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Where Is This? (June 30, 2006) 
** * * * * * * * * * This is what's known as "sharkbait"--tasty white meat on a beach somewhere, looking unhealthily pale. So where is this sharkbait standing? Alas, the paleness is genetic and cannot be fixed by frolicking in the sun. Note the hat and late hour of the day (scars from skin cancer surgeries are not visible, thank goodness). And yes, that is SPF 40 on the sharkbait skin. My surfer friend G.B. turned me on to Aloe Gator Total Sunblock Lotion, and it really is waterproof. This location is just too easy for those residing in a certain state whose name shall go unmentioned, but visitors may not have wandered down to this largely ignored (and therefore peaceful) strip of sand. At the nadir of my starving student days (i.e. emptying my childhood coin collection to buy a couple gallons of gasoline for my crummy VW Bug), I lived just a few blocks from this beach in a guest cottage stuffed with the owner's business records. I literally had to thread my way through stacked boxes of tax records to get to the tiny bathroom. But the price was right and I managed to survive the recession of 1973-74. (This practise will help me survive the recession of 2007-11.) Typically I pitch my little novel I-State Lines on Friday, but since yesterday's subliminal campaign failed utterly, I am too despondent to even work up a pitch. Instead, let's get another perspective on "paying for Web content" from an akamai correspondent who had this to say regarding my recommendation to subscribe to patrick.net's new fee-based service (see yesterday's entry for context): Really? $75 a year for a page full of links that other people send him? Hardly seems like original content, or time-consuming either. The stuff you write is 10X more creative than a simple "link farmer" assembling a list of pages based upon what other people send him. Heck, the entire content of the WSJ online is $79/year. I would subscribe to patrick.net for something like $10/yr, but $75 no way, just out of principle - there's no creativity involved whatsoever. Heck, next month, someone else (maybe me) will start compiling links of housing stories.I think the source of irritation is clear--assembling links does not qualify as original content to this reader, and I can understand that view. The Web is littered with failed attempts to get users to pay for content, and I am not sure that the current fad of placing contextual ads on sites will succeed in the long run, either. That doesn't stop me from trying it, too, of course. So twist your doctor's arm into writing a prescription for Zombiestra (TM), "Because Life's a Beach" (TM, Astra-Zastra). See how that works? I mentioned "beach" in today's entry, and my handy-dandy ad placement script quickly identified this as the perfect time to insert Zombiestra's catchy slogan, "Because Life's a Beach" (TM). Be the first to identify this specific beach, and I'll send you a collector's copy of my book I-State Lines. So email me! For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog. 
copyright © 2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media. I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.
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