Here are a collection of nuggets and assorted side show oddities that have amused me over the last 24 hours, an might just brighten your day as well.

As far as attention grabbing introductory sentences for a news story go, the following is going to take a lot of beating (so to speak):

A TERRITORY man filmed himself speeding at 150km/h while masturbating at the wheel of his drug-laden car, a court heard.

Source: Northern Territory News

Yup, that little nugget made the front page of the Northern Territory News, along with an equally thought provoking headline, "Is this bloke a complete tosser?".

You want more? The prosecutor said in court that:

...the father-of-three told police he "had masturbated while driving'' just before he was stopped for speeding on the 130km/h stretch of the Stuart Hwy.

"(He) also video recorded himself masturbating while travelling at a speed of 150km/h.''

» Read the rest of the entry..

I needed a laugh. I needed... Dr Tran.

The Dr Tran series is a personal favorite, if you haven't seen and Dr Tran's step back in time and watch some of the "Best of" Dr Tran.

If you love Dr Tran, then you'll be happy to know that I just realised that a new instalment has hit YouTube. Check out the video below, Dr. Tran starring in "Dickable Afternoons" with special guest appearance from Goodmonson the Dickable Dog.

Experience the quality and tradition of a dickable afternoon...

Side note for any comic geeks reading this, go check out the . They are currently offering massive discounts on some of their comics and trade paper backs. I've already ordered a few, including the three Batman War Games trade paper backs.

As an added bonus, if you want to receive an additional $10 off shipping click the link below, and give the coupon code "DOGS" a shot. It worked for me.

Things From Another World Summer Steals.

1978 TRANS AM DRFENDER

0 Bid

US $175.00

2d 22h 12m

84 86 Firebird Trans Am dr headlight assembly

0 Bid

US $35.00

3d 7h 18m

A week ago I wrote about how to improve your Technorati ranking. At the time of writing that post, the Technorati rank for SwollenPickles.com was 91,357.

Since then, I've taken a couple of measures outlined in that post, but to be honest, spent very little time working on it. In that time, my Technorati rank has jumped up by close to 30,000. As of writing this, my Technorati rank is 61,742. In short, something seems to have worked.

If you haven't signed up to the Pepperjam Network yet you better hurry up and do so if you want to take advantage of $10 new affiliate sign on bonus. The $10 bonus is only available up until the end of July so you still have just under a week to apply to the network.

Why should you sign up? Besides the fact that the Pepperjam Network is one of the more promising and fastest growing new affiliate programs, there's ten bucks in it for you.

Join Pepperjam Network and Receive a $10 Sign On Bonus

If you've wanted to sell ad spots on your blog but weren't sure where to start, stop worrying and check out Etology. Did I mention it's FREE?

It's quite commonplace these days to see blogs selling 125 x 125 pixel ad spaces in the sidebar. These ad spots can represent great value for advertisers looking to get the word out, as well as being a great source of additional revenue for bloggers. I'd been toying with the idea of selling ad spots here for a while, however the prospect always seemed a little to daunting for me. I didn't know how to manage the spots themselves, or the buying and selling process. It wasn't until I discovered Project Wonderful that I was able to start selling 125 x 125 banner spots. They handled all the hard work and it worked out fine.

Today I discovered a company that takes this concept one step further. Etology allow site owners sell their ad space directly to advertisers. Advertisers can place ads directly on sites. Etology serves text ads and banner ads in all types of standard ad units, including banners, skyscrapers and inline ads. They do all the work, all you need to do is add a couple of lines of code to your site where you'd like the ad units to appear.

Etology allows for the publisher to set their own price based on either a flat rate (daily, weekly and monthly), desired CPM or markup percentage. This allows for greater flexibility and for publishers to tailor their pricing based on what they think will work best in attracting potential advertisers. As you can see from the screenshot below, Etology offer a range of set up options as well as tracking statistics to help you identify what is working and what isn't.

Having started up with Etology early this morning, I can honestly say the whole process, sign up, to displaying an ad spot, took no more than five minutes. If you can cut and paste, you'll be able to get moving quickly. The biggest drama you'll have with Etology is figuring how much to charge for your ad spots!

Start selling your own ad spots now!

If you're looking for more information on setting your ad pricing, check out "Adspot Pricing For Blogs Exposed!". It's a great, well researched, article. Highly recommended.

Chuck Palahniuk's Choke is one of my favorite books. It's definitely sitting on the Swollen Pickles recommended reading list, and if, by change, one day I replace Oprah as the shepard of the worlds flock, it'll be part of the Pickles Book Club.

A basic summary of Choke goes something like this:

Victor Mancini is a sex addict who works colonial era theme park, where he is paid to pretend he's an Irish servant typical of the day. To support his hospitalized mother, Victor cons others by intentionally choking at restaurants to get money from his rescuers. Victor Mancini had a troubled child hood, shifting between foster homes, when he wasn't busy being abducted by his mother. Victor Mancini may or may not also be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

Yes, it's a Chuck Palahniuk book, full of things that will make you laugh, cry, shudder, groan, and generally freak out about.

The movie adaptation has been rumored for a while (I believe the rights were sold back in 2001), and along with Survivor is arguably the best Palahniuk story to get the big screen adaptation, Fight Club aside.
» Read the rest of the entry..

Day three of the Technorati experiment is here, and it would seem things have taken a nasty turn.

Yesterday I was sitting pretty with a Technorati rank of 88,547. Today, there's been an nose dive, with my current rank ballooning out to 111,362. Edit: An hour and a half after posting this I checked again and the rank is now 76,252.

Good news is that my post "How to improve your Technorati rank" is still sitting at number one in the Google search results for the term "improve your technorati rank".