lonecity.com

I haven’t been around long enough to say I was a part of the good old days just yet.  I have been around long enough to have known my fair share of old fogies who were.   Some of the things I’ve learned from them it just might surprise you to know.  One example of that lost knowledge is that cats weren’t well thought of here in the western united states a hundred years ago.  I’m sure there were cat people and dog people then as there are now, but as a general rule most people were dog owners.  It comes from simple logic though and has less to do with loving your pet.  Around the farm cats are a nuisance who don’t help out, eat your food, scare your fowl, and only want you to love them when they want you.  Dogs on the other hand are loyal and obedient companions who will round up your sheep, fetch your paper and are happy to have your attention when you have time for them.  I learned this little tidbit through someone recanting what I concider horrific tales.  Stories about how the old folks used to catch the strays that come around in mesh potato sacks and toss them in the river hoping they’d drown or float far enough away not to come back. 

I have never cared to own a pet though I have several.  Somehow one always manages appear at my house and I end up bieng its owner.  Our housholds most recent aquisition is a little black dog that is probably nearing death.  (you can see just how old she is in her eyes)  She’s a happy little dog and her previous owner obviously treated her well enough to potty train her.  (though they obviously didn’t care enough to give her a collar and a name tag)  This dog found her way into my back yard through a hole in the fence and it was obvious she hadn’t eaten or been taken care of in days.  (maybe weeks)  When she found her way to us she was barking constantly and wouldn’t approach a human.  Must have been trauma.  Once we got her calmed down and with us for some days, she’s been as gentile as can be belived.  She has never barked since, not even once.  (I’ve tried to get her to.) 

I’ve always been more apt to like cats than dogs.  The reason there is simple.  Cats don’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t want anything to do with pets, so we get along great.  I leave a bag of food open and we cross paths from time to time. 

Over the past year one of our two cats has moved on.  She came home one day rather chewed up, looked like she was half eaten by a dog.  We nabbed her and did a bit of first aid.  She didn’t like that, and took to not coming home nearly so often.  Then after a while she didn’t come home at all.  Thats another trait I like about cats.  They know when they’re done for so they find somewhere quiet to wander off to and pass on.  I’d like to think we have that in common.  I’ll probably crawl under a rock when I hear the death rattle and feel sorry for whomever gets stuck finding me.

I mentioned before I leave a bag of cat food with the top open so they can get at it when the are hungry.  That doesn’t mean I don’t feed them, just that I always leave it out so If I’m away a while they can.  Our oldest cat prefers to stick her head in the bag instead of eating out of the cat dish anyway.  Go figure?  This habbit of mine has had some less pleasant consequences though.  Neigborhood stray cats have gotten brazen.  I used to keep the cat food in the back room and they would wander in through the dog door for a snack.  I don’t mind it, but I had to stop that because it freaks my family out to encounter a stray when they pop back to do the laundry.  This prompted me to move the cat dish into the kitchen and the bag into the dining room/pantry area. 

Up until last week I figured moving the cat food meant problem solved.   Then the harsh part of winter set in and one of the strays became more brazen.  It comes through the back room, through the kitchen, and into the pantry to rifle through the open bag!  Well, as I said the stray doesn’t bother me, but then the problem progressed.  This big yellow stray cat (who scares my old cat half to death) went and got herself chewed up.  She went to find herself someplace quiet to die and that place happened to be my pantry.  Luckily we discovered her while she was still alive.  (imagine the stink)  But I had to call the pound and have them come catch her in my pantry.  It wasn’t much of a chase, but I doubt they get called to catch stray animals inside the house very often. 

Well from a pot full of dead kittens three weeks ago, to a mean old stray ally cat bleading to death in my pantry, animals have a strange way of finding their way into my life.  It seems the less I want to have to do with them the more often they come to me. 

I’m still waiting on the terrible clamaty to come at the behest of the pot full of dead kittens.  Winter is tough on cats round these here parts.

I probably haven’t mentioned it on my blog yet, but I happen to dabble a bit with domain parking.  Basically I’ve bought up a few doman names that recieve regular type in visitors and I am selling the traffic to advertising companies.  I watch the domain name auctions closely, because from time to time a fantastic name comes up and occasionally I think it might be worth buying.  This domain was one I bought that didn’t turn out to be worth what I expected.  win some/lose some

Anyhow I thought I’d write today about the biggest thing to happen to the domain parking industry in the last two years.  Google has decided to enter the domain parking business.  Well actually google has been there all along, but the way it worked is a third party ad company would purchase your traffic and match it with google or yahoo’s advertisers.  Essentially google was behind the racket but as a domain owner you never really delt with them.  Last week google announced they are going into direct competition with the parking companies and allowing you to park your domains directly with google.

Now when I say its the biggest thing to happen to parking I mean it, but I don’t mean its the best thing.  Realistically its a huge step for google twards monopolizing the online advertising industry.  The domain parking industry is a complicated web of buying and selling.  Its heart is similar in nature to that of the stock market.  People bid high or low from one day to the next based on trends and magic numbers they seem to pull out of the air, but in essence beneath it all there is real physical property.  (the domain name)  Each property has a real base value which equates to the number of people who visit that domain multiplied by the amount of money you can soak out of each visitor. 

Take for an example yacht.com  I didn’t even bother to look and see what is there, but I can already tell you that name is worth oodles of coinage.  Why?  Its simple.  If you are John Doe Rich F*c(R and you are looking to buy a yacht you might think to do a bit of research on the internet first.  You might just stumble on Yacht.com.  With a name like Yacht.com and a half decent looking website you almost instantly trust their oppinion on what makes a good yacht, and better yet you trust their oppinion on who to buy one from.  So now Joe’s yacht company pretty much has to pay $20 - $100 for a lead from you if they want to be the company you tell everyone makes the best luxury yachts.

Prior to now, Google set the pricing of what a click would cost joe’s yacht company.  They’d use active bidding between Jims Yacht and Joes Yacht and Teds Yacht and come up with a price strategy where whoever was willing to pay the most got the most clicks and when they ran out of money the next guy gets what is left.  (there’s a finite number of people looking to buy a yacht each day)  So if google decided that Jim was willing to pay $8 for a lead and Joe was willing to pay $10  Leads would cost $10 until joe ran out of money then they’d drop to $8.  Now google takes the $10 and keeps $6. (ever wondered exactly why their stock is so damn valuable)  They pass on $4 to the parking company who recruits the owner of Yachts.com at whatever cost they can get away with.  He could get anywhere from $1 to $3.50 from the parking company depending on how hard they have to work to keep his valuable traffic, and on how valuable his traffic is.

So how is google cutting out the middleman a good or a bad thing?  Well the owner of yachts.com may only get 10 people a day visiting his domain.  Its a fantastic domain, but when you look at the big picture $35.00 a day isn’t enough money that google is going to bend to the domain owners will.  If google only wants to give hime $.10 a click and google wants to keep the other $9.90 all he can do is advertise elsewhere.  Now google has made a move in an attempt to bankrupt all of the “elsewheres” he could go to.  They guy who owns yachts.com doesn’t have much to worry about because he has a valuable enough domain that he could approach Jims Yacht directly and still get his $3.50 per visitor pretty easily.  Its just alot more work.

The little guy is the one going to get stamped out in all of this.  While yachts.com might survive, concider the owner of a lesser domain like say wheatflour.com  They probably only were getting $.10 to begin with, and its likely they don’t see enough traffic to make it worth the time for Jim’s mill to deal with them direct.

Earlier this year google already nearly stamped out Yahoo in the failed Microsoft Yahoo merger.  Now google is stomping out all the smaller online advertising companies.  It won’t be long before google is truly a monopoly.  Things don’t bode well for online advertising’s future.  Pretty soon Jim’s yacht company may find themselves being charged ten times as much for a lead because there is no other way than to pay what google asks.  In turn the owner of the property who provides the lead will recieve pennies and google will keep all the reward.  Googles monopolistic instinct is similar to Walmart in the retail trade.  They’re your best friend now, but soon they’ll be your undoing.  Be prepared for the future everyone here comes Google-Mart.  Once they merger we will have officially been bought out and no longer a democracy at all.  We’ll be a dictatorship with king GooMart controling our every move. 

Perhaps someone wants to run out and register GooMart.com!

I believe very strongly in the principle of karma.  One good turn deserves another.  I also believe in balance or equilibrium.  For every good thing there is a bad one.  Last week I wrote about how things were finally starting to go my way with a pretty good run of luck.  It carried on after the last blog post and I litterally stumbled onto a stainless steel cooktop to accompany my new refridgerator and microwave oven.  Like the fridge it needs a few hundred bucks to make it useable, but also like the fridge it was totally free.  Even better its brand new.  All in all I expect the cooktop to cost me about $300 for a unit that normally retails for $1200.  (its a VERY nice cooktop, normally I wouldn’t concider investing $300 in a stove, but I’m positive this one is worth it.)

Well following the principal of balance though something bad has got to be in the works.  It didn’t take long to find out what it was.  As a part of the process of closing down the retail store I’m working at, it falls upon me to get the building prepared for turn over to the landlord.  I spent the last few days of the week cleaning up outside and sadly I made a grotesque discovery.  In one of the flower pots that decorate the side of the building santa left me a surprise. 

Under a tarp on the side of the building I discovered a fresh born kitten who couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours old.  Mom must have heard me working and booked it out of there.  I took it to someone I know who can take care of it and the kitten is doing well.  She’s sleeping for about five hours between feedings and is dragging herself around.  (I assume its a she)  I went home feeling both bad and good that day as I am sure I saved that kittens life, but I’m also pretty sure the work I was doing might have been the cause of her losing her mother.  It was inevitable though.  Even if I hadn’t moved the tarp, someone would have because its got to be done.

Well I was off the next day and when I returned to work later that week I made the flower pot discovery.  A whole litter of frozen kittens, some of them half eaten.  By the factor of balance, any good karma I earned by saving that one kitten just got buried and I’m in for a rough future.

I’ve got a photo of the kitten that is alive.  Once I find the time and motivation, I’ll get it off my phone and onto the pc.  Then I’ll probably come back and update this post with the photo.  She’s a solid black cat.  I haven’t seen her eyes since they were closed when I gave her to the “cat lady.” to be raised.  She’s said they are golden though.  The cat lady’s daugter is planning on keeping the cat and is going to name her twilight after the movie.  I don’t know much about it but i guess its about a vampire with black hair and golden eyes?

Anyhow, look foreward to my next post as its bound to be a doozie.  When Fate, Karma, and Balance get together to deliver payment on this one whats coming for me is going to be a doozie.

I’m pretty sure nobody is actually following my blog.  Well at least I hope not, its pretty damn uninteresting.  But if you happen to have stumbled across a post a few months back about buying a new refridgerator, you’d know I decided against it.  Ever since I payed over a grand for a new fridge that lasted me only days past the warrenty I have felt cheated.  I managed to find a dinousaur of a fridge and its gotten me by.  It was pulled out of an apartment by a slum lord who decided it was too old to keep in service.  (that should give you an idea of how ugly this fridge is…)  Anyhow I’ve got a story to tell today.

I’ve eluded to the fact that I work in a retail establishment a number of times in my blog.  Most recently I mentioned how I am among the 533,000 people who have been laid off so far due to the recession.  Technically I’m still employed until january and there is still a possibility that my company will have a position open up for me before then.  Not that it matters much, I can do much better.  Anyhow, one of the things we sell is appliances, and I wanted to relate a refridgerator story to you all.

I’ve wanted to stop drinking soda pop for many years, but every time I’ve tried I’ve failed miserably.  I just like it too much, even though I know its killing me.  (addition?)  I made up my mind that the only way I’m going to be able to do it is to have a replacement on hand.  I can’t seem to keep cold water in the fridge.  Its just too much of a hassle.  I can’t seem to get myself to take it from the tap.  I’ve been thinking the solution is one of them fancy $2500 - $3000 refridgerators with ice and water dispenser built into the door.  Of course I know the reality of my attempts is that I’ll probably spend the 3k and then it won’t work anyway.  So I’ve just told myself I’m not going to do it.

A few nights ago some folks came by to purchase a new refridgerator.  One of my guys who helps people with carryouts among other things wasn’t too bright.  When these folks came by they had a refridgerator loaded on their trailer.  Now its obviously not new, perhaps two or three years old, but he asks them if its a return.  Then he kindly helps them get it off their trailer and onto the ground.  Theres no way we’re taking a return on a refridgerator thats a couple of years old.  Even if it was still under warrenty we’d send a service guy out, not take a fridge back into the store.  They head on back to the appliance department and buy their new fridge.  I don’t know whether they made an attempt to return the old one or not, but either way there was no way it was getting refunded.  I guess these folks weren’t any smarter than the guy I’ve got helping with carryouts though, since this fridge was a very expensive model.  Stainless steel doors, Ice and water in the door, all the bells and whistles.  I guess when they realized they weren’t getting a refund for a fridge thats a year or two old, they decided to just leave it in the parking lot! 

I’m the guy to fixes everything.  Both in the sense that I fix things that are broken, and in the sense that I fix problems when they come up.  Well having what must have been at least a $2500 fridge dumped in the parking lot is a problem, so I came in the next morning to find it stuffed in my office door.  I guess I could be bitter or happy about it.  The unit has a bad compressor and it will take a good $300 to fix, but its free.  Actually after it set in the hall a couple of days they begged me to get rid of it.  Its in remarkably good condition and well worth the money to repair as opposed to junking the unit.  These folks must have ether been out of their mind or just plain damn filty rich.  Either way, I got my new fridge and so far its cost me nothing.

I gave it a good look over and I can see why the compressor burned out.  There’s a regular maintenance for this model about every three to six months you have to take a vacuum and run it across the coils at the base of the unit so it has airflow and doesn’t overheat.  They must have flooded the room it was in, and that coupled with the fact that they NEVER vacuumed the coils caused the condenser coils to have lint caked onto them.  So thick that I had to remove it with a bathroom scrub brush.  Ive run it through its paces and it is going to need a compressor so I’ll have to spend the $300 to fix it.  It can set in storage a few months until I get that built up.  Still that beats spending even the $500 or so it would take to get an el-cheapo fridge.  Let alone a top of the line $2000+ model. 

As luck would have it, our microwave gave up the ghost a number of months back.  I had procrastinated in buying a new one because I eventually want to remodel the whole kitchen.  I finally broke down and I bought a stainless steel microwave from wally world the week before thanksgiving on a super deal.  We can’t do the whole thanksgiving dinner thing with no microwave.  I was very hesitant to buy the stainless unit because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to buy all stainless appliances when the time came to do the kitchen remodel.  Still it was too good a deal to pass up and I decided it would have to go to the thrift store once it was time for a kitchen makeover.  Now I’ve got a stainless steel microwave, and a stainless fridge.  That changes things since to go all stainless will be a few thousand dollars less. I’d be replacing only half the appliances with stainless.  (A much more do-able thought)  Things were really going my way this week.  Now I just have to live through the whole job change thing.