Buying in and Selling Out - Moneytizing the Blog (whatever that means)

The other day, my pal Jimmy Poon and I were scraping down the grommet releaser compound tank on a regularly scheduled maintenance day on the size 7 grommet line at Royal Canadian Veeblefetzer, where we both work.

In case you didn't realize this, Jimmy Poon makes all this 'blog' stuff happen. Me, I'm thinking about getting a computer someday.

"Hey, Jimmy Poon," I said. "I have some good news. I finally have an easy backup bankroll source for Vegas."

"Oh yeah, Royal Flusher?" Jimmy Poon said.

"Yeah, Jimmy Poon," I said.

I'd set up credit at Main Street Station a year or two ago so that I could just take a marker when I needed desperation gambling cash. The idea is that if you don't pay it back on your trip, they just take it out of your bank account 30 days later.

Much simpler than screwing with getting US cash, traveler's checks, taping banded stacks of hundys to your leg for the plane trip, and all that nonsense.

Unfortunately, the cage folks at MSS just could not get the account connection to work and they started sending made guys to the house threatening to break my legs or clip Chippy's toenails with extreme prejudice after the time we'd tried it out. I ended up paying them back in cash the next trip.

"Jimmy Poon, I called around to see who can handle a Canadian account and at the Cal, they use the Main Street Cage. So that's out. I don't trust the Las Vegas Club. The Four Queens wouldn't take me without a U.S. SIN number. So I tried the Nugget and they said they could handle my 'action'."

"That's great Royal Flusher! Hand me that ice bucket over there to put these smelly disgusting scrapings into."

(We'd stolen the prized Silver Grommet Award runner-up commemorative ice bucket from Norbert's office. Norbert is the self-aggrandizing pink-golf-pant-wearing fuck-tonsils who'd married the plant owner's daughter.)

"I asked for a 5K credit line and they gave me 2K. I guess they did a credit check on me, Jimmy Poon."

I laughed. And Jimmy Poon laughed that little Poony laugh of his. He sounded like an elf with a PhD, yeah, like a Dr. Elf.

"That dick-eared Norbert really sold out when he sold the plant to the Pesky Belgians and the Crafty South Koreans," I said.

"Royal Flusher," said Jimmy Poon in a quiet voice, "I went over your numbers. You had over 100,000 page views last trip because you wrote such stupid-good stuff. We should install some better analytics software, devise an embedded advertising strategy, and monetize the blog in a non-offensive manner.

You might make enough to write off the cost of the royalflushervegas.com domain someday."

"But... but Jimmy Poon, that's.... selling out!" A lone, fat tear rolled down my cheek.

"Royal Flusher, go big or go home!"

"But, I already have Roam Mobility sponsoring the next trip. This is too much selling out! I don't want to be like Norbert!"

"You won't be. You're nothing like him. For one thing, you don't put a yam down the crotch of your Gloria Vanderbilts, now do you."

I made a mental note of Jimmy Poon's point. One never knows when one will come across a good idea.

Jimmy Poon then flicked a sticky, funky ball of rotting grommet releaser compound at me, that hit me square in the eye.

"OWW!" I exclaimed, wiping the rotting goo away.

Jimmy Poon laughed. And then I laughed. And then Jimmy Poon laughed some more.

"Jimmy Poon, about a week from now, I'll be on my way to Vegas. And I'll be a big fat sell-out."

"It's okay, Royal Flusher," Jimmy Poon said. "As long as I get my cut."

I left it to Jimmy Poon to work his magic. He installed the "Google Analytics", which apparently tells him which pages get read the most, and how many visitors we have. That way, I can write more crap that people like. Working for Norbert, I have become an expert at pandering and ass-kissing.

And, he's installed some inobtrusive (hopefully) ads which will someday (hopefully) defray some of the blog costs.

He first went with something called 'Chitika' which I continually call Chiquita, just to jerk his chain and get him to laugh that Dr. Elf laugh of his, and then moved over to the big ad guns - Goodle Adsense.

And as you can see, that Googly Anal-ytics is working great! Here's an Anal-ytics screenshot.

I think one of the visitors is me, and the other is Jimmy Poon.

Oh, that Jimmy Poon!