And I'm Back

Greetings to all! As you might have noticed, the Adonis Complex blogs went on an unscheduled, unplanned hiatus after the first week of December, and before I do anything I want to note that this was not simply a case of laziness, loss of interest, or any other symptom of various personality flaws that often do in amateur bloggers.

The actual impetus behind my lengthy absence is that my Google Adsense account was deactivated in mid-November, which caused me a loss of several hundred dollars of immediate income and quite a bit more in expected earnings, which when you live on a post-grad school loan-payoff low-rent no-frills budget as I do is enough to really cause a disaster. If you're at all familiar with Adsense you know that it has been and continues to be the only ad-placement service of anywhere near its caliber (Yahoo was working on one, which was reeeeally exciting, but then the economy tanked), which is how it gets away with its shockingly anti-consumer terms of service, which include the company's right to cancel your Adsense at any time without warning - and the company contractually cannot explain why a cancellation has been imposed, either, which basically means Google reserves the right to arbitrarily deactivate an account - and absorbing all undelivered earnings, which hurts because accounts pay out just once monthly - without rationale whatsoever, because it doesn't have to be accountable to anyone. But the best part of it all is: once you've had an account deactivated, you can NEVER USE GOOGLE ADSENSE AGAIN. EVER. Ever ever ever.

I enjoy creating and maintaining the Adonis Complex blogs. I've missed working on them in the many weeks that have passed. In fact, I chose to reopen them now despite not yet having come up with even a moderately workable alternative means of generating the frankly modest side income I'd managed before (which essentially covers my operating costs for these blogs as well as my main blog project, the pop music blog Vertigo Shtick) because I was browsing through my many volumes of bookmarks of similar photoblogs this weekend and finding that with a few exceptions few blogs really work for me as well as the Adonis Complex blogs once did. I love these blogs, I've accumulated material and familiarity with the subject matter and medium, and frankly, I think I have damned good taste (obviously I'm ever so slightly biased, but judging from feedback I've gotten I'm not the only one who enjoys the shots I post). So I'm back. And honestly, I'm very glad to be back.

There does remain, of course, the still unsolved problem with revenue generating and operating cost neutralization, since as of today Google Adsense is still maddeningly unrivaled and continues to uphold its bullying business practices, so that's out; the alternative program I've been tinkering with for much too long has been a royal dud, and I don't yet have the knowledge, training or resources for selling adspace directly, although the Adonis Complex readership has grown large enough to make that feasible if I ever manage to learn how. If anyone out there is familiar with that stuff and would be willing and able to help a moderate to semi-advanced blogger get started, not only would that contribution ensure the continued life of the Adonis Complex blogs, it would also make this young and ambitious blogger immensely grateful...which at the very least would be a couple good karma points, which are always nice to have. Please email me if you think you might be of some help.

Now that that's been said, I hope you continue to enjoy these blogs as regular updates resume. It's great to be back.

The Adonis Complex Blogs are:

Adonis Complex

Athletic Supporter

MANochrome

Blonde Moment

Uniform Follows Function

Swim Meat

A Mirror Up to Nature

Songs & Studs

(A Collaboration with Vertigo Shtick)