Top 10 or so People I Saw at the Mall Yesterday

I was reading a list of tips the other day. It was a bunch of things that are 'must haves' for successful bloggers. I know that I will never be a successful anything, let alone this blogging bull hockey, but I want to try so maybe people will like to read me.


One of the tips was about Top 10 lists. When I was an early teen I got to stay up late enough to watch Letterman's Top 10 and I thought it was great. So yesterday I took my camera to the mall and hip-shot people that looked halfway interesting. Apparently photography is illegal in many shopping centers, so don't tell anyone about this. Especially don't tell the crazy people that were at the mall yesterday.


These aren't in any particular order, but I'd be happy to explain them. But you should know that the lady watching the flautist was really dancing her crazy ass off, and the slightly washed-out redhead was probably onto me. I don't know for sure, but she did make clucking noises at me. Also, I have no idea why this paragraph is underlined, and I can't fix it.

Click to Riches

At first glance, freelance writing seems to be a big crappy mess. Sure, some sites dress up their crappy job opportunities by making them blog-related, or podcast-related, or virealball-related (the next big thing; you know, virtual reality football), but they are all sad for the same reason. Contributors aren't paid for facts, cleverness, or even boobage. Paychecks are instead divvied out according to ad-revenue, which is so completely sad. In fact, I wouldn't want anyone who clicks on embedded ads to be reading my articles. Does anyone still try to 'Shock the Monkey', or beat the guy in a swimming race, or do 10 pull-ups before the ad can? Crazy.

Then again, I apparently missed the boat on this phenomenon. As a matter of fact, my web content has been driving traffic to some completely bullshit websites for years. In college I wrote a faux-advice column for our paper, Chips (I don't know why it was called Chips). It was called the Lively Lagnappe, and I would make up questions, pretend someone sent them in to me, and answer them in funny, unexpected ways. Fairly juvenile, but entertaining and maybe helpful. Who knows?

These were all archived on the Chips website of course. I am fairly certain that my column no longer exists in the Chips archives. I haven't the foggiest idea where they may have gone, but suffice it to say I was disappointed to find them gone during a recent search. But my disappointment was nothing compare to my surprise when I found my columns littering websites hocking female condoms or offering varied information on deja vu.

http://www.rapex.co.za/The-Lively-Lagnappe/

I don't have a clue as to Chips' copyright protections. Should I be claiming past profits from web traffic, or just be happy that my one-off college writing career will now apparently outlast anything else I may do in life. Apparently I should accept my destiny as female condom salesman and deja vu mystic.