Mission: Improve MomTard's Traffic

So MomTard says the following:

When I first created this blog, it was all about the traffic.

And then she goes on to talk about various other boards, sites and blogs that mention her.

In fact, I would invite Subcranium over at SDCIA to come and post here! He (or she? its so hard to tell without a picture) links it to our antihero, the one and only Casey Serin:

Meh. I poked around the site. Mostly boring.

I think I prefer the spoofs, when they are very well written (like the Sally Heatherton Realtor blog), because they leave me grinning at the wit. It makes me think that there are some smart people out in the world (somewhere).

When I read one of these, I tend to get depressed because it reminds me how dumb people are. Like when you see a story that says more British kids think Sherlock Holmes was a real person than think Winston Churchill was a real person.

Being confessional about having been dumb is the new black. It's almost like we encourage people to be idiots so that they can later expose their own follies on Oprah. Confessional blogging leaves me, mostly, sad.

The exception, of course, was Casey Serin, because he was like a cartoon character come alive. Casey Serin, the real-life Daffy Duck from Uzbekistan.

But woe! Oh WOE! She neglected to mention the nuttynetter blog! I am hurt! Devastated! And yet, I feel a need to help her with her traffic issues. I guess that's just the giver in me.

And so, I invite you, haterz and snarkerz, to click through to Whine Country Real Estate, written by none other than Carol from Temecula! Give her some link love.

More Snark from Arthur

My friend (the same one we traveled with--yes, the couple still talks to us after spending four days straight attached to our hips) told me about a commercial he heard on the radio for the "Blog and Grow Rich" program. I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing it yet, but I assume it has something to do with Casey Serin from “Iamfacingforeclosure.com”

Regardless of who is behind the commercial, how big is your ego when you think that you can sell a big load of poop to average people like me? Do you really think that anyone reading a blog will believe you when you tell them your everyday tales that they would be interested, buy stuff advertised on it, subscribe to it, then turn around and sell it right away, and make lots of money in this market? Puhleeeze!

So, I might find a blog like this to flip--with a nonexistent content:

Let's say that I worked 100 hours (over the course of two-three months) installing everything (not counting any permits that I might need), and spent only $15,000 because I did it myself on the cheap. Am I supposed to sell it quickly when it's done? By then it would be worth the market value at the time that it was purchased. But, when it's finally ready, blogs, most likely, will have declined even more. So I'd be stuck with something that I threw money into, but can't sell. After you factor in the effort and people you’ve alienated, there's fat chance that I'd recoup my investment, much less make a profit.

It's unfortunate that those who have touted "flipping" blogs in the past have not changed their "investing" model in order to stay current with the market. That's what most successful business people would do. It's almost like they want to pretend that their way has always been, and always will be, the most profitable.

You may blog in a standard provider and have noticed that a blog has been for sale for two years, with regular price reductions. You've also noticed an inordinate amount of "For Sale" signs on every blog. Are you going to say, "Hey, it looks like that blog is a really good deal. I could buy it and then turn around and sell it again for a profit that will cover all of my costs of acquiring and disposing of the blog, and then some"? No, it goes against every grain of common sense that you possess. So, why are they trying to sell us on this now? There must be someone out there who thinks that this is a good time to flip blogs which are declining in value as we speak.

I'm not familiar with Casey Serin, so I did a teeny bit of research. It seems that he has a mentoring program along with a book. I did a quick search on the site of the Better Business Bureau and nothing.

Now, we can say that 2759 Haterz in the last three years is no big deal considering the volume of customers they must have. But then I stumbled upon this site. Don't let the April, 2007, date turn you off. Comments are being posted all the time and there are some for the past day or so. All of this took me five minutes to find. So, if you're ever tempted by a slick radio or TV ad, do some research before you fork over your dough. The money for an unrealistic blog is the least you'll lose. If you follow the advice of some of these "gurus" you may just lose as much kudos as I did in blogging (and I didn't even have to buy a program to do it.) Damn I forgot my strikethough gag this post.

This Cannot End Well...

...but its good snarking material!

Courtesy soemdood:

OMFG.Just one specific rehab task (some plumbing) and the quote sucks up
over 6% of the house's total value? Then he low balls them based on some
'sweat
equity' of his own, so we will see how that turns out...

http://www.flipthyhouse.com/2008/02/03/almosttothefinishline/

Particularly when one looks at this more recent post: http://www.flipthyhouse.com/2008/03/12/updates-regress-and-a-little-progress/

And this quote is priceless; he should hope his employer doesn't discover this:

Longer update tomorrow, when I’m at the day job and have time for such stuff.

Lawnmowerman Guest Post: MomTard Family Vacation

Our favorite MomTard-on-the-edge-of-a-mental-breakdown took another disastrous vacation last weekend; the usual misadventures, whinging and thinly-veiled resentment of her overstuffed family ensue.

What we wonder, though, is what the friends who were kind enough to invite her thought of the experience; and what they thought of MomTard's ungracious footstamping on her return. Our super sekret operatives received this anonymous message:

We thought it'd be fun to invite Carol and her family for a weekend break with
us. Never again.

First, Carol insists on a cabin rather than camping.

Carol decides a 15-seat van is big enough, but then fills it to the rafters with her manic overpacking of snow gear that she'll never use. Carol spots a few ants in the cabin, throws a huge shit-fit, and forces us all to pack up and move.

Carol mopes at the bottom of the ski-run with her much-resented baby while her loser husband fails to snowboard. Carol spoils a hike with her incessant whining about the unused snow gear. Carol's overpacking breaks the car. Her huge brood requires restroom breaks every half hour. And her hellspawn baby screams the whole way home.

"It was so peaceful in the park", my ass.

And then when we get home Carol thanks us by writing a huge blog post about how
crappy the vacation was.

Screw you, Carol. Next time we're vacationing alone.

Enjoy the fucking laundry.

Hicktard Update - with opinion

From our very own lawnmowerman (because I am currently in the Windy City - and yes, it is windy. All these skyscrapers make for a lot of wind tunnels):

HickTard replaces a car; but not the crappy Metro that left him stranded at the office, oh, no; rather, his wife's clapped-out Escort.

HickTard buys a Tercel from a fellow church member.

HickTard's emergency fund is, yet again, depleted to zero.

It seems to me that HickTard has a car-related "emergency" every two months or so. Maybe I'm using an overly-strict definition, but I would say an emergency that happens that frequently isn't actually an emergency; it's an expense which can and should be anticipated. And yes, look: missing from HickTard's zero based budget is a line for "car maintenance/repairs". Maybe this is because his budgets all seem to be month-by-month affairs. He's focused on the now and has no visibility of the bigger picture; expenses which happen only sporadically are a perpetual surprise and source of his beloved drama.

BossTard

Akubi's Ogg's already done this one - over here.

Via Email: MatronTard or CFP_Tard

New stick poking target! Goes by name of MatronTard! See the links below for more information! Clicky clicky!

• http://lifedirections-30dc.blogspot.com/
• http://debtfreeorbust.com/

At least she knows what her VOCATION is:

My Vocation
I’ve finally figured out what my vocation is: I help people fight for economic and social justice to better their lives by assisting them to remove those barriers to their success.

I think the following guest post by Arthur, below, says a lot of what we're all thinking.
______________________________________________________________

Got to go for CFP®Tard !
Cut and paste of my criticisms below:

"They (FIA) already sued me and obtained a judgment against me in another state"

You move from state to state to avoid your debts?

This woman seems to spend all her time re-jigging her snowball debt figures and not doing anything about it (sound familiar to Haterz?). Surely if she sat down and did the figures once, then, apart from some minor adjustments every now and then, there would be a plan in place that she was working to?

Still, reading further we find:

"So, with $3,700 in living expenses and $2,732 in debt payments, I need to
bring in $6,432 after taxes. That means about $8,362 gross income per month.
Wow. I've never made that much before.....

And that was 12/22/07. January 08 only went down because of debts being sold and some interest and fees were dropped. February 08 went up by $5037.

I love working with students and seeing the light bulbs go on when they finally understand a difficult concept.

Like compound interest?

..... She is a member of the Financial Planning
Association,....Currently, Sherri is fulfilling the education and experience
requirements necessary to achieve status as a Certified Financial Planner
professional. She is enrolled at Kaplan University in the Certificate in
Financial Planning program, a Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards
registered program (authorization to use the highly regarded CFP® mark of
distinction is conferred by the Certified Financial Planner Board of
Standards).....

Do they do any diligence checks? This woman can't organise her own debt snowball correctly; has, or is facing, judgements in two states for debt; and has admitted that to service her current debt levels, she needs to bring in more money than she has ever earned.


Regards

"Arthur"

What to do when your car refuses to start

Aren't you snarky haterz lucky? You get TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY.

So this is the situation: you leave work in deathly cold weather, and your car will not start. Your car service company (e.g. - AAA), can't get it started either. So you call your wife to see if she can pick you up; and she tells you to call a relative or take a cab. And this is the logic that follows:

She asked me, "... why don't you just call your sister, cousin or just call a taxi?" After spending years defending driving used economic cars to most of my family members this was not an option and a taxi would easily cost me over sixty dollars for the distance I needed to go.

So, what do you do? Answer in the poll over there on the right.

Poll results and a new tard!

It seems the name "Hicktard" has won! Congrats skittlebrau for suggesting it!

Now we need a prize. Suggestions?

Now the second part which is the reason I know you're all reading this: a new tard to poke with our hater sticks.

iamfacinganap suggests this MultiTard who is an unschooler. For the uninitiated, here's an excerpt from wikipedia's entry on unschooling:

Although unschooling students may choose to make use of teachers or curricula, they are ultimately in control of their own education. Students choose how, when, why, and what they pursue. Parents who unschool their children act as "facilitators," providing a wide range of resources, helping their children access, navigate, and make sense of the world, and aiding them in making and implementing goals and plans for both the distant and immediate future. Unschooling expands from children's natural curiosity as an extension of their interests, concerns, needs, goals, and plans.

As iamfacinganap says:

This new nutty netter candidate has elements of all our favourite tards rolled into one. Lazy homeschooler uses the law of attraction to manifest wacky adventures for her sheltered brood. In Sadies Wonderful Manifestation Staci unschools her oldest child into a scam.

So. Go. Read. Snark. As always, if you want to make a post for this blog (because I will be swamped for the next couple of weeks go ahead and put it in an email to nuttynetter.nuttynets@blogger.com.