Busy with ‘real life’ stuff most of this week. Back to regular posting Thursday. Talk amongst yourselves.

I wanted to take a moment to publicly acknowledge a couple folks who recently sent me stuff in the mail, or signed up for Patreon to help keep the lights on in the bunker. Notably, someone sent me an Amazon gift card code for Christmas, which was very thoughtful…and just the other day someone sent me a silver dime in the mail, which was quite cool…and a couple folks signed up for Patreon. So, a sincere thank you to those folks. It’s that sorta thing that helps pay the blog-related bills. (And, if you provide your mailing address, its the sorta thing that gets you on the Paratus card mailing list.)

Back in the saddle, although decidedly worse for wear. Posting forthcoming. Right after a trip to the local doc in the box. Ow.

Several people have emailed me over the last few months to suggest that I get a Patreon account in order that they may contribute to the literary dumpster fire that is my blog. So be it.

Usually Patreon is something where, by ‘subscribing’, or pledging a particular amount each month you unlock some sort of bonus. For example, if you pledge $1 a month you might get to read posts that are not normally available to folks who don’t pony up. Yeah…I’m not doing that.

Look, I’ve got 17 years worth of blogging posts here for you to read. Some good, some bad, some fluffy, some insightful. If you think it’s been enjoyable for you and become part of your routine, I think it would be awesome if you kicked in $2 a month to keep the lights on and the freeze-drieds flowing. But I really have no intention of creating tiers of postings for folks. I’m willing to live with the tragedy of the commons.

There’s a link at the top of the column on the right hand of your screen. I think what I’ll probably do is, on an experimental basis for now, post a footer in a random post once a week with a quick link. We’ll see if that doesn’t come across as too crass and self-serving.

Anyway, it’s there if you’re feeling particularly generous….although in this current economic clime, I may have picked the worst time in the world to set up this thing.

Someone very graciously sent me silver round in the mail the other day. Totally unexpected and, as always, very much appreciated.

And then, I received a .jpg in email of the back of an Amazon gift card with a note saying it was a gift for yours truly. Clever…an excellent way to preserve anonymity.

So, to both of those fine and generous people, I say thank you very much. When the radioactive debris settles and after a long day of hanging quislings I will, thanks to your largesse, have the resources to kick back and relax with a handful of grateful-yet-morally-challenged coeds from the university who will simply be glad to be safe from the roving hordes. Salut!

I was so wrapped up in the Current Situation that I overlooked something – two weeks ago was the 17th anniversary of this waste of electrons. Yes indeedy, 2003 is when I started blogging. I do believe that makes me one of theoldest preparedness blogs (although that definition may be suspect) still in business. In my time here I’ve seen a lot of blogs come and go. I’m still here ‘cuz….well…I’ve got nothing better to do.

In that time…Peak Oil, Bird Flu, H1N1, Ebola, SARS, Mayan calendar, Obama I, Obama II, and a host of other events. And..we’re still here. Which means either we are really good survivalists or we’ve just bee lucky so far. Honestly, Im more inclined to believe the latter.

Anyway, I realized this evening that I had overlooked the anniversary and figured I’d address that.

How many more years of this? Beats me. At least a few more years I suspect.

Not sure anyone has noticed, or cares, but obviously I have been posting more lately because of..well..you know. In care you’re curious, here’s how it usually works:

I write posts a day in advance. This is because enough happens throughout the day that if I posted as things occurred we’d have three or four posts in a day. I don’t want to do that – I want one post per day so each post gets the maximum exposure. So, I’ll write a post, add to it during the day, and then schedule it for the next day.

When? For the last few weeks new posts are queued to go up sometime between 0001and 0059 the next day. So, if you’re really jonesing, and you’re up late at night, the new post will be up sometime between midnight and 1am. Google Analytics shows me that most of you guys check in around 0600-0900,

Comments are greenlit and posted several times a day.

I check my website email once or twice a day.

So, barring some extraordinary event, it’s one post per day. If you show up at 7am and see a new post then you’ve probably seen all thats gonna be up for that day.

There you go…some behind-the-scenes insight for ya.

Travelling for the next few days so posting will resume around end of next week. Amuse yourselves by rolling back through 15 years of posts.

Blogging is not always horny groupies and lucrative product endorsements. Sometimes you have to deal with what could be generously described as ‘douchebags’. It used to be that the majority of them were ‘producers’ from hole-in-the-wall ‘production companies’ who somehow could never be bothered to have email addresses that were from real domains. They would say how they were developing a ‘survivalist’ reality show and blah, blah, blah. I haven’t gotten one of those in a couple years, so I suppose the trend finally died down.

However….I get emails from people every so often saying how they think the blog is terrific (although they can’t mention a single post they read on it) and how they’d love to submit a ‘guest post’. Usually this ‘guest post’ topic is only vaguely related to the normal content of the blog. So..whats the angle? Probably some sort of affiliate linkage on the ‘guest poster’s part or some other scheme. But what do I, as the blog owner, get out of it? Good question. So, when one of these parasites emailed me asking if they could do a guest post, I asked them about what was in it for me…

We’ll make up a name for our intrepid huckster…oh, lets call him ‘Danny Major’. Disco Danny sends me an email that contains this:

I have been reaching out to sites in the prepping and survival
> categories regarding the potential for offering guest posting
> opportunities. Unlike others who tout for guest posting opportunities
> I actually visit sites before I contact them and although I couldn’t
> find anything on COMMANDERZERO to suggest you accept guest posts I
> couldn’t find anything to say you don’t either, hence the ‘shot in the
> dark’ of the subject line!

My reply: Whats in it for me?

Danny Boy comes back with this: Hi, thanks for replying Commander Zero. What are you suggesting? Or is it a case of me misunderstanding your mirth and you are actually responding in the negative with a question?

Ok, let’s suss this out. I reply: I spend fifteen years working on a blog and you want to use that work and brand-building as a forum for your guest posting…thats great for you, but what do I get out of it that I can’t do myself? I’ve been posting for 15 years, I can come up with posts pretty easily. So, why would I let you post there? How does it benefit me?

If someone wants to advertise on the side of your building it would be reasonable to not give them that space for free, right? Surely Dan-O must recognize that. But….I get this non-answer: I fully understand any hard working siteowner being protective over their website. So thanks for taking the time to reply, and keep up the good work on commanderzero.com

Well, geez, thats not an answer. So: You havent answered the question. What are you providing to blog owners in exchange for the platform they are providing you?

At this point the novelty is wearing down. There’s a bit more back and forth and I tell him: Okay. I’d be happy to accept a guest post from you but I’ll need to strip it of any affiliate links.

And then…:::crickets::: silence.

It’s a pretty sleazy thing to do…you whip up a generic post that might fit the topics of a half dozen websites, load it with affiliate links, and then trot it over to some blogs to try and get the blogs owner to  post it so you can collect on the links. And the blog owner gets…nothing.

I’m telling ya, this blogging thing sometimes puts you in contact with some pretty weird and annoying people.