Money smart vs street smart

This would probably be less fun than Disney makes it look. More than likely Uncle Scrooge would end up with a bloody nose. Or bill...

Have you seen me?

MISSING

TYSON’S BLACK LEATHER WALLET
Missing from: Provo, UT
Date Missing: March 21, 2009
Age: 2
Sex: for males
Height: 3’’
Weight: 40 grams
Build: thin
Race: black

Circumstances:

May appear mal-nourished. Possible connection

as divine punishment for breaking honor code.

If found, please call 702.401.7667

Last seen with Tyson VanDerwerken:

February's million dollar ideas

Pants with a sensor that beeps if you take more than four steps with your fly undone, a weightlifting machine that has you sit and arm wrestle against a set of weights to isolate the muscles and give you an advantage in future arm wrestling matches, computer screens that emit light UV rays (with an on/off switch) so you can tan at work and get your vitamin E to fight off depression.

Competing with the teacher for face time

I don't understand why students over thirty five feel compelled to make six or seven comments during every single class period. Maybe when I'm older I'll think that since I've lived through more I'm more qualified to comment on the course material. Hopefully I'll a) not still be in school in 12 years and b) have the sense to realize quantity does not equal quality.

Bad signs

Things to do on a date while waiting for your food to come:

Chew on your straw, stare at the people sitting next to you, check to see if you missed any new texts, doodle on your napkin, make a teepee out of your silverware, look at the wine list, twiddle, readjust your socks, power nap, fix your hair in the reflection of your spoon, hum, organize the cards in your wallet/purse.


Thanks to our special correspondent for her research.

Suck on it, Sly Sludge

I believe God is going to make people who have a penchant for littering retrace their steps and pick up all the trash they threw on the ground before they can enter heaven. People who throw their cigarette butts everywhere are going to be hit especially hard.

Why my blog and I haven’t sold out yet

GoogleAds are an easy alternative to score some extra lucre without actually working. It’s as easy as cutting and pasting a snippit of code onto the template. The ads appear to the left or right of the page (customization options!) and every time someone clicks on the ad you make a mind bending three to eight cents. Ca-ching.

So where are my ads, passively pocketing pennies per click? Well, they were up here until I got this email:

Hello Paul VanDerwerken,

(“Hello”. Like you know me, Mr. Google AdSense team. And notice the “Paul.” Anytime I do anything shifty, I’m sure to use my first name. I think it’ll be easier to flee the country if it ever comes down to that. I’ll just tell the cops at the Canadian border they’ve got the wrong guy, my name’s Tyson. And if they’re on top of their game and aren’t fooled by that I’ll tell them they want my dad, Paul VanDerwerken Sr. I got the idea from George Michael Sr. and Oscar Blueth.)

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we've decided to disable your account.

(Uh oh. I can only assume the “significant risk” they were referring to was how I entered my own site and clicked the ads there about eighty times a day. I didn’t want Google getting suspicious though if all my clicks came from the same computer. The computer labs on campus helped here: I would sit at one computer, log onto it as well as the ones to the left and right, and start clicking away at all three. Money in the bank. After I was done, I’d sign off, move three computers over, and repeat.

And “financially damaging” my eye. The ads on my site were for like Brooks Brothers and Target. Granted the economy’s not in the best of shape, but I doubt a store that charges $75.00 for a pair of socks is going to be capitally smitten by my cyber charlatanism.

And who is this “we”? If that’s an actual person who has to look through records of the number of clicks a particular website generates, then that person’s job is more pathetic than the kid who makes 70 cents an hour clicking on his own website. More than likely the “we” in question is actually Skynet.)

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

(I appreciate how I’m never actually accused of any wrongdoing. I hate feeling guilty, especially feeling guilty after getting caught doing something that warrants feeling guilty. And yet there’s not any room to maneuver here- Google pulled the plug on my life of luxury. They did so after I’d already clicked my way to $65.00 but before they actually sent me a check. So I’m stuck still paying for college.)

If you have any questions about your account or the actions we've taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153&hl=en_US.

(“We know what you did and we’re not going to argue with you or listen to you beg for another chance. Here’s a website that will tell you likewise, although not as bluntly.”)

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

Now I’m stuck blogging for free. “Exploiting Google AdSense” is so not making my list of Million Dollar Ideas.

The hottest ticket in town

Last night I attended my sister Cami's wedding reception. It was done very well. As I milled around, however, I couldn't help but think of how I would have done my reception differently. Here's a partial list of the improvements I intend to include should I ever happen get married:

1. No flowers on the cake. This one has always been a pet peeve of mine. Flowers on a cake are like the security plastic wrap on a new DVD or the password to log onto your RouteY account. Its existence is a hindrance. Plus who wants to eat a cake that tastes like grass? Probably the same people who order wheat grass with their Jamba Juice, and if you've ever been suckered into doing that then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

2. Instead of having a real band I'm going to have Rock Band set up by the punch bowl.

3. The chocolate dipping fountain will double as a slip and slide. This will also be loaded into the back of my car before the end of the night for the upcoming honeymoon.

4. A clown who makes hats and animals for people. And it will be a legit clown with a newspaper ad or something and no criminal record, not one that arrives in an nondescript white van that doubles as a mobile meth lab as someone suggested.

5. If my bride and parents want to stand in a line then they're free to do so. I'd much rather be wandering around the crowd with a balloon hat on. If I am constrained to be in the greeting line, I want to be with my wifie on one side of a fooseball table going double or nothing for whatever present the invitee brought.
(sidenote: a "dealbreaker" prior to being engaged would be fooseball skills)

6. On top of the Rock Band playlist, the tunes played at my reception will differ decidedly from most others. No country songs about little girls growing up or else. I'll probably just put my Ipod on shuffle (which is also what I'm doing at my wake/funeral) but for sure the following songs will be included: "By the Way They Dance" by Jump Little Children for the first dance, "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS, "I only Want to Be with You" by Hootie and the Blowfish, and "The Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers.

And as a blog bonus! the three requisite songs to be played at my funeral are "At Your Funeral" by Saves the Day, "Fly like an Eagle" by Steve Miller, and the theme song from the "Mortal Kombat" movie.

7. My wife is actually going to be attractive.

Just kidding Cami, you looked great.

Those were the ones that first came to mind. I haven't given my reception much thought though, so I retain the right to add to this list as more ideas come to mind. Best of luck Cami and Nate-

Archie the Apple

If I ever get around to starting my own university, I'm going to make the mascot an apple. That way, whenever we have a good/bad season, people can be like "how 'bout them Apples?"

Featuring the world's largest rhinestone

Today I visited the Liberace Museum. Why? For the same reason Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest and Bruce Bogtrotters ate Miss Trunchbull’s chocolate cake: because it was there. Proximity determined preferences, applicable in cases of fast food, dating, and Saturday afternoon activities. Plus it was way cheaper than the roller coaster at the New York, New York.


Within the costumes and collectables repository of one of the more flamboyant entertainers of the previous generation I counted six usages of the word “fabulous” : twice referring to wardrobe, one describing a pink Rolls Royce coverer in tiny mirrors and another a piano, one preceding “Las Vegas”, and twice more used as an adjective connected to the man himself. I couldn’t count the number of rhinestones. Only Jesus can.

It actually wasn’t too bad. I’ve never seen so many creative designs for capes. Seriously, no one has ever rocked the cape like Liberace. It belongs to him, the same way the phrase “T-t-t-t-that’s all folks!” belongs to Porky Pig and that little mustache narrowed to just the middle belongs to Hitler.


Demographically, it’s not the best place to meet chicks. Unless you’re into babes with oxygen tanks.

I think if Liberace is in hell, than he’s locked in a trailer in Des Moines wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and Chucks. And that one song by Eiffle 65 is set on repeat.

An epitaph in copperplate

I'd like to think people I've never meet will remember me after I die, and not just for my penmanship.

Other million dollar ideas

Remote control fold out couch/bed. Glow-in-the-dark toothpaste. An igloo cooler fashioned into a backpack for mobile hot chocolate distribution in winter. Campus wide rickshaw service. Motion sensor headstones with pre-recording capabilities for memoirs and/or spooky noises.

Latest million dollar idea:

Free toilet paper for everyone. A good idea, yes. But possible? Also yes. The production cost of the toilet paper will be offset by the material printed on it. White toilet paper is boring. How great would it be to have a series of comics available for your perusal as opposed to having nothing to look at but the hook on the back of the stall door and the shoes of the person next to you? Then there would be ad space, specifically tailored to the restroom. Classier establishments could run ads for designer clothes of limo rental services, college campuses would have cheap pizza offers, and so on and so forth. The ads could be further refined to be gender specific, with single's ads placed respectively.

I got the idea doing a little freelance advertising on my own in my school's library. I'll spin out the paper for a few squares, then write the name of my web site (www.nastytie.com). It's best to do this over several meters as to maximize the number of patrons who will come into contact with the ads. Hopefully the increase of the number of hits I'll get will reflect the number of bathrooms I frequent, and if so will justify the public service toilet paper on a larger scale.

By any other name

I understand cupcakes. What I don't get are muffins. Why do they get a special name? Wouldn't it make more sense to call them cupbread?

No Shave November

Things I would rather have on my face: the lips of a hot lady, hundred dollar bills, a smile, scorpions.

Cut Scene

When Karen and Frosty were locked in the greenhouse at the end of the movie, I wonder if Frosty was peacefully resigned to his liquification or if he melt screaming like that Nazi from "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

When I'm in Charge

Proposition 8 would have been passed with a lot less post poll protesting. That's because everyone would have been more focused on Proposition 9: Kill all of the homosexuals. I'm not advocating the Orientacide of the entire homosexual community in California (or any Asians for that matter) but if it had been on the ballot I think a lot less attention would have been paid to the delineation of what a marriage consists of.

Fruitful Searching

Google-ing your own name is like looking at yourself in the mirror in the morning. It's not a sign of vanity. Anyway, I'm not well represented by a search of my own name on google, so to rectify the situation I'm typing up a blurb that will appear in the future. For those of you already here, you can ignore the following. The good stuff comes later.

Tyson VanDerwerken Still searching for Tyson? Here's his blog. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Disclaimer

I’ve been hesitant to being a blog. Firstly, I don’t have any blogging clothes. And I worry about fitting the profile of a blogger. Writing in itself is indicative you believe you have something to say that warrants the consideration of others. The spew of the intellectually narcissistic pollutes the internet enough as it is and needs no contribution from this beginner blogger. Nor do I intend to be another Dave Barry wannabe. I hope my aphorisms and observations will be perceived as original, if not enlightening or entertaining. Welcome reader-