vacation

was a long, super busy week at work, but I have made it through and am now off for a bit of vaca. I do not have to return to work until Friday December 5th. Ron and I had seriously considered driving over to Boise to spend Thanksgiving with Staci and Clint but at length our worries about our 10 year old car going through the passes in winter, combined with our own tight finances caused us to cancel. But I am taking my personal holiday the Sunday after Thanksgiving and a vacation day the Monday after. Since we are closed for paid holiday Thursday and Friday I have a full week of paid time off.

I am hoping to get some rest and to get caught up and posted ahead on the books blog. I have read three books that I need to blog about, including one from a publisher that I have to post about on December 5th as part of a publicity campaign. my blog earnings are still quite small but they are real and are growing. And now with a year and a half of book reviews published I am starting to be taken more seriously as a reviewer and receive free reading copies from publishers and their publicists. It's a nice perk, and I still enjoy publishing the site most of the time, though it is really hard on work days and particularly if work is really busy.

Our friend Bob is coming over for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. I got a 20lb turkey from Safeway, though we will need to make another grocery run tomorrow. Tonight I am just chilling and unwinding and will try to get into publisher and writer modes tomorrow.

the blog gods and godesses...

....seem to have it in for me this week. I did not manage to post on Monday because work was hellishly busy, then we had company all evening. Tuesday, I managed to write a clever book post, even working in a bookish meme I was tagged with. I put in lots of links, proof read and checked everything twice. I clicked publish and Shazaam-- an Earthlink configurator screen. moved back in my browser and found a completely blank Compose New Post form. Feh. Today I managed to get up a great post about an extraordinary new book, and the post looks great on the front page. But if you try to visit the full post page it somehow is Not There. No clue at all what's up with that or how to fix it. I suppose I'm going to have to ask for help but I sure don't Want to.

with being more or less offline and not dropping for several days, I am back down to number three in Books. I stayed up all night and dropped cards from the time Earthlink came back online around 2 am until nearly 7:30 am. My connection is sooooo sloow it took me that long to drop 300 cards. Yikes. I have read and am ready to post about Thursday's and Friday's books, but am almost afraid to try at this point.

I want a Peek!

I just saw something online that I REALLY want to get, just as soon as I can afford it. A million years ago when I had a Good Job at a big ISP, I used to carry a little pager size device with a full qwerty keyboard and tiny screen that allowed me to receive all of my regular e-mails by pager any time, any where. And I dearly loved it. But years later after my jobs were offshored and things were tight I had to drop the 25 dollar a month service.

But now there's Peek, which is said to be a stylishly thin, smart sized device that allows you to read your email any time/any where. And it only costs 80 bucks, then 20 a month service charge. I paid about 150 for that pager way back when. If anybody is wondering what to get me for Christmas....

I've rarely been

more happy to be wrong. I was absolutely shocked that McCain graciously conceded and the presidential election was firmly and clearly decided before midnight eastern time. When I went to bed last night, the word was that Arizona's same sex marriage ban had passed but California's had failed. It was a huge disappointment this morning to learn that California voters did in fact vote to deny a basic right to many of their fellow citizens. Closer to home, I was not surprised that the Washington governor's race was still up in the air. This morning's surprising news that Republican Dino Rossi has conceded was a relief.

Even more of a relief is that we have for now reached the end of the endless string of negative political commercials that have dominated tee vee for the past I don't know how long. I'm watching the noon local news and it is so nice to no longer be hearing all those horrible ads. Our long national nightmare will soon be over.

Be Sure To Vote Today

It's a bit after midnight on election eve. I have dropped my three hundred Entrecards, posted my election day post and have about 8 Entrecard ads running today. I don't really care if I get up to first place (and Puss Reboots sure is getting a lot of drops!) but staying in the top three is crucial.

Meanwhile despite being tired, having worked all day today, I find I am not sleepy and am guiltily watching a bit of CNN, where the ticker helpfully notes that the first polls will close in just over 14 hours from now. The best prediction I've heard so far comes from Nicole at Inspire Emotion who says to watch Virginia, where polls close at 7pm EST (4pm West Coast). If Obama wins in Virginia Nicole predicts he will win the election. If McCain takes Virginia we may be in for a long night.

My personal prediction, after chatting with some friends on Twitter last night is that we will not have a clear winner and resolution of the election on Tuesday night, but will have what it seems to me is now becoming the usual post-election theft of the prize, which will of course play out over Weeks of bickering news coverage.

Here's hoping Wednesday morning will not feel like a time for angry blogging.

a

Entrecard Drop List

Just FYI, below is my own personal Entrecard drop list. This list is only one of a number of ways in which I drop my three hundred cards a day, which I am doing fairly regularly of late. In addition to dropping from this list I also use Turnip of Power's EC drop list as well as the exceptionally useful tool published by Mar Matthias Darin which shows you tiny screen shots of the last three hundred and twenty five or so blogs that dropped on his blog. What's really neat is that when you click on a thumbnail, the blog opens in a new tab and the button image disappears, so you literally can't accidentally click the same blog twice and don't need to keep track of your place. I also, once or twice a month drop on my inbox, several times a week I drop on the top 10 blogs in my category, Books, as well as the top ten in Writing & Literature (the EC toolbar makes all of this really easy). And I also try to spend some of my drops each day just clicking on ads that are unfamiliar and catch my eye.

The list is arranged roughly in the order of the number of drops each of these blogs made on me, though in the under 4 drops/month there is some up and down, which I don't plan to bother correcting. This list is updated as of November 1st and will be updated when it becomes less useful ;)

Want to be added? Just drop your card HERE then leave a comment on this post. And keep on dropping.


Technically Easy 29 drops
Long Tail Ends 26 drops
Green Pastures 25 drops
Thrift Mom 24 drops
Cromley's World 22 drops
Thailand 1,000 Smiles 22 drops
Feeling Flirty 22 drops
MTMD 20 dr0ps
KML Photo 20 drops
EZ DIY electric 20 drops
Reading Nook 19 drops
Geek Mom Mashup 17 drops

Admin Arts 17 drops
Lapband Progress 16 drops
Mortgage And Moren 16 drops
Rich Real Estate 16 drops
Travelin Show 16 drops
Writing To Survive 15 drops
iPemiento 15 drops
Inspire Emotion 15 drops
Path To Pegasus 15 drops
Majik's Thoughts 15 drops
Eye Spi 14 drops
Sweet and Spice 14 drops
Junkfood Journey 14 drops

Blog 2 Sides 14 drops
Sexy Ads 14 drops
Margie Edna 14 drops
Mrs McOmber 13 drops
Joan Joyce 13 drops
Matthias 13 drops
Monique Renae 13 drops
Money Love Change 13 drops

ebook techie 13 drops
Lucent Dusk 13 drops
DB Comix 13 drops
Politics 2000 12 drops
Random Thoughts 12 drops
Junk Drawer 12 drops
1st Door Left 12 drops
Chica Pum 12 drops
Michael Aulia 12 drops
Superficial Gallery 11 drops


LPLPX 11 drops
Fennster 11 drops
Copy Write Ink 11 drops
West Of Mars 11 drops
Random Thoughts 11 drops
Fil Am Journey 11 drops
Wildclips 11 drops
Red Pine Mountain 11 drops

Random Detox 10 drops
Rose By Name 10 drops
glitchline 10 drops
Ask Super Z 10 drops
Life With Kim 10 drops
DB Comix 10 drops
Reap Money 10 drops

Coffee 9 drops
Mama Bear 9 drops
Neon Bubble 9 drops
Crap World 9 drops
Celebrity Today 9 drops
Asian Economist 9 drops
World Word 9 drops

apexto 9 drops
Plot Dog Press 9 drops
Beaker's Dimensions 9 drops
Copious Dissent 9 drops


Maurica 8 drops
Jason Biz Journal 8 drops
efabric 8 drops
Ben Barden 8 drops
Unpredictable Life 8 drops
Amy Lilley Designs 8 drops
So What Now 8 drops

Modern Glam 7 drops
HRM Business 7 drops
Rich's Blog 7 drops

Celebrity Today 7 drops


Art Blog Wild 6 drops
Click D Talk 6 drops
Visit NYC 6 drops
Here And Now 6 drops
Daisy Cat 6 drops


Of Cats 5 drops
Beauty Denominator 5 drops
Comedy Plus 5 drops
Steven Humor 5 drops
Comics Legends 5 drops

Flying Beagle 5 drops
Roller Blog 5 drops
Atlanta 5 drops
Monkey Fables 5 drops
Couch Tater 5 drops
Atniz 5 drops

Random Ramblings 5 drops
The Leet Gallery 5 drops
Worldwide Travel 5 drops
Holy Cute 5 drops
Yummy Down 5 drops
Handy Tips 5 drops


Tinkerbell 4 drops
small dog stuff 4 drops
Urban Swirl 4 drops
Empty Cup 4 drops
Texas RV Travel 4 drops
Doug in Missoula 4 drops


Walls Soft 3 drops
On The Bricks 3 drops
Obscure History 3 drops
Girl4Status 3 drops
The Beacon 3 drops
Sense Sensibility 3 drops
MMusings 3 drops
Fong pc 3 drops
Bookworm 37



Nicktay 3 drops
Wanjiku 3 drops
Clint Richie 3 drops
PNut Butter Blog 3 drops
Winter's Tale 3 drops

enviornmentastic 2 drops
Dirty Shanks 2 drops
Reach For More 2 drops



Mums Gotta 2 drops
Hi Mi 4 2 drops
Techfun 2 drops
Sensory Overload 2 drops
Midnight Cocoa 2 drops
Disco Diva 1 drop
Cabbages and Kings new to list
Slap Tickle new on list
Art Journal Nicole excused til after election
The Thin Red Line own site







Steam Punk Rings 3 drops
Kustara 2 drops
Hows Bradley 2 drops
So Called Life 2 drops
After Midnight 2 drops
Crissy's Library 1 drop
Literary Jewels 1 drop
Playthere 1 drop
Life With Rog 1 drop

Tokyo Tom 1 drop
Nawlins Food new on list
Marketers Ramblings 1 drop


Epicurian Health 1 drop
Makea Pound 1 drop
Trip The Lady 1 drop
Creative Nerd 1 drop
J Donuts 1 drop
Farvel Cargo 1 drop
If You Write It 1 drop
Modern Historian 1 drop
Beautiful Places 1 drop
Molly Brogan 1 drop

I'm afraid I'm Still

ignoring this blog. Though I have buckled down with the other one and gotten it published Mon--Fri this week and have pushed it back to the top slot in Books on Entrecard. I also updated my Entrecard drop list to try to focus more on friends who drop regularly and eliminated a number of EC drop outs and moved some non-droppers way to the bottom. (And thanks to EC for providing the drops rankings again. Not having that info was Really annoying.) I have also been using Turnip's list and have done the full 300/day more often than not this week.

And I am back to work and feeling bizzy. A happy weekend to all.