Oooh, so fancy!

 

Also, this:

An entire summers’ worth of blog in 476 words.

It’s been a while, I know. Summer happened, I guess, and it was a crazy one!  In a good way, of course. Lots of friends, food, and booze… that’s what summers are for, right?

I started baking again, too, which is pretty effin’ sweet (wow, no pun intended). Check some of this shit out:

Lemon cupcakes with orange zest frosting!

Strawberry kiwi cupcakes!

"Fairy Food" cupcakes (ya know, instead of Angel Food.)

Ok, and probably because these were the bottoms.

Also, I got a mixer, so now I can make cheesecake!

Aaaand these delightful little cheesecake cups! (Can you tell I'm excited for Halloween, already!?)

These Easter cupcakes are my fave, though. It was a total bonus that they were ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!

We also started having actual, real-deal, grown up dinner parties. That doesn’t mean that we all don’t just get drunk and eat food, but hey, it’s a dinner party. These have lead me to believe that I really need a dish washer. Stat. Also, how did that happen? Remember when you’re younger? You don’t need food. In fact, food inhibits your buzz, so you stay as far away from it as possible. Also, you’re poor. I don’t know when we started having food at parties, but I like it.

I was also just recently is a super kickass wedding. It was seriously what all weddings should be: 10 minute ceremony, then 4 hours to get shitfaced and dance with your friends. Plus, my dress was awesome. When you think of bridesmaids’ dresses, you think of the long history of making them as hideous as possible, as to not detract from the bride on her big day. Well this awesome bride seriously just picked a color and told us to find a dress. So, note that ladies. Don’t put your bridesmaids in your grandmother’s curtains or anything overly poufy. That doesn’t look good on anyone.

It’s almost Halloween time, again, too! YAAAY! This year, me and The Husband will be the Queen of Hearts and the Knave of Hearts. (Hopefully. The Husband really, REALLY likes to wait until the last minute to get his costume together. I think he enjoys doing it to watch me go insane.)

I’ve also been getting my ASS KICKED at work for the past couple of months. I’ve been considering filing a work comp claim for massive facial contusions, for repeatedly slamming my face off of my desk. The bruises are starting to heal, so maybe I’ll let it go…this time.

There’s lots more blogging to come, though, folks. I swear. Don’t worry, it’s almost winter in Pittsburgh… I won’t have anything else to do but get drunk and talk to you. So, stay tuned for all sorts of awesome stuff, like a bunch of new debut albums, a few new albums, a book or two, and whatever else comes my way.

Hope you all had an awesome summer!

How Am I Supposed To Be An Internet Genius Now, Huh!?

Oh man. So, the company I work for has restricted internet access. I’m not gonna get all into it, seeing how Big Brother is watching us and all that, but how am I supposed to prank people with Rebecca Black or Rick Astley songs, now? How am I going to survive without Nyan Cat? What about the trolling!? What will I ever do without the trolling!? I’ll never find out how magnets work or how to save my horse. A life without Hipster Cat isn’t worth living. I still find myself yelling “Y U NO [insert action here] at my cat, but it’s just not the same. How am I going to watch videos of mama cats hugging kittens? Or incredibly gay narrators talking about wildlife? Now, I’ll never be an internet genius. Thanks, alot!

I’ll tell you one thing for sure, the amount of office pranks will significantly increase. We’re really going to have to find ways to entertain ourselves, now. Problem?

Anyway, so now I’m going to have to get used to doing this from home. Really, though, I didn’t get any work time back. I went in early all the time so I could get in there and read my email and check my social networking sites and, well, blog…but (most of) that was done before my day actually started. Except for my lunch break, being a complete internet junkie. On the plus side, I get to sleep in for another half an hour!

Because of this, I did manage to finally “decorate” our office of almost a year of being in the new apartment. I’ll have to post some pics soon, because it’s pretty effin’ rad. So, at least now, I have a usable work space. You will really to be able to tell the extent of my Pittsburgh Penguins addiction. It’s a sickness.

Ahhh, here it is.

I have a ton on new fodder, too, which is awesome! Patrick Wensink‘s back with a new book, there’s another Metal Monday in the works with another Pittsburgh band, River Runs Scarlet, I just got like, 6 CDs (Ben Harper – Give Til It’s Gone, Owl City – All Things Bright and Beautiful, Death Cab For Cutie – Codes and Keys, She Wants Revenge – Valleyheart, Moby – Destroyed, and Flogging Molly – Speed of Darkness. I’ve also had Explosions In The Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care and Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues for a while, but just haven’t got around to actually listening to them. Superultramegalame.

Well, here’s to hoping I survive a world without Facebook. I’ll miss you, internet! For old times, sake, though, let’s have a little fun.

“Nyan Cat”

“Crazy, Nasty Ass, Honey Badger”

New, Spiffy Things!

1. Hooray for being married to a graphic designer.

2. You can now like That Girl With A Blog on Facebook! WEEEE!

Of course…the code is being a little bitch. Go here to check it out, or find it over on the right. See that little sidebar over there? Yeah.

Also, I love Adele. Happy Monday everyone!

“Rolling In The Deep”

More Google Hate, Funny Videos, and Fluffy Bunnies

*spewing red hot, giant amounts of anger*

If I could audibly make a growling sound through the internet, I would be a happy camper right now. Check this out from the Black Hat SEO Forums:

orbisv
02-26-2011, 07:51 AM
Hi guys
I am newbie in this and I have problem so any help is very welcome,
I purchased some traffic recently and I don’t know is that a reason, I don’t see anything else,but my adsense account is disabled,day later all the traffic in google analytics is gone as well.Can somebody advise me what to do to get my account back on track if its possible at all,or what to do in case that it is not possible.

Well doesn’t THAT sound familiar! I am making insanely angry faces underneath my home-made Daft Punk mask right now. So, essentially, what appears to be happening here is that Google is offering free trials of AdWords to get more traffic to your blog, and then shutting your AdSense account down because of the increased traffic.

Well played, Google, well played. I am so glad that I am not a part of that trainwreck any more. In fact, this whole “divorcing Google” thing is actually going pretty well. Soon, I should be able to close my accounts entirely. Really, the only hold up is the whole YouTube/Google issue. AKA: My YouTube account is linked to my Google. All I need to do is make sure that the videos I have on there, I still have the original files from. There’s things on there that I simply don’t want to lose, like the live Mike Doughty footage or the interview with Mikey Shanley.

There mere prospect of being Google free is so exciting. Soon, I hope! Soon, I will be such a person.

Hey! And did you notice the new theme!? Pretty rad, huh? Thanks to Stacey Leung for rockin’ that thing!

Also, it’s Friday soooo…have some videos.

“Rejection Letter Baby”

“Charlie Bit Me”

Also, look at this adorable, fluffy bunny:

Yes, his name is Tater Tot! Awesome.

AHHH! Where is your FACE fluffy bunny!?

Yeah, that’s all I got. Have a great weekend errbody!

…and Yahoo! wins again!

Hah. Suck on that Google. Yahoo! loves me more, anyway.

That Girl With A Blog Is Back on WordPress

Oh, WordPress, how I’ve missed you!
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? About six months ago, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making money with the whole blogging thing, so I went on over to Blogspot, home of such awesome blogs as Hyperbole and A Half, The Unheard Music and Books of Adam. From the beginning, it was a huge mistake. The importing process was horrendous. It took me a couple of months to get everything over there and all of the HTML was a mess. I should have had my second thoughts then but oh no! I couldn’t give up that easily! I accepted Blogger’s challenge and eventually got everything (mostly) in order.

After everything was finally imported, I did a bunch of things that I never needed to do with WordPress. I downloaded a stat counter, bashed myself in the face repeatedly trying to get Technorati to authenticate, and finally got to some blogging. Then, this is where Google comes in…

In case you didn’t know, Blogger is owned by Google. Evil, vile, filthy Google. This is why you’re allowed to use AdSense without having your own domain. So, I set up AdSense and everything’s going pretty well! I’m making a very small amount of money, but hey, that’s 35 cents that I didn’t have before, right? So, I’m trying to become acquainted with my new AdSense account, trying to decipher the cryptic puzzle that they give you to try to guess when you’re gonna start making some money, and I see that they won’t let me put in payment information until I’ve made $10. Okay, I can see the reasoning behind that. So, eventually, after watching my pennies add up, I make it to $10! WOOO! I can buy almost two packs of cigarettes! Almost. So I trek on back over to my AdSense account page and enter all of my important information and try to figure out when I’m getting that giant check, and I find out that you only get paid after you’ve reached $100. Well, shit. Okay. That’s fine. It’s like a tax refund…you wait all year, but when you get it it’s worth it. So, after SIX MONTHS of no unusual activity on the account, THEY SHUT IT DOWN FOR “IMPROPER CLICK ACTIVITY”!!!!! What is “improper click activity” you ask? From Google:

Why was my account disabled? Can you tell me more about the invalid click activity you detected?

Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved.

As you may know, Google treats invalid click activity very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. If we determine that an AdSense account may pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account to protect our advertisers’ interests.

Lastly, please note that as outlined in our Terms and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion when determining instances of invalid click activity.

So, essentially, to answer your question, no. No, Google will not tell you anything. They will just shut down your account and leave it up to you to start the appeal process, which is a joke. They give you a one page form to complete and send it off to god knows where for evaluation. So, I fill out this measly appeal form basically just telling them that I don’t know why this happened (there was no influx of hits or earnings) and this is what I get:

Hello,

Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you’ve
provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program.
However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your
feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we’re
unable to reinstate your AdSense account.

As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about your account,
the actions we’ve taken, or invalid activity in general, you can find more
information by visiting (their site).

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Well bull shit, Google. So I look to see if there’s anything else I can do about this and hit another brick wall:

My account was disabled and my appeal was denied. Is there any way I can rejoin the program? Can I open a new account?

We understand your concern about the actions taken against your account. Please know that our actions are the result of careful investigation by our team of dedicated specialists, taking into account the interests of our advertisers, publishers, and users. Though you may be disappointed with our decision, we are unable to reinstate your account.

Please also note that publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed any further participation in AdSense. For this reason, these publishers may not open new accounts. Lastly, please bear in mind that Google does reserve the right to disable an account for any reason, including invalid click activity from any source.

So, not only will Google not tell you why your account was disabled…there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it!

Wanna know what’s even better? This is only half of the war waging with Google right now. AdWords was the other, almost even more frustrating part of this battle.

A few months ago, Google CONTACTED ME about their AdWords program. They sent me an email offering a free trial and they would advertise the blog for up to $100. “Well, neat-o!”, I thought. To put things simply, the Blogspot URL I was using was too long. Your visible URL and your landing URL have to match and well, that just doesn’t work out when your URL is over 25 characters. It doesn’t help that it doesn’t actually SAY THIS ANYWHERE. Thank goodness for forums. AdWords is probably one of the most poorly run services that I have ever seen. While they kept telling me that my ad was not approved, that sure didn’t stop them from billing me! I ran through that $100 in about a week WITH NO APPROVED AD! Finally, after I hit the $100 mark, they approved my ad. You bet your ass I canceled that account with the quickness. Yeah, Google suckered me out of 44 cents. Those bastards.

Using both AdWords and AdSense is AMAZINGLY TERRIBLE. Using the two in conjunction, you get to see the outrageous prices that Google charges for clicks, then you get to see the measly amount that you actually get paid for it. Google will charge $5 for an ad, and the blogger gets about $.05. Who at Google thought that this was a good idea? Not only are they ripping you off, but now you get to see exactly how much they’re ripping you off for! Sweet!

I’m tired of Google thinking that they can get away with this stuff. It’s ridiculous, obscene, and just bad business. And I know it’s not just me…”I hate Google” gets 44,300,000 hits ON GOOGLE. And what’s even more terrible, is the kung-fu grip it has on my entire life. My YouTube, my blog, my email(s), my search engine…it’s disgusting. It’s attached to so many things, I can’t even feasibly delete those accounts right now. I had to put up a passive aggressive away message telling people to email me at one of my Yahoo! accounts.

Actually, it feels pretty good to be getting Google out of my life and starting something fresh. So this is it. Goodbye Google. I wish I could say that we were parting amicably, but that’s just not the case. I hope you get something terribly infectious and itchy. No longer yours,

That Girl With A Blog

Twitter Mouseover Problems

http://theoriginalgirlwithablog.blogspot.com/2010/09/twitter-mouseover-problems.html

Aaaaand We’re Back! With A Centipede Drama.

This thing was in my house, seriously. http://theoriginalgirlwithablog.blogspot.com/2010/08/aaaaand-were-back-with-centipede-drama.html

Scariest picture on the internet. Hands down.

Moving: A Drama

http://theoriginalgirlwithablog.blogspot.com/2010/07/moving-drama.html