Picking and Choosing

First of all, no new articles today - as though any of you rabidly scroll to the bottom of posts to find my new material. I can dream.

So, quick update: I think my student loan is out of loan limbo, however, for some reason, they say unless I pay them thirty bucks to "overnight" it, it'll take a week to get here. No, thanks. Can't they just take the thirty bucks out of the loan? No, nothing doing. I'll figure that out. There's also the issue of the check being made out to both me (yay!) and my cosigner (three hours a-way!). I'll figure that out, too. I'm a problem solver; just give me time.

I just wanted to say a quick word about turning away distasteful material. This past week, in my neverending search for gigs (it's become like an addiction, really), I was offered a job doing advertising for a very clear pyramid scheme. I mean, these people sent me to their "promotional video" aka "powerpoint slideshow to Eye of the Tiger on youtube" and at one point, they actually draw a pyramid for the viewer out of little blindfolded men. How dense can you get?

Well, apparently the pyramid scam has ruined many a life, and I didn't want to sully my karmic waters by writing a weeks' worth of really good promotions for the "Club" that offered me the position, even for $60, which I need.

Was this wise? I'm going to go ahead and say, for me, it's okay. I've got a big ole hunka loan on the way, and I'm not a fulltime freelancer yet, so I might as well only take jobs I enjoy right now.

And where I might enjoy the job I saw on Miami Craigslist (I'm not making this up) where a man was seeking to stock up his library of emails to send to beautiful women in internet dating sites - I might actually have to link this job, the guy is asking for it - anyway, where I might enjoy it, I find it morally gray.

I've read over and over again that you've really established yourself as a freelance writer once you can say no to the jobs you don't want, but I don't think that applies in my case. I'm kind of doing this backward, and once my livlihood depends on it, you might have to watch out which personals ads you respond to.

I'd like to believe, however, that I can continue to find work that follows my line of thinking. The effort should be worth it.

In other news, I'm in talks with a company about taking over their weight loss blog. That could be fun to research and maintain. I could donate magazines to waiting rooms! More news on that in the near future -