More Google Stupidity

In a round of blog tag, today I visited Gracie@ Marketing Whore, from there to A Slip of a Girl, and from there to Lingerie Directory UK. What was the fuss about?

Google stupidity.

No, more specifically Google decided to ban ads from a lingerie company for being "adult content." Apparently, hot chicks in underwear is too adult for people searching for...um...hot chicks in lingerie. Meaning: if you advertise what you sell (and if what you sell isn't marketable to pre-schoolers) Google will refuse your money. Right. I've already complained about this, so I knew exactly what I wanted to say on Gracie's blog:

Good lord. I don't mean to be crass (okay, maybe I do), but Google is entirely too uptight. Somebody over there needs to get laid. I don't understand how they can figure out how to block what could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue a year through their wonky algorithm, but they can't figure out a formula to keep the adult type people from the kid-friendly sites.

It's kind of sick when you think about it. If you search for something even remotely adult related with them, you get all kinds of porn and toy ads that may have nothing to do with what you're searching for. It's like they have every site separated into "this close to Disney" and "will corrupt young minds" with no room in between. There is a spectrum, an area in between that might not be safe for 5-year-olds, but doesn't require a 1-900 number and credit card to view either.

Is it that they're so determined to stay family friendly they're afraid of offending the sexually repressed minority of this country? (Just because they're sometimes the loudest, doesn't mean they speak for most of us.)

Honestly, they should look at what people put into their search engine. I do. Every day. I see what terms people use to search for my blogs, I can take a fair guess at what they're expecting to find LOL and I seriously doubt Google turning all of their ads into something we would've seen during the Leave It To Beaver heyday will benefit Google, the consumers, the websites they're shutting out or the blogs like mine that won't water down their content just to get ads.

*sigh* Google is stupid.

Then, I followed the links and had this to add:

Okay, having looked at the ads, I do agree that the one with the guy holding the underwear in his teeth is a bit much, but the rest aren't that bad. Besides, wouldn't they only come up if someone was looking for something along those lines?

Really, I don't understand it. Why does Google fight against making (dirty) money? They go out of their way to buy up or shut out every available threat of competition, but refuse to open up every possible avenue of making money? At the rate they're going, adult advertisers (including the non-pornographic variety) will have nowhere to promote their products but the back pages of adult magazines and obscure text ads on craigslist. After reading all of this, I thought "Maybe they have a point. They refuse to promote what and where they think is dirty and they have that right." Then, I decided to look at the ads on the Lingerie Directory site. (Of course I did, I like looking at hot half naked chicks as much as the next person.)


Wow. They have a LOT of Google ads on that page. For lingerie. For "see thru" lingerie. For "trashy" lingerie. Hmph. Does that sound like hypocrisy to anyone? I thought so, but then I clicked on most of the links. Turns out, they DON'T actually lead to lingerie sites. The majority don't, but a couple do. Where do they lead? you ask. Why, to pages full of...links advertising lingerie. Google ads for more shit they're not trying to sell people who are looking for it.

Oh, wait! Here is an example of a lingerie site connected to a Google ad.

See that? It's even child friendly. There's a Sesame Street product right on the page.

The lesson here is this, you cannot advertise adult products with Google or expect adult ads that match your content. You can, however, get ads that appear to relate to what you're writing about, but lead to nothing, which supports Google's policy of not promoting adult oriented sites but still taking their money without blinking when it suits them. Great for The Suits, bad for anyone who actually wants to advertise or buy anything, ever.

Awkward Sex Attempts: Dick Craving Dilemma

I guess you could consider this story a prequel to the disaster I wrote about a few weeks ago. Is this one equally tragic? Perhaps not. Equally traumatic? Why yes, dear. Count on that.

It started in December of [year censored]. Let's not get into how old I was. That would only make this seem even more dirty than it already does. (Stop staring at the picture already!) So, I had met this boy, let's call him Thomas. We were both in band and had basically spent the entire summer flirting back and forth with each other. No, really he spend the summer flirting. I spent the whole time wondering why an upperclassman even noticed I existed. Come to find out he made a habit of blowing through each freshman class like the clap through a high school house party, so I was neither special nor a real "goal" to him. I was just something to do (more accurately, someone to tease) until I gave in and he could move to the next one. Once I figured this out, I took his teasing (grabbing me to dance in the middle of the hall, singing and playing piano for me before footballs games, making me laugh at practice) for what it was, just him being goodnatured. He was hilarious. Crazy and sexy and I wish I had known what an intoxicating combination that could be when I'd met him. I would've run so fast in the opposite direction...

Anyway, I spent most of the fall becoming his friend. Poor guy. He didn't have female friends. He had girls he had fucked, girls he was going to fuck and girls he was currently fucking. He wanted me in the first category and made no secret of it every time he saw me. The sick thing is that I wanted to. I knew he was the school slut. I knew he had slept with at least half of my friends and would sleep with most of them before he graduated. Girls in my classes compared notes on him and how he's gotten better over the years. I knew he had a girlfriend (or two) in damn near every school in the county. I actually sat next to one of his girlfriends (who looked like a popular singer) in Biology class. You'd think that would be enough for me to not want to sleep with him, but no. I'm easily talked into things.

Like my first kiss. Yes, I got it from him. Right at the beginning of December. Ooh. (Yes, I still remember the date. It was that good.) I don't know if kissing him was a good idea in the end or bad because I ended up comparing every guy I've kissed since then to him. Then again, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't know what good kissing is like or that I'm damn good at it too. I have no idea how I let him kiss me that first time, but one minute we were innocently (ha!) talking and the next he was teaching me to do things with my tongue I didn't think were possible. (Yeah it sounds corny, but I had no idea kissing could feel like that!) I kind of knew I was in trouble and thankfully someone walked in on us and broke the mood. I escaped what I knew was coming. And come it did, less than a week later.

We had just returned to the school after a performance and he asked me to walk around with him. Said he wanted to talk to me. Uh huh. I figured he just wanted to kiss me some more. I kind of ran after him with YAY!!! running through my brain. Did I mention he was sexy? I swear, Thomas is where I got my thing for skinny boys that sing and dance. That's really how he got me. He sat down at the piano one day and sang one of my favorite songs. He just--okay, I'm getting off track. But, you get the point.

We started walking around the school and he pulled me into the school's auditorium. It was nice. It looked like a theater you would see in an old movie with balconies, etc. (The building used to be a hotel.) We went onto the stage and ducked behind the curtain. This is when I should have known our encounter was going to be more than talking, but I didn't get the hint until he had me up against the wall, kissing me way more intensely than he had before and was trying to get me out of my jeans. (I kept zipping them back up and swatting his hands away.)

My mind went into panic mode. The ensuing conversation went like this:

Me: (panting between kisses) What are you doing?
Thomas: What do you think I'm doing?
Me: (moaning with his mouth on my neck) We should stop.
Thomas: Why
Me: ...
Thomas: You don't really want me to stop. (resumes kissing)
Me: (No, not really.) But, you have a girlfriend!
Thomas: Who?
Me: Deidre. (more moaning to distract from what I was trying to say.)
Thomas: Oh, her. You're not friends with her, are you? (He turns me around, pins me against the wall and starts kissing the back of my neck.)
Me: No. (Especially not now.)
Thomas: Then there's no problem.

He grabbed my breasts and I almost fell over. So then he had my hands pinned to the wall under one of his, while his other hand unzipped his pants. I felt something poking me in the back. Did I want to look? No. Did I have to look? Hell yes.

Thomas: I want you to touch me.

He grabbed my hand and put it on his dick. I started to think, it can't be that bi--then I turned around and realized why it felt like I was holding the fat end of a baseball bat. See the picture above? That was the look on my face. I didn't know whether to do a cartwheel or tell him to put his clothes back on. I should've been scared, but I wasn't. (yet.) There is nothing more intriguing for me than something very big unwrapped just for me. I really, really wanted to say yes at that point. Which brings me to the stupid thing I did.

Some time after he started to get acquainted with my hand, I asked if he had any condoms. In between kissing me, he says no. He doesn't like to wear them because they're tight. Normally, this is where I would type that all guys have said that BS at some point or another, but with this one I would imagine it's true. I told him he'd have to use one if he wanted to sleep with me. (Let me just say here that I am related to someone who taught health classes and knew more about STDs than any other teenage girl and probably a lot of adults.) I was not trying to be like the girls in my class popping out babies from random guys left and right or the one cheerleader who not-so-secretly contracted an STD she couldn't get rid of. It probably still burns when she pees.

How did he respond? He tried kissing me. I pushed him away. I started to walk away. He grabbed me from behind and tried to carry me into the bathroom just offstage. Why was he ignoring what I'd said to him? Because the bathroom is soundproof. Uh huh. Exactly. That's what he said to me. So I, who come from a fertile family, should have sex on the FLOOR of a high school bathroom, with a guy who didn't have protection AND had at least a dozen girlfriends because it's soundproof? Right, cuz no one hearing me scream is great birth control and guaranteed disease free. (I can't believe I was willing to disregard most of that if he'd had a condom, but anyway...) For a second, I thought he'd try talking me into that pullout method crap, but he didn't. He tried that seductive vibrating thing he does with his tongue again. It almost worked. Almost.

I had to push him. Hard. Twice. I walked from behind the curtain and down one of the side aisles of the theater, trying not to run back and jump him anyway. I turned around (I was such a rookie) and he was standing at the edge of the stage looking pitiful, his boxers and jeans around his knees, his dick waving goodbye (or come back). He asked me what he was going to do then. My response: "Put your clothes back on."

I thought he was going to be pissed at me, but rejection only made him more determined. No, not determined to buy a box of condoms so I'd say yes, but determined to finish his conquest his way. As in, he tried a few more times that year and the next, even trying after he was married with 3 kids when we were in college. NO, I never slept with him. In my opinion, that makes me a little stupid because I REALLY want to (still, after all these years), but he still has that hangup about condoms and I still have that hangup about getting knocked up from a one night stand.

Is it wrong that I still know his number?

every which way but published

I don't know why I let people make me doubt myself. (Yes, I do, but go with the lie for now.) I got a so-so review for one of my stories eons ago (though it feels recent) and I felt like I had to overhaul the thing with a pair of scissors and two handfuls of prayer beads. You know what? I don't get it. I don't really take critcism well (try not to laugh too loudly at that), but I don't really see what the reviewer says was "wrong" with it. Oh, well. Whatever. I changed a few small things, fixed a couple of typos and remembered just how much I enjoyed writing that story as I read it again today. Look for me to put Plaything back on the market, hopefully before the new year begins.

That's my one real resolution for 2008. To not only rewrite some of my stories (and lightly tweak others), but LOVE them as I do so and hopefully build a serious online presence. Or, at least, more than what I have now. I have so many unfinished stories and unwritten ideas, I hope to get most of them done and out the door before I start any major new projects. Not that I can stop myself from doing that. I'm on chapter 3 of my fantasy novel and I'm already wondering what the storyline will be for the third book in the series.

I'm also debating putting some of my novellas on multiple self-publishing sites or having them published together instead of separately. I'll have to look into that. I've never understood why some self-pub sites are not free, with the exception of the ones that promote for you. How much of a benefit is that, really? I mean, isn't the point to make money, not spend it? And what kind of writer wants to sell stories but isn't willing to put in the work to promote themselves? I guess those kinds of things are for people who don't want to get their hands dirty, talking to fans and posting and such. I know it takes time, but it's worth it in the end. As for me, I'd be doing this anyway, whether I was writing or not, so I guess I have an advantage over the ones who don't want to be bothered. I enjoy communicating, thought it may not always seem like it. LOL

Where was I going with this? Plaything. Yeah, I got a good review and a so-so "try again" review. I choose to go with the first one. Maybe some fans can tell me what they think later. I'll be putting it back up soon. Or not.

a holiday greeting of sorts

Seasons greetings to all - religious, secular, bored, single, family-oriented, sad, happy, shopping, broke, or just plain sick of holiday specials taking over TV and radio. Enjoy whatever you can this season and the best of everything in the new year.