Swollen Pickles

Even though it was released in 2006, "Louder Now", the third album from Taking Back Sunday, has become one of those albums I just can't take out of my cd player.

The tone of the album is heavy rock "happy hardcore", with liberal lashings of pop thrown in for good measure. I'm sure that Taking Back Sunday get written off by a lot of people as being just another "emo/screamo" band, but do so would be a little harsh.

Standout tracks on the album are "MakeDamnSure", "Error: Operator", "What it feels like to be a ghost" and "Liar (It takes one to know one)". All tracks that will make you feel like singing along and breaking out the air guitar.

A lot of the A grade materials is spat out first up (with the exception of "Error: Operator"), but that's not to say that the second half is poor. It's just that the first half of the album sets such a high standard.

Whether it's a good or bad thing, Taking Back Sunday have become somewhat of a serial soundtrack band, contributing songs to soundtracks from films such as Fantastic Four, Spider-man 2 and Elektra. Anyone else notice the comic books link?

Would I recommend "Louder Now"? Yes, as an introduction to Taking Back Sunday it's a great place to start. If you like the more recent stuff from bands like My Chemical Romance, The Used and Funeral for a Friend, then you'll like this.

My number one selling post level "text link" is once again available via Text-Link-Ads. It's an old post entitled "Who stole Michaels goat?". I think it's the only post that any of the "cool kids" have picked up on. The page itself has a solid "Text-Link-Ads" popularity of 4, and has a few solid back links, including one from TechCrunch (which turns out to be quite a popular blog).

Now for today's totally unrelated, and somewhat out of the blue paid link... drum roll please... kids bedding!

AuctionAds have a brand new look. If you log into your AuctionAds account this morning you'll notice that, not only has the site taken on a Web2.0 vibe, but there are now a whole new range of ads available to select from.

Here's a preview of what the new ad format looks like (in vertical).

On the company blog they have indicated the new format is likely to increase the click through rate, but I'm not so sure. Also, depending on your site, this new format may be a little on the over powering side. Fortunately, if you're not a fan of the new formats, you are still able to select from the original, adsense style, formats. What do you think about the new AuctionAds style?

Well I'm posting, I'd also like to thank Junior Blogger extraordinaire Casey from News Notion for the liberal dose of swollenpickles link love today. She's been blogging about making money on the internet since April of this year, and things seem to be just falling into place for her. She's also quite open about her earnings which is cool, as not everyone is willing to share that sort of information. She's currently not using AuctionAds but I'd recommend that she check it out as another way to monetize her site.

Heckling has never really struck me as a great idea. As a heckler, you're hardly in a position of power. Sure you may have 5-10 maybe even 20 seconds to say your piece. But that's it, then it's the dude who is up on stages turn to return fire.

What we have here is a video illustrating my point. It features director Kevin Smith, responding to some audience questions at a recent Comic-Con. The heckler stands up takes the microphone, and at that point, the mistake had been made.

Warning: The following clip contains coarse language, adult themes and some sexual references. Swollen Pickles advises that it should be viewed by mature audiences only. (more...)

I saw this picture on the "Geek With Laptop" site.

I know what it's supposed to say, but all I can see is one big "WTF!!!!".

This is a good little example of what can happen when sign writing goes just that little bit wrong.

I'm sure it looked right on paper...

If you're old enough, you may remember a time when advertising was innocent and pure. There were no racy ads filled with smutty innuendo, just good wholesome commercialism... or were there??

Taking a look at a couple of these weird nuggets below, I had to ask myself, "would these sneak past the censors today?" (more...)

If you've been here more than once, you might remember that last month I posted about DonkeyMails, a site that promotes itself as one that will "pay you to receive emails". It sounds fantastic in theory, but will it make you any money?

Short answer is yes, it will make you money, just very very very very very very slowly. Whilst DonkeyMails has its good points, such as the $1 minimum payout, the fact is, you earn next to nothing for each email, which come quite frequently I might add! Over the month, I've received roughly 5-10 emails per day. How much have I made in that time you ask? $0.22. At that rate, I'd be waiting until Christmas before I can receive my first payment!

With that in mind, I wouldn't recommend DonkeyMails unless you have far too much time on your hands. In a two horse (pardon the semi-pun) between DonkeyMails and EmailCash, Email cash wins hands down! Bring out the screens, and pass me the shotgun, DonkeMails is no longer on the Pickles portfolio.