Month: January 2025 (Page 2 of 5)

–Google Adsense turned down dizzinessandnausea.com without really saying why. Some research suggested it needed a “cookies consent” banner, which I added after trying 2-3 different plugins. I also updated the Privacy Policy page. Not clear if that will be good enough or not.

–Went to Bel Air for coffee, milk, cream cheese.

–Took Grace shopping to the Smart & Final at Sunrise and Madison. Much better location, much cleaner/brighter store.

–Discovered that ChatGPT (free version) does a really nice job of “writing” articles for Dizziness and Nausea. So I replaced them all. (Previously they were Google AI (Gemini) with a little Perplexity thrown in.)

–Grace is in a mega mega snit–wouldn’t cook for the second day in a row. Very bad. Another Red Baron for dinner.

–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tangerines.

–Added air to tires in both cars.

–Got Dizziness and Nausea looking good on laptop and phone by adding a menu to the header. Almost ready to roll.

–Grace got into a major snit tonight over my (mild) reluctance to go shopping at Smart & Final. Not sure what’s going on with her.

–Picked up Contax 50mm f1.4 lens at UPS. Turning the aperture ring had no effect on the aperture. Started to take it apart, ruined it–not that it was in great shape before.

–Crypto holdings are back up. Total money now (without Vanguard) is $523,000, about what it was months ago. And there’s $50,000 coming in soon from the Vanguard RMD. Lots of tempting Rolexes are popping up at Tropical and Lunar Oyster; I’ve resisted so far, waiting to see what the 1680 looks like that’s been at Rolliworks for six months.

–Buying many fidget spinners.

–Spent some time with Dizziness and Nausea last night. Finally looking good, MIGHT be able to keep the Hemingway theme–more phone testing needed. I’ll keep adding articles from Google and Perplexity AI, then submit it to Google Ads and see what they say.

–Spent a lot of time trying to find a workable theme for my WordPress sites. No luck. The “free” ones bombard you with upgrade prompts–almost always a subscription, not an ownership–and the paid ones don’t let you try before buying. The vaguely promising ones mostly use blocks, and I’m just too old to spend months learning that framework. Although: one authoritative site I saw might make it all moot: it said don’t even submit to Google Ads until you have a 6-month-old site with dozens and dozens of original posts. The thought that I could copy 3-4 Google AI answers and start my empire, well…the Adsense landscape has changed in the last 25 years. Duh. Don’t know if I have the patience…

–I WON SOMETHING! Got a DM on Facebook that said somewhat cryptically “Hello winner!” Sounded like a scam, but as I pursued it, it turns out I won a super nice damascus titanium spinner from Indy Thicc. Only $600! Anyway, that’s certainly the first time I’ve ever won anything from the many online lotteries I’ve entered.

–Went to UPS to pick up spinner bearings and spinner.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk, ciabatta and a lime.

–Work on dizzinessandnausea.com for a while. Found a good SEO plugin without the constant “Upgrade!” nagging, and a separate one to do what the first one doesn’t handle so well at all: meta descriptions. Don’t know what more there is to do. [edit] Oops—turns out the Twenty-Ten theme looks horrible on a phone; the fonts are so small as to be unreadable. Tried the Hemingway theme again and it’s much better–though the sidebar, with “Recent Posts,” doesn’t show up at all. I can try putting TOC in the header–but ads will never show. Crap.

–Picked up Focusworks spinner at UPS. Felt light at first, but spins like crazy.

–Got some tiny reading glasses at Rite-Aid. Same power as the ones Grace lent me (2.50), and stowable in a really small flat case so I can always have them with me without needing to wear them constantly.

–Got a slice of carrot cake and some candles at Bel Air. Took them to Kenny and sang to him for his 81st birthday.

–Offered 400 Euro for the domain icsb-2006.org. Owner countered with 1,500 Euro. Canceled.

–Went back to Twenty-Ten theme for dizzinessandnausea.com. Hemingway is nice, but has some glitches that just don’t appear in an official WordPress theme. Will probably switch out the other sites as well.

–Marie’s chicken pot pie for dinner.

–Got bagels at New York Bagels.

–Took Grace shopping at Koreana Plaza; got myself some Satsumas and Honeycrisps.

–Got all four websites sorted out. It took a “disable comments” plugin to finish them. Back in the day I would have edited WP code to do that, but that was long ago and far away.

–The frog lights are back in business. Leaving them out on the back patio in direct sun for six hours allows them to glow on the front patio for six hours. Cool!

–Didn’t do much today. Played with Hemingway WordPress theme. Nice, but has this big black box in the header with the site title that I can’t figure out how to move or minimize. I can delete it, but then there’s no title…

–Lots of wind today. LA is still burning.

–Walked to UPS to pick up second Addictive spinner. It’s seriously unbalanced (one arm heavier), so trying to return for replacement.

–Made pepperoni/mozzarella pizza for dinner. Good!