The Blogdom. A Suburb of the Beandom.

As you may have noticed, I've got some new ad boxes on my site. I've been trying to get approved on Project Wonderful for some time now, and after my site format upgrades, I resubmitted my application, and I was approved!

As opposed to Adsense, which works on a click basis which is subject to click fraud and allows payout only when $100 in earnings is reached, Project Wonderful works on a bidding system. Advertisers can search for ad boxes that meet criteria they choose. They then choose an amount they are willing to pay per day, and if they are the highest bidder, their ad is displayed. This method works great for both the advertisers and the people selling ad space. For an advertiser, they can allot a certain amount of money to be spent on advertising exactly where they want it. For sellers it is good because it's easy to approve or deny ads you do or don't want, and you can get your earnings when you have gained as little as $10. Also, if the minimum bid on an ad box is $0 and no one else had a bid, anyone can get some free advertising. This is good for both groups: The advertiser, since they got free advertising, and the ad space seller because a site tends to look better with an ad then an empty ad box. Free bids are limited to two days, so others get a chance at some free advertising.

Project Wonderful also allows for campaigns. These allow you to get criteria for how and where you want to advertise, and bids are placed automatically for you.

For someone just entering the scene, it is a great way to get your site before people without having to spend any, or very little money promoting it. If you have a very popular site, you can bring in some good cash from the ads. No one has to click them for the ad space seller to get paid.

As you notice, I use both Adsense and Project wonderful. Each have some advantages, such as Adsense places ads that are usually related to your sites content, but on a lower traffic site, I think you can make more money with Project Wonderful (not that I've made any yet), because you get paid so long as there are bids, period.

So far between my wife and I we have made just over $1.50 with Adsense in about 4 months, lets see how Project Wonderful does.

Today my wife and I went to a Christmas party that had an theme of "ugly Christmas sweater." A few people had some pretty ugly sweaters, but some where nice. We started out just talking. It took a little bit for people to show up, so we played Wii bowling a couple rounds. Later when more people showed up, we spent time talking more with old friends. Most had never met my wife, so she got to meet some of my friends she hadn't yet met.

Then we played a couple games. One involved choosing a Christmas song, and five different numbers from one to twenty. If one of your numbers was called, you sang the first line of the song you picked. If all five of your numbers got picked, you won. I picked "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas." I didn't win via the numbers, but the game leader licked my song so much, I got a prize: A bottle of Jones soda that was flavored Turkey and Gravy. Yum. I havn't tried it yet. Someone else got Corn of the Cobb. I tried it, not too bad.

Later we all shared the story behind our sweaters and then something that we have recently in our spiritual walks with God. It was good to hear how people are growing.

I was recently browsing the site Hotel Reservations, to see how I liked the site. It's a pretty decent site. Nothing flashy, but you certainly don't need flashy to get the job done. I checked prices with other travel sites, and the hotel prices seemed spot on, and cheaper than when I went directly to the hotel page.

They have the option to choose vacation packages, where it picks flights and a hotel and rental, or any combination of those. I found I wont be affording a trip to the Cayman Islands anytime soon, so I will stick to listening to the song by the same name by the Kings of Convenience.

Using the site was simple and straightforward and was not confusing at all. If you type is a city name when you might mean a number of states or countries, it normally verifies which you meant. I made a typo of Dallas, I wrote Dallal, and it just choose Tallulah, LA, without asking, so make sure you reserve a hotel for the right city.

Overall, thought, the site seems to offer prices at least on par with other travel booking sites you may have heard of. They are certainly worth checking out to find a deal that you might not find on other sites.

I went to the Creo Music again last night. I had a great time. I have never jammed much until I was able to start going to Creo. I learned more about playing jams, as well and some new songs. Every time I go I feel like I've learned more about myself and my guitar. I played styles I never knew I could play!

It was just two electrics, a bass and my acoustic. I took a Jars of Clay song: No One Loves Me Like You, and found out it had a weird timing thing I didn't know about, but we played it and had fun.

I already can't wait for the one next month.

The song I'm trying to learn now is I Celebrate the Day, by Relient K.

I saw an ad for the new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie. I can say, I don't like Johnny Depp a whole lot for several reasons, but looking at his acting alone, he is quite something else. I believe I first saw him in Edward Scissorhands, but I don't recall the movie very well. It was a long time ago. He did very will in Secret Window, but I wont reveal too much about that, since I don't want to ruin the story for you. I'd have to say that two of my favorite movie moments with Mr. Depp would be when he was in Corpse Bride as Victor Van Dort. He only did the voice, of course, but I recall the elements of surprise that carried so well. My most favorite would have to be in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Edge of the World when he is on the ship with several copies of himself and starts fighting over "My peanut".

As far as this new movie, Sweeny Todd, looks like he plays a vengeful man who comes back after deportation to exact revenge on the judge who ruined his life. Will revenge be sweet? I expect that it will have all the dark whimsicalness of Tim Burton, and all the sanity-lacking characterization who know Johnny Depp for. If you are a Tim Burton or a Johhny Depp fan, you will certainly want to look into this movie.

visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site
visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace

I recently read through the Starslip Crisis comic archives. Over the time the comic went from just funny comics and shallower characters into deep story lines that developed and made the characters more real.

The comic, a science fiction story, revolved around the starship Fuseli, which is a warship converted into a museum, and mainly its captain Vanderbeam, the navigation officer Edgewise, and Mr. Jinx, the operations assistant.

Over time when reading from the start, you learn a lot about the characters and the universe they live in. Yhe comic is quite funny, and along with a laugh you can expect engaging story lines, clever twists, and waiting for the next strip to come out.

If you use Facebook and want to pass on your Facebook information to others when you aren't online, then perhaps you might want 100 FREE ooprint biz cards! These cards will show the name on your profile and your email address. Weather you are looking for personal or business contacts, these cards will allow you to easily pass on your contact information when you meet someone live and in person without having to find some scratch paper and a pen that will most likely get lost or accidentally thrown away. Install the Facebook application and give it a try!

Erin and I just started reading the book Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. (The same day I got approved for PayPerPost, hmm.) We are reading it with our Church Life Group. The Bible mentions money and possessions quite a bit it seems. Why? Well, the human heart certainly seems to like having a lot of things, money, cars, etc. None of those things are bad, but most times we tend to separate our finances from our spiritual lives. Along side this, our church is talking about spending less in the holiday season. Not to save it, but to give it. Spend less of consumerism and gifts and give it to those who really need it. They are going to take a special offering for wells for people with no clean water to drink. $1.25 gives two people water to drink. Image how much more effective giving 50 people water to drink is compared to giving someone that silly thing they didn't really need anyways? People really need water. I hope that as I live this live, my heart will follow God's more and more and I wont worry about the little things and myself so much, but I will concern myself with the things other people need, not just across the world, but in my backyard.

I was just approved to be able to post blog entries for payperpost, a community of bloggers who write informational posts for people for a fee. I'm excited! I expect this blog to become more interesting with different content to write about. I'll be even more excited when The Space Turtle meets to time requirement (90 days old) and I can post on there too. Here, on this blog, the tone in generally more conversational, or just me speaking my mind, so I will write in that way. But on The Space Turtle, I will make the posts interesting stories about the topic. Why write a simple post about a new toothpaste, when you can write how a lost astronaut found his way home using this type of certain toothpaste. Corny? Cheesy? Heck, who cares, it'll be fun. I can choose what to write about, so I don't have to write about something I object too, which is always nice.

I intend to use the revenue I make to pay off the lingering debts I have, and get clear of them. I'll be happy to see them go. Also, this will pave the road to make The Beandom a better site and a more interesting place to visit by opening new doors of topics and information.

It was always my hope to have my site generate some kind of income. My wife's site in generating revenue, and now mine will as well, and by doing one thing I really love to do, write.

Enjoy the new era the Beandom has entered. It will be great, I promise!

Erin and I went to our first Christmas party of the year, and in fact our first Christmas party together! It was with our Life Group at church. Our hosts made some wonderful food, spaghetti, salad, cookies, and *heavenly chorus* Peach Pie!