Welcome to Jason Melancon.com

My First Adsense Check is Coming.

I haven’t been posting on here for some time, but have been making good progress with Adsense. As you can see by the image below I will be at a total of $100.15 ($89.65 + $10.50). Google’s payout starts at $100. I can now expect to see a check from Google some time after the beginning of next month. I’ll have to photocopy and frame it. Hopefully the first of many to come!

The State of My Adsense Account as of Jan. 18, 2012

Now, this is with adsense only. And surprisingly only with work that’s been done on this site. I paid a company about $40 to do a site and that hasn’t produced any results in adsense yet for me. They promised the usual stuff, but so far that hasn’t happened. But whatever I’m doing here is working and I will have to focus on that.

This has taken me over a year to get to this point starting around Sept. 2010. As you can probably gather I’m averaging around $10-$15 a month with adsense. This is a good start. For a very long time my adsense account sat dormant. Now it’s finally starting to wake up and take a deep breath.

Moral of this short story is don’t buy into these get rich schemes and gifting programs. Adsense works and so far it’s the only thing that has worked for me. Once I actually have the check in my hand and see the money in my bank that will motivate me to go forward and really put some effort into adsense and even pay-per-click advertising.

A Pedestrian Marked for Death in San Francisco

Every day I step out of my apartment in San Francisco I wonder will this be the day? How will it end? Will I be hit by a taxi driver anxious to get to his next fare? Maybe it’ll be someone talking on their phone when they’re supposed to be driving. Or maybe it’ll be some rich person in a fancy car and no insurance.

However it happens I’m getting more and more convinced that it will happen. It’s gotten to the point that just about every day I have a close call with a vehicle. Now, let me tell you up front that I obey the walk signals unlike the rest of the pedestrians out there. I also don’t stand inside the street while waiting to cross. And while I’m crossing the street I’m watching the vehicles around me because I don’t know what they’re going to do since most of them don’t use their turn signals.

Along my route to and from the BART stations there are a few spots that are more dangerous than others. I have them listed below:

Post St / Hyde St - Just outside my apartment building death awaits. Vehicles on Post turning right onto Hyde are impatient to let pedestrians through. Same goes sometimes for vehicles on Hyde turning left onto Post.

Post St / Leavenworth St - Vehicles on Post turning left onto Leavenworth are also impatient and particularly if you are crossing the North side of Post from West to East.

Hyde St / Golden Gate Ave - I’ve had my closest encounter here. Vehicles on Golden Gate are impatient to turn right onto Hyde and some will run the red light.

Mason St / Geary St - Vehicles on Mason turning right onto Geary are very impatient and will be inside the crosswalk with you as you’re crossing. I’ve gotten a lot of stares as if to say “how dare you get in my way.”

Mason St / Ellis St - Here vehicles on Mason turning left onto Ellis will typically not yield to pedestrians. I’ve given up trying to cross Ellis on the East side of Mason. But now crossing Ellis on the West side of Mason is just as bad because of vehicles turning right onto Mason.

I’m sure there are plenty of other intersections that are dangerous in this city. These are the ones I have to deal with on a daily basis. One thing that amazes me the most here is all the jay-walking I see happening and people standing inside the street. I can’t comprehend why someone would stand in the street while waiting to cross. I see so many people coming close to getting hit, but they don’t. While I, on the other hand, come very close quite often and I’m doing what I should be doing to stay safe and in one piece.

I mentioned a show a while back called Perils for Pedestrians. I bet there would be a whole series for them to do if they came here. Contact me if you do.

Join the Anti Gold Rush | antigoldrush

A good friend of mine, Timothy Gilmore, has a very interesting book he’s written and asked me to help him get a website setup to make it available. Together we’ve created AntiGoldRush.com and today we are officially launching it.

The book is titled “Ultimate Poverty, Unlimited Wealth” and is available now at the site.

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” To change this worldwide, go to AntiGoldRush.com

Timothy Gilmore

It's the End of the World! | harold camping

Well, here we are on October 21st and Harold Camping‘s already got himself a way out of if things don’t go as planned today.

If you remember, Harold Camping predicted the Rapture was to take place on May 21st of this year and the end of the world is to take place today. Well, May 21st came and went with nothing happening. He claimed it was a “spiritual” rapture.

Now, here we are at October 21st and some of us are waiting to see what happens and preparing our pointing fingers…just in case.

What is Harold Camping’s way out of this one? According to the Washington Post:

“I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there’s going to be no big display of any kind,” he said in an audio address after suffering a stroke in June. “The end is going to come very, very quietly.”

Huh? “No big display”? What does that mean? The world will be here one second and the next, nothing? It’ll just disappear? What about all the death and suffering for the non-believers? I want a show! If I’m going to die today I want to know it’s going to happen, not just go “poof”!

Obviously, Harold Camping and Family Radio are silent as opposed to them talking to anyone and everyone leading up to May 21st. I would expect they’re trying to avoid another situation like May 21st, but it’s far too late for that. The damage is done to their credibility and, sorry to say this but, anyone still sending them money deserves to have it taken away from them.

I wouldn’t give Harold Camping any money, period. That’s all this is about and that’s all it’s been about for these false prophets throughout history.

So, continue with your usual activities. Nothing to see here…move along.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” R.E.M.

I bet that song will sell quite a bit more than usual in the next few days. I know I’m planning to get it.

We’ll see what Harold Camping has up his sleeves again starting tomorrow…stay tuned.

Amazon Welcomes Back California Associates

Great news for everyone in California as Amazon reopens affilate accounts for all California Associates. Earlier in June Amazon had closed the door on associates in the state of California because of state law that was requiring Amazon to collect taxes.

“As you may have heard, California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to terminate our California Associates. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates program.”

As part of an reached aggreement Amazon has agreed to start collecting sales taxes in September 2012. They will also work with California and other states to ask Congress to pass a national Internet sales tax collection law.

This is very welcome news to 10,000 California Associates that were “fired” in June. Now those who were left in June can resume advertising Amazon’s products through blogs and make comissions. But it comes too late for some who have already gone out of business or left California when their Amazon-related business dried up.

California Associates can get going again by signing into their account and finding a link to reactivate. After agreeing to terms they’ll be back up and running.

Hopefully this won’t happen again for California Associates or anyone else trying to make money online.