so here we are in day 3… i have put together my new monster computer on new egg and its sitting in the cart. all we’re waiting on is paypal to stop being stupid.

i made a paypal account last year with intent to connect it to a bank account and use it for this paid blogging stuff, but with all the crazy crap that happened with my dad i never got around to adding that bank account. in april this year i suddenly got an email from paypal (yes it was from paypal not a phishing scam, i am not stupid and i went to the actual paypal.com site where it said this.) paypal tells me that they think a third party has accessed my account and that the account is limited.. uh.. ooookay? the account was empty, i never used it at all, and it had no bank account on it, so that seemed dumb to me. it told me i needed to change some details, so i did, and then it asked for a bank account. well i didn’t have a bank account in april so i just let it sit there until i got one.

enter yesterday where i finally get a bank account (that part was easy), i add my info to my paypal account, thinking the restriction will be removed and everything will go back to normal, except it didn’t… it shows no case to resolve in my resolution center but it also says the account is limited and i need to complete steps. all the steps are checked… i kinda need to use this thing paypal!!!

so i go to the call us section to get a phone number and fix this. except the customer service number is LONG DISTANCE!!! i’m not sure who’s grand scheme that was but its very inconvenient. our phone plan does not cover long distance. i can only make local calls. my mother has a cellphone but to use it i would have to go outside away from the computer screen so if they asked me to do anything account related, i would not be able to. i have emailed them twice, but we all know how emailing a big company goes.. i’m sure i will have 2 form letters sitting in my inbox later today. i wasn’t even able to log into their help forum to get advice on this topic because it kept logging me out of paypal and would not let me log into the forum at all.

so since the paypal thing isn’t working, i’m going to have to wait on my check card to arrive in the mail.. which means that my computer is delayed and i’m going to be stuck on this stupid laptop even longer.

edit!: just got an email from paypal and my account has been restored and can be used! yay! computer ordering is happening today!

i am kind of glad i didn’t rush rush and get everything taken care of, because the computer that i had put together on new egg was not good. the parts were not as great as i thought they were and that’s because i fail at computer hardware. i’m really good with software but computer parts are just alien to me and without dad’s help i’m pretty much lost.

i was hoping to call new egg and talk to someone that knows stuff but oh no, you can’t get any advice on products via the phone, so i had to sign up for their forum, and post my build and ask for advice. i did get some great advice and ended up with a slightly more expensive machine, but at least this one has all the bits and bobs i need to do what i want to do.

i’m going with windows 7 64 bit and i hope that’s not a mistake, but everyone seemed pretty confident about it working with what i have program wise so i’m just going to pray they aren’t wrong.

ok this blog is turning into a book…

its weird how completely discombobulated i feel after not having my pc for a day or so. the fact that this time around i don’t even have my own laptop to fall back on makes it more noticeable just how disconnected i am right now. on mom’s laptop all i’ve done is surf the net, watch anime, and play some flash games. i’ve checked my sl offline messages using a text only client, and i’ve probably poked twitter more than i ever have.

today i’m taking a big step towards real actual adulthood. i’m going to the bank to get a bank account. yes i know, i’m almost 30 and i don’t have a bank account. but i have a reason for that. my parents had a lot of problems with debt due to dad’s medical bills and all that stuff. they had a lot of trouble with the bank because of that and so i just sort of skipped the bank account thing. i need it now to get this new computer so the time has come (i need one anyway… but this is another shove)

mom was approved for ssi which is good because it means we are no longer really worrying about her money situation. unlike my dad, mom’s medical bills are rather small, so she will have plenty left over to help her with other expenses, and every day stuff that she needs. so yay for the government getting off their asses.

ok off i go to get a bank account!

i woke up to a frozen computer. no i don’t mean cold, i mean it was just stuck on my screen saver but the screen saver wasn’t moving and i couldn’t wake it up. after a few minutes the monitor said “no signal” and i was unable to revive it.

i can’t believe i have already blown yet ANOTHER videocard. didn’t we just go though this crap not long ago? i actually think its almost been an exact year since the last one died.

thankfully i have been researching a new computer for a while now. i have some emergency savings that i was going to use for this sort of thing and i’m just going to go ahead and do it.

right now i’m stuck on my mom’s laptop which means no videogames, no photoshop, no 3d programs, just good old internet browsing. but at least i have some sort of connection to the internet so i’m not going to TOTALLY die.. just sorta kinda out of comission. i guess its time to make a dent in the billions of console games i have shoved under my tv shelf.

i haven’t had much to write about lately but i feel like i should write something. i hate it when that’s the first sentence i write but its so true these days. i have a giant list of games that i need to write about but i’m lazy.. bleh.

farmville is now available on the ipod, and i think i should probably do some sort of ipod app review sometime because i keep downloading new ones all the time. anyway the farmville app is kinda.. eh.. i’ll write more about it later but its still new so there are bugs to work out i’m sure. if nothing else it makes it so i don’t have to go to the website or facebook to poke at my crops and what not.

i’ve been playing the sims 3 a bit more lately! shocker i know… i don’t really like the sims 3. not as much as the sims 2, but i did end up making a sim and i kinda fell in love with her weird personality so i’ve been playing it a bit more off and on. i do think i would like to get the expansion packs at some point, maybe for my birthday or something. you can of course check out my sims rambling on the lj i have set up for it here.

final thing for this blog, i wanted to show off a bit more of my 3d work! i’m learning a lot via some good tutorials on youtube. here’s a dumpster i made in a couple of hours!

and then the same dumpster with a bit of colour and better lighting/rendering settings

nothing too special but its  something to learn and i’m picking it up a lot easier now than in the past. next i’m going to attempt actual textures.

recently i mentioned a pretty cool website called zenni optical where you can buy nice and affordable glasses, and you only need your perscription. well i was looking though the choices trying to decide on which ones i would like and did a bit more personal research on buying eyeglasses online, when i came across an interesting article about how opticians try to keep you from going to different places for glasses by withholding perscription information!

the part that they are keeping from people is the “PD” or Pupillary Distance, which is basically the distance between your pupils. you could obviously try to measure this at home but without the proper equipment you’re never going to get an accurate number. that number is important to places that sell glasses because they need it to make sure your glasses fit correctly.

i think this is absolutely ridiculous. they are trying to stop you from having a choice as to where you buy your glasses, trying to force you into purchasing a pair directly from them instead of shopping around. of course there are some opticians who will give you this info but it seems to be a growing trend that they don’t. some are even charging a fee for you to come in and get your PD measurement instead of just giving you the number on your prescription! your PD never changes, so you only need to have it measured once in your life.

at any rate, i think that sucks, and i hope if i do decide on buying a pair of these glasses that my optician will not be a jerk and will give me my PD without any hassle, otherwise i’ll be finding a new eye doctor.

i wanted to write up a blog post about the various sites i’ve been working with recently to try and get a bit of extra cash. i was pretty worried about starting up this stuff, thinking i wasn’t really going to make any money but i am pretty surprised at my results. of course there are people out there making quite a bit more, but those people also have more than one blog, or they are just damn good bloggers. for a casual blogger like myself, i’m pretty happy with what i’ve made so far! so lets check out the various sites and programs i’m working with.

a small disclosure before we start. even though i am using some referral links here, i do want to mention that i did not write this blog in exchange for any payment. i am just writing this in hope that it will help others who are interested in getting into this sort of stuff.

paid blogging:

to some paid blogging is spam, and yeah i used to really hate going to blogs and seeing a ton of ads and hardly any real blog posts. however with the way things are money wise, i can see why a lot of people are gravitating to paid blogging, and it really does work out! i am using a few different sites for paid blogging.

• pay-per-post – this is an izea site that offers assignments to bloggers to write about different advertisements. its a very simple site thought sometimes there aren’t many assignments. you don’t get to go down the list and grab ones you want, instead the advertisers will pick you if they want to. you can cash out at any time but they do charge a fee if you cash out before you reach 50$.
• inpostlinks – another izea site, this one has by far paid me the most. all you need to do for this site is go to the available links, pick the one you want, write a blog and stick the link in it. they prefer you to write on the same topic as the link, but you can pretty much blog about anything and add the link in where it seems relevant. this site is great because there is no cash out. it just pays your paypal account automatically.
• social spark – yet another izea site. this site i haven’t had much luck on, and i assume that’s because my blog is not very popular. it looks great, and has a very social media feel to it, but for me most of the time its dead. there are no offers and i’ve only made a couple bucks. they do have some affiliate programs though which i have taken advantage of. this site only lets you cash out after you reach 50$.

twitter advertising:

along with the paid blogging, i resurrected my twitter account to start advertising there. its fairly simple to do and currently i have two sites that i use primarily. magpie and sponsored tweets.

sponsored tweets is another izea site, and for you to qualify for advertising you must have specific number of followers and a specific number of tweets (though i cannot remember those numbers at the moment) they have both opportunities sent to you via advertisers and cost per click ops which you can take at any time. the site uses an api that automatically sends the tweets though twitter so you don’t have to tweet them yourself. it does allow you to write the tweet in your own voice though, which makes it less robotic and more personal. i’ve not made much money with sponsored tweets, but i’ve only had the required number of followers for a few months, so i’m expecting to see more from this site in the future.

magpie runs on almost the same system but it is not an izea site. advertisers send you offers and you decide if you want the system to tweet it or not. if you accept they make sure you’re what they need, and then they send the tweet on though the api. like sponsored tweets, magpie allows you to rewrite the tweet to suit you best. magpie has been far more successful for me, but that is mostly because it does not have the limits like sponsored tweets has, therefore i was able to begin tweeting advertisements almost immediately.

i woke up to a lovely email from wordpress letting me know that wordpress 3.0 is now available. i had the initial fear of “oh god if i update my wordpress i might have to recode this whole damn layout” but thankfully nothing exploded. i love the newer versions of wordpress for their auto update feature. never again will i have to go though the hell of old wordpress upgrades.

for a while now i’ve had a little trick up my sleeve for my theme writing and blog testing. i have a local install of wordpress tucked away on my hard drive that i use to make sure i’m not going to cause my blog to die in a fire. its seriously simple to set up and you can find the directions here. you can use it to build your new themes without having to upload it to your site, you can test out new wordpress updates without making a mess, and you can make sure those new plugins work right before setting them up in your live blog.

so i just ran to my local install and updated wordpress and everything looked ok, so now the real blog is on wordpress 3.0. yay!

sorry for the lack of real blog posts. i’ve been pretty boring lately it seems! my brother and sister in law are moving out soon and its going to just be me and mom after they go… (well.. and dorian of course but only me and mom human wise :p) so the house is a mess and we’re all trying to figure things out and move stuff around. i’ll be moving back into my old room which is slightly larger than the room i’m in now. mom will be moving into the bedroom that used to be dad’s.

with this move i’ll get to reclaim my bigger desk which has been sitting in the living room since i moved back here a couple years ago. this desk i have now is ok but its very small and cramped and there’s really no room for my legs to go under it, so i end up sitting in an awkward position and that has really irritated my back as well as the tendonitis i already have in my right arm. so needless to say i will be happy to get my nice desk back.

i’ve been playing around in 3d programs again and i’ve learned how to use some old tools i used to use a long time ago when i first started learning how to make 3d stuff.

basically all i’ve made is this waterbottle:

not much but hey its something!

i have a few games to write about but i’m too lazy to write anything about them right now so stay tuned for that later.

have you ever experienced an accident due to a tire blow out? its never happened to me but my mom is really good at keeping an eye on our tire pressure. tire failure can occur if they are underinflated, overinflated, or just old, so its a good idea to check on them every once in a while.

do you know how to properly check your tire pressure? its not that hard to do and its pretty fast too. there are places online that can show you how to do that but i assume most people who know how to drive know how to check that sort of thing. you can buy a pressure gage from an auto parts store or even a local gas station.

something interesting i didn’t realize, is that you might have a lawsuit against the tire manufacturer if you have an accident due to defective tires. there are great sites out there that can assist you in getting in touch with a lawyer if you have been injured due to a defective tire accident. there’s also a lot of information on sites like the one i linked above that can help you understand more about what to look out for when it comes to your tires.

sometimes i have absolutely no idea what to do with my time, even when i know i have stuff i could be doing. i could be working on a new theme for this blog, but instead i spent time browsing a pdf download site because i was bored out of my mind!

i have books to read, games to play, and yet i’m just sitting here idle, rambling on in this blog post for some reason. when i get bored i catch myself doing really dull stuff that makes no sense (like this), or i aimlessly wander the internet until i can’t stand it any more. sometimes i’ll find something amusing by doing that but most of the time it just adds to the overwhelming bored feeling i have.

i guess i should stop rambling and work on my blog layout! its half way done i just have to finish the css for it and upload everything to the server. i need someone to hover over me and slap my hands when i start looking at random websites and distract myself from doing work maybe i need some sort of program that will block me from browsing the net! what do you do when you’re bored?