Stand aside, everyone!This looks like a job for...a professional blogger!

The story so far: One year ago, I got the idea for The Other Blog. It's all about the stories on the covers of the supermarket checkout magazines.

I decided to put ads on the new blog. It's kind of tacky, but the blog is tacky, so it felt like a perfect fit.

Hundreds of people go to the blog, Google puts a few pennies in my account.

Somebody clicks on an ad, Google puts a couple quarters in my account.

The money piles up in the account until the total is more than a hundred bucks at the end of a month, and the next month Google cuts a check for that amount and process starts again.

At the end of November, the account was over one hundred simoleans for the first time.

Yesterday, the first check came.

I have never been so happy to see $148.03 in my entire adult life.

Being all mathy and stuff, I could figure how many hours I sat in front of my computer writing the recaps, how much time I spend each week going to DeLauer's newstand in downtown Oakland to read all the covers in one convenient place each Thursday morning, searching the web to find pictures of the celebrities mentioned, etc. Counting it all up, taking 11 months to make $148.03 is WAY less than minimum wage.

And I'm talking minimum wage in Ghana.

But the goofy smile I had on my face all of yesterday tells a different story. This check feels like free money. This was like my first Christmas bonus at Atari. Just like this blog, I would be writing the Other Blog regardless of whether I got paid or not.


And the news gets better.

When I say the blog made $148.03 in eleven months, it actually made about $85 in ten months and a little over $60 in November alone. In the middle of last month, viewership over at It's News 2 Them™ done blowed up and it has stayed blowed up for about six weeks now. I have no idea what the future will bring, but the "new normal" is between 1,000 to 1,500 people showing up at the blog every day. If that keeps up, that means about a half a million visitors a year.

The mind boggles.

What this means in terms of Money, Money, Money, Milk and Honey is that while it took eleven months to make my first $100 as a professional blogger, it will take only one month to make my second $100.

In conclusion, I'm a blogger, I'm getting paid to blog and I feel so good about it, I've been giggling for next to no reason for about 24 hours now.

From what I've heard, this is much better than working for Arianna Huffington on several different levels.