I got the check from Elections on Monday, which I have to say was pretty quick. It was about what I expected, so I have no complaints except to say that elections don’t seem to come often enough.
I’m still waiting on the new most-popular lists for Epinions. I’m hoping to climb higher than 980 overall. I put a link to my Epinions profile on the side; you can see how well I’m doing by clicking on it.
I’m still relisting my books on Half.com. I’d say that I’ve already gotten through a lot of them. If I keep up at it, I should be able to do it by the end of the week, but there’s no rush. In order to keep my free bank account with Bank of America, I need direct deposit and there’s no minimum on how much has to be deposited, so all I really need to do is sell one book every month. I’ve just gotten a deposit and I should be getting another in a few weeks.
That’s all for now. I’ll probably be posting more soon.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Monday, March 21, 2005
Epinions and stuff
I got an additional 70¢ from Epinions, which I believe to be from February. 20¢ came from a review of an iron. I’m rapidly approaching 900. I figure that if I write one review a day, I’ll hit 1,000 in four months.
I’ve been looking at the classifieds and online, but I can’t find anything that I can apply for. A lot of it is stuff that I just wouldn’t be qualified for. It’s hard having a lot of jobs and none that are right for me. I applied for a few a while ago, but I haven’t heard anything from many of them.
It’s hard to go in for an interview. When I do get one, the pressure’s on. Interviews are so few and far between that I have to make them count and I get anxious. You know those bumper stickers with the 1-800 numbers that read, “How’s my driving?” I was thinking that there should be one of those for interviewing. I’d love to know what it is that I’m doing wrong. The trouble is that it would never work. It would be hard to ask someone to call and say bad things about me.
The only thing I have left to do is to keep trying. Eventually, I’ll get a job.
I’ve been looking at the classifieds and online, but I can’t find anything that I can apply for. A lot of it is stuff that I just wouldn’t be qualified for. It’s hard having a lot of jobs and none that are right for me. I applied for a few a while ago, but I haven’t heard anything from many of them.
It’s hard to go in for an interview. When I do get one, the pressure’s on. Interviews are so few and far between that I have to make them count and I get anxious. You know those bumper stickers with the 1-800 numbers that read, “How’s my driving?” I was thinking that there should be one of those for interviewing. I’d love to know what it is that I’m doing wrong. The trouble is that it would never work. It would be hard to ask someone to call and say bad things about me.
The only thing I have left to do is to keep trying. Eventually, I’ll get a job.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Yard Sale and more Epinions
My current balance for Epinions has been revised; I now have $6.09 in my account. The thing is that only nine cents comes from reviews that I wrote in February. My review of Netflix has gotten me $1.31 so far. My review of “The Automatic Millionaire” has earned me $1.92 since I posted it on August 24th of this year. I’m still waiting for five episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be added so that I can post those reviews. I may have to send another email to see if they got my first one.
The yard sale went pretty well. I got rid of a lot of books, but I still have a lot more. I’m going to have to repost them since it would have been too difficult to keep track of what I had sold. I had bought a lot of them at other yard sales, the dollar store and thrift shops. I figure that I made a small profit on what I sold, so I can’t really complain.
Books are particularly difficult to get rid of. My only two options are eBay and Half.com. There are some sites that buy and sell textbooks because of the higher profit margins, but the best I can usually do is a site that acts as an intermediary. I could take them to a used bookstore, but all of the places that I know of only offer store credit and I don’t really want to buy more books. Right now, the best option for my needs is Half.com.
Music and movies are a little easier. Not only do I still have Half.com and eBay, but there’s a site called Second Spin, which will buy CDs, VHS tapes and DVDs, although I might not get more than a quarter for them. Also, I have to pay to ship to them whereas on Half.com and eBay, they buyer pays.
Another option is Spec’s, which buys CDs and DVDs. I think they also buy console games, but I’m not sure. They use to pay cash, but they’ve started giving store credit. If I want cash, I can only get 80% of the value. The cash is more useful to me. It’s the same problem with credit for books; I’d have to buy something there and I don’t listen to enough CDs that the 20% would be worth it.
My absolute last resort is a nearby EB Games, which only offers store credit. At least with EB Games, there’s the possibility of my buying something. I recently got a Grand Theft Auto three-pack, which was selling for $9.99. By using the credit I had earned, I only paid $1.92 for it. The reason I had so little credit is that I don’t bring in too many things to them; they basically get what I can’t get rid of elsewhere. The good news is that they take DVDs, CDs and games and will take almost anything that I bring in. DVDs and CDs don’t bring in that much since that’s not their main business, but I’d rather take a few dollars store credit than have to keep something that I don’t want.
I wish I had some way of selling off the books easily. I may try selling a few on eBay before I go and relist them on Half.com. I’m hoping that there will be a few preorders. With Half.com, someone can place what’s called a preorder, which means that when someone lists an item, they have the option of selling it at the requested price or listing it at a higher price. Once an item is listed, I have no way of knowing if any preorders come in later. Relisting will give me the opportunity to see what’s out there, although I’m not holding out much hope. There are a lot of items listed at 75 cents, which is the minimum someone can list at for any item.
I’ll probably put up another post once I get that done.
The yard sale went pretty well. I got rid of a lot of books, but I still have a lot more. I’m going to have to repost them since it would have been too difficult to keep track of what I had sold. I had bought a lot of them at other yard sales, the dollar store and thrift shops. I figure that I made a small profit on what I sold, so I can’t really complain.
Books are particularly difficult to get rid of. My only two options are eBay and Half.com. There are some sites that buy and sell textbooks because of the higher profit margins, but the best I can usually do is a site that acts as an intermediary. I could take them to a used bookstore, but all of the places that I know of only offer store credit and I don’t really want to buy more books. Right now, the best option for my needs is Half.com.
Music and movies are a little easier. Not only do I still have Half.com and eBay, but there’s a site called Second Spin, which will buy CDs, VHS tapes and DVDs, although I might not get more than a quarter for them. Also, I have to pay to ship to them whereas on Half.com and eBay, they buyer pays.
Another option is Spec’s, which buys CDs and DVDs. I think they also buy console games, but I’m not sure. They use to pay cash, but they’ve started giving store credit. If I want cash, I can only get 80% of the value. The cash is more useful to me. It’s the same problem with credit for books; I’d have to buy something there and I don’t listen to enough CDs that the 20% would be worth it.
My absolute last resort is a nearby EB Games, which only offers store credit. At least with EB Games, there’s the possibility of my buying something. I recently got a Grand Theft Auto three-pack, which was selling for $9.99. By using the credit I had earned, I only paid $1.92 for it. The reason I had so little credit is that I don’t bring in too many things to them; they basically get what I can’t get rid of elsewhere. The good news is that they take DVDs, CDs and games and will take almost anything that I bring in. DVDs and CDs don’t bring in that much since that’s not their main business, but I’d rather take a few dollars store credit than have to keep something that I don’t want.
I wish I had some way of selling off the books easily. I may try selling a few on eBay before I go and relist them on Half.com. I’m hoping that there will be a few preorders. With Half.com, someone can place what’s called a preorder, which means that when someone lists an item, they have the option of selling it at the requested price or listing it at a higher price. Once an item is listed, I have no way of knowing if any preorders come in later. Relisting will give me the opportunity to see what’s out there, although I’m not holding out much hope. There are a lot of items listed at 75 cents, which is the minimum someone can list at for any item.
I’ll probably put up another post once I get that done.
Friday, March 11, 2005
The next day
Well, the election went pretty well. As expected, there wasn’t much of a turnout at our precinct. There was really only one issue in our precinct, and that was whether or not to allow slot machines at racetracks. The measure was defeated in Miami-Dade County, but passed in Broward County.
One of the advantages of low turnout is that closing up was easy. I think that we only had two machines where the number of ballots was in the double digits. It really saves very little time because most of the work is the same. We still have to count the number of signatures. We still have to take the machines down. We still have to do all of the same paperwork. This election, we had eight machines instead of the usual nine or ten, which meant that the savings in time was negligible.
The only thing of any interest was a man that wanted to vote in our precinct, but wasn’t registered here. His actual polling place was only a mile away, but he insisted in voting where we were. On Election Day, you have to vote at your home precinct; this is the only reason that we will actually refuse to let someone vote. We think that it may have been someone that was testing us or was trying to get attention. We may never know.
On a different note, I found out that I got some money from Epinions, but it’s still not enough to cash out. I got $2.11 for the month of February, which is down from $3.19 for January. It’s odd because I was actually able to write two reviews a day for February, which was up from one a day for January. I tend to write a lot of reviews of Star Trek episodes, which don’t earn as much. The big money is in electronics.
In a few days, the standings per category and overall will be updated. If you want to see how I’m doing, you can go to http://www.epinions.com/user-seacow. You have to go down a little, but it will show my rank if I’m in the top 1,000. I’ve already made the top 1,000 overall. I’m hoping to also rank in each of the 23 categories. Maybe I’ll even be able to make the top 100 in something.
Some categories, like Education, are easy to rank in. The person that currently holds 1,000th place for pets only has 295 total page views in that category. The only reason that I haven’t ranked is that I only have two reviews in that category. Two more and I’ll probably come close. The hardest to rank in is, of course, electronics with the person in 1,000th place having 8233 total page views. I doubt very much that I’ll ever do that well in Electronics.
I’d be interested in making the top thousand list for individual reviews. The only category where I rank is Business & Technology, where the minimum is 541 for a review. Education is 460 and Pets is 392, but I haven’t made either of those lists. I suppose the trick is to keep writing. I like to write and I seem to do well at it. I don’t get many people that look at my stuff, but those that do tend to rate my stuff pretty well.
I don’t know when my next entry will be. I’ve been meaning to do something on Half.com. I’m sure that I’ll get to it eventually.
One of the advantages of low turnout is that closing up was easy. I think that we only had two machines where the number of ballots was in the double digits. It really saves very little time because most of the work is the same. We still have to count the number of signatures. We still have to take the machines down. We still have to do all of the same paperwork. This election, we had eight machines instead of the usual nine or ten, which meant that the savings in time was negligible.
The only thing of any interest was a man that wanted to vote in our precinct, but wasn’t registered here. His actual polling place was only a mile away, but he insisted in voting where we were. On Election Day, you have to vote at your home precinct; this is the only reason that we will actually refuse to let someone vote. We think that it may have been someone that was testing us or was trying to get attention. We may never know.
On a different note, I found out that I got some money from Epinions, but it’s still not enough to cash out. I got $2.11 for the month of February, which is down from $3.19 for January. It’s odd because I was actually able to write two reviews a day for February, which was up from one a day for January. I tend to write a lot of reviews of Star Trek episodes, which don’t earn as much. The big money is in electronics.
In a few days, the standings per category and overall will be updated. If you want to see how I’m doing, you can go to http://www.epinions.com/user-seacow. You have to go down a little, but it will show my rank if I’m in the top 1,000. I’ve already made the top 1,000 overall. I’m hoping to also rank in each of the 23 categories. Maybe I’ll even be able to make the top 100 in something.
Some categories, like Education, are easy to rank in. The person that currently holds 1,000th place for pets only has 295 total page views in that category. The only reason that I haven’t ranked is that I only have two reviews in that category. Two more and I’ll probably come close. The hardest to rank in is, of course, electronics with the person in 1,000th place having 8233 total page views. I doubt very much that I’ll ever do that well in Electronics.
I’d be interested in making the top thousand list for individual reviews. The only category where I rank is Business & Technology, where the minimum is 541 for a review. Education is 460 and Pets is 392, but I haven’t made either of those lists. I suppose the trick is to keep writing. I like to write and I seem to do well at it. I don’t get many people that look at my stuff, but those that do tend to rate my stuff pretty well.
I don’t know when my next entry will be. I’ve been meaning to do something on Half.com. I’m sure that I’ll get to it eventually.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Election Day
Today’s the big day. I thought that I’d just write something quickly. I went in yesterday at four to help set everything up. As usual, there was one machine that didn’t work. It took some time with tech support, but all eight machines now work.
I have to be there again at 5:45 a.m., which is in less than thirty minutes. Once there, I’ll probably be there until 8:00 p.m. It’s a long day, but I’ll be getting paid about $150 for it. Someone said that we’ll be getting paid more quickly this time. I hope so. I don’t know what the delay is.
I like the place that we have this time. It’s in a building with several other precincts. The place we had before was ok, but I think that this one is better suited for an election. I’m not really sure what happed with the last location. Rumor is that the property changed ownership and the new owners didn’t want us there, but I never heard anything official.
I still have a little more to do to get ready. I’ll probably do something longer within the next day or two.
I have to be there again at 5:45 a.m., which is in less than thirty minutes. Once there, I’ll probably be there until 8:00 p.m. It’s a long day, but I’ll be getting paid about $150 for it. Someone said that we’ll be getting paid more quickly this time. I hope so. I don’t know what the delay is.
I like the place that we have this time. It’s in a building with several other precincts. The place we had before was ok, but I think that this one is better suited for an election. I’m not really sure what happed with the last location. Rumor is that the property changed ownership and the new owners didn’t want us there, but I never heard anything official.
I still have a little more to do to get ready. I’ll probably do something longer within the next day or two.
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