That’s why I love the boldness of this new video below called “Scamworld” — a video that’s part of a larger article on The Verge.
The piece shows the depth some scammers will go to in order to steal money from their victims, some gladly taking $1,000 from old ladies’ credit cards who barely know nothing about a computer — but having their sales pitchmen claim that their DVD courses are worth it and will make them all the monies back in no time.
It’s fitting because just today I listened/watched an 80-something minute webinar that was truly horrible, all from a guy who claims he makes $350,000 per month drop-shipping products. Now, he very well may make a certain amount per month — but part of me kept asking: If he really makes this much per month, why does he need to charge $1,997 for a “special course” to teach people how to do it?
But wait! There’s more! Actually, he knocked off a whole $1,000 and charged $997 for the course — one that I did not buy. Most of the 80-something minute webinar was babble about generalities and the same old “I was once such a failure newb who didn’t know what I was doing online” tired script that all these guys use.
In fact, the last time I did may have been at the doctor’s office, weighing myself in the manner I hate: fully clothed.
“That can’t be true,” I said to the non-humored nurse when it landed on 160-something.
I feel good around 148 pounds or so, and I know I’m not that right now, so I only may step on the scale again soon just to get a starting reference point to plop in an Excel spreadsheet to show myself and you how much weight I’ve lost in a little bit.
No, I’m the type of girl that weighs herself every blue moon, generally in the morning, stomach empty — during that sweet spot time after poop but pre-food.
I like being thinner
I’ve always liked being on the thin side.
It feels like me, to be able to rest an elbow on my pelvic bone like I am doing now as I blog this from my Droid, like my right bone is an arm rest or coffee table.
That’s why when I recently spied a little muffin roll around my waist as I sat down, or inspected my fuller frame in a full-length hotel mirror, I thought, “This is not me.”
God gave me back to myself
I was right, it wasn’t me.
There are certain lines that I don’t need to cross.
Yes, a body blow of life can send us looking for love and comfort in margaritas and mini tacos (I love Chicago food like Su Casa’s!), but the Lord remains, encouraging me to find myself, back in that gym, hitting that steel.
Sweating on the treadmill and elliptical and more importantly, getting back on those weight benches and Nautilus, I found that part of myself once again — the part that Katy Perry sings knowingly about: “This is the part that you can’t take away.”
It goes beyond my muscles…
…of course.
It goes beyond building the muscles that are the fountain of youth to losing weight and looking younger and chasing away the fat and staving off all those calories I gobble down and attempt to expend.
It goes beyond my flesh.
My outer being is indicative of what’s going on inside.
I could give in to one vision, the type of person who estimated whether I could squeeze between two close tables at The Cheesecake Factory.
Or, I could go forward with the succesful, screenwriting, Miami-bound, confident, skinny, giving, strong and compassionate woman that is my future — the woman in the pic at the base of the Trump Tower.
I look forward to meeting her, and celebrating her rebirth in Christ Jesus alone, thru his power resting on me.
I am so glad that I love writing as much as I do — because I’ve been doing a lot of it.
First of all, I finally got a new Kindle book that’s about 52 pages published on Amazon.com — and since it’s under a nome de plume I won’t mention it here, but I’ve already gotten a sale!
I was all set to admit that I didn’t have any sales yet, but I checked Kindle Direct Publishing just now and saw that somebody somehow found it and bought it. I haven’t even read it on my own Kindle yet to make sure the format is good, but I pray it is. Woo hoo! That’s 35 cents toward $35 million someday, right?
At first I planned to pay some kid on Fiverr 5 bucks to work their backlinking magic (maybe I’ll still do that at some point) but in the meantime, I submitted the Amazon link of my newest book (an Amazon Associates affiliate link, of course! Might as well get paid and paid again…) to Social Monkee, which is a free social bookmarking site that will let you write a bunch of descriptions and spin them a bunch of ways and submit the URL you tell them to submit to 25 different social media places (or is it accounts?) per day.
They’ve got levels that will do 100 different social bookmarks that are the pro-level of the account that costs money, or you can obtain higher levels if you get a certain amount of referrals, like I’m hoping to get through my link above. But I watched the video on their website before I submitted, and Social Monkee gave me more details about how to submit, so watch the video first to help you. And if you want to write and publish your own Kindle book, watch this video from Amazon to see how easy it is. It is pretty easy…
I’ll let you know how much the Social Monkee backlinks help my book sales — because today I realized that since I’m keeping (trying to at least) some of my books anonymous, I won’t be able to give them the usual links from all my websites. And I don’t think backlinking services like Build My Rank let you add Amazon.com as a site to link to anyway, so this is good in that it’s teaching me other ways to get backlinks — preferable free ones.
I left the Amazon page up on my iPad 2, and made a mental note to leave it there till I checked it out.
I’m glad I did, because it’s a pricey baby stroller that’s unlike any we’ve ever seen before. One look at their YouTube video and you’ll know why people are going to get up the funds to buy these things.
So I spent the better part of Saturday setting up that new niche website that doesn’t even have any Google Adsense ads loaded onto it — only Amazon affiliate links — and now I just reminded myself to add some from Canada as well.
Anyway, I gotta give myself some link love there and — oh yes! — I bought the dot com through my BlueHost hosting account, because after DreamHost went down for a full day weeks ago, I told myself I wouldn’t buy any more domains through them.
I already had one website on my BlueHost account, and it’s doing great, bless God! So I Googled around and figured out how to add another website to my BlueHost C-Panel, because they are different than DreamHost, and I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
And I saw that there was a new free WordPress theme called SmallBiz that I used for that stroller site.
At least, I’m using the free version (they have more options you can unlock for money) — and what I like about the theme is that they make it pretty easy to set up a good billboard type of front page, and other pages that display across the top, and you don’t have to worry about dates showing or trying to update the sites with a bunch of posts, if you don’t want to.
It looks pretty good out the box, plus, I like trying new themes to see how well they perform with SEO.
And the ease of the theme helps me focus on getting backlinks instead of monkeying around with too much web design.
My new money…
I really don't look this mean... just an older cell phone pic
So yeah, thank God so much I had enough money to pay the minimum due on my American Express card — seeing as though I’d thrown charges on there, and ended up putting some of it on the “Pay Over Time” option.
Again, His grace is all over my life, even when I mess up.
And since it’s tax time, I feel that urge to get lots of money flowing in — as long as I know lots of money is on the way, I feel better about finagling and robbing Peter to pay Paul — or better yet, collecting funds from the open heaven I’m standing under.
That’s how I got the nudge to write about Jason Wu’s Target line and other stuff the night before the Super Bowl — and that was a blessing and a boon. Hopefully those Google Affiliate Network sales will close out close to a grand or more soon, and the Amazon Associates sales are zipping along.
The other weird thing about being a writer is making money when tragedy happens.
The first thing I did after reading from some Facebook friend’s status that Whitney Houston had died was to Google her name and make sure it wasn’t a hoax.
Of course, you can’t help but feel like a skeevy ambulance chaser when you’re writing about bad circumstances — but then I realized, no, this is my job.
And writing actually does help me process my emotions — and seriously helps people find information as well.
Just like Don Lemon reported about the death and waxed philosophical about loving the cult-classic movie Sparkle, us writers and reporters have our own place in this world and gifts to give.
It isn’t all about the money — but thank God when it comes.
And the biggest blessing is that someone can be helped and healed, even through tragedies like Whitney’s death, so that it’s not in vain. I know it helped me, smacking me in the face and letting me know that alcohol and prescription drugs are nothing to play around with.
I’ve got too much to live for.
That reminds me of the walk I took with Jesus this morning in the seriously cold — 13-degree or so brilliant sunshine-y — weather and He gave me notes for another “big project” coming up soon. It may be a life-changing kind of project. When and if it’s His will, you’ll learn about that, too.
Writing, writing, writing.
Let me end it here…
P.S. I keep thinking about Roland Martin getting suspended (not fired, right?) from CNN. I really like him as a church-going Christian out there in the world. Yeah, he made a silly tweet, but don’t we all say stuff we regret sometimes? I seriously don’t condone any bashing of any sort — but I pray he’s okay and will rebound even stronger.
Taking a quick glance at my most recent comments, I see stuff people have written either thanking me for warning them away from some stupid Wal-Mart gift card scam, or bemoaning the fact that they fell for some “Multiple Streams of Income” scam.
