Welcome to the Machine (and Vote)

I have received numerous complaints yesterday and today that I have been quiet for the past week or so. People say “you haven’t posted in several days!” and “I haven’t seen any new articles!” and “your posts really suck!”
Jeeze people! What do you think I am a machine? If you did you would be right of course, because I AM a machine. A FreeLance Machine. I’m just a machine that happens to get lazy now and then. So sue me.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, I have huge news!

I am now a contributing writer to several fantastically paying websites! The first one I would encourage anybody who likes to travel (and who doesn’t like to travel?) to check out because they pay for short articles about places to visit, travel experiences, travel recommendations etc. This can be about damn near anything apparently. I wrote a quick paragraph about a really fantastic hike/beach/camp trip on Washington’s Olympic coast, and they want to pay me for it! I could write a million of these things! And at $5 each that’s like five million dollars! Now, just got to figure out what to do with all that money.

Oh, and secondly, the more important thing about this website: they have a “Sponsored Traveler” contest every month, which involves people (like you) voting to chose who gets $250 cash. To cover travel stuff. And guess who the first applicant for June is? ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!!

SO GO VOTE!!!!!!!!

Here is the link: http://travelmaharishi.com/?page_id=635

Please for the love of God and all things decent vote and get everybody you know to vote. For me of course. This is a vote that can actually change a person’s life forever. FOREVER!

And if there was any confusion, I am the guy named Lance that’s going to Peru. So don’t vote for Joe going to Iceland. No. Vote for Lance. Peru.

Vote.

And I don’t see it say anywhere that animals are not allowed to vote, so if you have a dog or a cat, position their paw above the corresponding mouse button, move the cursor over the "vote for Lance - Peru" button, and press firmly. And feel free to enjoy the subsequent warm fuzzy feeling, courtesy of me. Many thanks.

Another site that I will be writing for is Brooklynexposed.com

Its relatively new, having just officially gone live on April 7th, and is still under construction, but, this is right up my alley as well. This is the kind of website which will pay me for writing about eating and drinking around Brooklyn. And other stuff too of course. But eating and drinking! I can do that. I can do that really well in fact.

Man, who knew that FreeLance writing kicked so much ass? Its awesome. But remember, only you can prevent employment!

So get out there and do your civic duty: VOTE!

Thank you.

Okay time for plan B.

Maria (if that is indeed your real name) and I have been talking about starting up a webpage oriented generally towards bitching about the subway. We figured we’d call it Subwaysucks.com, but as it turns out that website is already claimed by some maniac who has an obsession with dissing Subway the sandwich chain. But that seems a little single mindedly negative to me, so we thought about something like subwayrantandrave.com

That is, ranting and raving about the subway. Because we could then make it much more than just bitching about the subway. It could be all kinds of stuff related to commuting, working, living in NY, how the subway ROX, being unemployed, or bored or whatever. And if there is one thing I have learned from this here blog here, its that random stupid internet sites can actually make money! As long as you don’t post something on the site like “click on the ads! They pay me loads of money!” That apparently will get your Google Adsense account shutdown. And those Google guys aren’t the best of listeners either, so don’t bother trying to explain how you were simply attempting to feed your starving family of 12. They really don’t care.

What that means for you, Dear Readers, is that as we get this other stupid web page up and running, I will be spending less time on this here stupid web page. Yah yah I know, you are all totally disappointed. But don’t fear! You’ll be able to find all the same idiocy, debauchery, and certifiable lunacy at the new site as you came to expect and rely on at this site. I guarantee it.

So that is plan B. Although technically it was a plan before this here blog here was a plan, so that would make it Plan A, and the blog would be plan B.

Good point lance, very good point.

So back to plan A then!

The first step is coming to a decision about the name. Like I said, we were planning on doing www.subwayrantandrave.com

But I am not totally sold on that and was wondering if Dear Readers had any suggestions or feedback. What about subwaylovehate.com? Let me see if that one is available…yah it looks like that is free.

Or maybe something about MTA, like MTArantrave.com.

Lovehate or rantrave? I kinda like love/hate actually. What do you guys think?

Time to hit the mail bag!

Yes Dear Readers, once again it is time to dig deep into the piles of fan mail which accumulate here daily. Lets see what our Dear Readers have to say today!

Dear Lance, I’ve been a huge fan of yours since day one! Which was 2 weeks ago. I never miss a post! But I’m wondering, how does your wife feel about your freelance career? Thanks, Just Curious.
Well J.C., I am really glad you asked that, because I don’t praise my wife often enough. True, I buy flowers once in a while and I will even occasionally take the garbage out, but nothing says ‘I love you” like bragging about her on your blog. So here it goes: I have the best wife ever! She is incredibly supportive of my freelance writing career (and yes, soon we will be doing some re-modeling around here and fixing the “unemployed” sign out front). She just wants me to be happy, and boy am I happy! She is the Best! So again, thanks for asking J.C.! Lets see what else the mail bag has in store for us…

Dear Lance, I have hated your blog since day one. What’s the point? Seriously. From You Really Suck.
That is an interesting point you make YRS. And while it may be a valid one, I must say that I fundamentally disagree. There is no Agreeing to Disagree on this question YRS. Tell me, what have YOU done today? Hmm? Have YOU made a real difference in the world? I didn’t think so. Well I have. I have made a real contribution to society. And maybe I’ll even tell you about it some time.


Dear Lance, Do you actually enjoy being unemployed? Or funemployed or whatever you call it. Sincerely, You Must Be Super Bored.
You know YMBSB, I really do enjoy being a FREELANCE WRITER. It allows me the flexibility of making my own hours, working as much as I want to, and screwing off pretty much all day long. It allows me to spend real quality time with the family. But you have to be very disciplined YMBSB! You have to be able to meet deadlines, create a great deal of content, and not screw around all day long. But if you are serious about freelance writing, I can give you all kinds of links and resources I have found recently. I never knew how much the internet has really opened up writing from home as a viable career! There are paying jobs by the tens of thousands! Any interest you have, from gardening, to music, to cars or BDS&M, you can write about for any one of dozens of websites, magazines, or online-communities. And many of them pay actual money! Check out http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/2010/01/40-more-freelance-writing-markets-paying-100-or-more/ as a starting point. You can make a real go of it if you put the time in. So I hope this helps YMBSB! And good luck to you.


Okay folks, that’s all for today! Until next time, cheers!

Haiku Horrors

It looks like I owe four Haikus to four unfortunate souls. Because I am a man of my word. However bad it may be.

For those of you who are faint of heart or have a particularly sensitive gag reflex, I suggest you skip the rest of this post. And for those of you who continue reading, understand that I assume no liability. None at all. Read at your own risk.

This piece is titled, Tom’s Haiku

Wishes he lived in
NYC, hates Bellevue but
Really, who doesn’t?

(I know, you live in Kirkland now, but Kirkland is better than Bellevue.)



This one I like to call Haiku for Jason


How the hell are you?
Havent talked forever, you
should visit NY



Okay. That one really sucked, but hey, I’m not even getting paid here so no complaining.

Here is another one. This one is called Briana Kicks Ass!!


Drug court siren make
Crack heads dizzy, more confused,
Then relapse, and jail.



Moving right along here.

I think we will call this one Iosogr the wandering poet,

Writing poetry
For money, should try blogging
Much dumb words pay too



On to the next post….

Ouch! That really hurt!! Honestly, who throws a shoe?

Many of you know that I’ve been training at an MMA school since last summer (hence the “Body by Tiger Schulmann” article earlier). What most of you don’t know is that I signed up for a kick boxing tournament taking place in June. Which means I better learn to kick box PDQ.

With that goal in mind, I’ve been doing more kick boxing classes as well as the special tournament class on Saturdays. Yesterday we did some free sparring, 1-2 minute rounds. And OMG was it fun!

And painful.

My instructor always says “the most devastating kick in martial arts is the low kick”, meaning a round kick to the upper thigh. I never really had any reason to question him, though I doubt you're gonna knock anybody out by kicking their thigh, but yesterday I experienced what he was talking about. And let me just say, Ouch.

We were not going with full force, but damn, my leg still hurts. But in a good way, if you can imagine that.

Something else I learned during free sparring: I ain't too bad! I was moving like Muhammad Ali! Faking with my feet and then delivering a jab-cross to the gut which sent my opponent stumbling backwards. All of this was incredibly tiring, mind you. Surprisingly so. I mean, my stamina has improved dramatically in the last year, but yesterday was something new entirely. I was out of breath and worn out real quick. So I have a great deal of work to do in the next two months.

Well, that’s all for today I think.

Oh wait, I owe Tom a Haiku.

I’ll get back to you with that one :-)

Make money sitting at home drinking beer: Yes we can!

Don’t worry, no Haikus for this issue

I was turned on to several more money making sites, for those my Dear Readers who find themselves in the same unemployed camp as myself.

The first, is another writing website that pays significantly more than the AC site I’ve been working on, its called seed.com

They offer assignments with a price tag, seem to range from $10 to $200. There are several at the $50 rate that I’m going to submit. Wish me luck! (and of course I’ll be posting the link if they are published and begging you to click a bunch. That reminds me: click on the ads here! They pay good money. And I need money right now, we’re running out of Pita bread).

Second site is actually through Amazon (https://www.mturk.com/). It offers up hundreds of small “judgment” tasks that are stupid little things that computers can’t do. These jobs are called HITs, which stands for Human Intelligence Task. The specific type of task varies a great deal, as does the pay. Many of them are real simple, i.e. looking at a picture and then clicking “yes, this item does belong in Automobiles category” or “No, this item does not”, for like, 3 cents. But obviously it doesn’t take long to make that determination, so you can add up pennies at a rate that will soon pay off your candy store debt.

I’ve been checking back on that site and doing little things here and there, have added up to about $20 so far. Its definitely worth putting on your list of sites to check out once in a while (if you are funemployed of course). There was one set of tasks yesterday that involved cutting and pasting from a website, for $1, took me a couple minutes to do each one, so I was clocking somewhere around $12-15 an hour. And I was drinking beer. So I was getting paid $15/hr to drink beer. Talk about living the dream!

Soon I will be doing a post on free alcohol in NYC.

And yes, I have found enough locations with free alcohol to warrant a blog entry.

And no, the list does not include food banks. I’m assuming food banks wouldn’t have beer or wine…Hm, that might be worth checking though.

Okay, nothing else to report.

Anyways, till next time dear readers, have pity on me and click the hell out of my articles!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/770338/lance_martin.html

Live free or die typing

Today Heather asked me to apply for jobs at the local coffee shops. To which I replied “give me liberty or give me death!” Not word for word maybe, but something to that effect anyways. And to be honest, I may actually be able to pull off this freelance thing. I got my third article published today with upfront payment! 3 for 3! Pretty cool. And I’m going to put more effort into networking with people who would be interested in reading and clicking.

Between that and Poker, I can make this work I think.

And who knows, maybe my book “Haikus of Death” will become a big seller.

Speaking of which, I believe I owe somebody named “Maria” (if that is indeed your real name) a Haiku.

I think I will call this one, Haiku for Mariaifthatisindeedyourrealname,


Living in Bay Ridge
Working in Manhattan, damn
R Train, always late


And remember: click on all my AC articles
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/770338/lance_martin.html

Only YOU can prevent employment! And all the crap that goes along with that.

Thank you for your support.

Freelance Machine!

I got paid upfront for another article on Associated Content! That means I am 2 for 2 for upfront payments! Plus I get paid for the number of page views they get (so go check them out; I know they aren’t very interesting so I do appreciate your patronage; Im not liable for any resulting medical bills however).

The latest one is about cycling in NYC.

It will probably be online and viewable later today

http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/770338/lance_martin.html

Some day I hope to publish all my haikus in one volume. I think it could safely be titled something like “Haiku Horrors: The Haiku Alternative to Waterboarding” or “How to lose a man in 17 syllables” or maybe “Hate life and wish you were dead? You will after you read this book: The Haiku Equivalent of a Chuck Norris Round kick to the Head”

I’m open to suggestions.

Day of the Dead (Haikus)

I never would have guessed that writing personal Haiku would be a greater motivation than shaving my head. You surprise me Dear Readers. Pleasantly, of course. Like when the wind blows strong at a Scottish parade and suddenly the kilts fly skyward.

With no further delay, I present to thee, Haiku for Dave G.


I am on a boat
Drinking beer; damn, it feels good
To be a gangsta



And there you have it.

Pete's Haiku

During the time I was writing the last post I had another follower join.

And that means, yes you guessed it: MORE HAIKUS!

Yay!

I call this one, Haiku for Pete

Pete, oh Pete, last name
Way too hard for me to spell
Too long, anyways

A masterpiece! Or not. I never claimed to be good (see previous post re: perfect vs. crappy practice)

I’m founding a new international non-governmental organization (NGO): Haikus Without Borders

I call this piece, Haiku for Tara

Our Humboldt princess
Both humble and bold, prefers
Well drinks, not top shelf


And so the Haiku program is inaugurated. I was trying to work in there something about body shots, but alas, my haiku skills are sadly limited. I imagine after a hundred of these things I might get somewhat better. Although its probably just as likely that I will get even worse. As some instructor in the past told me: perfect practice makes perfect, while crappy practice just sucks. He probably phrased it differently but that is the gist of it.

But today I want to touch on a subject dear to all of us: MONEY!!!! It makes the world go round. It sweetens your coffee. It buys love. Its pretty much the coolest thing ever invented.

Obviously I am being facetious, but, when you are a funemployed freelancer, money does become more of an issue. And not just in regards to how to spend the mountains of cash that you make from writing stupid articles, playing poker, and filling out idiotic surveys. Oh no. Money, if you can believe it Dear Readers, is in short supply! It doesn’t grow on trees you know. It is in fact printed on huge printing presses. And those are expensive! So I have to MAKE enough money to buy a huge printing press. Then we are home free. Until then, I continue to write stupid articles, play poker, and fill out stupidly idiotic surveys about whether I am the Hulk or Superman (which should be obvious).

So far the most lucrative of my online schemes- I mean endeavors, has been poker. At any one moment there are millions of dollars on the tables at any one particular poker room. And most of it is owned by people who are seemingly locked away in mental institutions and have no need for money. That’s the image I get when I watch them play online: insane, rich, nothing else to do with it than give it away. All you have to do is position yourself in such away as the virtual chips move from their side of the table over to yours, then get deposited into your bank account.

But this is just part of why online poker is so lucrative. The other part is the incredible bonuses that all the sites offer to lure these insane rich people to play (aka give away their money). YOU can benefit huge from these bonuses. And you don’t even have to be a good poker player. All you have to do is be patient, smart, and careful. After that, it is just statistics and odds. And most of my friends are pretty good at statistics (for some reason I am again picturing you guys, Tara and Jordan).

And here is the BEST part: YOU, yes YOU- ALL OF YOU, can make ME money by making YOU money! That’s right! It works like this: I send you a referral to say, Full Tilt Poker. You deposit money, say $100. You play patiently, cautiously, and not like an insane lunatic sitting in a padded room with bags of cash, and you will make $100 in bonus money, PLUS whatever you win off the crazy maniac money bags (I guarantee you, the odds/statistics pay off in the long run- its just about being patient and cautious) And since you signed up via a referral that I sent you, I will ALSO be given a 100. Isn’t that great?

But seriously, I made $600 in bonuses from Full Tilt in under a month. Sadly, nobody had sent ME a referral to Full Tilt, so I didn’t win anybody else any money. I am prepared however, to make that sacrifice for ALL of my dear Readers, regardless of age, gender, drinking ability, or shoe size. Yes, I will send a referral to anybody who is at all interested in making scads of money (as well as making me scads of money…what is a scad anyways? What say you oh wise dictionary.com: 1. any carangid fish of the genus Decapterus, inhabiting tropical and subtropical shore waters. Hmm, that is not what I meant at all. Although I guess we could sell the fish. Oh wait, there’s another meaning - Informal. a great number or quantity: scads of money. There we go. Although if you prefer the fish you could always buy fish with the great quantity of cash you will have.) And if you are at all concerned about your ability to play online poker, I will spend as much time with you as you need (cuz I have scads) to get comfortable with it.

No pressure though. We have enough bread crusts and spam to last us a few more days.

:-)

Body by Tiger Schulmann

First off, I’d like to thank Mr. Tiger: you kicked my butt into shape and I feel great! I went to put clothes away today and ran out of hangers. I looked at the pants I had hanging in the closet and noticed one pair I had been meaning to give away, so I took those off the hanger (thereby liberating a hanger from bondage to a quiet but audible cheer from the other occupants of the closet) and noticed several pairs of khakis that I suspected I should be rid of. I then decided “what the heck, I’ll just try on all my pants and see what ones I can toss.”


Guess what happened?

I tried on each pair, and each pair just fell right off. I modeled them for heather (by physically holding them up and then walking into the kitchen), which produced laughter the likes of which I have not heard since…well, since last night when I was making fun of her for having guacamole on her face. But I assure you, the laughter was uproarious and well deserved: every single one of my “dress” pants looked like something MC hammer might have worn in 1989. Each pair was THAT big and billowy on me. They just looked stupid (though Hammer woulda made them look cool I’m sure. Or not. Whatever).

After the carnage, I was left with only one pair of Khakis which could be considered usable, at all. And those will still probably generate laughter, pointing, and jeering on the street. And not just from Heather either.

Time for a new wardrobe I guess. Century 21, here I cometh.

This reminds me of a similarly horrific story that happened a few years ago, of the opposite extreme however: I was in the Ross dressing rooms trying on pants (waist 32, as this is what I’ve worn for as long as I can remember), then being absolutely mortified when I turned around, looked in the mirror, and saw the extent of the Muffin Top that I was sporting.

It was hideous.

I still shudder and cringe when I think of that dark day. We refer to it as “black Sunday”

The really frightening part is it didn’t really motivate me to DO anything about said muffin top. I just curled up into a ball and cried (emotionally speaking, not literally).

Oh how far I have come!

I weighed myself yesterday and I was 150.5 which is amazing. Last summer I was like, 170, 175ish. I didn’t realize I had that much to lose.

Funemployment, I mean Freelancing really seems to agree with me.

Sorry for the boring post today. I’m sure no body wants to hear about this. I just had to write about it because it was so funny. I can still hear Heather laughing and snorting in the kitchen.

Seriously. It was that funny looking.

I saw a bumper sticker that said "Free Lance!" and I thought to myself "oh, how thoughtful!"

I’m very excited about several things today. First, I’ve already made like 15 bucks filling out stupid surveys, and two, Associated Content gave me an upfront payment on one of my first articles! Its official, I’m a freelancer. I am a writer! Woo-hoo! Drinks are on me tonight.
Oh, and I’m also excited because it sounds like we are going to get a roof-top poker game going soon. I’m VERY excited about this. We’ll have to come up with a clever name for it. Like, oh I don’t know. I’m not clever. Somebody else come up with one.
I had a rather crappy start to my online-poker day however.

I started with 2 tables and within a couple hands, flopped sets (three of a kind from a pocket-pair) on both tables at the same time. Both of these hands were multi-way pots with a standard pre-flop raise. So this is looking pretty darn good for me.

But this is poker.

Guess what happened? On both tables somebody else had flopped a HIGHER set than mine. Yah, that sucks. Lost two stacks in under a minute. Oh well.

That’s poker.

I made one of them back within another 10 minutes and then took a break to write this.

I only mention this because that is a first for me. To have two sets on simultaneous tables beat by higher sets. And that’s saying a lot as I have played somewhere close to the neighborhood of 1 million hands online now (I can clock 8 thousand hands in a day). But I have seen stranger things on the poker tables, stranger by far. Like flopping an AK high flush, and having some moron call big bets and hitting a runner-runner back door straight flush. That kinda sucked. Or the time me and another guy both flopped sets (I had the higher one though), then the turn gave him quads. Then the river gave ME quads.

Anyways.

I’ve been meaning to give a little more background re: my funemployed status, because the last that many of you heard was that I was establishing a private counseling practice here in Brooklyn. Which I did. I have an office, chairs, a website, business cards and everything.

I even bought a lamp.

This was all last summer, I was excited getting this thing set up. Then sometime in the fall I found out that my supervision hours from Washington were not going to transfer, and therefore I didn’t have enough hours (got a bunch in Colorado, but not enough) to satisfy the licensing requirements for NY.

But I had a back up plan, and that was to get supervision here in NYC through a professional in the community. Then I discovered that that wouldn’t fly either: supervision HAS to be obtained within a clinical setting, as an employee of said clinic for NY state to be happy.

Blah.

Job hunting again. But this time, my job hunting was about as half hearted as one could possibly imagine. And here I am. Trying to figure out if its still worth pursuing. I mean, I still am. Technically. But to be honest, I’m enjoying being at home. And I don’t mind Squeaking By, as I wrote previously. And we aren’t sure what we are going to do when Heather graduates in December. We may move out of country, or stay here, or go back to Washington. So it almost seems silly to invest any more into a practice that may be irrelevant.

So there you have it.

That is how fate guided me to my current profession of freelancing. Which, if none of you caught, is so ridiculously appropriate for me, Lance. Free, lance. Lance free of employment. Hahhaaha.

Anyways...

(don’t forget to check out the ads, thanks)

Show me the money!

Dear Readers, I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of your support! In the first two days that my blog included advertisements, I made $45!! Thats just from you guys looking at ads!


If that’s all it takes to make money, I would have started a blog 10 years ago. Jeez.

But $45 is obviously not enough to live on, the point here is that this is with only 7 people officially following this thing; the few, the proud, the bored, etc.

If I can increase the traffic little by little, that $ amount will go up. The potential is huge. The challenge of course, will be to get people to come visit. And to keep visiting.

Damn its actually really hot today. I’m just sitting here in my office and sweat is dripping off my arms and legs. Wonderful imagery eh? If I want to get more readers I should probably not talk about sweat dripping off my hairy legs.

But I digress.

So how do I get people to read this? By being more interesting probably. And funny, poignant and insightful.

Damn. I’m screwed.

Well, I’m sure I can come up with something.

But right now I gotta take a shower. I’m disgusting.

A day of mourning

So far my Blog has been about comedy (and if you couldnt tell, I do apologize), but today I am feeling a bit more solemn. Reading about the mining tragedy in West Virginia (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36183425/ns/us_news-life/?GT1=43001) I am experiencing a mix of sadness and anger: 25 miners are confirmed dead in the worst mining accident since 1984 although 4 missing miners will likely bring that number to 29, making it the worst US mining disaster since 1970. And naturally, the company that runs this mine has a history of safety violations relating to ventilation of methane gas, which is of course what caused the explosion (according to preliminary reports).


My first response to this is cynicism: we hear these stories all the time; mines are regularly being spotlighted as dangerous and having numerous safety violations. But why is that? How does this happen? Are safety regulations not enforced? Are they treated as a guideline? As a joke? Whatever the case, enforcement of these regulations is clearly a problem. At least the mining company wasn’t downloading music off the internet right? Then they REALLY would have felt the wrath of the US government, that is to say, Corporate lobbyists.

But I am being unfair. After all, 2009 was a relatively “safe” year for miners in the US with only 34 (accident related) deaths. But that’s nothing! China had over 6000 miner deaths in 2004. Whew, at least we have a better safety record than China (although that is somewhat misleading since China has 50 times the number of miners as the US, which means we have only ¼ the number of miner deaths per capita).

What I find myself confused about, Dear Readers, is that I thought the US was beyond this. I thought safety regulations were better enforced, I thought US citizens were better protected. At the same time, I have a voice in my head saying “what are you talking about? You know that’s BS. Government protects the corporations, the money, to the detriment of its citizens.”

Maybe, but I still thought we were better than this. And this makes me sad. And angry.
Suddenly I look back at my previous posts about being unemployed and feel incredibly grateful that we’ve been able to “squeak by”. At least we haven’t had to go to work in the mines to make a living. Although if there were mines in Brooklyn I probably would have applied to them by now.

And so I leave you on a somber note, Dear Readers. Hopefully there will be a day when we don’t write about these sorts of stories. When we can honestly say that our government does protect its people and hold our safety above the bottom line of corporations.

But today, my heart goes out to the families of West Virginia.


.

To click or not to click

Ads. Theres actualy some cool stuff on there.

I did and my life has definitely improved! No, seriously. I clicked on something about “best happy hour in NYC” and it does sound pretty good. Half price everything, 4-10 every weekday. Tribeca. M1-5 lunge/bar/club. Sounds cool. And the websites music is annoyingly catchy and uplifting. Bowm-buhcha-bowm-chooooowm

Anybody up for it?

Either way you should click on the ads to the left of this here blog. Or the ones below this here blog. Cuz they pay me for it! And if I don’t make any money doing this inane stuff, then I’ll have to get a real job (I’m sure I’ll get an offer any day now), and then no more blog.

But seriously, Lucrezia hooked up me up with the ad thingies. I’m curious to see how much they pay. Not much obviously, but if you, Dear Readers, come through and click click click, I may be home free! As Princess Lea said to Obi-Wan Kanobieodi: please obie one, you’re our only hope!

I think I’m going to write an article for AC about being unemployed. Like, how to make it not suck terribly horribly bad. Being active is crucial. And considering the unemployment rates in the US today, I think this is a topic that may generate some readership (and more clicks. See where I’m going with this?)

I could be the FUNemployment guru (see previous post regarding the upcoming grassroots social movement).

But first things first: happy hour anybody?

manumit \man-yuh-MIT\, transitive verb

I am a really cool guy. Just to illustrate how cool: I get a “word of the day” in my email every day.


Today’s word is a fertile ground from which to grow senseless ramblings:

manumit \man-yuh-MIT\, transitive verb:

To free from slavery or servitude.

To free from slavery or servitude. Could a typical 9-5 job be considered “servitude”? Lets see: one entry under the definition for Servitude is “Lack of personal freedom, as to act as one chooses”. I think you could definitely characterize employment as a lack of personal freedom. That really is the point of working for somebody else, right? You do what they want you to do, not what you necessarily want to do? And most people will do all kinds of stuff to avoid being funemployed. I myself even described in a previous post a recurring fantasy I have of working at an assembly line and punching a time-clock every day.

I feel it is my duty to spread the gospel of funemployment. Perhaps, Dear Readers, we could start a movement! We will not work for The Man, but only for ourselves! And to show our appreciation of life and beauty, we will use flowers and pastel colors to identify our movement. And we will abandon the footwear of this slavery society and sing songs about peace and love! And we’ll sell garbage and play poker on the internet! And write poetry. I am putting flowers in my hair as I type. They bring out my eyes.

My poetry is really bad though, so I’ll skip that part. I’ll just stick to the flowers and write guides on how to play poker online.

Speaking of which, I have submitted my first articles to Associated Content (http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/770338/lance_martin.html) though it sounds like it will take up to 2 weeks before they are actually published. THEN the money will start rolling in! maybe.

sigh.


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The perfect happy hour

Yesterday I touched on fear of death, the idealization of youth, and the longing for immortality. If you didn’t pick up on all of that Dear Readers, you just have to read more carefully. Its all there, I assure you.


Today I shall further expound on this theme and broach the subject that all of us, especially those in NYC, find ourselves forever in search of: the perfect Happy Hour.

One resource for effectively dealing with ignorance relating to happy hour is this fantastic website called mappyhour.com

And yes, that is Mappyhour, NOT Happyhour. M, as in MAP. Which is pretty much what it is. You put in your location and it gives you a Google map of the area with all the happy hours marked. Pretty cool eh?

http://mappyhour.com/index.php



You know, I just looked out the window and discovered I have a pet peeve I never was aware of: khaki pants with tennis shoes. Yuck!

And who am I to talk right? I couldn’t tell fashion if it…if it…you know, bit me. Or something. But one thing I DO know is happy hour! (to get back to our topic here). For those of you in NY or those of you who are soon going to visit to help buy me drinks (looking at you Tara and Jordan), we discovered this incredible bar in Greenwich village last week that has really really really amazing cocktails and happy hour from 5 to 8! All their cocktails are $6 during this time, and while that might not sound like the BEST deal, I have to stress that I put three “really”s before the “amazing cocktails”. I jest not. They are that good. We’re talking Cognac with Honey and stuff like that. Not your usual drinks. They have 12 or so specialty drinks (oh yah, and a freakin incredible margarita!) and I think I tried them all that day. Ok not all of them, and most of them were other peoples which I stole sips from when they weren’t looking, but I did try a lot of them, so I feel I can speak with some authority on this.

The place is called Dove.

Yah, just plain Dove. Let me see if I can find the website….oh wow they actually have the cocktail list online! Very cool. http://thedoveparlour.com/

Ok, I guess that’s it for today. Back to poker…

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Jedi Mind Trick aka Jed, mind if I drink?

Ok people, I hope you realize when I said “don’t read my blog” that what I really meant was “read my blog you lazy bastards” to which you would rightfully reply “don’t insult us” to which I would say “yah sorry about that.” (Its called Reverse Psychology, and it is going to be a recurring theme in this here blog.) But seriously: what is the point of a blog if nobody reads it? If a tree falls on me in the forest, and nobody reads my blog, will anybody hear me?

Not likely. At least not in 2010. I mean sure, you could probably find a diploma or some records from one of the 6 colleges I attended at various points in my life, but there would be a noticeable lack of voice, of content, of ME. But I have come up with a remedy for that as well (I try to cover all my bases, I am definitely not going quietly into that good night): Part of my cover identity as a “freelancer” is to publish stuff/garbage on Associated Content (AC). This is a website that pays writers for the articles(crap) that they “write”. So I will become a regular contributor to AC, starting today. Please check out my AC profile at http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/770338/lance_martin.html

I will be publishing articles (crap) on poker, psychology, NYC stuff, and anything else that comes into my muddled little brain. Come to think of it, it will probably have much the same feel as my blog. I’m also going find a good photography website on which to sell photos (crap) I take around NY as well as my apartment. So stay tuned for that as well.

That’s enough for today. I’ve got some freelancing to do.
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The great conspiracy to keep me unemployed

I think I need to explain a little bit about the great conspiracy to keep me unemployed. I have a masters degree in psychology and almost 4 years work experience post masters in really challenging (read: stressful) work environments. I didn’t think I would have any problem finding a job when we moved to NYC back in fall of 2008, since NYC is full of crazy people and the organizations that serve crazy people suffer from extremely high turnover (most people have enough sense not to work in the “challenging” positions for very long). But then the whole “recession” thing developed in full bloom, and jobs vanished. There was nothing. Funding dried up, organizations enacted hiring freezes, and yours truly, Dear Readers, found him self out in the cold, SOL, saying to himself OMG WTF.

That was a year and a half ago.

In the meantime I discovered that I seem to have a talent for poker, so I began putting serious time into playing in online poker rooms, and did ok. It wasn’t quite enough to pay all the bills, but between the earnings, saving, credit cards, and student loans (we moved to NYC for wife to go to school), we squeaked by.

And we continue to squeak.

In the last year I have applied to so many jobs that I can’t keep track of which agencies I’ve applied to multiple times. I’ve applied to Catholic human services, some sort of Jewish organization, a Buddhist counseling center, and the NYPD. I briefly considered applying to Starbucks (I figured they would love to have a native Seattle-ite behind the counter to give them an air of authenticity). I had a brief stint as a bounty hunter. I’ve sold nearly everything we own on Ebay, including nearly all of our CDs, DVDs, collectibles, and even garbage (and I am not joking about this one: I literally pulled things out of the trash can, scanned them, and sold them on eBay. I’m not going to tell you what I sold though, cuz then you, Dear Readers, might muscle in on my market share).

And we continue to Squeak.

And you know what? I’ve found that I don’t really mind just squeaking by. I sleep in every day. I sip my coffee as I log onto my computer and check email, face-book, and start playing poker. We even get to go to happy hour and occasionally go out to eat at one of the many absurdly cheap restaurants in our neighborhood (and some in Manhattan, more on this latter) once in a while. I have lost 30 pounds and am in the best shape of my life (I cycle, train at a martial arts school, and pay attention to my diet). If one were to consider all the factors besides income, you would say I am a raging success. But our society doesn’t think that way now does it? So I find that I still fantasize about punching the clock at a boring job. How sick and twisted is that?

And here, Dear Readers, you will find is the source of the title of my inglorious blog: when I meet somebody at a party, do I say I am unemployed, or FUNemployed?

I think I’ll just say I freelance.
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