The Blagh

you may have noticed that things have been shifting around here lately in an attempt to make this blog seem more, ummm, “current.” when i realized that 2008 had come and gone without me lifting a single unmanicured finger to make the updates to this blog i’ve talked about making for years, i hit the panic button, which looked a lot like an Update template now? button.

that button was preceded by a box WARNING me that any customization i had made to my blog’s original template would be wiped out by the update. i considered this warning for about two seconds before concluding that i hadn’t customized a thing. then i hit OK with a smile and waited for my new blog to appear on screen — which it did without its comments, analytics, ads and archives.

two months later, everything has been restored, with some new features added, like a flickr photostream, a drop-down menu of tags, an RSS feed that actually works and a blogroll of some of my heroes, all of which can be found on the right sidebar. i have BIG PLANS to add a few more cool features, which i won’t discuss now in case i never get around to adding them.

i also sorted through the archives, adding tags to every entry and fixing a bunch of broken links. a few entries from the first year of blogging were deleted altogether, most of which read something like, “sorry, too busy to blog now. will write tomorrow. bye!!!” i’m guessing they won’t be missed. i considered deleting some of the more embarrassing entries as well, but decided to keep them for the times when i need a little humbling.

rereading six years worth of old entries was a total mindfuck. i laughed, i cried, i died a little, rolling my eyes often and even once wondering aloud, “what the hell is wrong with this girl?” before realizing that this girl was me. then i barricaded myself in the closet for three days with a bottle of vodka, where i remained curled into the fetal position.

despite this, i am glad i have kept this thing going for so long, as it’s cool to have a running autobiography i can revisit to see my evolution as a human being. plus, it acts as a handy reference when i have questions like, did i buy my car in ’04 or ’05? though it’s not as handy when i happen upon photos of me from ’06 looking more thin and fabulous than i do today. still, i can’t imagine not having this blog, so i hope you can bear with me for the next six years or rest of my life as i unleash more of my bad writing into the webosphere.

i’m also going to make a special effort to be a little bit more open than i have been in recent years. i know my life is hardly as exciting since i stopped internet dating and having multiple boyfriends, but i’m sure there are some salacious goodies i can give away that won’t violate anyone else’s privacy or breach my own standards of decency. (yeah, yeah, what decency, right? you’re sooooo funny.)

the ads have been switched up as well and will probably continue to be tinkered with as i figure out how i can make some money with this thing. the ads i had before were generated by google, based on content, though most of the time they produced nonsensical banners like, “Did Obama steal the election?” and text ads that read, “1 step to flat abs!”

naturally, i was curious. i mean, what girl doesn’t want flat abs? so i did a little innocent clicking, checking up on the flat abs in addition to the free government grants i could qualify for, the dog obedience school in my area, all of which are things that interest me anyway. it was just a few clicks here and there, no more than five a day. maybe seven, but no more than ten.

then came the tersely worded email from google: my ads were being disabled because of UNAUTHORIZED CLICKING ACTIVITY. the email even said that i posed “a significant risk” to google’s advertisers! a significant risk? come on, google! i wasn’t clicking 300 times a day, or even 30, just a few clicks. totally innocent clicks, too. but still, google canceled my account, forfeited all money earned and erased the ads — along with my chances for a flat stomach. not helping matters was how Mo fell over laughing when i told him how i had been victimized. whatever.

so i went ad shopping and discovered the wonderful and amazing Amazon ads you see plastered all over this web page. i urge you all to click over there via THIS SPECIAL LINK and do some shopping. in fact, buy A LOT of stuff, maybe a computer or TV, ok? because when you buy, i get a teeny tiny percentage of your total sale funneled my way, which i would never use for a sushi dinner, i assure you. it would only be used for donations to charity (tax writeoff, cha-ching!)

and don’t worry, it won’t cost you a penny. the fee comes out of amazon’s profit as a thank you to me for referring you to a site i’m sure you’ve never heard of before. only thing is that you have to make a purchase within 24 hours of clicking over to them. the SPECIAL LINK is also perpetually available in the right sidebar, under the Evil Ads heading, in the sentence that reads: Shop Amazon via MillaTimes.com! It’ll earn me a nickel and make rainbows appear at your house!

beneath that is a link to my super fantastic Canon Powershot G10 camera that i highly recommend. under that is more crap you can buy. so please, buy it! this concludes the shamelessly self-promoting, thoroughly disgusting whoring of Amazon.com part of this blog post. thanks for playing.

finally, i wanted to extend a big thank you to anyone who bothers to read this thing on a regular basis. you know who you are and i think i know who you are too. mostly, you’re my superstar friends and family, the keepers of the sunshine in my life, who let me blather on about my dumb stories, allowing me to recount them in my spastic way, before saying, “yeah, i read that on your blog already.”

you guys are the best!