I could go for a little Italy right about now!

A reddish glare
Originally uploaded by Hobo pd.

Okay, before we get to the meat of this fully sponsored post, can you believe this photo? I was looking through Flickr for something to go with an Italian post, and every one of this man's pictures was amazing.

A Pay Per Post opportunity leapt from the screen at me today. Post something about Italy. Now Italy is one of the countries that I did NOT get to see when I went to Europe. I want to go. Isn't that like saying that the sky is blue, though? Who DOESN'T want to go to Italy? SO much of Western history centers around Italy, and it's such a rich, dense, multi-layered explosion of historical flavors... You like it bloody? Italy's got it. How about religion--um, helloooo, vatican, anyone? Politics, Lust, Fashion, Romance. Italy pretty much embodies each of the seven deadly sins and really, every modern vice. But it's still beautiful.

I admit that I love happy endings, but Under the Tuscan Sun? Great movie. Didn't you instantly want to run away from all of your problems and find a charming Italian villa to pour your energy into? The sponsor of this post has Italian properties for sale. I personally am NOT George Clooney, with the money to spend on a Villa on Lake Como, but we have to dream, right? I set up services for people from the Bay area, who are buying weekend houses in Lathrop, CA. I realize that you all have no idea what this means, but trust me, the thought of spending a half a million dollars to buy into a cramped housing tract, in the middle of a muddy flood plain, it boggles the mind. I just want to scream at them all. If my half a million bucks bought me a cobwebby apartment above a restaurant in an Italian village, I would sooo spend it on the tiny apartment rather than the McMansion.

I apologize again for restating this, but this has been a sponsored post. I'm still a little bitter that PPP refused to pay me for the Dubai post, because they felt that I was not clear about the sponsorship. I do not want their disclosure policy button on my blog. I think that I make it pretty clear when it is a sponsored post, and I don't take a bazillion of these opportunities. That makes two posts that I did not get paid for. grrr... (okay one was due to my own over-enthusiastic dorkiness, but c'mon!)

********************

Now they say the opportunity has closed, but it is still listed. Are they just messin' with my head, now? You know what? I'd still like to go to Italy--this post will stand as a little freee love to the folks who sponsored it. I don't write them if I don't mean them. That's why there are so few.

This site was made for my Sisters-in Law.

I'm cruising the PayPerPost opportunities, and there's another one!

The sponsor of this post would like you to know that this is a sponsored post. I'm not sure I can be much clearer about that.

My former sister-in-law watched Passions. So does one of my current sisters-in-law. I truly don't get the whole witch with a tiny person as a living doll cheesy fires of hell thing. But I DO get Ugly Betty. It's on at the same time as CSI, thanks to an early prime-time set up on our local CBS affiliate, so I may be checking in with their site, www.soaps.com.

Soap Operas

I appreciate that they include Ugly Betty, but I hope that they will include the other shows we all watch--I checked for ya, CRSE, Dirt is not covered, so far. If they had a split, daytime versus nighttime thing, I'd probably live there. I always have to miss Veronica Mars, and the Honey screwed me over in my attempt to record Heroes the other night. I AM a TV junkie, I know that it's not cool to admit. I should declare that all TV is crap and turning us into a nation of drooling idiots, but that's rap music (Kidding). I love the idiot box in every form except for infomercials and TV sign offs. And televised Golf.

Now if they had a Spanish version for all of my Other sisters-in-law's Novelas, we'd have all the bases covered....

It's like the American Dream...UAE style

So I browse the PayPerPost listings from time to time, to see if there's anything that I know anything about that might make me a little bit of green towards my dream of keeping Big O in hoodie sweatshirts until the cold snap is over...

While we may be entering an unannounced ice age which has killed the citrus crop in California, and I may lose a little toe to frostbite, There is no cold snap in Dubai.

Excuse me, Jennifer? Dubai? What could you possibly know about Dubai except that Michael Jackson runs there to avoid extradition? Well, I have passed this opportunity on Payperpost on more than one occasion, and I would have said "nothing." But then we got our subscription to National Geographic at work, and there was an article on Dubai! Two days later our Budget Travel came in, and there it was again! It seemed, my bloggy friends, like destiny.


It's a neat story of the little sheik that could. With nothing like the EPA, or, say, OSHA, to stop him, The man decided that Oil was NOT going to be enough to save his country/kingdom. So he dredged the hell out of his little creek (really, it's Dubai Creek, I think), and built a world class port. Then he built high rise hotels all along the water, created a fabulous investment friendly economy (no taxes), and started building artificial islands so that all of the folks could spend $3-30 million on beach front homes.

The National Geographic article (surprise!) also mentions the indentured servitude that many asian workers find themselves trapped in to work here, and the squalid conditions that they live in. But even NG acknowledges that it's pretty free of racial strife, in spite of the multiple ethnicities crammed into such a small area. The Budget Travel looooved the variety of ethnic food available, and found it surprising that the hotels were often good sources of good food (as opposed to bland, "safe" food usually found at hotels).

sigh. I will probably never make it to Dubai (sorry, Budget Travel, but you guys are NOT looking at MY budget), but if you have any friends that worshipped Ronald Reagan, I think this place really is the Republican American Dream come to life--in the middle of the United Arab Emirates. Without the EPA to save the coral reefs, or OSHA to protect the worker bees, They have created luxury living like Vegas (being landlocked, and trapped in American bureaucracy) could only dream of. The sponsor of this post encourages you to check out their Dubai property. I think that most of my bloggy friends have budgets closer to my own than Donald Trump, so I encourage you to go out to the library and read about the little sheikh that could in the January issue of National Geographic. Neat stuff, unless you're a big fan of Coral Reefs or human rights. You know what? It's still a neat story about a man with a dream, allowed to fulfill it unchecked. Somewhere out there, Ronald Reagan is smiling.
********
This was a flippin' sponsored post.

Where was this when I was stuck in Management Hell?

I was a terrible boss.

I loved and adored my employees, even when they were useless flakes and even as I knew that they were sabotaging me with their crappy performances when I wasn't there.

I hired 'em because I liked them, and it was usually okay. But I was always late with reviews. I would make sure that they got their measly raises, but the review itself? Pure agony. Where was this Performance Appraisalsoftware when I needed it?
Up until now, I've never worked for a company that would have shelled out for the software, but I'd have probably sold my right ovary if it would have helped me write reviews. I even dreaded the GOOD reviews.

I was so disheartened at my last management position that I happily took the low man on the totem pole of customer service just so I would never again be in the position of being stabbed in the back by an employee I had hired and trained. My co-workers are going to give me an ulcer the way they ride my manager like a bad pony. I swear there's not an ounce of compassion or empathy in 9 out of 10 of them. But if they have a crisis? They tear up and sob on her shoulder.

GRRR Grrr grrr

Okay, back to my lovely sponsored post.

I love toys that make your life easier. Give me a review writer and a software program that you could enter 8 different college student's schedules in, and I could have ruled the world. Okay, the mall. But I could have ruled.

I am beyond that now, but my boss actually gave me a pretty well thought out review last year. One more piece of evidence that she SHOULD be a manager and I should NOT. Heeeeeyyyy-do you think she already HAS the software?

Pay Per Post/ HP --what a hoot!

Click on the box to go watch this video!

So there is a site, PayPerPost, that will drop a little cash into your PayPal account if you blog about selected topics. REALLY? Because you have probably noticed by now, that I'll talk about just about anything.

Then I got to thinking. It went a little something like this:

No you won't, you big chicken, If they want you to write about hemorrhoid cream, you are going to starve before you type out anything of the kind. You're no Kevin Charnas, able to tackle any topic without fear, and, dare I say, with Gusto.

But then I went to the site, and the video is a hoot! I want the Postie Patrol to come for ME! We could have a three way competition for fabulous prizes, me, Kim, and Bananas! If they show up at my work, I guarantee, it will be ON, and it would be on for prizes far less spectacular than the ones Robyn competed for in the video!

I don't know that I will be able to support my family based upon my future PayPerPost earnings. We'll have to see what kinds of things they have. But If Little O gets a book from Amazon, or Big O gets a hoodie sweatshirt to replace the forty-ninth one lost this year (what is it with that boy and outerwear?), how very cool!

I think this is just a riot. Where are the jobs that let you go out and get people into scavenger hunts? I don't know if I want to work for HP, or PayPerPost, or some demonically clever marketing firm, but this is the kind of thing I adore. I excel at goofball enthusiasm. "CATFEEEESH!" is going to be incorporated into life at work, I guarantee you!

HP wants me to make clear that this post is brought to you by HP.
Digital Photo Printing
They also wanted me to include their link to all of their toys.

Is it so very wrong to adore this idea? Is it just further proof that I love cheesy marketing? You, my four loyal readers, will have to tell me if I am outta my gourd.