Oh, to be young again. Three years ago when the anime blog was young, I agonized over inserting a small text ad into the sidebar. Flash forward to today, and I feel no such guilt over adding a bunch of Amazon Affiliate ads to the sidebar of every page that is not the front page. I run the very slick K2 theme, and with the power of PHP the non-front page portions of Sea Slugs! were all directed to display very little information on the sidebar. Now, you see one small ad on the front page sidebar (hasn’t changed for 3 years), and on all other pages you see 5 small Amazon ads instead of a big blank sidebar.
The cost of running Sea Slugs! is still hovering just under $100 a year. Looking back at Adsense, and looking forward at Amazon Affiliates, here’s what I think so far:
Google
- The best part of Adsense is that it pays per click.
- It took over 2 years to get the first check, but the site is on course to earn the second check in a little over a year. Obviously the Adsense ads alone do not cover costs.
- Adsense is kinda hit or miss, because as there are not that many people willing to pay for an anime ad. It’s a niche market, and since there are not that many relevant ads out there, sometimes the stuff displayed in the Adsense box has no relation to the blog.
- The worst part of Adsense is that they only pay you once you have earned $100. I know this isn’t a problem for some webmasters, but I find it to be a pain.
Amazon
- The worst part of the Amazon program is that it only pays you if someone buys something from Amazon within 24 hours of clicking on one of your affiliate links.
- I’m hoping someone uses an affiliate link to buy a boxset. Buying a volume of manga or an anime DVD would help, but 4% or more of an expensive item can give a quick boost to income.
- Amazon has an option for direct deposit after earning $10. For obvious reasons, this rocks the socks off Adsense’s payment policy.
- Amazon is a trusted vendor, whereas some of the companies advertising on Adsense seem kinda sketchy.
- Amazon sells a large selection of anime and manga related products, and from what I have seen so far, their matching algorithm is quite good. In each 5 block segment, usually 4 are anime DVDs or manga volumes, and the last one is a bestseller or some non-anime DVD. The filters were very helpful in preventing Oprah and adult magazines from showing up in the ads.
I’m not expecting huge profits to come in from the Amazon Affiliates program, but the gattai of both programs might help the site break even. Also, if you are planning to buy something expensive from Amazon, please let me know! I think the referral fee might be capped at $25, but $25 for doing nothing but clicking one link (for an item someone was going to buy anyway) is still pretty sweet.
The intruder took a sip of their Château Malescot St.-Exupéry and said, “Damn, that’s good wine.”
The girl’s father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.
Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants.
“I think I may have come to the wrong house,” he said, looking around the patio.
What the heck?! This report almost sounds like an advertisement for Château Malescot St.-Exupéry or French cheese makers! Now I really want to try that wine and cheese!
Malescot St.-Exupéry
Always restrained and never full-bodied, Malescot St.-Exupéry wines have an intense flavor profile and almost ethereal aromatics of red and black fruits intermixed with black tea, truffles, coffee, and spices.
That does sound good… Unlike this story.
“There was this degree of disbelief and terror at the same time,” Rabdau said. “Then it miraculously just changed. His whole emotional tone turned — like, we’re one big happy family now. I thought: Was it the wine? Was it the cheese?”
Or was it the combination… Hmmmmmmmm.
Bunky and Sydney’s Cold War has escalated at home, and now the two are conducting a dangerous dance of brinksmanship. Apparently Sydney can’t understand that Bunky has more authority than him, and Bunky can’t understand that Cat is 4 FITE. Bunky is constantly angry at Sydney, and Sydney is always trying to bite, stalk, or otherwise harass Bunky.
After some searching, Bunky decided that Sydney has Social Status Aggression. Put simply, he thinks Bunky is a scrub, and is constantly looking for ways to put her down. Part of the problem stems from the fact that Bunky has “delegated” all Sydney matters to me, and thus Sydney has come to see me as the source of food, amusement, and attention (but mostly food). I also have the impressive title of Chief Executive Litterbox Scooper (CELS).
A diagnosis of social status aggression is also a strong consideration when the cat attacks family members that have not assumed a position of control and leadership but does not threaten those that have good control.
I wonder if this issue is related to Sydney’s peeing problem. Bunky spends a lot of time in front of the mirror over the bathroom sink; maybe Sydney is trying to mark his territory and show her that the bathroom is his home turf.
Whatever the case, Bunky is apparently looking into Animal Psychics and Animal Behavior Therapists. It’s going to be like marriage counseling between those two. I really hope they can work out their differences, instead of just staying together for the kids. In the meantime, I’m instructing Bunky to take over morning feeding duties, and also to always give Sydney a treat when she gets home. Hopefully this will be just the slap he needs to get him to realize where the power really rests.
I think it’s laughable that everyone says we’re losing a war.
Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new U.S. government analysis concludes, according to a senior government official who has seen it.
When in reality we are losing two wars at the same time!
“Of the 18 benchmarks Congress asked us to measure, we can report that satisfactory progress is being made in eight areas,” Bush said during a White House news conference.
Good to know we are hitting 44.44% of our benchmarks. I think that deserves a gold star.
I always wish I could get a spoiler on how future historians will view this time period. I guess I better get to work on my flux capacitor.
Man, yesterday was the most painful Kenpo class that did not result in an injury. Last week the school was closed for the holidays, so I was really eager to get back in there and get to sweating. And boy did we sweat; the air conditioning was off because it kept flipping the circuit breaker. It had to have been 100° F in there, and I had the thick gi on, too. From just 1.75 hours in there, I think I lost about 5 lb of water (even though I drank a liter of water in class).
Afterwards my hands were shaking pretty bad from fatigue, and I was having tremendous problems trying to type on AIM with Velius. Even today, my hands are still kinda twitchy. I’m not actually that sore, aside from one side of my neck and the rib muscles just below the armpits (I don’t know what they’re called), but my whole body just feels incredibly tired and I have no strength. However, it wasn’t all bad.
The Good
- Experienced weightlessness during this really cool throw: It would have been nicer if I didn’t experience it 4 times in a row. Also, weightlessness was followed immediately by a hard slam onto the mats.
- Got to be the attacker in a hair grab technique: Normally this is not anything special, but the defender had an afro! It was a strange feeling grabbing a handful of fluffy afro hair.
- Good success with a technique: I had good results with a new move I was trying out. I would fake a kick and then step forward and onto the opponent’s front foot (to trap it). This worked surprisingly well against people who were planning to dodge by moving away.
The Bad
- Gi felt like it was 25 lb: The sweat was flowing, but it was so humid that it didn’t help.
- Exhausted early: I went too hard in the beginning since I thought we were just doing self-defense techniques for the second half of the class, but then we did like 30 minutes of continuous sparring T__T.
- Twitchy hands: Typing is still frustratingly difficult, and attempts at FPS sniping last night were pretty laughable.
- Bad luck in sparring partners: Although most of the attendees last night were lower ranked opponents, I drew both black belt instructors and the highest-ranked student that night. The last instructor took it easy on me at least.
The Ugly
- Got heart shifted from left side to right side: So while the other instructor had pity, Sensei did not. I was way too tired (this was during the last 10 minutes of class) at this point to dodge, and all I could do was throw some half-hearted jabs to make it look like I was doing something. Instead of letting me off the hook, Sensei proceeded to feed me a steady diet of very hard sidekicks to the chest.
- New pushup drill: After we did our normal regimen of pushups, a new exercise was added where you do a pushup, and while still in the upright pushup position, you cross over (crab walk, sorta) and do another pushup. It’s like pushup ‘walking’ across the room, and back. This excercise totally sucks and I hate it. As soon as you start getting tired, it gets really hard to cross over, and you start falling over and looking like an idiot.
Q: I’m a diehard Knicks fan, should I be excited that our starting center (Curry) and starting power forward (Randolph) both have breasts?
– Lenny P., NYC
SG: Look, there are very few times in a man’s life when he should not be excited if breasts are involved, but this might be one of them.
(from the most recent Sports Guy mailbag)
/Sigh
Site News | Kabitzin 07/14/2007 | 
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