pitbullmedia.ca

Every once in a while I cruise the Web to see if there are any freelance jobs going since one of my goals is to expand my roster of clients.

Like any good businessman I’m always looking for opportunities to develop new markets for my skills, especially overseas markets.

Recently, one of my colleagues on the CEP Freelance Listserve complained about a posting on a website called GetAFreelancer.com.

Here’s what it said:

Looking for talented writers able and wanting to work every day and produce up several 400-500 word well-researched and well-written articles. Also you have to be able to modify original articles up to 10 times to make them all different for search engines’ point of view. 300-500 words is a usual format for our orders. You have to be creative enough to write original articles and at the same time well organized to handle big amounts of routine work. We provide you with hyperlinks to use in articles. Articles to be delivered in html.
No errors or accent, only English-speaking writers, please.
Subjects of articles may be very diverse. Not a problem if you do not cover all of them, you can write only on subjects you know the best.
We pay: 5$ for one original article and 2$ for one modified article. Modifications include: changing titles, word order, sentence order, using synonyms, partial rewriting of certain phrases, omissions or additions of certain phrases and so on.
Do not bid if you do not know the difference between the definite and indefinite articles or you use spelling checking software in your work.
Quality of your work should allow passing articles straight to customers.
We pay weekly via PayPal for finished projects by the day.
You have to know or be able to learn basic html. We help you in studying html and provide you with our tutorial.
You must provide a sample of your writing with your bid.
Good luck.
Mammon. 

Anyone who expects to pay $5 for 500 words can kiss my hairy arse. About that time I figured out that GetAFreelancer means ”get” not “hire” and I hate it when people try to “get” me in the sense of scam me. 

So I decided to post my own bid. What follow is a sample of what we freelancers do when we’re bored or looking to be distracted!

Here’s what I wrote: 

You get what you pay for. In 30 years I have never missed a deadline. My work appears in the Globe and Mail, Readers Digest, Chatelaine and other magazines and newspapers across

Do you think your education, professional training and skills are worth more than 20 cents an hour? I’m sure you do. I would be pleased to educate you further on the realities of journalism, copyrighting and media. You’ll find my contacts at my website, www.pitbullmedia.ca.

The reply: I am definitely a fool, I agree.
You have joined a wrong community. Do not waste your time here fighting the reality of life. I said not a word about “professional writers” especially Canadian. For us, fools, a writer is just somebody who can write, nothing more. Welcome to the global society!Regards.
mammon.  

At this point I figured the posting was a phishing tool designed to scam people, and being sick with a stinking cold, I needed some entertainment, so I engaged:

I never called you a fool…I said you would find only fools for that kind of money and who wants to work with fools.
As for a writer being someone who can write? What a joke. You saw the bungled efforts on the bids. We are not joining this community to look for work - we are trying to raise awareness around these posting. Most of them are nothing more than a weak attempt at phishing or the set up for a scam.
What else would you call someone who hides behind “Mammon” a term that was used to describe riches, avarice, and worldly gain in Biblical literature. It was personified as a false god in the New Testament. The term is often used to refer to excessive materialism or greed as a negative influence. Adjectival forms are mammonish and mammonistic per Winston 1954, Webster’s 1977. (Wikipedia)And Welloff? Come on now….who is the fool now?

Project Owner Posted: 12-20-2007 13:03: I am very glad I have picked the nick “mammon”. At least it attracted attention of such an interesting opponent like you. Really, you are the most interesting opponent I have argued with in my live.
I am not as fast in making up my mind about somebody I do not know for long time. Let me think more before answering to you.
In the mean time could you give me a favour and tell me more about myself. If you have such an X-ray vision, you already have all need information to describe my personality in details. Tell me about my philological type, education, religion, family status, profession, whatever you can clearly see. We live in one city; we could meet later and talking tête-à-tête compare what we think about each other now and then.Best regards.
Still mammon.  Posted: 12-20-2007 14:14Your voice doesn’t “sound” as though you live in

(3 reviews)
Project Owner Posted: 12-20-2007 15:02Interesting start. No I know little more about myself.
Let us not get into IP checks, you are a writer, not an FBA agent. Let us exercise our brains.If I do not live in Toronto why I proposed to meet you there?
I know from reliable sources that

Service Provider Posted: 12-20-2007 15:26

It’s FBI not FBA and in

MS Word may help with spelling, but only someone who is ill at ease with English would use it in PM conversation, to clean and sanitize their errors. We can agree to meet anywhere but it will never happen. You are not in Toronto any more than I am in West Africa.

 Posted: Today 09:59

Why don’t I help you with your writing?

Of course it is FBI.
I live and work on (in)

You failed your guess. (Your guess failed) You are certainly in

What 777 in your nick name mean? Not the same as mammon in my case? (it’s a homage to one of my favourite soccer players, David Beckham who wore the number 7 for England and Manchester United. It is also my number when I play)I’m not telling you how to live but I am protecting the rights of professional writers. As a founding member and organizer for the Canadian Freelance Union I represent freelance writers so I have an interest in advocating the interests of our organization. A 500 word article takes about an hour to write, and depending on the subject matter about an hour or more to research. (So yes it would be at least $2.50 an hour…I was being facetious )

Just a quick note about Amsterdam.

Weather aside  - and it’s better than the snow they’re having in Toronto - this is a lovely place. And I really can’t whine about the weather,  it is December, after all, and it’s just rainy and overcast.

This land of tulips and canals is full of laid back, polite and nice people. And of course they are famous for their liberal views on everything from sex to drugs.

They are also for the most part fit which I assume comes from the fact that they seem to walk or ride bikes everywhere. Alas the famous Yellow Bike program is kaput  or I would join them. The program, by the way, saw thousands of yellow bike deloyed on the street. If you needed a bike you simply took one and then left it, unlocked, when you arrived at your destination. If someone needed a bike while you were doing your thing, they just took it on the assumption there would be another bike for you when you came out.

Unfortunately this marvellous idea was submarined by junkies who stole the bikes to sell the parts. Bike theft is a huge issue here - so are the junkies, a legacy of liberal attitudes towards drugs.

However, it is interesting to note that despite that liberal attitude - which means people openly buy pot and smoke it - Holland has one of the lowest rates of heroin addiciton, much lower than the US where an all out war on drugs has incarcerated so many people for simple possession of marijuana.

Of course, the other thing Holland is famous for, specifically Amsterdam, is the Red Light District. Not so coincidentally it’s where the Coffee Houses, the places you buy the pot, are also clustered. But more on that later…perhaps tomorrow after I’ve done some more, er, research.

I have, however, done my usual walkabout and the RDL - one of three in this city of abuot a million people - is just as advertised. Storefronts with women on display in various stages of undress. Some fat, some ugly, some shapley and very attractive. 

And no, I haven’t tried any on for size.

Another week, another trip to Europe.

Well, okay, that sounds a little smug. And truth be told all the travel I’ve done this year sounds awfully glamorous but in reality is pretty tiring. Not to mention costly in that while I don;t pay for the trips, being away means I’m not cranking out stories or pitching new assignments and that cuts into my income since there are only so many days in a year I can actually work.

Still, the generate story ideas and at the end of the day,  coming up with ideas and selling them is how I earn a living.

Sure, I’m invited as a guest to these events and conferences by large tech companies like Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft and Accenture. And no, I don’t feel compelled - nor do I - to write nice things about me just because they flew me to another country and bought me dinner.

This year I’ve been to Las Vegas (CES) San Francisco (Sun Micro) San Jose (MicroSoft) Rome (Accenture) Shanghai (HP)  followed by the ultra glamorous trip of Toronto-Winnipeg-Regina-Saskatoon-Winnipeg for Readers Digest then New York (HP), Chicago (Motorola) and now, Amsterdam, courtesy of Nokia for their World Developers Conference. 

In between as faithful readers know, we went to Italy for a two week vacation.

This trip is the last one this year and I’ll admit, I’m tired of travelling. My experience with United Airlines makes it official. I’m also sick of flying.

There’s economy and there’s United Economy. Remember steerage on the Titanic….today’s equivalent is United Airline’s economy. No wonder the flight was only $1583! I would have prefered to fly Air Canada from Toronto through Frankfurt or even take KLM direction to Amsterdam from Toronto but they were about $2,700 before taxes.

I ended up going Toronto To Washington Dulles and then Dulles Amsterdam.

One of my recent observations about economy is that the seats are getting smaller - not the seats themselves, but the spaces between the seats. That’s because more rows means more seats and more passenger capacity.

Post 911 airlines complained people stopped flying. Well, they’re back and I can;t remember the last time I was on a flight that wasn’t full. With the seven across seating on the 777 I flew it was a nightmare. I was of course on an inside seat.

The first clue things weren;t going to be comfortable was the offer at check in to buy extra leg room for $110. You got five inches of legroom more than the regular seats for $110. Apparently the Americans can buy it for $87 which is another rip off but United is a rip off airline.

The food - if you can call it that - was disgusting, the poster child example of bad airline food. Drinks were $5 US or $4 euroes….even thuogh 4 Euros works out to US$6….what a currency exchange rip off!

I opted to crack open my bottle of duty free bourbon thank you very much.

Even the movie screens were tiny and had poor resolution.

You know I never thought there was an airline which could make Air CAnada look good but there you go.

Anyway, I left at 12:30 from the house, took off an hour late at 3:30 p.m. and then left Dulles half an hour late becsue of the storm. Landed at Amsterdam about 7:30 a.m. local which is six hours ahead of EST. Checked in went to sleep. Woke up and went walk about stumbling on the Red Light district (well one of the three here anyway) quite by chance.

Really.

Checked out the coffeehouses where they sell pot and had a beer. Then it was time to get back ot the hotel for our media event of the evening.

 More on the Nokia event later or tomorrow as I wade through the press releases and the news.

I may even have some pictures of the Red LIght district!