog: patience, content and adaptation. The reason why I say you will make $25 “with” your blog instead of making the money from, or “off” your blog is because you need to imagine that your blog is your friend. This isn’t a garden that you will plant ideas into and watch them grow. Your blog is like a sentient friend that if you listen closely to the statistics and data that it tells you, you will succeed in earning 25 dollars. The reason why I say patience is the first factor is because as your blog grows, you will start out with only a few visitors. Since the techniques on making money on blogging discussed are based solely on Google AdSense revenue, you will notice that your advertisements will only generate a few cents per click in the beginning of your endeavor. Fortunately, over time your blog will grow in viewership and your advertisements will gain value per click. Don’t worry, we will go into this in much greater detail later in the article. The second important factor mentioned is content. Content is basically the flesh and blood of your blog. Without content you will have no information for AdSense to crawl through in order to make your advertisements. For this article, the content that we will be focusing is text content in the form of online articles, consisting of well written posts that are interesting and that are about 500 to 2,000 words long. Again, we will discuss content much more later. The final factor is adaptation. Adaptation is the brain of your blog. By paying close heed to the statistical information that you glean from your blog, you will start to notice trends in what article people enjoy reading the most. What articles generate the most clicks. Which articles people spend the most time reading. And most importantly, what kind of articles people read and then choose to stay on your website and read other content. Over time you will begin to understand that some things that you have to say are contributions to your blog that increase its uniqueness and style . And there are some articles that increase your advertising revenue. This article will help you in creating your blog. And if you already have a blog and you are thinking of monetizing it, this article will help you strategize your plan for profitability. This is a long article.
The first step in making 25 dollars with your blog is to first create your blog. To do this you will need a few things. First you will need a domain name. There are many places that work for purchasing domain names. I use godaddy.com for the overidon.com domain. When purchasing a domain, I recommend that you choose a privacy option that keeps your personal information secret. That way people telemarketers and thieves will have a more difficult time in learning your important personal information. The next step is to get web hosting for the files of your blog. Choosing web hosting is very important because there are many options and not every web hosting company is good for blogs. A few things to use as guidelines are: Make sure that the hosting you use is between $80 – $200 per year. If it is too much cheaper than that, I’d be concerned that they aren’t providing all the bandwith and features you need. And if the price is more expensive than than you are probably just getting ripped off. Make sure that the web hosting you are using is an Unlimited bandwith plan, and that you can store at least 50,000 files on your server. Another thing to make sure of is that you are allowed to store at least 50 to 100 gigabytes of space or more. Any less than that are you may have problems long term. A KEY THING to remember to check is that the web hosting provider gives you “MySQL” database technology. And the web hosting must also be compatible with PHP code. Another important factor is that you need to make sure that the web hosting provides statistical information on your blog. We use AWStats and that works great for information on hits, views, unique visitors, incoming and outgoing links and much more information.
Now that you have your domain and your web hosting it is time to set up your blog. We use wordpress to run overidon.com. WordPress is a free blog program. Now at this point, you should ask yourself if you are an advanced computer user or if you are not. Because if you do not consider yourself to be an advanced computer user you should stop here and find a friend to help you with this project or else hire someone who is going to be the technical guy or gal for your blog. If you do consider yourself to be computer savvy and are able to install programs, manipulate files, edit some basic code, and troubleshoot…then by all means read on and enjoy. After you get the version of WordPress that you need for your operating system, you should browse the many free themes that are available for download by clicking here and visiting the wordpress theme directory. The analogy works like this: WordPress is the skeleton and flesh, and the theme is the skin and the face of your blog. Without a good looking theme your blog will look very ordinary and plain. When choosing a theme make sure to get one that allows for good plugins and Meta tagging. I’m not going to tell you the theme we use because I don’t want you to copy me thanks. There are several guides on how to set up your wordpress blog and themes. But you can click here for a place to start. HERE IS A SUPER IMPORTANT TIP: When you read the option, “Do you want this blog to be searchable by robots, or Google or other search engines?” Make sure to click the box that says “YES!” I can’t stress this point enough. If you don’t do this you will miss the entire point of this article.
Ok, your blog is set up and you have customized your header image. Now is a good time to go into the settings area of the blog and configure the blog name, your blog description, and make sure to review every option that your wordpress blog has available in order to familiarize yourself. The same goes for your theme as well. A good header image can really make your blog stand out and will set the tone of your blog. Here would be a good time to remind you of the first important factor in making your 25 dollars with your blog, patience. If you take your time with these beginning steps and really take pride in your header image, people will notice and will be more inclined to come back and visit. Don’t skimp on this step. Remember you can always change it later.
Now the fun part begins, your first post and the beginning of your content. At this point you may be thinking, “Wait? Don’t I want to make money from my blog? Shouldn’t I set up Google AdSense at this point?” The answer is no. You should wait until you have written at least twenty posts or articles that have at least 500 to 2000 words. The reason for this is because Google does a quick preliminary check of your blog to see if it is worthy of AdSense. So if you blog is a porno site or has objectionable material of any kind then Google will definitely reject you. Also if you blog just looks like a piece of junk and has no content, you will probably get rejected as well. So that’s why we recommend that you post at least 20 interesting article of decent size. This is important: When writing your articles in wordpress, make sure to categorize your articles under appropriate categories. This will make navigation of your blog much easier for your visitors. Another thing to discuss is the “Custom Fields” area when you finish each article. Before you click the “Publish” button make sure to enter the custom fields. Here’s what you do for each one. Make sure to press the “add Custom Field” button after you enter the information. It should pop up and save after you press the button. For the “…body title” field enter in the exact title of your blog article exactly as it is in your blog post. For the “…body title_saved” field type in “1″. For the “…meta_description” field copy the first 5 sentences or so from your post into that field. For the “…meta_keywords” field (IMPORTANT) enter up to 10 or so keywords that appear in your article that either appear frequently, or that are very key and important elements to the post. This is probably the most important Custom Field because it will directly affect several factors like, google searchability and Google Adsense advertisement relevance. For example, if you have key words about puppies and kittens in this Custom Field, and your article is about the different types of tornadoes in the the Midwest United States, then your article will have a hard time showing up on the first page of Google, and your AdSense advertisements will probably be about cats and puppies. So when someone reads your article they will generally ignore your advertisements and you will have trouble getting clicks on your ads and therefore will generate little revenue. The final Custom Field is, “…meta_title” in this field make sure to enter the exact same information that was in your blog title and the “…body_title” field. If you put other information in here you will have unexpected results.
But what am I supposed to talk about? Well, that’s really up to you. Remember, there are literally tons of blogs out there so my advice to you is to write about what you are passionate about and what you know. If you are a humble and knowledgeable person then you should consider writing a blog that has a lot of information and research and hypothesis. If you are an opinionated and passionate person then consider writing about your ideas and why you are right all the time. If you are an enthusiast about something like anything from video games to climate change to makeup styles. Then you might want to talk about that in your blog. Just remember to not break any laws with your blog that may get you or your friends in trouble. Don’t do any copyright infringement or libel or pornography stuff. Basically if you use your brain and use common sense and ask professionals when you are about to enter a gray area ethically, you should have a fun blog that won’t get you into trouble.
One thing to consider is that most people read blogs to be entertained mostly and educated slightly. This is important because you can use this fact to your advantage. Let your personality shine through with every sentence and people will eventually have an affinity to your charm and wit and eventually you will have repeat visitors and subscribers to your RSS feed. If you don’t like reading your blog. Then it is a sure bet that no one else will either. So write when you really have something to say and try to use comfortable yet readable grammar. Spell check is always a plus.
After I write each article I make sure to copy the body of the post into a Microsoft Word document and save it. This is a smart idea because it serves as both an emergency backup of your information as well as a pat on the back and trophy of a job well done. Every couple months or so you should back up your entire blog database, and your entire website FTP information. Here’s a good guide on how to backup your wordpress database.
So now that you have written over 20 solid posts with interesting articles in them, it is time to set up Google AdSense for your blog. Search Adsense into Google in order to get started. It is pretty self-explanatory and google will walk you through each step of the way. The whole process of them reviewing your website and then you eventually getting access to their ads takes about a week or less. But once it is set up it is very worth it. Once you are approved and you have all the AdSense information it is time for you to setup Google Analytics. This software IS so amazing. If you use Google Analytics in conjunction with AWstats you will have the third key factor, adaptability. When you look at your statistics on what people are reading the most and what articles are generating the most revenue, you will be able to fine tune your writing style and become a more profitable blog. There are a few plugins that work well in conjunction with wordpress and Google Analytics. Overidon.com uses, “Google Analytics for WordPress” for this purpose.
When you read statistical information in Google Analytics, remember that your blog is only as good as your last 30 day period. If you drop in viewership because you haven’t posted an article in months, then you will need to earn and entice new readers to visit your blog. So a good habit to make is to write consistently and as often as your day job permits. And always write articles that you are proud of. If you write a garbage article that has little content value then your readers will notice immediately and you will have wasted a first impression that could have earned you a subscriber to your RSS feed. So make every sentence count and take ownership of your voice. People want to get to know you through both your style and your information, so share yourself in your blog but be mindful of your privacy and safety at all times.
Now here is the exciting part, promoting your articles. The writers for overidon.com have Facebook and twitter accounts. And we post links to our articles on those social media networking sites in order to gain exposure and entertain the world. You don’t have to promote every article you write. But it is generally a good idea to share links of your work on your Facebook page if you have the time. This is a quick way to gain readers to the blog. (IMPORTANT) Don’t post your links to your blog on your friend’s pages. That quickly annoys people especially if your blog is pretty rough. If you post links to your articles on your own Facebook page and you have enough friends that communicate with you, there is a small percentage chance that your friends will see your article link on their “Status Update” feed. So there really is no need to go around and spam your articles on other peoples’ pages. Also you can get in trouble with Facebook if you abuse it, some penalties include having your account suspended among other things. But I have found that if I post my articles on my page my friends generally read them and they give feedback on the articles that interest them. When a friend gives feedback on an article you write, whether it is a Facebook “thumbs up” or a comment on your blog, try your best to engage that person and make it clear that you genuinely appreciate their interaction and their opinions. Remember, people have millions of websites and blogs that they could read, so if someone shares their mind about your work, whether or not if it is a positive comment or harsh criticism, show your appreciation and interest. This is the fastest way to gain popularity, new readers, as well as increase the value of your advertisements by maximizing the volume of visitors and pageviews for each individual article.
If you remember anything from this article then it should be this: Encourage your friends to read your articles…but DO NOT ENCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS TO CLICK ON YOUR ADS. If you try and trick Google by getting your friends to click your ads you can get into big trouble with Google. If someone genuinely likes an advertisement that they see on your blog and clicks on it, that’s fine. But Google tracks the IP addresses of clicks of the ads so they can tell if you are trying to cheat them.
So what is more important…the number of clicks you get, or the number of pageviews for each article? The answer is two-fold. If your article gets lots of pageviews and visitors, then the value of each ad will go up. This means that if you wrote an article about fishing and your keywords are set up properly, your ads may be about bait and fish food or fishing spots. If you get only a handful of views on that article, then a click will probably only be worth a few cents. But if you get hundreds or even thousands of views on that article then a single click could be in the dollar amount, perhaps higher. On the same token, the more clicks you get from different people then more successful ad clickthroughs will be registered to your AdSense account and you will gain more money. So the ideal scenario would be for your articles to have very high amounts of viewers and pageviews AND lots of clicks. If you find you have an article that fits this, and is getting clicks often, then make a note of it and try and figure out what you are doing right in this article. Sometimes the most unexpected articles will be the big profit generators. Likewise, if you find that certain articles rarely get views and almost never get ad clicks, then you should still keep the article on the site, because it is still content. But keep a mental note of the writing style and content that is in the article and try not to constantly talk about the same stuff in that unproductive article. But remember to stick with your integrity and style. Sometimes saying what is important to you and the world, however unpopular that may be, can be the kind of article that sets you apart from other blogs that discuss similar topics. Another thing to consider is that just because an article isn’t yielding many visitors or clicks now, doesn’t mean that the post won’t attract people in the future. You could be way ahead of the times in your thinking or the delivery of your message. Stick to your guns. You will be surprised on how effective an honest voice can be.
We’ve covered a great deal of important issues so far in this article. But there is still something we haven’t talked about: How long is this going to take in order for me to make 25 dollars with my blog? The answer to that is entirely up to you and your readers. For the case of overidon.com, I started posting articles in the current format and style that you see now, in August of 2009. Even though I created the website, overidon.com back in 2004 it wasn’t a blog for large-scale distribution of information and entertainment. Also it didn’t have advertisements until Novenmber 2009. That being said, you could say that it has taken overidon.com one year to earn $25 in Google Adsense ad revenue. That may seem like a long time, and it is. But the reality is, that I did not post articles every day by a long-shot. In fact, there are only 250 articles currently on overidon.com, and not all of them are the recommended 500 word length. If I did post articles every day and made sure they were high quality, I definitely think we would have hit the $25 mark much sooner. The whole process of becoming a blog that generates advertising revenue for overidon.com has been a real learning experience for me and I have loved every minute of it. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see the Google Analytics graphs show growth in viewership. It is amazing to look at the map of the world and find out that there are people in London and India that are enjoying the blog and sometimes spending several minutes reading articles. That’s the whole fun of monitoring your statistics. It really makes you feel connected to your readers. Here are some ways that you can make sure to speed up the process of your blog becoming more popular: Have lots of friends that like your writing and your ideas and tell them about your blog. Write as often as you can without sacrificing the quality and/or uniqueness of your content. Have fun writing articles and show that excitement and enjoyment with your writing. People can tell when you are having a great time with your ideas.
If your blog becomes popular enough and you are charismatic, you may attract other writers who want to become authors and post original content to your blog. This is a very important decision to make, so do not make it lightly. Letting someone write for your blog is kind of like letting someone borrow your house, or do surgery on you. There is a great deal of trust that is involved and you need to have an excellent relationship in order to make it work. Make sure to be extremely honest with your colleague when he or she does or does not join your blog. Take all the necessary steps in order to communicate your expectations for their writing and clearly state any financial details regarding compensation, either monetary or intellectual, for their work and participation. Overidon.com is extremely fortunate to have an established writer, create the weekly humor series, “The Life and Times of Car Johnson.” We get along great and the articles make an excellent addition to overidon.com and the blog wouldn’t be the same without it. When working with other writers, respect and honesty are key. Don’t expect your fellow writers to be able to read your mind and tell them when something needs to be changed or deleted, or if you want to see more content from them. Lose your ego and focus on the success of your blog and you will make a fine editor/blogger/web publisher.
The final and most important thing to know about how to make 25 dollars with your blog is this: Keep your day job. There is something special about working all day at your job and then “coming home” to your blog and doing, “what you really want to do.” Did you notice that? You are now blogging as a form of enjoyment. Once you quit your day job and blog full time, your blog will become your job. And at that time things won’t really be the same anymore. You won’t be writing as a form of escape or release anymore. So if you keep your day job, not only will you be more financially stable, but you will also have pent up energy that you can unleash on your keyboard.
What about Google AdWords? Shouldn’t I advertise for my blog in order to get more clicks? That is kind of a backwards question. Think about it for a minute. You are writing for your blog in order to MAKE money, not to exert more expenses. Currently overidon.com doesn’t spend any money on Google AdWords. The reason for this is because this website only has 250 articles. When we have 1,000 or more articles I will consider investing in AdWords in order to increase traffic to the site. But the reality is, I don’t want to distort my visitor statistics by getting people who click on an ad to visit this site and only stay for a short time because it isn’t exactly what they are looking for. In order to have AdWords be profitable for you, make sure that you have a tremendous amount of content and a steady influx of visitors and traffic. This will ensure that your AdSense advertisements have a high value when clicked. Because the amount of money you pay Google for a pay-per-click using Google AdWords, should never exceed the amount of revenue you generate from YOUR AdSense advertisements with each successful click. This may be confusing so here’s an analogy. Let’s say you sell ice cream cones for $1 each. If I am an advertiser and I can get ten people to visit your shop for $2 each group of ten people, then you need to sell at least two ice cream cones to each batch of people to make my advertising worth it.
Now you should be well equipped with the knowledge you need in order to make 25 dollars with your blog. If you want to talk about anything in this article or about anything really, leave a comment or let’s talk on Facebook.
-Tyler Stansfield Jaggers
August 26th, 2010
www.overidon.com
 Aura Z-Line Glass and Metal Desk Never underestimate the importance of a workspace. I used to use my laptop on the kitchen table. It was very functional and I had a good time. But last weekend I had to move my laptop and papers upstairs. I had a desk in storage but it was in pieces and it was stuffed away somewhere in some box. So I decided to purchase a new desk. I didn’t feel like driving all the way to IKEA so I went to the Staples in Costa Mesa on 17th street. I immediately saw the Z-Line Aura Silver Metal and Glass Computer Desk and was impressed by its simplicity, functionality, personality and elegance. It took a few minutes for the staff to get the desk for me from the back, but I wasn’t in a hurry and I didn’t mind waiting. I was charged $79.99 for the desk but if you click on the picture you may be able to get it for less money. I think there is a sale on it right now for 40 dollars off. (today’s date: Aug. 25th, 2010) When I brought the desk home it came in a big box but it wasn’t very heavy. The heaviest part was the glass. The rest of it is made of light metal pieces and a piece of wood.
Setting up the desk was very easy, and it only took me about 30 minutes to set the whole thing up from start to finish. The only tool that I needed that wasn’t included in the box was a standard Phillips head screwdriver. Most of the work was done with a hex key that was included. The body of the desk is a nice silver finish metal. And the glass is very nice and the perfect thickness. My favorite part of the whole desk is how the glass connects to the body. There are these thick cylindrical pieces that connect the two parts. And since the top of the desk is made of glass you can see the metal cylinders and they look stylish and humble and very cool. The wood keyboard try is great. But since I am using the desk for my laptop I don’t use the keyboard tray for a keyboard. Instead I’m using the wooden keyboard tray to store my papers, my art journal, and my Starbucks Survey receipts.
My laptop isn’t very big, but it isn’t a mini-laptop either. And it fits comfortably on the glass desk. I have a USB mouse and a normal sized mouse pad with a gel wrist-rest. They fit on the desk nicely. I also use a Blue Snowball USB microphone that fits snugly on the left side of the desk. The rest of the space I use to hold my beverages and my collection/stack of San Pellegrino bottle-caps.
This Z-Line Silver Metal and Glass desk looks great in my room and since I don’t have very much space it works perfectly. I feel better about my room now that the desk is here. It is more livable and it is a little bit easier waking up in the morning. Being greeted by a piece of furniture that I am proud of every morning has cumulative effects on my mood that I can definitely notice.
The cool thing about my desk is that I actually did go to my storage locker after purchasing the desk, and I was able to pull out my nice faux-leather desk chair. The chair was a bit dusty so when I brought it home I cleaned it with Windex and afterwords it was like new! It fit perfectly under the desk, although I had to lower it a bit using the pneumatic control mechanism near the base of the chair.
The Z-Line Silver Metal desk is not very big, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for someone that needed a ton of space. This is more of a compact solution for efficiency, price, and style. For me the big selling point was the thickness and quality of the glass. It is almost a third of an inch thick and it tempered. If you buy it make sure not to put heavy things on the glass. Like all glass products it can break under a heavy load. So be sure to check the information before setting up your workstation.
Another cool thing about the desk is that it is sturdy. I don’t have any real wiggle on the desk when I type so that’s a good thing. One thing to remember about the desk is that it isn’t one of those desks that connect to another of the same kind. So this is more of a one-shot desk. I am very happy with it.
-Tyler
 Are there really 300 million people in the USA? Are there really 300 million people in the USA? I’m not convinced. Have you ever been on a camping trip before? There is usually a couple people who are in charge of bringing food and firewood. Someone else brings and sets up the big tents. Everyone is in charge of their own sleeping bags. The whole process is usually a good time and I remember doing it as a teenager without adult supervision. So, 6 to 10 people can gave a great time on a camping trip and cover the necessities. But the USA is supposed to have 300 million people that live here. And I guess more than half of these people are adults of working age. So what’s going on? It doesn’t take more than a few hundred people to have a fully functioning village. Some people farm, somebody is the blacksmith, someone else is the sheriff. But in the USA we have 300 million people? And we produce enough food to feed our entire population many times over. So that means that the distribution of labor doesn’t have to be farming intensive like in a community from the turn of the century. It is almost boggling how 300 million people could be having a decade long recession and constantly be worried about finances. This is especially odd, when we figure that the USA has enough technology and functioning roads to basically make anything if we really put our minds and energy into it.
Yes, I know that the housing market burst and the stock market dropped and all that. But those issues were rooted in one thing: The reliance on the perception of market and economic growth. Why are we basing our economy on growth? We don’t need to grow population-wise anymore. I often ask myself, “What’s the plan with our country?” Simply surviving isn’t good enough for me. I want to feel like our country has a strong sense of purpose and clear, challenging yet achievable goals.
No offense to all the lawyers out there, but isn’t kind of strange how a huge chunk of all the smart people want to become lawyers? And the rest are either accountants or bankers. These jobs are parasitic.
What if half the United States workforce researched and developed new technology and/or manufactured things? Can you imagine the raw power that our country would wield? And the interesting thing is that our country needs new technology more than ever. We are facing new challenges with our way of life. In order to cope with our rate of consumption, new technologies are required to keep our economy sustainable. At the rate Americans consume and discard products, we will need new, more efficient ways of recycling and waste disposal. Don’t forget water. There is no guarantee water will always be as abundant and cheap as it is now. Desalination plants and research into water purification are way behind in order to keep our country secure. Remember, all these economy woes will not matter if we don’t have fresh water. Without water, entire cities will enter into chaos and perish.
Those concerns may seem important right now for Americans. But we won’t need to read speculative blogs for a glimpse into our not-so-secure future. All we need to do is watch how China and India deal with their population expansion, economic development, and environmental consumption/pollution. The issue that I think will shock India and China to the core in the upcoming years is…nitrogen. China and India are produce extreme amounts of nitrogen pollution. So much so that it entering on critical levels. If there is too much nitrogen in an ecosystem then there can be massive issues with plant life as well as oxygen problems. Also, where there is Nitrogen pollution, there is often other major environments issues. Now compound Nitrogen Pollution with water shortages in China and India.
Those issues may seem gloomy, but remember, we are supposed to have 300 million people in the USA that despite what most people think, we are very smart. And if we put our minds to it, the USA could posture itself as the “Solution” country. We could research advanced sustainability and efficiency technologies to help China and India cope with their economic development. There could be literally trillions of dollars that could be made if we are able to help these countries cope with their economic expansion. And at the same time we would be securing our own future by creating technology that will make us more efficient.
The fact is, most other countries want at least part of the life-style that Americans have. They want the iPhones, the unhealthy snacks, the Blue-Ray Discs, the video games, the cars…they want it all. So let’s capitalize on this by helping to make the environments of developing countries more livable. Unfortunately these technologies and the jobs that create them aren’t as glamorous as being the leader of a hedge-fund or a high-powered lawyer. But times can change.
Maybe the threats aren’t clear enough to encourage large amounts of mobilization of our scientific community and technical population. I just hate how we always need a threat in order to do important things on a collective scale. The betterment of our civilization should be reason enough to prepare for the future. No matter how unglamorous it may be.
-Tyler
 Things that I say Intention is the thought that puts reality into motion.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself and then remember where you last put yourself.
“Making calls and breaking balls.” (John B. made this one up and I’m going to use it for sure!)
[I WILL UPDATE THIS]
 Yellow Watermelon BREAKING NEWS! Yellow watermelon tastes different from regular watermelon! I speak the truth because I just ate some of both kinds over the past few days. Here are some of the major differences. The initial bite of the regular green and pink watermelon tastes sweeter for the fleshy parts. But the juice of the yellow or golden watermelon tastes sweeter than the regular kind. Also yellow watermelon almost reminds me slightly of banana flavored popsicles. Does this sound weird to you? Another cool thing about yellow watermelon is that is has a slightly different texture. It is a bit squishier and more wafer-like than regular watermelon. The yellow watermelon I ate recently had black seeds. So be careful with the seeds man!
Personally I like cutting my watermelon into triangle shaped pieces without any rind. I get rid of the rind. It is a lot more fun to eat watermelon without having to deal with eating around the rind. It is less work. And less work is the key to a better watermelon munching experience. I love mixing up eating watermelon after drinking my coffee or latte. It is a similar experience to eating some ginger root after a few pieces of sushi. It cleanses the palate for another sip to be enjoyed. The only difference is that the watermelon is hydrating and mildly sweet.
I noticed that some people call yellow watermelon, “Golden Watermelon.” I don’t think it looks gold. When I think gold I think of the interior of a Goa’uld Mothership, not this kind of watermelon. Speaking of Goa’uld, DANG I love this Stargate SG-1 show! I can’t tell you how many slices of watermelon I’ve consumed and lattes I’ve sipped while watching episodes of this show. I’m only on season 5 and I am having tons of fun with it.
Wikipedia says that the flavor of yellow watermelon has a “honey” taste to it. I can agree with that to an extent. But I still think it tastes like banana popsicles.
-Tyler
 Caffeine Tax Let’s tax all Caffeine products 10% and then use that money to pay for junior colleges across the USA. Consumers as a whole spend literally millions of dollars per day on caffeinated sodas, coffee products, tea, and chocolate. If we taxed that just 10% and invested that money into junior colleges, our economy would benefit tremendously. The reason why we should put the money into junior colleges is because they are the bottleneck in the education system. People of all ages use junior colleges either to prepare for a 4 year university, get training necessary for the general workforce, vocational training, enrichment, or other reasons. But I know from experience that even the most popular and well funded junior colleges are experiencing massive cutbacks in both teacher salaries, and class availability. If the USA pumped money into the junior college system there would be several benefits.
First of all, when people are in school they are usually busy with school, and don’t have as much free time to get themselves into trouble. By augmenting junior colleges, creating new scholarships and greater class availability, America would be increasing opportunities for people. A glimmer of hope can go a long way for an otherwise idle person.
Second of all, there are less jobs. And the jobs that do exist either require more skills, more education, or more experience. Junior college can at least help with the skills and education parts.
The painful part of this idea would be paying 10% more for soda or coffee. As a caffeine drinker myself I share in your suffering. But the reality is, if I am willing to fill up my Starbucks card with $50 every month or so, then I have some money. That money may or may not be disposable income…but I sure am spending it like it is. So I might as well invest in my own country’s best interest. And that’s really what I’m talking about. Investing in the best thing for our own country right now. And are teachers overpaid? …maybe, I don’t know. Is there tons of democracy in the junior college education system, and will most of the money generated by a caffeine tax gets abused or wasted or worse? …probably, but just because our education system is flawed doesn’t mean that we should let it turn to skin and bones.
Why allocate the caffeine tax to junior colleges instead of something else, like paying back the national debt, or unemployment benefits? The reason why the money should go to junior colleges is because the USA will see direct short term and long term results by doing so. The short term affects would be, increased employment at the junior colleges, and most-likely decreased crime in areas with idle people. The long term affects would be a more specialized and qualified work-force.
Now I know I may be setting overidon.com up to get some hate-mail from angry readers who don’t want to pay more for their coffee. So to facilitate this, HERE’s a LINK TO OUR CONTACT PAGE.
The interesting thing about this is that I’m not sure exactly how to market the tax. Would this be a sin tax? I don’t think caffeine is really a sin so I don’t think that would be the best was to get the public to gulp down a 10% hike in the price of their java. The best way I can think of presenting the tax would be to say that caffeine is a proven drug that can cause sleep and/or anxiety disorders and therefore a portion of the money generated from such drug should be redistributed into an important part of our society, education.
I seriously doubt Starbucks or any other coffee company would mind the tax. Since the money would be going to junior colleges, they could put on the cups next to the “YOU” mission statement thing, that by buying Starbucks, “YOU…would be educating the future of America!” Case closed. Drink coffee and teach America. It’s got a ring to it huh?
-Tyler
The Life and Times of Car Johnson Part 21
By Car Johnson
I decided to give up on fried porcupines and the whole farm idea. I’m just not cut out for it. Animals and I don’t mix. Every pet I’ve ever had has been a source of problems. Even my goldfish. Goldy tried to run away on thirty-three separate occasions. Of course, there isn’t much a goldfish can do outside of his bowl, so I could just stick him back inside. (I eventually gave him to my cousin Joe’s little boy.) That was the best experience I’ve ever had with a pet.
I got my first pet when I was eight. Uncle Frank brought home a crocodile from his trip to the Florida Everglades. I really wish he had brought back a baby. This guy was six feet long! It chased me up a tree and animal control had to come and remove it. After that, my mother banned any type of animal from the house. I had to think small if I wanted to sneak pets inside.
There were plenty of worms in the garden, so I got an old shoebox, filled it with dirt and went outside to collect my new friends. I kept them under my bed and took them out to play. This lasted for about three weeks, until I took them out to play tea party with my sister, Carol. She screamed and told mother about my secret pets.
Mother took my worms and headed straight to the trash. I begged her not to throw them out, but she informed me that they were dead. I thought they were sleeping. I figured turning dry and brittle was just their way of preparing for the Summer. (I got back at my sister by switching her pet rock with one of those hid-a-keys.)
Now that my worms were gone, I had to go find some other animal to sneak in. I collected a jar of mosquitoes and stuck them in my closet. I wasn’t going to let my pets die this time, so I let them out to go hunt for some food. They swarmed around the room and attacked me. I opened my window and de-invited them as my new pets.
My mother questioned me about all the bites, but I told her that I had snuck outside during the night to see how many mosquito bites I could get. She bought it, but only because I had done the same thing a week before with the scorpions that lived in our woodpile.
Next, I decided to make a pet out of something already in the house. We had plenty of roaches scampering about and no one would ever miss a couple. I took a strip of flypaper and set some meat on it and waited for a roach to take the bait. After one got stuck, I took the paper and placed it on my desk and fed the little all the parts of my dinner I didn’t like and anything else I could manage to scrounge up.
It worked out pretty well, at least until the other roaches came. (How was I supposed to know a small mountain of meatloaf and stale cupcakes was too much for one roach to eat?) And the food didn’t just attract roaches. Ants, rats and some neighborhood cats decided to take over my room. It took an exterminator six months to get everything pest free and they had to wait until Animal Control had gotten all the cats out.
I stayed away from insects after that. I was lucky to find a sleeping skunk outside my window. Well, I thought he was sleeping. I swore off pets after that. If mother didn’t want animals inside her home, who was I to question her wisdom?
I didn’t get another pet until I was out on my own. I got a dog. A good old dependable dog. At least I think it was a dog. It looked more like an enormous ball of black dreadlocks with the head of some sort of bear. I named him Rupert. Rupert loved to eat. He ate soap, he ate my clothes: he even managed to eat my bed.
The only thing he wouldn’t eat was dog food. He turned his nose up at every brand of dog food in existence and would only eat ground up prime beef and organic mashed carrots. Quite a picky eater for someone who thought the toilet was a mug and the garbage was his own personal buffet.
Still, he was a lovable ball of whatever. We had fun rolling in the mud together and sniffing around for stray bits of Cheetos crumbs. It wasn’t until he attempted to eat my cow fetus collection that I decided he needed a new home. Good thing my mother had changed her mind about pets. She gladly welcomed him into her home, and even set up a room filled with plenty of furniture for him to destroy. I felt a little miffed that she used my old room, but at least she didn’t use it for target practice like she did my sister’s.
Nowadays, I just use my cow fetuses as pets. There’s something special about having a pet that can’t move, eat or make any sort of annoying noise. I can lavish all my love on Bessie and the rest and no matter what, they won’t ever run away, bite, or eat my silverware. I can tell them my secrets, my fears, and my dreams, and not only will they never judge me, they won’t pee on the carpet.
I only wish I can find a woman that I can have the same type of relationship with. Of course, I wouldn’t want her to just sit there and be silent like my cow fetuses. I want a woman who can give as well as take. I want to hear her hopes, dreams and fears too. And if she really is the right woman for me, she can pee on the carpet all she wants.
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Read Part 20 – Read Part 22
 Caffeine is a total Scam Everybody knows Caffeine is a drug. It does psychoactive stuff to your brain and the rest of your body. Click here to find out more about caffeine. But what many people don’t realize is that not only is caffeine a drug that changes how your mind and body works, but that caffeine is a scam. I have worked in about 4 coffee shops in my lifetime and I have witnessed the effects of caffeine on people first hand. And I have come to realize something. The addictive nature isn’t the main part of the scam with caffeine, the true scam is how the drug tricks the user into thinking he or she is gaining energy. Now you may be thinking, “What are you talking about? I drink coffee every day. It totally gives me energy.” Well sir, in fact it’s not. It’s just tricking your delicate brain into thinking you have energy. What’s the difference? The difference is that your body is still enduring fatigue when you are tired, and when you drink coffee it masks that fatigue. But when the effects of the caffeine wears off, your body is still tired, if not more so. And the first reaction to this feeling of tiredness usually is, “I need some coffee to wake up!”
Now here’s where the scam comes in. Caffeine is a totally socially acceptable stimulant. So while cigarettes are generally accepted in the USA as something that kills you. Caffeine is considered a normal part of everyday life. I for the most part drink coffee or espresso or tea as part of an almost daily ritual. When I don’t do it I feel a little off. A little cloudy. And it can be a single sip of a latte that changes my entire mood. I am totally scammed by this stuff. But here’s the main part of the scam. People have become socially programmed to thinking that feeling awake, alert, and ready to work is the preferred way to feel. Why do we want to feel awake? Because that’s how you get work done, especially work that you don’t actually want to do. And double especially tedious work that requires concentration. And triple especially work that you hate.
Do you remember what you used to drink while writing school papers? I bet it was caffeinated. What about when you want to get sexual with your partner? Do you want to drink a cup of coffee? Not usually. I bet you would want to either drink alcohol or else not drink anything at all.
So for there to be a successful scam, there needs to be a con-man and a mark. The mark is usually the dude who gets scammed. And the con-man is the guy who get’s what he wants by defrauding the mark. And there are sometimes shills who stick around for the ride and help the scam go along by agreeing with the con-man or by pretending to get scammed themselves. You are going to hate this part. The ultimate part of The Caffeine Scam is that the average person is a little bit greedy. Now I’m not talking about financial greed here, the greed I’m talking about is greed about time. People want more of it. And caffeine is a substance that can make you feel like you have more alert time, more awake time. So what do coffee shops do? They stay open pretty late. People get work done at coffee shops because caffeine is associated with productivity. COME ON, productivity? We’re talking about a substance that is created by plants in order to kill bugs! Caffeine is a natural pesticide. We are drinking plant poison in order to get buzzed. We are defrauding ourselves out of much needed rest.
Think about what would happen if the caffeine was not in our food and drinks for a week or so. People would go nuts! Imagine office workers and worst of all, COPS WITHOUT CAFFEINE. No thank you. This is basically a Scam to keep people working and buzzed all day so they do tedious things for years. The funny part is, even though I know this is a total scam, I drink coffee or espresso every day. It is kind of like being mugged by the same guy everyday. You know he is going to mug you when you reach 4th street and Vine. But it gives you a little rush in the morning so you go the same way anyway. This who caffeine process is masochistic at best.
One time I was working at a coffee shop and some dude walked into the store and ordered a large cup of 13 shots of espresso. I was a little confused. “Did you know that you can basically explode from the inside out if you do this too often?” I thought to myself. I asked my co-worker how I was supposed to ring up 13 shots on the register and he told me that the customer usually only got charged for 3 or 4 shots. I was like, “Are you kidding me? This man obviously has a problem.” Then I saw his teeth. My teeth have gotten yellowed by my coffee intake. But this gentleman’s teeth were cracked and falling apart and were literally yellow-grey and stained with coffee. His skin was blotchy and all messed up. He looked like he was decrepifying right before my very eyes. I felt sorry for him and I didn’t even want to sell to him because I felt like I was helping to feed his problem. But I remember I sold him the drink anyway because I needed the job for the money and I didn’t want to get fired. That made me an accomplice.
Why do some people tip at a coffee shop like they are at a bar? It’s not because they are nice. It’s because they’re addicted.
Ever wonder why coffee is free for employees in many cases? It’s because it gets you buzzed and you work a little harder.
 Sad Truth The funny part is, most of the employees that I meet who work at coffee shops are extremely nice and fun people. That makes going to coffee shops and spending money a lot of fun. It’s the people that seal the deal on the whole experience. It’s one thing to get buzzed by a beverage, but it is another thing to talk with friendly people at the same time. I don’t know if you ever played the game, “The Sims” but in that game if you drank coffee your energy levels would increase at the expense of your bladder statistics. If you drank too much espresso you were at risk of peeing in your pants which I found disturbing whenever that happened to my character. But if you can increase your energy levels and also increase your social levels at the same time then the whole ritual of getting coffee is good for someone who is trying to be productive and advance through life. Well, real life isn’t that different. One reason why I go to coffee shops and have such a great time talking with the employees and baristas is because social aptitude and swagger is something that needs to be practiced. If you don’t talk to people for extended periods of time you get a little rusty with your social skills. That’s why hermits are often such uncomfortable people.
Here’s something funny. Some people actually get migraines when they don’t get their caffeine. What’s the third ingredient in many migraine medicines? You guessed it! Caffeine. We have entire populations hooked on an relatively unregulated substance that has withdrawal symptoms. Why get a population hooked to something like opium and have them chill in lounges and dens all day when you can get an entire working planet addicted to caffeine and keep them productive at the same time.
Caffeine is in most sodas. What is the point of putting that in soda? It doesn’t make it taste better. I think the point is like this…If you are going to drink a can full of liquefied sugar, why not make it fizz, and while we’re at it, why not make it addictive too. Fizzy addictive sugar.
I was going to write a paragraph on how caffeine is a giant conspiracy but I think I’ll need some coffee for that.
-Tyler
The Life and Times of Car Johnson Part 20
By Car Johnson
I think monkey burgers will be the next big thing. Everyone always wants some new culinary experience like emu steaks or fried Twinkies. Of course, some people will find eating monkeys disgusting, but that’ll just add to the charm. New is one thing, but controversial is a whole other ball of wax. A photo of a bunch of fluffy kittens is boring, but smear a bit of excrement on it and everyone says you’re an artistic genius.
A few months back, before I decided to retry my monkey farm venture, I decided to become a famous artist. I couldn’t paint, draw, sculpt or carve and my artistic mind was as shallow as a mud puddle. Still, I saw people who were as shallow as me get accolades as the greatest minds of our time. All they had to do was shock people. They were the art world equivalent of a jogging path flasher or a kid picking his nose and placing it on his little sister.
That sort of thing was right up my alley. Doing something shocking comes as easy to me as bathing naked in a fountain. I’ve been doing over the top things my whole life. Of course, to be a darling in the shock art world, I’d have to make people mad as well. Since a lot of people think getting mad is bad, they think you’ve accomplished something if you cause someone else to feel angry. And if other people can bang some pots, annoy a few people, and convince others it’s the height of intellectual expression, so could I.
I just needed to find something suitably offensive. I didn’t want to go the same old route of politics, poop, or religion, so I wracked my brain to find something new. It took a while, but I came up with something everyone loves: candy.
So, I got all the candy I could buy and placed it in jars filled with worms and rotted meat. I taped a sign next to each jar that said things like “Candy sucks” and “Sweets are a lie.” Then I rented a warehouse to hold my exhibit and advertised it as “The one art show that makes your question everything you ever knew about everything.” I actually got quite a few people to come. Unfortunately, they took one look at my art and went into fits of laugher. It turns out candy isn’t controversial enough.
To really convince someone that your shock art is profound, you have to use something people hold dear. If I had used pictures of infants or Ghandi, I would have succeeded. Too bad I couldn’t try again, since now everyone knew I was a fraud. After that, I limited my artistic endeavors to doodling naughty smurf pictures on public restroom walls. My failure in the art world didn’t mean I couldn’t use the same principles in some other project, though. That’s why I finally decided to retry my monkey farm idea. Except this wasn’t just controversy and shock. This time I’d have something that really was new and exciting.
First, I’d have to find a farm. That was the easiest part. My parents had bought a rundown farm three years ago to try their hand at growing dandelions. Since the market for dandelions just wasn’t there, they burned the crops and left the farm to rot. They were more than happy to let me try and breathe some life into it. I got some old wood and chicken wire (it was my current collection, but I figured it should be sacrificed to the greater good) and built myself a monkey house.
I added a bunch of really tall cat condos, since monkeys like to climb, and a bunch of those barrel of monkey games for them to play with. Now I just needed some monkey food. I looked online and saw that they ate fruit, vegetables and some meat. So, I bought a crate of radishes, a hundred cans of fruit cocktail and fifty pounds of beef jerky. Now it was time to go get some monkeys.
I tried pet stores, but all they had were cats, dogs and assorted small animals. And they had the nerve to kick me out when I asked where I could go to get enough monkeys to start a farm! I eventually had to resort to going to my crazy capuchin hoarding Aunt Mabel, and asking for a few of hers. I was surprised when she said I could have them all. She had grown tired of monkey and wanted to start hoarding piranhas instead.
So, I hired some friends to help me move the monkeys over to the farm. We got a big U-Haul and lured them inside with some ripe bananas. Well, some of them anyway. The rest of the monkeys burst out of Mabel’s house and ran down the street, attacking parked cars and making a big ruckus. I decided to just let them run free. Ten monkeys were enough to start my farm. We drove the truck to the farm and parked in front of the monkeys new home. I opened the back… bad idea. The monkeys leapt out and tried to turn me into a giant punching, scratching (and biting) bag. My (ex) friends were nowhere to be seen. Good thing the police had followed my truck. Apparently, its illegal to own or transport monkeys in this county.
All I got for my efforts was a visit to the hospital and a hefty fine. Aunt Mable got an even bigger fine, which made me feel even worse. I bought her a whole tank of goldfish to apologize. I didn’t feel too depressed, since I learned a very important lesson: Don’t mess with monkeys.
After my wounds healed, I decided to tear down the monkey enclosure and use the farm to raise something that wouldn’t send me to the E.R. or get me in trouble with the law. Everybody will love fried porcupine, right?
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Read Part 19 – Read Part 21
The Life and Times of Car Johnson Part 19
By Car Johnson
It’s hard having a girlfriend who thinks she’s a butterfly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always fun to have a limber girl in a winged leotard lick you like a lollipop, while getting all the pollen from your piston, but when you end up wrapped in a cocoon made of mosquito net and are forced to eat nothing but leaves, it starts to lose its charm.
It didn’t start out that way. At first, she was the second most wonderful crazy girlfriend I ever had. She didn’t try to burn me alive, tattoo my forehead and suggest I join a cult, or amputate my limbs because she thought they were possessed. Let me backtrack a bit.
I have a long history of crazy girlfriends. The first one was way back in elementary school. Her name was Jeanette and she adored me. She would save all her black M&M’s and give them to me at the end of the week (I don’t know why, since the red ones were my favorite.) She also let me carry her books and kiss her on the cheek. Oh, and she loved to set fire to my shoelaces every chance that she got. At first I thought it was just some sort of cute little joke between us. I didn’t think anything was odd until she cornered me in the playground after school with an armload of gasoline soaked rags.
She told me I was the ancient spirit of Captain Kangaroo trapped Inside the body of an ugly eight year old, and only fire would set me free. Good thing a teacher overheard her and rushed over. She ended up in some mental institution after that. I decided she really wasn’t the right girl for me. Not only did she try and burn me, but she called me ugly! My young heart was broken. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the last insane girl I ended up with.
When I was in college (I didn’t actually enroll, I just showed up for classes to try and recruit people for my monkey farm venture) I met a girl named Angela with the most interesting tattoo on her face. Well, it wasn’t so much interesting as it was incredibly disturbing. Who in their right mind would want a vampire baby plastered all over their forehead? I only went out with her because she was hot… and the only person in campus who didn’t laugh when I talked about my monkey farm idea. She thought that monkey burgers would be a big hit and even offered to help me get together enough money to get started.
Things went well for a couple of weeks, but then she started to talk about a great club she belonged to and that we couldn’t be together unless I joined too. Of course, I jumped at the chance and told her to take me to the next meeting. She answered by hitting me over the head with a decorative soap dish and tying my hands and feet with phone cord. By the time I could think clearly again, I was in a warehouse made out to look like one of those meeting rooms business people used. Everyone around me had a vampire baby tattooed on their forehead and kept chanting nursery rhymes in Pig Latin.
Angela untied the cords and told me that this was the Church of the Angry Infant and she was their prophet. She explained that everyone in the room had a ravenous inner child that could only be appeased by doing stupid stunts like setting up monkey farms, plus eating the flesh of strangers. I stormed right out and never looked back. My monkey farm was NOT stupid! (Too bad no one else thought so. I didn’t have the resources back then to go it alone.)
The next girlfriend was wonderful (or so I thought). Fran didn’t mind me seeing other girls and would even invite her friends over for wild orgies. The only problem was that she started claiming random inanimate objects held the souls of her exes. She’d smash plates, cup up newspapers, and she even tried to stick a box of screws in the garbage disposal. I was willing to live with the destruction of my things if it meant having an orgy planner in my house, but then she decided her ex boyfriends had moved into my arms and legs.
She chased me around with a chainsaw until the gas ran out. I was able to tackle her and force her outside. When I told her I wanted to break up, she said she didn’t want to bother with an ex boyfriend’s possessed limbs and marched away. I was happy to see her go. I was willing to give up a lot for wild orgies, but not my limbs!
So, after the long line of crazies I’ve been involved with, butterfly lady seemed almost sane. She kept calling me her little buttercup and made me jars of pollen scented massage oil. She showed me how much fun it was to be a flower. It started going downhill when she said it was time for me to join her in butterfly bliss. She threw away my flower suits and made me put on a caterpillar costume. Then she forced me to eat nothing buy leaves for three whole weeks.
THEN she forced me into a cocoon made out of some mosquito nets my mother had given me for Christmas. First she wasn’t going to give me any food, but I convinced her I was a rare type of butterfly that needed to eat during his metamorphosis. After six weeks of hanging in nets and eating even more leaves, she finally let me down and put me in a butterfly suit just like hers. (I was too weak from lack of non leaf food to even try to resist.)
We finally had sex again, but this time it was fluttering butterfly sex. Even if I had my strength, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as pollen sex. Despite the dancing around, it was just sex standing up. How boring! (And dancing around in a leotard isn’t worth it if it‘s just normal sex.) After we were finished, she said she was one of those butterflies that died after mating and fell into a catatonic state. (I wasn’t sure there were butterflies that died after mating, but I didn’t tell her that.) Now I could go out and find a girl would make me feel excited without forcing me to eat leaves and dance in a sparkly winged leotard. But first I decided to have another go at that monkey farm.
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Read part 18 | Read Part 20
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