Just the way it is...

 I’m not so good at ranting on any of my page. Every time I start typing, that supposed post for the day always end up as a draft and will be marked as it is until I remember to hit delete. But I realized one of the reasons why I am here is to inform… doesn’t matter who listens or read and who don’t.

Blogging and earning from it is my way through life. I believe it is decent otherwise thousands of other people won’t waste their time doing it. But just like anywhere in the world, there are dark souls who doesn’t seem to care. Okay, let me get me get my words straight. I am talking about online fraud, better known as SCAM. When was the last time that you got scammed?

Being an earning blogger it is of course an initial reaction to get giddy whenever someone contacted you for a possible job offer. But I tell you what... I’ve done that and got screwed not once but a lot of times from the past and recently… just like around two weeks ago, there is this one self-acclaimed Direct Advertiser (she’s a lady) who just made her way to my list of hoax adverts.

See? I am still not that harsh. No names. But I have boundaries. And should any of you wish to have a clue who I am talking about comment along and I ask. I may have the exact answer for you.

Just ranting….

If you have things that needs out in the oven join Gagay’s Random Friday Rants and rave along!

Happy weekend!

Okay, I don't know how to put the thought of this entry together but if you are or have been a SocialSpark user you my have in one way or another encountered auto rejection out of the number of reviews you have had submitted to their system.

I have been using SocialSpark for over a year now and let's face it the advent of this company in the online advertising industry somehow had helped earning bloggers in alleviating their income stream at some point thus putting big grins in their faces - that includes me. But like what many people want to believe, a good impression doesn't always last.

Gone are the flooding reservations and gone are the sleepless nights of beating deadlines. This time, lucky we are if we even get to reserve one opportunity in a month. A lot had changed. More guidelines were added while the chance to grab a reservation is getting closer to the ground.

The worst scenario is when you have worked so hard to be able to come up with a quality review only to get automatic rejection from their system in the end. Isn't that frustrating?

I seldom talk about my personal financial transaction with advertisers online in any of my blogs. If it is appropriate to call myself a scam victim well I have been and not just once but several times by the different affiliate/advertising companies but I chose to stay mum about it.

However with SocialSpark lately, they simply blew up my head with their so annoying auto checker. I understand and I believe they are a legitimate company and as much as they are dead set with their guidelines, I think as valid users we also have the right to receive prompt support and feedback as they specified in their terms of service. But what happened in my case is the other way around.

To cut the story short, I lost 2 $7.50 and 1 $5 worth opps all because they've been auto rejected and no matter how many times I tried to resubmit them using the provided links, they still didn't work. I wrote them several times but get what? Another automated response after a month or so? It was only after I expressed my frustration when they finally decided to answer and even that last email took another one more month and guess what they said...

Hi Nancy,

I understand your frustration. Sometimes blog hosts change the code when you enter it into your html. It's different for each blog host, sometimes things are removed other times things are added. You may want to check your html before submission and make sure it is exactly the same as the code you were given.

This is the reason your posts are being auto-rejected. It's because your blog host is changing the html. You are going to have to go in an manually check/fix the html before submission to avoid these kind of issues in the future. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Annie

Well, I honestly don't have the idea as per the authenticity of the reasons they have cited in their last email. I don't plan on questioning blogger either. My point is if they could have just been prompt in addressing concerns from bloggers (within 24-48 hours as they said), issues like this may could have been avoided. Now I need to wait equivalent number of reservations in order to cash out my earnings as they have already raised their minimum payout from $20 to $50 recently. And as to when will that day be, I certainly don't know!

Liberty Reserve Account Block Notice

Your account has been blocked due to numerous invalid login attempts. You will be unable to send and receive funds until your account has been activated.
Click here to remove block from your account:

link........ link......... link.........

Failing to unblock your account will result temporary account suspension.

Sincerely,
Liberty Reserve Customer Service

Spam like this isn't new to me. But just in case the sender of this mail didn't know how much of a dork he/she is. I am a satisfied Paypal user and have not by any means given my personal account information to any other e-payment service centers apart from them so how on earth would all these be possible? People who do this should have thought of how to make good investments instead!

Anyway, I am just one of those millions of people in the world who are under the state of boredom, I guess. I usually don't give so much regard on nonsense stuffs like this but there seems to be no interesting out from over 40 mails I got first hour in the morning yesterday so the rest of the day was like "oh well".

Then shortly (as scheduled) our power went out!

At 2pm yesterday I made my way to the local Commission on Election office to accomplish form of sworn registration to become a qualified voter (again) in next year's national election. As mentioned, I am one those hundreds if not thousands of quashed voters for failure to participate in the last local and national elections.

Like the last time, seems like this office never ran out of ideas to disappoint people... or Am I just too fussy. Well first of, I assume they (officials and/or members of the office) are wide aware that events like this may cause congestion if not well taken care of. Considering the size of their office, they should have at least assigned areas for each step where people can accomplish their registrations systematically. In yesterday's case, people (voters and non-voters) are everywhere leaving the room so still and airless! I didn't know if they even noticed it or were they just too busy doing their jobs to take control of the situation. But even so, I still did try completing mine and worked my way out of the office the soonest I could.

I tried to look for a suggestion box to air my observations as soon as I got out but I saw none.
Oh well.....

That's exactly what these stupid, irresponsible spammers are capable of doing online!

First of, I'd like to apologize to few of my friends from my messenger's list for the annoyance this virus issue that stroke my computer lately has caused them. It was Wednesday if not Thursday while JK and I were chatting online when I got this malicious site link written in foreign language splashed into my messenger and gone. I knew it was something so I quickly turned to my Windows Registry to check and to hopefully get rid of it only to realize that I was too late.

Imagine how clever these malware creators are? They actually manipulate on the users restriction, disallowing them to run the Task Manager even the prompt command thus making the virus hard to identify and get rid with.

How smart! But to me they're still nothing but freaking morons who can't get a life of their own! Thanks to them. I need to have my system reformatted at the cost I don't have.

I don't know what else is next. With everything overwhelming that's happening around lately, they're just getting too much to handle that I could wish for an early retirement!

TERRIBLE! DISAPPOINTING! ANNOYING! DEFICIENT! LAME! POOR! LOUSY!

in short...... INCOMPETENT! and I'm obviously not so happy about it. I feel robbed every time I get disconnected for hours for a totally crappy, pathetic reasons. This is certainly not my first time to whine about poor Internet services. I wonder why am I still not use to it...

Are you?

I've been hearing issues in circle about bloggers and their originally written articles being replicated and posted on somebody else's blog. But just as mere issue as they were, I simply let them pass through one ear to another.

But what I've seen and carefully read this morning was an undeniable, hard evidence of fraudulence. I was so overwhelmed after comparing both articles. Exactly an 84-word paragraph if I'm not mistaken was methodically copied, used in a post and published on the copycat's blog. And a paid post at that? Wow! How dreadful! What more can I say?

I don't want to play worthy here. I admit I sometimes do browse pages for reference in some of the postings I made but hey, what about using your own words or linking back if you feel the need to use others pieces.

Thanks to my source, btw.

.... a year or so since my blog is wearing this layout.

.... 8 months since I bought this blog a domain name of its own.

.... 4 months since I started searching for a new layout and yet until now, I still can't find that look that suits my taste.

I took so much pride dressing up this blog with this template from Pannasmontata because for an amateur blogger this was the first"tedious" editing I've ever did since the advent of my blogging path. That was done somewhere in early 2008 cause I started blogging August 2007 and this was the 3rd layout I use for this blog. I don't want to say I'm getting tired of looking at it because I owe a lot from this template.

But like vehicles needs fuel to keep going, we bloggers needs to get motivated too sometimes to keep posting... and among the things that I believe would inspire us is a whole new pleasant-looking page. So right now, I'm still in desperate search for that next template. Been waiting and checking my source from time to time to drop off new designs but it's been again another week.

I really would appreciate suggestions and link referrals. Kindly post them at the comment section if there's any. Thank you so much ahead!

It's 10 PM... I have had a long day today but can't even doze to sleep so I decided to watch Miss Philippines Earth 2009 coronation night instead. It's not really in my agenda tonight. I don't even watch any of the pre-pageant activities. No personal bet! Just thinking perhaps watching TV would help wear my eyes out till I start to yawn and hit the sack. Tsk...tsk...tsk...

Hate what I'm feeling inside... it definitely don't do me any good, I know :-(

Before I accepted my new job, I know I have to make a compromise with my time which is nothing easy for me at all. I promised myself not to take my blogs for granted but unfortunately, somehow it still did happen. Not on purpose, tho. I work on a night shift and as much as I would like to spend even a little time here after work, I cannot usually cause I just can't dictate my mind and body when and when not to work any farther.

I forgot, I am no super hero. I cannot do anything for everybody just like what I am trying to do right now. I forgot I should be observing some limitations too and only do things as necessary and cannot always make everything happen as much as I would like them to happen my way. And no matter how I am trying to make other people's life easier... I forgot I still don't hold the key on how the way they wanted to live it. Frustrations, disappointments, bitterness and resentments are all I got in return. Boy, how good am I on making someone else's life easy but when it comes to me, I'm no less than stupid. I think I should have my eyes open to the fact that I am no better than what I can be.

Of all the kinds of job responsibilities I have been through in my entire working experience, I should say doing a customer service is the most challenging one... or I should say a tough one! You will never know what to expect from every customers you came across with... for us especially that we are in a kind job where we are pretty much dealing with foreign customers everyday. All kinds of trait and attitude you can imagine are there. Name it! Rude, blunt, rough, and oh I would like to emphasize some European racist who are so loud and arrogant as if they are on a place of their own.

In contrast to the very famous business fallacy, I really would like to assert that, the customer is NOT always right. Nobody is always right... so, why in the name of everything that is supposedly holy in the field of business should anyone deem that the customer is always right? Just because they think they are filthy rich (??) doesn't give them even a smallest bit of right to scorn people any chance they get. I wonder how a stranger to one's place can be so ill-mannered. If I am to visit a foreign country myself, I would prefer to have the good time and not to end up in a foreign jail house!

My profile photo... my long hair... my name NANCY... Don't these clue tells enough???

tsk...tsk...tskk... shame, shame!

The reason why we place a profile picture in our pages is for our readers and new visitors to know how to address us whenever they want to leave us a message or a comment perhaps on our posts. I know my other blog Peaceful Mind wears a hardy color theme (a combination of black, blue and yellow) but my goodness! don't my name on my profile plus the header describes enough that I'm a [fee-meyl]?

This isn't the first time that someone who hopped on my page(s) calls me BRO...

Excuse me?!!!!

I mean, don't you think it's annoying? Did this person even looked around my page or does he/she just went there to look for my cbox , wrote and left? For what...? for the mere sake of blog hopping? Well, I'm not complaining! I don't think I am... not at all. And I don't think either it's my business on however the other wants to gain traffic on their blogs.

I am simply expressing my reaction on the matter. We are publishing online... and it means worldwide.
Let's be RESPONSIBLE!

... why every time they cut us off it always has to be 9 long hours (8am to 5pm). I'm talking about power outage here which we have had this morning. We just got it back. Although I'm really not interested to know but I just hope it wasn't that long cause it really drives me nuts staring at the ceiling trying to figure out of something to do while unconnected. Geezz... I wasn't even able to make a cup of coffee... What a terrible day!

The thing that I hate most about it... is the missed opp from SS which I hardly tried to complete before they can shut me off but **** they still managed to beat me..lol! So what can I say?!!

However I am still thankful and happy now that it's finally back... I guess that's the least thing that I can do. Sad to say but I really can't imagine life without the Internet. I wish I am not this addicted to being online but... ah--ahh--- I doubt it! Tsk...tsk..tsk...!

My relationship with JK has been an open book in this blogging community. I am glad that there are people whom we really don't personally know but have shown some interest and importance to whatever there is about us that we are trying to share. A long distance relationship like what we have now is one thing I least expected to happen to me but it did. It just did and sure it's just as tough but we are trying to make it work one way or another.

Sometime in July, I started working out on some international travel documents in case I may need it in the future. Of course I have to start with a passport but prior to that I need to secure some local clearances first like the Barangay and Police Clearance. For each request I need to state what my purpose was. For Abroad! The local police station here in Moalboal, Cebu was the last office I went through and I was dead shock to know how much do I need to pay for just a single sheet of paper... (I'm talking about the police clearance) request:

The officer: Unsay purpose mam? (Purpose please, mam?)
Me: For Abroad
The officer: Php 470.00 for the clearance plus 30.00 for the documentary stamp.

I was like... What!!! Are you for real?? Talagang sagad, ha...wala ng suklian!

I wanted to question why they charge that high but then again, even if I do, I know I won't be having a choice. Although I know from the start how "some" people do their "businesses" here being in a place mostly visited by foreign people... Pero pati ba naman government services ganun din?!! from what I understand kasi from here pag sinabing "for abroad" they would think...wow! dollar eto!! (haha). Sounds funny , huh but actually it's not! Disappointing! And I really mean so disappointing... I don't really complain...it's not my attitude. ... kaya lang hindi ba nakakainis ang ganun? Yung parang naisahan ka pero wala kang magawa? but I did. I still did pay for the so damn price kahit hindi medyo kundi talagang mabigat yun sa dibdib ko. Sigh!! I really wish I was in Davao when I did. Dito kasi from what I have observed from people with the same experience, when it comes to travel document processing especially for abroad, lahat dollar priced, daig pa ang EVAT (Extended Value Added Tax) ni Presidente Gloria... Hello... hindi kaya kami foreigner, ano!

Tsk..tsk..tsk... hayy....ewan ko ba!!!

***This is not to offend anyone but come to think of it... They simply were just trying to impart the other side of the face of a public servant the way most affected people perceived it. I guess you know what I mean!

*** To my foreign readers... I regret to use some vernacular words in this post... but sometimes feeling can be best expressed when it's locally articulated.