I’m not one of those people that gets bent out of shape over “excess packaging.” I, for one, generally tend to take care of my stuff, so I’d really prefer that my stuff arrive in packaging that protects it from getting all scratched up before I even receive it.

Products don’t just magically arrive on store shelves. They have to be delivered and, if the packaging is insufficient, they could get messed up just by the bump and tumble of transportation. Let’s not forget to mention handling either, because, as anyone who’s ever worked in or shopped in a retail establishment knows, sometimes workers are pretty careless about things.

If it’s scratched or dented, I expect a discount. Thus, manufacturer’s and retailers want decent packaging so that people like me, which is probably like most shoppers, will receive unmarred goods.

Still, even considering that, there are times when the packaging is excessive. Take for example a product I got not too long ago, that actually included a battery, shown below.

Why, I ask you, would a single battery need to be shrinkwrapped? I could understand shrinkwrapping a pair or more to keep them together. I could understand it if there were metal objects inside the packaging upon which the battery could short itself out. I could understand if maybe they were trying to protect the product against battery leakage, should that occur. But, since the shrinkwrap was open on the sides, any leakage would have still escaped, so I doubt that’s the reasoning.

Since the outer packaging was a bubble package, certainly they could have made an extra bubble just for the battery that would have kept it separate from everything else, if that were a necessity. It’s shaped to fit the rest of the product, and there was plenty of room for a tiny battery bubble!

I just don’t see the necessity of shrinkwrapping a single battery when none of the above possible explanations would seem to apply in this case.

And, by that, I mean women who bare their souls in their blogs. I’m not talking about strippers who blog. At least, I don’t think so. Who knows what these women do when they’re not blogging? Don’t ask, don’t tell, I say…

First of all, I miss Joanne who is busy overanalyzing the most random things and losing her mind in the process. Blogging just isn’t as fun without my blog sparring partner actively blogging as well.

Ann reveals the real cause of global warming.

Chanya can’t count, but she has 4 great limericks in her 3 great limericks post. I know I’ve talked about different bases of math, but I don’t know of one where 4 would be equal to three. Or, maybe she’s not counting the limerick that included me as great. But I liked it.

Crystal offers four places to sell your art online.

Deborah pared back her blogging to one day a week, then got bored with that I think and is now blogging more often, having expanded her topics to more than just travel. She thinks that women should rule the world. Let’s just hope it’s not Hillary!

Okay, so JD is both literally and figuratively baring all.

Lizeth is debt-free. Another blogger would be proud—actually two would be—but they’re men so they cannot be linked up today.

Old Michelle has a suicidal cat. Maybe Holly needs anti-depressants.

New Michelle pines for Hulk Hogan.

Valley Girl has a Happy Hour with a Foggy Bottom. I just like the picture, which should remind a couple of unlinkable bloggers of something.

Finally, a trio of writers: Nina gets nominated, Lillie muses magically and Jeanne finds Work… dot Com.

More Weird Ways People Find This Blog

“pictures of men in their underwear” - #13 in Google.

“hot naked ladys” - Yep, they want naked ladies and they can’t spell. #30 in Google, because Google is smart enough to realize they meant “ladies.” Aren’t you glad Google helps people find their porn?

“pictures ofnaked women standing” - #5 in Google. Remember the post where I mentioned naked women standing in traffic and that I would soon be ranking highly for it? Yep, that’s the one that’s #5, just so long as you make the typo “ofnaked.” Were someone to search for “pictures ofnaked women standing in traffic,” that page is currently the #1 search result in Google. This despite that I don’t see a “ofnaked” typo in my post and if you search on the term using “of naked,” this blog doesn’t show up in the first few pages for either result.

Incidentally, if some were to search for “Yblagulous,” this blog is at #7 in Google.

I Spent About a Half Hour Writing an Article You Can’t See Yet

Earlier this evening, I wrote an article I hope will be found interesting. I submitted it to one of those article sites. I’ll provide a link when it’s approved and available. I think I’m permitted to do that. I’ll check first, but I’m pretty sure it’s okay.

The Nurse’s Duties to Her Superiors

I entered the Hospital Etiquette portion of chapter one of Practical Points in Nursing in the earlier evening. Pretty interesting insight into how things were run (or supposed to run) over 100 years ago in hospitals. For some reason, it reminds me of Doug and his stories about his nurses in his Chief of Staff days.

Commenting on John Chow dot Com Isn’t What It Used to Be

I commented on John Chow’s blog yesterday. I got one click back as a result. In the good ol’ days of John Chow dot Com, I would have gotten like twice that many.

Many bloggers, especially those looking to make a few bucks online and quit their day jobs, turn to the “pro bloggers” for insight on how to accomplish that. While typically the pros have good advice, there are times when their suggestions can lead to the inevitable doom, death and destruction of your blog.

Let’s examine that advice, shall we?

Write About Your Passion

I think I have read this bit of advice from just about every pro blogger whose blog I’ve read. John Chow. Problogger.* Maybe Shoemoney too. It’s like a blogging mantra. Write about your passion. Write about your passion. Write about your passion. Repeat it three times, click your heels and the money will follow.

The problem is that what you’re passionate about may not have very much income potential. Say, for example, that your primary interest is yourself. You’re very passionate about yourself and sharing all the details of your life. Sure, you like certain products, but you like the way they make you feel about yourself. The technical details are, well, who cares so long as it gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. But just because your new toaster oven makes you feel all happy and excited inside doesn’t mean that anyone actually cares about reading about it.

How well does the toaster oven work? Does it take up too much counter space? Those are things your readers may want to know, but you’re more interested in talking about how well it matches your kitchen decor or that your grandmother had one just like it. Maybe the electrical shorts out on it; do you have bad wiring in your kitchen or is the toaster oven defective? Your readers will never know, because you don’t actually use the thing. You just like having it in your kitchen because it reminds you of the times you spent baking cookies with your grandma and how you used her toaster oven as a place to set the mixing bowl while you rolled out the cookie dough on the counter top and cut them into animal shapes.

You’re passion is you, and unless you’re Ellen Degeneres or Britney Spears or Brad Pitt or Jon Stewart or something, or are willing to post pictures of yourself naked next to your brand new toaster oven, there’s not going to be much potential for your blog. You may find a few new friends, but you’re probably not going to be able to quit your day job if you’re just writing about yourself. Unless you’re funny. Or entertaining. Or naked.

Leave Comments on Other Blogs

The probloggers advise you to leave comments on other blogs to help promote your own blog. But, there again, that could be a recipe for failure.

Let’s imagine that you read a great post on another blog on how to fix your finances. So, you leave a comment. And wait for the traffic to come flowing in.

But, it doesn’t.

You see, even there, no one cares about your toaster oven. They may have been interested if you had shared how it saved you money over using the regular oven, as it is so much more efficient at cooking a small meal for one than turning on the big oven. But, no, you decided to share the details on how pretty the box was that it came in. No one cares!

Except maybe for competitive toaster oven manufacturers looking for ways to increase sales to superficial people.

Use Creative Headlines

Probloggers also suggest improving your headlines to get attention and bring in traffic. But, clever headlines can also be the worst thing you can do to promote your blog!

First of all, again, no one cares about your toaster oven. Again, if you were to share some technical details, that may be helpful. But, if you’re just going to talk about yourself and how the toaster oven makes you feel, no headline is going to save you.

True, you may get traffic. But, it won’t be the type of traffic you want. “Toaster Oven Secrets Revealed!” may get you traffic. But those visitors will likely be looking for some tips on using their toaster oven or some details they need to know before purchasing a toaster oven model. What they won’t be looking for is the fact that your grandmother was able to keep as a secret for many years that the toaster oven didn’t work and instead she was cooking your meals with a blowtorch she kept hidden under the sink.

Likewise, “Hot and Raw in the Kitchen!” isn’t going to get you the traffic you’d like either.

Get the Attention of the Probloggers!

Another piece of advice that will never work for you is the concept of getting a problogger’s attention. Link to them. Write about them. Send them something. You do all those things in the hopes of getting their attention and hoping they’ll mention you (and link to your blog) in one of their blog posts, which will bring visitors flocking to your blog.

Before we go there, let’s reflect back on your childhood for a moment. Remember when you used to struggle for the teacher’s attention? Ms. Fairmont posed a math question. You eagerly raised your hand, nearly jumping out of your seat, hoping she’ll call on you.

But, she didn’t want to hear about your grandmother’s toaster oven and, after a while, she stopped calling on you.

The situation is pretty much the same here. The probloggers really don’t care about your toaster oven either, and they’re probably not going to link to you.

Unless maybe you cook them lunch with your toaster oven.

Pity you didn’t take an interest in your grandmother’s blowtorch. Cooking up lunch with your blowtorch would have been better linkbait.

*Yes, I know the post I linked to mentioned finding a popular topic and one that has potential income streams, but I have decided to completely ignore that for the sake of this post.

The new blog is Practical Points in Nursing. It’s an old book from 1903, whose copyright has expired in the United States. (The website is only intended for use by residents of the United States.) So, it’s not so much a blog as it is a book.

Basically, it’s a little experiment. I’m playing around with using WordPress as a content management system for publishing a book online. Since WordPress sorts things by date, with the most recent entry appearing first, that tends to make a book hard to read. Mind you, if you started at the beginning and followed it every day, it wouldn’t be so bad. But there will be people that join in the middle or even after the whole thing is done. Sorting backwards isn’t so easy.

Perhaps I will later learn better ways of doing it, but for now I am using the Pages feature of WordPress to better organize the content by chapters. I will add a new chapter, perhaps daily but on a regular basis at least, and it will appear in the Table of Contents in the sidebar.

I have also added comments to the pages so you can comment on a page as easily as you would a regular blog entry. That way, people can share their thoughts on the chapters as they are presented. While it is a large book, each chapter is separated into different sections, and each section (so far!) seems to be relatively short. So, if you keep up with it every day, it won’t be a heavy read. Well, maybe at least until we get into the medical descriptions… And the glossary…

Anyway, even if you’re not interested in nursing, I think you’ll find some of the techniques and attitudes fascinating. While some things will be familiar, others will strike you as something out of the dark ages!

So, if you’re a resident of the United States, be sure to check it out! It will be educational, at least historically so, not necessarily medically so!

Did you know that while four is generally expressed as IV in Roman numerals, it is also acceptable to use IIII? With that in mind, I suppose I could have used VIIII for nine, but I opted for the more common IX. Actually, while I’m sure IIII can be used in lieu of IV, I’m not sure if VIIII can be used in lieu of IX. At any rate, maybe you learned something new today, that being that IIII is acceptable for indicating four.

So, on to the progress update….

Two weeks ago, my goals were to (1) complete a client’s website which I did do that week, (2) clear off my computer desktop which wasn’t completed, (3) remove old computer from my desk which wasn’t completed and (4) organize scattered notes on the aforementioned computer’s keyboard which was, more or less, completed that week.

Number three was carried over to last week goal’s. While did not carry over number two, I pretty much accomplished it last week. Still a few odds and ends, but it’s mostly cleaned up now.

Anyway, last week’s goals were to (1) finish archiving files and move old computer off my desk, (2) take product photo for my eCommerce site and put it online, (3) setup printer/scanner, (4) do some work for the redesign of my flagship website and (5) start getting things together for my antiques’ blog.

Well, let’s see how poorly I fared this past week.

First, I did not complete archiving files and moving the old computer off my desk. But, I did make significant progress in doing so. So, there is that at least!

Second, while it should have been easy to take the product photo and put it online, I didn’t get around to it. I did manage to take other photos, and I should have done this at the same time, but pretty much forgot all about it during those periods the camera was in my hands. I could argue that the camera’s batteries went dead, which they did, so I had downtime when I was recharging them. But, since I had a spare set of batteries, I guess I cannot use that excuse.

Third, nope. Setting up the printer/scanner requires that the old computer be off the desk. Since that didn’t happen, setting up the printer/scanner didn’t happen either.

Fourth, nope.

Fifth, I did start getting materials ready for my antiques blog, including taking some photos! So, at least I remembered that when I had the camera out.

I guess it will be easy to figure out this week’s goals:

1. Finish archiving files and move the old computer off my desk.
2. Take product photo for my eCommerce site and put it on the site.
3. Setup printer/scanner. Shouldn’t be too hard. Once the old computer is off the desk, I can put the printer/scanner in its place and plug it in.
4. Do some work on the redesign for my flagship website.
5. Order a new hard drive for my server. It’s making a lot of noise, and I think I should order a replacement…

Yes, I did copy and paste some of that from last week’s goal list! You would think keeping the list short would allow me to finish more things, but you would have thought wrong!

So, what did I accomplish this past week?

I did manage to make excellent progress cleaning off my computer’s desktop, so it’s a lot better organized. I also made excellent progress in archiving the files off the old computer that needs to be moved. I spent most of Saturday on that alone, as well as some time during the weeknights.

Also, doing some double duty, while archiving on one computer, I was working on blogs on the other. I managed to get dcr Writes dot Com looking more to my liking.

Am I boring you yet? Hang in there, there’s an announcement coming.

Additionally, I did some website clean up, which was mainly deleting one website I had and forwarding its domain to another, similar website. The deleted one had an unappealing domain name–I’m not sure why I ever thought it was a good name–so I redirected it to the one that had the better name.

Oh, and I started a new blog. Sort of. But, I’ll explain that in a separate post. I started it here, but went too long so it’s best to have it as a separate post.

Oh, the odd ways people find this blog continue to grow.

children and sedimentary lifestyle
I think I can blame Pete for this one. (See his comment.) My blog is search result #9.

auction of naked women
Nope, not an auction of naked women photos, just naked women. Mind you, if women are up for auction, is it necessary to include “naked” as a qualifier? Seems to me if you own her, you could choose whether or not to clothe her. At any rate, what does this say about our society when people are searching for auctions for naked women? On the other hand, what does it say about my blog when I’m the #20 search result for auctions of naked women?

full on naked chicks
I’m at #7 on this one.

single naked chick
I’m at #9 on this one.

I’m sensing that if I ran a porn website, I’d do fairly well in the search engines. But, that’s not going to happen. I’ll just have to figure out a way to make money without having naked women plastered all over my blog.

Maybe I could start selling mud pies? Apparently, parents are looking for ways to help their children with a sedimentary lifestyle…

Not terribly cold, though. The ice does melt during the daytime, then freezes up again in the overnight hours.

I went outside this afternoon and took some photos. Unfortunately, the sun’s reflection on the snow overexposed most of the shots, so I don’t have good photos for some of the icicles on the trees. I even tried some different camera settings, but those ended up worse than the default setting. These kinds of shots work out better on overcast days.

But, when I had a solid background, I did get some good shots, like the one below of ice on one of the bushes. Nice contrast with the green of the bush and the clear frozen ice.

While archiving the contents of the old computer, I’ve been working on my other blogs on the other computer.

Thanks to the passive assistance of Pete*, I have been able to modify the font sizes on dcr Writes dot Com to a more readable size. They were too tiny before, and I wasn’t having much luck changing it. Finally, I found the one line that needed to be modified in order to make the necessary adjustments. The fonts in the theme were setup a little differently than what I’ve been used to, so I overlooked the “offending” line a number of times.

Anyway, take a peek and let me know what you think of the readability.

I have also been working on some other sites, which I hope to unveil soon!

*Since we both use the Mimbo theme, I compared his stylesheet to mine and looked for the font differences.

Last Saturday, I posted about a meme I couldn’t do, because the person that tagged me had deleted the meme from their blog.

Apparently, memes cannot be done on Saturdays, because…

This Saturday (which is today for those of you reading this in the present tense), I was going to knock out another meme for which I was prepared to complete.

Only this week, that blogger’s website is down for the count, which means I cannot complete the meme because, while I know the overall details, I don’t remember the specifics. Thus, I have nothing to reference to make sure I’m completing the meme properly.

That means the meme will have to wait for another day. Obviously maybe not a Saturday.