This one isn't about Soup at all!

We've talked before about DollarSurveys. It's the easiest way to make fast money (in small amounts) that either of us has found thus far. No sign up, no membership, no frills. You complete a survey, you get a buck. Directly to your PayPal account, with no need to furnish 47 kinds of ID or go through about 15 middle men to access your money. Sounds great, right?

Well, it is and it isn't. I've made 6 bucks from them. Now, you may be asking yourself: Six bucks? After two solid months of doing the blog? PITTANCE! First off, six bucks isn't nothing. That's actually a fair amount of money in the internet-free-money game. Secondly, I haven't been taking my survey every day (because I'm lazy). However, I can't deny that if it is as easy as I've been claiming, I certainly should have made more than the price of an SDB.

The issue is that in order to make the dollar, you have to 'qualify' for the survey. What this means is that the people who are offering these surveys are only interested in certain demographics...and if you're not in that demographic, you fail out of the survey. No big deal, right? You can just try again. Except that those survey bastards sometimes put the demographic questions at the end of the survey. So you just spend like 15 minutes answering questions about pie or contacts or motor oil for nothing. Sucker.

Well, fear not! After completing my 7th successful survey today, I feel like I'm not qualified to give you some lessons on how to succeed. We'll do a sort of walkthrough about the survey I just took, with some great tips by me.

Surprise! It's about soup!

Firstly, it pays to be general. The first screen you will see at Dollar Surveys will have a bunch of statements with checkboxes. Things like "I have 10-13 year old kids," and "I purchase food," and "I will lie like a sailor at the slightest provocation." The answers to them are pretty self-evident. I check anything that seems like a potential survey topic, and leave blank anything that seems like a trap. Now, if you are a moral person, you may have some qualms about disrupting the scientific methodology by checking boxes that are perhaps less than perfectly accurate representations of the truth. That's fine by me. You can rest your conscience and check only the ones that are strictly true.

I believe in more of a fundamental concept of truth...I may not actually purchase toys for 10-13 year old children--but I damn sure have an opinion about them. Also...this screen is the first of the trials between you and your money. Sure, the penitent man will pass, but the dishonest opportunist gets the internet bucks, kids. Remember that bit where guy gets his head cut off and it rolls for like a hundred feet? Don't let that be you.

You will then be sent off-site to whatever survey distributor you get selected for. If you use NoScript, make sure you immediately temp-allow the whole page. Many many surveys have been ruined by NoScript. If the survey sight can't load it's own content, it sends you right back to the DollarSurveys failpage, and you get no money. Should have kneeled, brah.

Make sure....you remember....to turn off NoScript.

The first couple of questions are usually going to be your gate-keeper questions. These are the ones you see the most often:

Do you work for a marketing firm/ad agency/etc?

What is your yearly income?

What is your race?

Where do you live?

How much schoolin' did you get?

The answer to the first one is always no. It's the same as the rule for McMonopoly...the one about how you can't win if you or your family work for the company. Survey's do it because if you are affiliated with a rival product, you may 'tank' the survey intentionally. Would people really do that? Seriously? Man, soup industrial espionage....who knew? Anyway, chances are you don't work for any of those companies anyway. I mean, those jobs pay in money (the real kind)...if you're clearing sweet money checks like that, you're probably not going to be on here learning how to hussle 4 cents a day.

The rest of the questions don't have a correct answer. It varies depending on what the company is looking for on any given day. Really, the only advice I can give you is to pay attention to the "product family" referenced in question 1. If they're making sure you don't work in Soups/Broths/Stocks, it's a good bet that the survey is going to be about some manner of tasty canned fluids. If your demographic doesn't make the cut, you know to switch it up a bit the next time Soup comes around again on the wheel.

That not good enough? Ok, I'll do you one better. Here's a golden demographic rule: Nobody likes the poor. They usually ask you about income and employment, and you truthy types may feel obligated to respond 'unemployed' and 'less than $15,000'. Perhaps you're thinking that this is an innocous question asked because they just want to know more about you. Perhaps you think that everybody's opinion matters, and that your opinion on soup is worth just as much as someone who eats it off a golden spoon.

You're wrong. Nobody likes you.

The reason why is simple...They're asking your opinion on soup in the effort to design a better selling soup. Now, the catch-22 is that they're paying you to give your opinion...this attracts a certain kind of penniless, jobless, loser who lives with his family for like 50 bucks a month even though they watch SYTYCD at roughly 500 decibels every weeknight for about 16 hours.

Well, I was thinking mostly about how they sound alike...but the resemblance is pretty uncanny, no?

Anyway, that person (who is totally not me) isn't susceptible to awesome marketing ploys. That person just buys whatever-damn-soup-is-cheap (if they buy soup at all). It doesn't matter how 'warm' they feel toward it. It doesn't matter how healthy they think it is. It doesn't matter how personally relevant I--er...the person we're talking about--find the soup....is it cheap? Yes/No? How can a Soup be relevant? What does 'relevant' even mean in that context? Hip? Informed? Meaningful?

I find Chicken Noodle the most trendy, but Corn Chowder has way more sex appeal.

Tangent over. Lesson? People hate the poor. So don't be poor. Answer that you're employed full time and that you make somewhere in the middle of the scale per year. Again, you can tell the truth...but while you're freezing to death with your integrity, I'll be living the good life with babes and mimosas and six dollars.

You have chosen...poorly. Soup hates the poor.

Still with us? Good! You've given in to the quick and easy path, and should now be golden. Should you answer the previous questions truthfully (wrongly), you'll get kicked back to the DS failpage and have the chance to start again. There doesn't seem to be a limit on trying again though, so feel free to keep trying until you swallow your sense of right and wrong and/or give up in frustration.

Now the fun part begins. You get to answer somewhere between 20 and 1,000 really ridiculous questions about whatever the survey is about. And I mean truly wacky stuff here. Not simple things like "Uh, what soup do you like best?"; which, while prosaic, seems to be useful information. No, instead you get questions like "Would you recommend this soup to a friend?" and "Which soup exhibits a sense of wonder and childlike simplicity?"...oh, and this gem: "Which soup do you associate with the phrase "M'm! M'm! Good! At Work!". No, really. Don't believe me?

Well, the first thing that sprung to mind was 'Healthy Choice! Cream of! Wild Mush!roo'm!

It sounds kind of asinine, but in reality I have a blast every time I get into one like this. In this particular instance, I got to answer questions about ad spots I may have seen on the TV. I took the liberty of screencapping them, with the captions replaced to protect (and make legally distinct) the innocent:

This is one of those things that I found because of the blog-for-money thing...but am sticking with because it's kind of fun for me. Is it going to make you some kind of netillionaire? Well, no. But six dollars is six dollars.

P.S. - We at LE have nothing but love and respect for both the DoubleDown and Bees. Just wanted that clear.

Play Games! Get paid! Kill Squeletons and Zoumies!

I'm going to take it as a fact that we all agree on one thing: Making free pennies is like, more fun than anything else in the world. I mean, there is just something so satisfying about looking at the ol' Paypal account and seeing money in there that you did nothing to earn. Given all that, most of the actual minutes are pretty dull. There's a whole lot of waiting involved, for one. And so much clicking! What do you do with all that time? As I see it, there are several solutions:

1) Utilize the miracle of tabbed browsing to do them all at once. This is a good idea, but you still end up with the same problem...waiting on 15 tabs to give you pennies is pretty much the same as waiting on one.

2) Actually look at the ads you're clicking on. If you're going to do this, I don't know that there is much I can do to help you. You obviously are against all the things that I support and support all the things I am against. Get off my interblog. I SAID GOOD DAY!

3) Open all the pages, and then while you are waiting close your eyes. Then you can imagine yourself as an internet tycoon...perhaps wearing a fancy suit with tails and a top hat...going to the most exclusive internet restaurants without an e-reservation...being welcomed by a stuffy virtual host who respectfully greets you by your handle...enjoying an iMeal of the choices bits and rarest bytes. Mmmm.

There is one problem with all three of these choices though (even #3, which is sooo nice) is that none of them make you money! You know what's better than having downtime while you make free pennies? Making free pennies while you make free pennies. That's where Dungeons and Treasures comes in.

Come on down the fun hallway with these monsters and me.

This was another one of those things that seemed too good to be true. But to my surprise, the tag line is pretty much it: It's an adventure game that pays you to play it. And it's not one of those 'play a dinky flash game while 10,000 ads try to boil your brains from the margins'. There is actually almost zero advertising on the site.

Basically, it works like this. You play the game for free. The goal is to make as much gold as possible. At the end of the month, your character gets reset, and all the gold you have made 'converted' to DT$. Once you reach DT$10.00, you can cash out to Paypal instantly. Where does the money come from? Well, there are loads of opportunities for you to spend a little green on the site, which in turn gives you options to make more gold. Keep in mind that this is my distilled wisdom....the actual site is translated poorly from french. It also uses about a dozen different systems (star points, fidelity points, bonus points, rank points, DT codes, and on and on and on). Aren't you glad I'm here to help you?

Dungeons

Sweet FX there

The Dungeons are the simplest way to make money and the only way to level your character. You get one free dungeon a day by going to the Tavern and searching for it. The dungeons are all randomly chosen and designed. Each dungeon contains Monsters (kill to get XP or capture to sell in the Shop), Chests of Gold, Gold and Items to be picked up off the ground, and keys (both for the Chest-Room and for locked doors inside the dungeon. The dungeon you get when you search is set at the level of your character. The higher level character you have, the higher level dungeons you get, which contain tougher monsters and more gold.

The monsters range from bizarre:

Phsaw. You don't scare me, weird lumpy thing

To creepy:

Please close your dead eyes, Vege-Man

To downright terrifying:

Squeleton! Holy crap! Pack your shit and run. Leave the kids!

Extras

There is a double handful of things you can do outside of the dungeon to earn more of that sweet sweet Gold. I won't go into all of them here...you'll have plenty of time to explore while you're waiting for your 12 clicks (but more on that later). The best is probably the Treasure Hunt that you get to do one time for free every day, but can win you DT$ if you happen to get the jackpot.

If you're interested in something a little more interactive that can win you Gold, you can try the Joust. Basically, you bet gold on a flash game. If you win, you get more gold than you bet. The in game description:

During the joust, you must take down your adversary by aiming at him. For a novice, you must aim at the centerof the shield, but if you fight a knight of higher level than you, you must aim at the head or at the chest.Before you fight another player you must be training alot if you can !

Which, despite being in Timlish seems simple enough. The only problem is that it's completely untrue. In reality, you take down your adversary by aiming directly at a cloud in the middle of the screen. Every time. Regardless of who you're fighting. Despite knowing where the sweet spot is, I lose more often than I win. It seems like there is just a bare pixel difference between success and failure there.

Stay on target. Stay on target.

Conquest

The last, and most annoying of the extras is called "The 4 Kingdoms". This 'game' involves a lot of steps and rewards you with almost nothing. Here's an excerpt from the official explanation:

In a big contry to nicknames "the happiness plain " to be a rich and properous Kingdom that the name is Vergon. This Country have been lead by the King Bergun, very well-known for his kindness and his justice for his nation. But a day the King has been assassinate by an unknow criminal and the Kingdom begin to collapse... in fact Bergun haven't refer a sucessor and 4 of this vassals are arguing the crown ! After severals mounth of negotiations, they have divise the Kingdom in 4 !

See? Perfectly clear. The bottom line is that while you're doing other stuff, small flashy pictures will pop up along the sides or top of the page. When you click on them, you get a message saying you either succeeded in killing X enemies (anywhere from 1 to 11, in my experience), or you get a Shame message.

Oh those Zoumies...why do they always are be eat through my fingers?!?

You get 12 of these flashy-clicks a day. Except they show up randomly. Oh, and it takes an hour to get 12. Oh, and they show up about 2 seconds after the page loads. Oh, and they disappear immediately after you click on something else. So getting your 12 clicks becomes the bane of your existence sometimes. But you must get something totally sweet for doing it, right?

Deeply Concerned Man in Burger King Hat Lotto

For every enemy that you manage to kill from your clicks. you get to scratch a ticket. These tickets get you points. The more points you get, the more gold you get at the end of the month. If you manage to get in the top 5, you also get 'star points' which can be used to play bonus games that have the chance of winning huge amounts of gold. So that's nice. In the end, it's still barely enough reward to make it worth waiting around to get the clicks.

What's it all about, really?

The money, of course. I started playing on 8/21. The 'adventure' ended on 8/31. In that amount of time, I amassed 91,345 gold. That amount of gold converted to 27 cents. 27 CENTS! In 10 days!

That smiling man? Me. That pile of gold? My 27 cents.

Ok, so it may not sound like a fortune. But it's actually a pretty respectable sum for something that I did just to kill time while I was doing my daily clicks. On top of it, it's actually fun as hell to see how much gold you can get.

Do this. You won't be sorry. 27 CENTS!!!

Coupla Updates!

Just thought I'd do a wee update on how the earnings thing is going since we last did a relevant post. No, I'm way still upset about the Reading Rainbow Fiasco, but thanks for the concern.

My last post about the two awesome paid to read sites Hits4Pay and Deals'N'Cash was on August 17. Since then, I've made $4.08 from H4P and am within $8 of being able to cash out for the first time.

Deals'n'Cash is a little slower, but I've still added $3.35 to my account and have noticed that I'm getting more and more emails from them every day, not to mention just this morning I had 4 out of 7 ads worth $.05 each. That's some pretty easy cash for basically no work at all. The payout minimum his higher on DNC so it's gonna take me a while to reach that on this one.

My paypal account is now bursting with $3.52 from Dollar Surveys and YouData, which is pretty damned cool. I can't recommend YouData enough. You won't make a lot of money, but you will make some and THEY PAY LIKE CLOCKWORK. If you take the time to sign up and view the ads they send you, come Friday there will be something in your account to show for it.



I have a crapton of other sites I'm closing in on cashing out with.



TuiBux is a nice, quick paid to click site that has a good reputation for paying their members. Free members get around 4-5 ads per day and the cash out minimum is a low $2.





Shitty banner, decent site. With a $5.50 payout it's a little daunting, but they post tons of ads every day...ads with no timers. They work on a credits to cash system with ads being worth 1-3 credits. If you check it multiple times a day, you'll rack up credits like crazy, which means more cash in your pocket.




One of the best, I'm planning on a blog on this one very soon. It's different than most paid to sites because what they pay you to do is rate and review other sites you've used. $20 payout, but if you work at it and post quality reviews, you can make that easily. I probably recommend this one even if you're just wanting to check out some online earnings avenues.

Oh, and just because this shit was boring today, here's a cute picture of a hamster.


HAHA, he can't spell. It's C-O-R-N, stupid hamster.

But you don't have to take my word for it...

So, this has nothing to do with being a LazyE today, mostly because I'm super sad. The PBS staple Reading Rainbow airs for the final time today after a 26 year run.



Even though there haven't been any new episodes filmed since 2006, reruns have continued to teach children that reading is awesome and that you'll never forget that damned song as long as you live.

I watched this show EVERY SINGLE DAY for years and years and absolutely loved LeVar Burton. I would go to the library and read the books suggested on the show even when I was an older child, because he never suggested crap. He was like, my childhood reading hero. Shit, he even did a Reading Rainbow show about Star Trek: The Next Generation (Gates McFadden is so hot) where he played the be-VISOR'd Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge. How cool was that?!

Check out some of the names on this list of contributors to the show. That's no joke. It's always sad when a show that was so influential in your childhood, and the childhood of so many others, stops being produced, but surely someone will see the importance of keeping this show on the air in reruns?



Hey LeVar, thanks for teaching me and countless other children in the 80s, 90s and beyond to love books. Thanks for teaching me about equality, theater, prison, love, race, poverty, family and humanity. Thanks for touching my life and opening up new worlds for me.

I'll see you next time...

I just ordered a Lexus made of ground up Rolexes

You wanna know why? Well, we've only been riding this train for about a week now, seriously anyway, and we already have some good news for the like three of you who are actually going to read this: We've got payment proof. Oh, that's right, friends, there's money in the old PayPal account again. So what if it's $3.06? I've gotta start my Hot Dog Cart business somewhere. How else will I get to go to fancy parties in tuxedos and make people wonder if I'm a drug-dealing-money-launderer?

First up is a site called Dollar Surveys. This site is actually kinda fun in that there's no sign-up, no account, no referrals, no spam. You just throw your PayPal email into the space provided and they give you a survey. If you qualify and complete it, they give you a dollar. AND THEY ACTUALLY DO!

See that? That's 2 dollars. Count 'em. If I had 98 more dollars, I'd have A HUNDRED DOLLARS

That's two payments of $1 each from completing surveys for their website. And believe it or not, some of the surveys don't suck! Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't! Maybe you're familiar with a little delicacy some know as "Pot Pies"? You probably remember...flaky burnt top-crust, bone-melting gravy creating a moat around a frozen chunk of turkey fat and peas, contained by a doughy bottom crust and a mini pie-tin? Only take about 30-40 hours to cook in a 500 degree oven? In other words, de-lish. Well, you can thank me next time you see a NEW pot pie flavor (which I'm not allowed to divulge because apparently pot pie is super-secret-serious with these people). Don't worry, I chose well. You guys like tripe, right? Don't click that.

Enlarged to show detail: 'Turkey' is not huge and veiny (actually quite small and veiny)

Another great site I found which has already paid me, and I just joined Wednesday night, is called YouData. Trust me, do this one. If you sign up and view their ads, next Friday you will have a PayPal payment from them. I can't tell you that you'll make tons of cash, but this site is so easy, and actually does have cool advertisements instead of the usual make money bullshit scams you see.

I could buy freedom with that and have change left over. Although getting it on a mug would inexplicably cost $20.

Just follow this link: YouData and fill out your profile to start viewing ads. Do it. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for America.

So, two proven sites: Dollar Surveys and YouData with the potential to make you an extra $30 a month if you're tenacious and go after it. Shit, what else are you going to do while you sit around watching hulu all damned night?

The most important post you will ever read, anywhere, by anyone, for any reason

I'm going to change your life in a few minutes. You'll start reading this post feeling like today is just another regular day. You probably went to work, ate a boring lunch, went home, ate a boring dinner...you know, just cruising along. Ok, there's a small chance that you are running for your life from a huge bear who has been genetically engineered to be intelligent, and also has some kind of infectious disease. You may be on your hands and knees behind a dumpster desperately looking for bear-survival-strategies on your iPhone when you hit on this site (I'm tagging this post as How To Defeat Bears just to snag this potentially lost demographic).

Like this, only the bear also has that disease from Outbreak what killed all those Monkeys and People

Regardless of what bear-related activities you may be engaged in, I stand by my earlier claim. I'm still going to change your life. Hell, every single one of my days is way awesomer than average (both ursine and non-ursine averages, of course), and it completely rocked me to my core.

But first, a little of the mundane details that used to be what this blog is all about. The website is called bux.to. It's a basic PTC site that follows the standard model. Look at ads. Make pennies. The difference is that bux.to has lots of ads that you can view repeatedly and still get credited for. They also have a high pay rate, when you consider the number of clicks you can get. Sound too good to be true? Yeah, it probably is. The scuttle around the web appears to be that payment takes forever and a day, if they even pay out. Sarz and I are both trying it out, so stay tuned for the official condemnation at a later date...but for now, I can't really recommend this one all that strongly as a money making resource.

However, Bux.to had an ad that made me forget all that! It doesn't matter at all! Ladies and gentlemen, the world is changing. Why do I care about websites when what I'm about to tell you makes the internet useless? Why should I care about mere pennies when what I'm about to talk about could make you ONE HUNDRED BILLION dollars a year?

Maybe not that much. Like, totally a lot though.

Are you ready? I don't think I can stall anymore. I'm so excited. Ok....What's your favorite food? Hot dogs, right? If you said anything other than hot dogs you are so full of it. Hotdogcartprofits.com is the well chosen name of the provider of our new way of life. The first line is a real grabber: ATTENTION: If You have a hot dog cart business or you are about to start one this may be the most valuable letter you will ever read...

And that's it. That's the hook right there. See, I'll admit--I don't have a hot dog cart business. Until I read this, I had never in my life considered starting one. I, probably like you, believed that hot dog cart-ery wasn't a profession so much as the end result of a life full of misadventure and mistakes. I foolishly thought that hot-dog-cartsmen were small minded and bitter, grimly trying to scrape by. How wrong I was, and how wrong you are! Hot dog cart craft is a noble endeavor, pursued by honorable and jolly men! They make up a bustling community of boiled 'meat' men (and maybe women) who attempt to carry on beautiful traditions from a purer golden age. Look at this picture!

Remember His Motto: Nobody Has EVER Went Broke Selling Hotdogs!

So, while I don't technically meet the criteria for the ad, I couldn't tear my eyes away. Look at that picture! I have a Master's degree, and I have never been that happy. That guy is holding what is presumably a hot dog and radiating the purest joy I have ever seen on a human face. Look closer...do you notice that he's not eating that hot dog? No, what has filled his heart with greasy happiness is much more important that merely eating it (even though 18 billion people eat 60 of them a year...or maybe 60 people eat enough hotdogs for every man woman and child in America...the statistics presented on HDC$ are confusing)! The man above is so filled with radiant intense pleasure because he is giving that hot dog to you! Well, presumed hot dog.

Alternate view of above image.

I'm sold already, and I've only read the first 2 paragraphs of the site. I'm so insanely ebullient that all I've eaten in the past 24 hours is hot dogs. I had hot dogs for brekkie. Hot dogs for lunch. For dinner? YOU BET YOUR BUNS I ATE HOT DOGS! God, I wish that wasn't true. Anyway, the more I read on the site, the more I felt that I had made the right decision. Hot Dogs are cheap, easy, make you infinite money, cause no stress, promote harmony, require no education, create joy, have a 12, 000% ROI, psychologically manipulate others, buy you a car, and are guaranteed. All of these are actual things that hot dogs do. I'm not making it up, I read it right off of HDC$, which means it came right out of the mouth of Perry, "The Hot Dog Guy".

Mommy, does Heaven have an address?

I think Perry says it best: "I've got lawyer friends of mine that make a $100,000 to $150,000 a year and some of them are a lot less than that. We go to these big fancy parties, and I go to parties with black ties and I take my wife out in fancy dresses and I drive a Cadillac when I'm not working. I live in a nice neighborhood and everybody wonders really what I do. Because when I tell them that I'm a hot dog vendor I know they think I'm lying to them. They probably think I'm some sort of crazed drug dealer or a money launderer that does something else, but it's just not true."

See! He's not a drug dealer at all! He just sells hot dogs. And it could be you! You could be friends with rich jerks (although some of them are a lot less than that) who think you are a crime boss and still go to fancy parties with black ties! Admit it, your life is crap compared to this. Your friends? Stupid. Your family? Probably poor.

First DVD: Buying or Starting a hot dog cart business. Second DVD: ???. Third DVD: Profit!

All of that can be yours for only $97. That's practically free. Perry says that he could easily charge $297 for this kit. You know why he doesn't? Because he wants to help you. He's manically grinning while he passes you the hot dog of opportunity. He charges 97$ because he wants Winners. Real Doers. Well, I don't know about you...but I'm a winner. I want to learn how to make "Hot Dogs and Treats So Good They'll Make Your Tongue Slap You're Brains Out". I need to get a piece of the 2 billion hot dogs sold from hot dog cart businesses every year.

And friends, I want you do come with me.

.view .click .probablyascam

It's all about the pennies, Jamz.

So, let's talk about some reportedly legitimate sites out there. My fastidious research (hey, I Googled them both, even clicked a link or two) showed that both Hits4Pay and Deals-N-Cash are about as solid as they come in the PTC world. They're sister sites and both work on the "click emails, wait x seconds, get money" premise. Hay, that sounds easy! It is. Especially if you're using Firefox. More on that later.

You can find numerous "payment proofs", especially from H4P, as I will hip-ly call it from now on. Like we're buds, me and H4P. But, yeah, there's always a catch. In order to collect your sweet munz, you have to reach the seemingly unattainable payout minimum of $25. Now, keep in mind you're getting $.02 (sometimes $.03 even!) an email here and that means you're gonna be clicking like 1200 of these things.

"NBD!", you shout, making grabby hands at me while I try to bat you away from my computer. Well, it is kind of a BD. You see, it's not like these emails just fall on you all at once like epennies from heaven, they're painstakingly doled out to you a few at a time over the weeks.

Sometimes, days look like this:



Which is awesome! I made $.54, although I can see that SOMEONE in my downline didn't click their emailz that day, costing both them and myself precious pennies. I wonder who that was. THERE ARE ONLY TWO OF YOU.

And sometimes they look like this:

Oh boy, yeah. That's crap right there.

Fortunately, at least for me, most of my days end up being more like that first picture up there. Except Sundays. I can't blame them though, I'm too lazy to click on a Sunday anyway, so I can't fault them for not sending them out.

Speaking of being lazy, have I mentioned how easy both Deals-N-Cash and Hits4Pay actually are? Seriously, you'd only have to explain it to grandma like 10 times, then write it down for her twice. IT'S THAT SIMPLE. You can open each of the sites they send you in a new tab, because you're using Firefox like anyone who's not completely lame would be, and go do your own thing while they tick down. I like to use the time to check out this blog.

When they're finished advertising to the back of your browser, take a peek and see if the top of the page says you've earned $.02. Have you? Yes? Then close it. You're done. No? Let it sit for a few more seconds, maybe your connection sucks. It takes me all of a minute to check both sites every day. Sometimes I make some munz, sometimes I make very little munz.

Remember how I said you have to make $25 with H4P before you can cash out? Well, it's not quite as bad as it sounds, they give you the first $10 just for signing up, so really, you only have to make $15 to cash out the first time.

This doesn't seem too bad, especially if you can get a few reliable referrals under you. Reliable meaning people who actually want to click emails once a day and make some munz with you. H4P actually has a three tier system that allows you to get paid for your direct referrals ($.01), and anyone your direct referrals refer(another $.01). So if you manage to get a bunch of people under you all clicking madly night and day, you can bank some decent cash.

Look at that $20 spot! It could be yours if pixel hand doesn't get there first! What are you waiting for!?

Deals-N-Cash is a little harder on you. Their sign-up bonus is a paltry $5 and you have to make it all the way to $30 for your first cash out opportunity. They also employ a two-tier referral system, but you get the same amount of money for your referral clicks as you do for clicking yourself. They're still the same legitimate company, though...in fact, the sites are identical. It's like someone did a find/replace with the H4P site and just stuck DNC in there in it's place. That doesn't bother me, it really just makes it easier to navigate. Who has time for basic reading and recognition skills when there are all these pennies to be made?

Now That's A Banner. Money is practically shooting out of it into your pocket.

The one thing I can see that really gets people up in arms is that they ask for a social security number for tax identification purposes in order for you to actually be paid from their site. A lot of Internet hooligans are going nuts on message boards about this, but really, I feel it kind of gives them a little bit of respectability. In the FAQ section of the site it says this:

Why do I have to give my tax information?

At the end of the year we will send out a 10-99 form to all members who have received a check from us. Hence, in order for us to issue you a check we need to have your tax information on file.

Basically, anyone who makes over $600 from a source has to report it, and people can and do make that kind of money from these sites. They're covering their asses, pretty much. And, you don't even have to put your tax info in right away. It only becomes an issue if you want to cash out and it's not there, so if you're getting close and think you might want to collect from them anytime soon, do it. If not, don't. No skin off their backs.

Ok, so nobody's gonna become a rich playboy clicking emails for $.02 a pop, but if you've got a few minutes to dedicate to it every day you might make enough to keep yourself in Krispy Kreme Kheeseburgers and Ramune for the month.

GetDailyPaid? I'm guessing....not.

So, with a promising name like GetDailyPaid.com, how could things not be awesome? The website is a lot different than the others I've seen thus far. Instead of smooth colors and a billion ad links everywhere, you have a simple layout with a bizarre orange graphic.

Apparently you gun your way to fortunes? I dunno.

So, having received my referral link from Sarz (she's constantly with these), I hit up the website and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. If this:

We pay you 12% of your membership level to surf 12 sites for 12 days giving you a 144% return for surfing. You MUST surf to get paid everyday. Surf payouts are instant for PAID members ONLY. Free members will earn to account balance. Max membership level $12,000.

makes any sense to you, you're smarter than me. Muddling through it some, I think I figured it out. See, most click-to-pay (or whatever you want to call it) sites work like this: Advertisers pay the website. The website sells them so many page-views of advertising. The website then pays you one or two pennies to view the ad. Everybody wins. Well, advertising in general still doesn't make any sense to me, but it's not really any different than any other kind.

Ok, seems simple right? Now forget all that, because that's not what GDP does. After my exhaustive research into the subject (I clicked around on the page for like 3 minutes, tops), it seems to work like this: You buy a 'unit' from Tim. This 'unit' can be any amount of money from 12.00 to 12,000.00. Then, you go to GDP.com for 12 days in a row, and surf 12 ads. The surfing-engine-dingus is actually kind of nice, no clicking or even attention necessary. You just click go and let it go for the however many minutes it takes. Except that for some reason, it doesn't say 12 adds, it says 6 credits (with each ad being worth .5 credits). Why? Well, the answer is simple. I think Tim is insane, and even worse foreign. But more on that later.

So, for each day you get your 6 credits, Tim 'pays' you 12% of your investment. So, after 12 days, you will have made the promised 144% of your investment. The promise of the site is that the payout is instant, as long as you surf every day. If you don't, I'm not sure what happens. It may be that you lose out on payment for that day, and must surf another day to make up for it. It may be that you lose out on payment for that day period and you're down to a 136% total return. It may be that he stops paying you entirely from then on. I think Tim is nuts (more on that later, I said), so it may mean that he comes to your house and fills your mailbox up with bananas and fire.

I have some immediate problems with this whole thing. I'll sum up:

A) Where does the magic money come from? I get normal pay per click sites. It makes sense to me. How does this work? How can he randomly take my money, then automatically turn it into more money in 12 days? It looks like people buy ads from him. And then people buy 'units' from him. So he has a lot of money now, but how can he turn any amount of money into more money? It vexes me.

B) What the hell is up with his site? Why is everything in twelves? Why have 6 credits worth a half each? Why does every thing Tim writes come out looking like total gibberish? Under 'Recent News', Tim posted the following today:

I AM NOT SURE HOW STP IS WORKING I TRY MAKE A PAYOUT AND GOES TO ERROR PAGE SO NOT WORKING 100% YET SOMEONE DID UPGRADE TODAY USING IT SO I GUESS WE ARE MAKING HEADWAY, YOU MIGHT AS WELL TRY IT FOR UPGRADING AS WELL.

Wait, what? You aren't sure how the service you're using to pay your customers is working (and it's actually...um...not, I guess?), but since you're still getting money, I might as well try to give you more?

C) Which brings me to the next bit...If you want me to spend my money....Why make it so hard? In order to pay you, and in turn get paid, I have to sign up for 'LibertyReserve' or 'AlertPay' or 'SolidTrustPay'. These are apparently online banks? That I've never heard of. So, in order to give you money...I sign up for a bank I've never heard of, and then give them money. Then you give my money back to them, and I have to try to get it from them?

D) Natural tie in to my third point. Tim, buddy. Why are you crazy? I'm going to just raw-dump some of the emails I've gotten from Tim since I joined, as I think they're hilarious enough standing alone:

Any member who would like to compound there balances please send a support ticket requesting that, this will save everyone fees. Also anyone who has a Alertpay balance and upgrades 20% using liberty reserve or solid trust pay I will also compound your alertpay balances. I will only allow this for next 5 days after that the alertpay accounts will be deleted.Tim

Members this is the final 4 days of alertpay issues after this no more. You upgrade 20% of the alertpay losses and I upgrade your account the full 100% theres 4 days left. I want clarify that I sent my true identity to alertpay regardless what they are saying. UPGRADE TODAY 24.00 get 4 free referrals and 5000 credits, 2x for LR.Tim

Today get 3 free referrals for any 24.00 upgrade and 1000 credits. Solid trust pay is still offline and I would hope they get back online soon they keep telling me there techs are working on it. Liberty Reserve is online and you new members join in ang earn some instant cash. Tim

How would you like use paypal? I will only be able to accept paypal for purchases in other words you will be paid a rebate back after 12 days in memo line you must put for ad purchases only. send to XXXXX@yahoo.com then send me a copy of your purchase and I will update your account. You can be paid by STP or LR as well. Timothy

You that disbelieved in my statement about the alertpay issue with my identity, I ask you this how can I be a verified Paypal member and STP but alertpay says my real is not me? You think about it and you realize alertpay scammed everyone. 24 upgrade today gets 2 free referrals and a 2500 credits upon request. Tim

So, not only have you invented some kind of new weasel-language that I've never seen before...You're sending emails addressed to the informal 'you'...to your entire email list? I didn't doubt you Tim, I promise. But you're arguing with your own 'customers', here.

I like Tim. There's just something about someone who is so obviously crazy that makes me want to trust him with my money. I'm on a 'free account', which means my account earns as though it has 10 dollars in it (which I don't ever get). I get paid $.12 to surf my 12 ads every day (which gets paid to my 'account balance'). From the crazy-grams above and on the site, it appears that I won't get any payments without buying a 'unit'. I've seen nothing that says that my account 'balance' will ever be paid to me, regardless of what I do. I'm totally intrigued though. I'm going to check out LibertyReserve tomorrow and see what the story is. I'm totally going to 'ang earn' some cash.

You see why I love Tim? Not only does his banner look like a drugstore circa 1994; it's also full of that crazy Timlish I adore so much!

Welcome to the Jungle

In the days of yore, when the net was young, it was like an idyllic wilderness. Wherever you washed up, you had a good chance of it being populated by fellow enterprising frontiersmen (and not women, let's be honest). People that you could look in the eye, and shake by the hand. People you may not agree with, but could respect for being kindred spirits. Ok, that's mostly crap. It was full of tech nerds and social maladjusts looking for porn.

The point is that times have changed. The internet has become civilized. No more is it the bastion of the young male waiting for whole minutes at a time for his carefully crafted witty commentary to successfully post to the firefly (and I don't mean the show...other old timers surely remember spending many hours perusing the latest chatertainment available on The Fly) chatroom. Instead, the internet is now a place for your mom to post a brownie recipe. A place for your grandmother to read steamy Rockford Files fanfic. A place for your dad to research his bizarre dream of being a professional amateur Crappie fisherman.

While the verdant fields and sparkling lakes of the net may be gone forever, the jungle remains. It has become a kind of urban jungle (ruthlessly over-extending the analogy!). The kind of place where strange people will sell you sparkling things. Where ladies of lapsed virtue will offer delights that you never knew existed but can't lust without. As a seasoned internet vet, I know well enough to avoid this kind of thing. After all, it could be dangerous. It could be a scam. Unethical Romanians (not to pick on Romania, but when my identity was actually stolen, it was by Romanians) could be poised in the wings, just waiting to abscond with my identity!

And I was perfectly content to do so. I liked my safe browsing along the approved and secure tubes of the internet. However, when Sarz was pitching this blog idea to me, it caused me to hearken back to the old days. I realized what I had become. I'd gone from crushing along to the Metal of the internet to softly bopping my head to the internet equivalent of Soft and Easy Jazz.

Well, no more! Time to pack my bags, grab the elephant gun, and load up for bear. Time to explore the world of Snake Oil and Health Tonic that is the 'Make Money Doing Nothing' section of the internet. As Sarz says in her post, we're gonna run the gamut. We're giving our our precious email addresses all over the internet. We're field testing any page that passes our stringent 'Well, it looks ok' testing of legitimacy. Do they pay? When? How much, how often? Are they filling my inbox with spam? Am I getting loaded with malware, spyware, viruses, poison, xrays, cancer, doublecancer, or herpes? Can I really stare at lolcats while heaven showers me with free pennies?

Stick around and you'll find out. What's more, should we manage to find any good stuff in this river of dross, we'll pass the word along.

Indiana Jamz and the Temple of Sarz

Oh, that's right, we're on an adventure. An adventure in munz. That's free Internet money in case your inside slang is a little rusty. Don't worry, you'll learn the lingo in time.

"So what's this about?" you may be asking yourself. Bully question, indeed. You see, I was dinking around on a forum I frequent a while ago and noticed someone had a new banner ad in their forum signature. I'm, like, super observant and drawn to bright colors, so I read what it had to say.

GET PAID TO COMPLETE FREE OFFERS the banner exclaimed. MAKE MONEY FROM HOME!

Hold the phone, free offers? I love those. Make money to do something I already really, really love? This sounds too amazing to be true! I'm gonna be amazingly rich! Without even moving from this spot! I'll build an empire of gold and laugh down at all of you from my throne of riches!

Or it could be a scam.

Well, come to find out this offer is not a scam, per se, it did turn out to be a really shady deal. Yeah, they pay you a couple bucks to complete free offers, but what they don't tell you is that you have to sign up for 'free trials' using your credit card. And you have to remain in the trial for a pre-determined amount of time. Then guess what happens? That's right, you're so busy drooling over that collectible Deanna Troi head mug that you're going to buy with all this amazingly easy to obtain money that you forget to cancel the trial offer. Sorry, Counselor, now you have to wait for another day because super-genius here has a book club subscription for all the Bodice-ripping romance novels published since 1978 all for $39.95 a month.

The burning question here is can you make money from all the "paid to click" or "paid to post" or "paid to take surveys" sites out there? The answer is: Potentially. Will you make hundreds of dollars a day? Probably not. What Jamz and I intend to do here is to see just how these programs work.

Will we become paid-to-click tycoons, smoking cigars and wearing monacles? Or will we fall victim to the scammers, cheats and liars that plague the Internet preying on the gullible and lazy? Will there be exciting fight scenes and white water rafting down mountains. Oh, for sure.