Anybody else notice that half the template seems to be missing?
Wasn't me...
Option B is the overwhelming favorite with ~6 votes. Write in candidate E had ~2 votes and loathsome option D finished third with a single vote.
Victor and Phin will spend the year in an unholy embrace at second place on the 2005 winner's board.
Speach! Speach!
(Updated below the fold)
11 people guessed the artist.
(Click here to see it in all its majesty.)
Only Pixy Misa got it right. That's right folks, this spectacular landscape was drawn by yours truly. The exceptionally sad part is that I wasn't attempting to draw like a kid. That's about the best artwork you should ever safely expect from me. My Mom is an artist and Bacon is showing definite signs of the same but this trait has definitely skipped a generation.
Pixy wins the whole ball of wax and takes a commanding lead in the early Points season.
I've put back the submit button on the individual archive pages. You'll no longer have to preview a comment before submitting.
You may all thank the great and powerful Pixy Misa, whose recent anti-spam activities have made this possible. Also, the automatic comment closer for old posts helped a lot.
A problem has been pointed out in the season finale post. Victor is in there twice. Once is way up at the top and the other is way down there at the bottom. If the two scores are combined it brings Victor up from 4th place into a tie for second place. What's up with this? Several theories abound:
- The Snooze Points™ database was hopelessly corrupted during a system crash caused by the world renown chess battle between the Munuviana servers and Big Blue.
- Commies, Islamic fundamentalists and/or PETA hacked the list and added another entry for Victor near the bottom (where it wouldn't be noticed for several days after posting) to sow discord in the hopes they can use this confusion to their unholy advantage.
- At some time during the year Jim screwed up the list. When he put in a new score for Victor he failed to combine it with Victor's existing points, creating instead a second entry.
- At some time during the year Jim screwed up the list. When he put in a new score for Victor he added the new tally but failed to remove the original score, thereby creating instead a second entry.
An in depth investigation shows that the world renown chess battle between the Munuviana servers and Big Blue never happened. Big Blue chickened out. Additionally it was found that neither commies, Islamic fundamentalists nor PETA have the mad hak3r skillz required to pierce Snoozecurity. We are left with only two viable theories and no way to determine which one is correct. Victor should be in either 2nd place or 4th place for the 2005 season and we have no deductive method of figuring out which.
So we'll vote on it! Yeah, voting. Nothing pisses off Commies, Islamic fundamentalists and PETArists like good old fashioned democracy. Cast your vote for one of the following:
A) Victor ties for 2nd place. Phin is cast off the legacy board among jeers and cheers. Phin vows revenge upon all things Pointy in general and Victor in particular.B) Victor ties for 2nd place. Phin stays on the legacy board which is increased to four spots this year in a sop to Phin.
C) Victor stays in 4th place. Victor vows revenge upon all things Pointy in general and every person who voted for this option in particular.
D) Victor stays in 4th place. Victor joins the legacy board which is increased to four spots this year in a sop to Victor.
Lacking an armed secret police force to drag citizens to the polls we'll bribe folks instead. One point for each civic minded voter. Chicago residents, per tradition, may vote multiple times*.
* Though only one will count. Hah!
It's been a long, productive, occassionally frightening year. Season leader dafyd was upset late in the game by a very determined Tiffani. One must wonder how the final tally might have been different if he were properly engaged in the last quote contest instead of doing such pedantic things as working. Priorities, Dafyd! Priorities!
It was a tight race for the runner up spots as well. phin narrowly edged out Victor for the #3 spot thanks to being one of only three people to get the final contest of the season (Paul's Sham/Share) correct. It just goes to show that goldfish are better pets than rats, though only marginally.
The three top finishers get pride of place on the leader board for the entirety of the 2006 season. First prize winner Tiffani gets a special mystery gift of humorous nature and dubious value.
Here are the final results of 2005:
(45) Tiffani
(42) dafyd
(40) phin
(39) Victor
(28) diamond dave
(23) Clancy
(19) Holly
(17) Rob
(16) Paul, shank
(15) Tommy
(12) Kenny, Helen, vw bug, Simon
(11) Jen
(10) Spirit Fingers, Frick, Denise, Jeff
(9) LeeAnn, pylorns, The Lovely Brat Wife
(7) Rob P, Garret, Boudicca
(6) Kathleen, MojoMark, Random Penseur
(5) Craig, Kev, DeAnna, Machelle, Mo Mo, Oorgo, Margi
(4) Jeremy, Harvey, Contagion, Stephen
(3) Matt, Victor, Timmer, Susie, Trey
(2) Mike the Marine, Ryan, Squire Trelane, Elyse, 8ZERO8, Wendy, Me
(1) Jeremy, Ilyka, knpepper, Daniel, Rudy, el Robbo, Tony, Tim Adamec, Rachel Ann
Points are awarded for the weird habits submitted to this post.
Winner (5 points): Jennifer
Sucking on giant cow udders.
Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.
First runner up (4 points, +1 for existing habit): diamond dave
Taking the pants off completely when doing the No. 2.
As some famous person once said "Would they be of silk still should these fetters chafe and bind". Last thing I need while sitting on the can is binding, I tell you what.
Second runner up (3 points): phin
Dressing up in Red Panties and parading around the office.
What's the normal color - blue?
Third runner up (2 points, +1 for existing habit): Victor
You have sex with your wife on a regular basis.
It's only "weird" if the barn fowl protests.
Honorable mention (1 point): Tiffani
Walking around with your shirt off.
I'm seldom without a shirt. Quite often I'm without pants but after the third time the ASPCA tried to "bag" me I made it a habit to always wear a shirt.
Victor here, announcing that several stealth points went unclaimed last year. Someone should tell you about them and it may as well be me because I offered them to y'all.
To be honest, the first point may or may not have qualified for stealth points. I sent Jim a note and he never replied, but I'll mention it here as a just-in-case. It was just last month, when my incredibly awesome caption won Jim's caption contest. In case you've forgotten, it was Fluffy the Hutt was not at *all* pleased when Han Solo had to dump the load of Triskelian Mice he was smuggling.
I'll get the obvious out of the way first: It was not the Star Wars references. Jim has stated that painfully obvious references, such as Monty Python, are not eligible for Snooze Points, and I suspect references to characters from Star Wars would qualify as painfully obvious. However, read it carefully...does anyone not remember Star Trek? Particularly hot alien babes? Particularly the blue-haired drill-Thrall hot alien babe Shana from The Gamesters of Triskelion? Anyway, "Triskelian Mice" got their name from this episode of Star Trek; I used "triskelian" because I needed an alien-sounding name.
(For the record, mice, rats, squirrels, rabbits, nor any other form of rodent figure in this episode not one bit.)
There was one other stealth point that could have been awarded. Since this was originally posted in October, you would have received one point for finding it, one point for finding it twenty-four hours after it was posted, and I would really have pressured Jim into awarding a third point if you had it right. See, when I told Jim about it, I was wrong.
Back in October, I titled a post His only crime was being born delicious! in reference to Phin smoking Jim's mascot. For some bizarre reason, I thought I got that phrase from a Simpson episode--the one with Pinchy the lobster--and that's what I told Jim.
A few weeks ago, that phrase was thrown in my face while I was re-watching one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, Manos: The Hands of Fate, when Crow T. Robot uttered that phrase during the invention exchange (The Chocolate Bunny Guillotine).
I would have accepted MST3K or Manos for that answer...after having the shock of reading it wake me up and get me to Google that phrase to make sure I was wrong.
So, there you go. Had Dafyd googled all of my post titles, he would have found that and ended up tied with Tiffani for Grand Snooze Points Champion of 2005. As it is, Tiffani stands highest on the podium, where she belongs.
Remember this SnoozePoints™ post from back in June? It's the one where y'all told me what presents you'd like if I won the lottery. I've kept it open pending my buying an actual lottery ticket. I've come to the conclusion that if I haven't purchased a lottery ticket in five and a half months it is pretty unlikely that I'll buy one in the next two weeks. Therefore I say screw the lottery and award the points!
There are seven winners in this contest: two each in three categories (3 points for winner, 1 for the also ran runner up) and the overall best (6 points). Without further ado, here they are:
Category: Real Presents
Winner, RP with a puppy.
Runner up, Rachel Ann with books. Lots of books.
Category: Humorous Gifts
Winner, Phin with porn sheep, evil clown and casual wear.
Runner up, Jeff with a baby buffalo for companionship and sustenance.
Category: Alcohol Related
Winner, Margi with tickets to Atlanta and beer.
Runner up, Simon with beer company stock.
The overall, number one winner
This was a runaway (bouncing) victory. Tiffani, with a boob job.
Congratulations all! With the SnoozePoints™ season coming to a close we've got quite a bit of movement on the back stretch. I'm considering accepting bribes.
Just used this handy little utility to put up shank's email addy* in spamproofed format. It's over there on the sidebar in the "Authors" section now.
If you want to put your email address out there for people to use but hide it from spambots I strongly recommend running it through an encoder first. This one is the best that I've found.
* Everybody should send him a happy greeting.
Right now.
Really.
Copy me on it and I'll give you a Snooze Point**.
** Offer limited to one point per person. Void where prohibited by law. Odds of winning are approximately 1 to 1. Offer expires when shank threatens me with bodily harm.
Well, not quite exactly the same. Snooze Button Dreams is now a multi-author blog. Shank and Paul are joining up as SBDs co-hosts. Give them both a warm Snoozy welcome!
Yay!
Okay then, let's take care of the questions:
Q: Why the multi-author thing?
A: I've been toying with the idea for quite some time. In typical form I procrastinated for months before finally deciding I had to shit or get off the pot. I decided to shit.
Q: But why?
A: A bunch of reasons. First and foremost is you, my lovely reader. It is incredibly flattering that I get hundreds of hits a day even when I post once a week like I have been lately. You deserve better than a post a week. Second, I think it's the way of the future. The incredible plethora of blogs out there means that individual blogs are getting less and less attention. By teaming up with other authors who have similar tastes this blog will hit higher on the attentionometer. Third, I view having direct authoritative input into the blog as a good thing. More ideas, hopefully better ones, will help SBD grow into its maturity. And beyond!
Q: Why Paul?
A: We fit well together. We have a similar sense of humor, compatible writing styles, and work well together. In fact, we work well enough together to co-author shorts. Remember Protomonkey?
Q: Why shank?
A: Mostly the death threats. He knows where I live.
Q: No, really.
A: Pretty much the same as with Paul. I've known him for a long time from his comments around the neighborhood and from his own blogs. He cracks my shit up. He's also able to go from poop humor to delicate insight in a single post. You gotta love that.
Q: So is this really a multi-person blog or are you just letting them post here?
A: It's really a multi-person blog now. Majority rules and all that happy stuff.
Q: What about my points?!
A: Points continue. shank and Paul will be handing them out too, if they want.
Q: Are you tossing the Snooze Crew™?
A: Nope. The Snooze Crew™ is a highly valued part of the site. Only now, any of three will be able to tap their mad blog skillz when needed.
Q: Can I join up too?
A: Nope. Not right now anyway. We need to get through the transition period and get comfy with managing a group blog before we consider taking on any more owners. Paul and shank have been doing it for a while but it's new to me. No big bumps are expected but, as Confucious say: Man who live in glass house should dress in basement.
Q: What the hell does that mean?
A: Nothing really. I was just trying to end this on a humorous note.
Q: You failed miserably.
A: Yeah, I know.
A: Hey! Look over there! Something shiny!
It's time to shake things up a bit. I've got some plans for the Snooze that I'll be implementing shortly. Can anybody guess what they are? I'll toss some points to the first person to nail them.
UPDATE: Phin guessed the big change. SBD will shortly be a multiple author blog. Yay! 5 points for Phin!
There are a couple of smaller changes that will be occuring, generally in support of the resident additions. I'll give a point each for each of the small ones if anybody guesses them by...um...what's today? Wednesday...all day meeting again...okay, we'll make the deadline Thursday morning my time. Guess either the small, yet important, changes to the blog and/or the identities of the new SBD partners and you'll get points.
The end of the year is coming soon...get those points while you can!
I haven't been posting much. The rather massive project I previously mentioned (the one that went nuclear) is demanding seriously large chuncks of my free time. Enough chunks where I've fallen behind on my blogreading by about 300 posts and haven't put out anything worthwhile here since my promotion came through.
So let's make it official - I'm on blog hiatus until things calm down and I get some of my free time back. For those of you who are calendar oriented that will be Aug 23 at the earliest (as the presentation to senior management is Aug 22).
In the meantime, anybody who has author rights here (hello, Snooze Crew™) is encouraged to post. It's a shame to let this prime real estate lie fallow.
And I'll leave you with this little gem:
Burger: Girls don't have penises.Lovely Wife: That's true. What do they have instead?
Burger: Belly buttons!
...but I call it an opportunity to hand out some Snooze Points. I've made three changes at my own neglected blog, Publius & Co.. If you can tell me what the changes are, in the comments here at SBD, you will receive one Snooze Point for each change you point out.
Trey wants to move to our neighborhood. Being inclined to rationality he's realized that Wordpress is icky and that Munuvians kick it old school. Heading to mucountry is a no-brainer once you nail down those two facts.
Anywho...head on over to his nomination thread and chime in.
I last checked any of my blog stats, referrals, etc. I check the unique visitors for Zero Intelligence every 3 months or so in order to keep my BlogAds profile current but I have no reason to do anything similar for SBD. Every once in whenever I get an email from SiteMeter that says how many visitors I'm getting here but I can't remember the last time I bothered to open it. I haven't joined a carnival in forever.
I used to be a massive traffic whore and lived or died by my site stats. What's up here?
I'm not disaffected, I just don't care. I could be down to 50 visitors a day and it wouldn't bother me as long as they were the regular readers and friends I've made over the past year or two.
I'm in a happy place, blogwise, and that's pretty cool.
GreenZap, the alternative to PayPal, is set to launch on June 1. I think this is just too cool. I'm all about better capitalism through competition and until now PayPal was all alone in the ball park.
If you sign up for an account now you'll get a starting balance of $25. If you sign up through the link above I'll get a $5 signing bonus. There's no mention of if/when the $25 new account thing will go away but I expect it will shrink down to $5 or so at or around the launch. I'd much rather you get $25 than $5 so sign up now!
Welcome to the First Whenever Snooze Crew™ Awards. These awards recognize distinguished service in the line of duty with a Snooze Point (how come there's no ™ for Snooze Points?) for the best post in each category. Without further ado, here's the winners:
Best "Jokin Around" post goes to vw bug for this bit of Tasteless humor.
Best "News & Notes" article is awarded to Diamond Dave for You Have Been Chosen.
The best "Snooze Button Dreams" post was a steal by Phin with A memo from the boss
Post that should have been left in the "Deferred" category goes to Rob P for With my apologies.
Best "Match That Quote" post goes to Victor for Match that quote, special Snooze Crew edition!
Best True Stories post (even though nobody shared. you bastards.) is awarded to Denise for The Great Lengths One Will Go To.
And in the special non-category categories the winners are:
Diamond Dave for "Best Suck-up" post with his entry SBD's Greatest Hits (according to Jim's fans).
"Best Use of Non-sexual Imagery in a Sexual Context" goes to Phin for It's travel time. Alternately, this could have won for "Greatest failure of a trackback party in the history of the blogosphere".
Last, and most certainly least, is the "Best Post Poking Fun at Jim", which is awarded to Phin for A letter home from Jim.
Thank you and good night!
PS - The Snooze Crew™ roll of honor has been preserved in the sidebar blogroll. Yay!
Damn, what a mess! Rodent droppings under the blogroll, passed out gay midgets in the archive and I don't know what the hell that stain on the banner is. Sure tastes salty though...
The trip was a lot of fun, details to trickle out in the next couple of days. I've got over a hundred emails in the inbox and 450 posts in the newsreader. Expect my commenting to be light over the next couple of days.
Many thanks to the incomparable Snooze Crew™. I think my readership actually increased over the past week. Hmmm...I might have to do this again in the near future. I'll be handing out some bonus points for the best posts and hosts. Details, as they say, to follow.
In the meantime, any Crewmembers who awarded points please send me a tally and I'll update the list.
Poor Jim. He leaves for a week, gives us the keys to the castle, and all we can do is humiliate him on his own blog.
I think us regulars ought to honor Jim instead by sharing our favorite SBD posts. Posts that make us laugh, cry, think, scream, mutter "whadafuk", spooge, hurl, etc. Who knows, several of us may mention the same posts.
My favorite post went something like this, I think:
But only if you answer this question: WWJD?*
*What Would Jim Do, dudes.
Fortunately I do know when I'll be back again. That would be next Monday. If you're expecting any posts from me before then, or on that Monday, or even the following Tuesday you'll likely be even more disappointed than you normally are when I actually post something.
So until Wednesday next I leave you in the competent capable enthusiastic hands of the Snooze Crew™:
I promised in my application to guest host I wouldn't start a comment party unless bribed by Harvey. Well Harvey hasn't bribed me yet, so I figured I'd host a TrackBack party, since we need something to track back to I figured an image would be a great idea. Now the only thing to ponder is the image.
Given Jim's preference for all things bird & boob (i.e.: the blue footed boobie) related I thought it best to go with a combination of both. So without further delay I present to you, Jim's purple hooter:
A picture of Jim's purple hooter is below in the extended entry and should be work safe.
I'm not a man of wealth, nor of taste. Believe you me.
My name is Victor, and I'm helping trash Jim's blog while he's away. In the likely event you're not one of the six or so people who read my blog, you have no idea who I am, so by way of introduction, I'd like to post my answers to Jim's Guest Blogger Application. I confess I filled it out pretty much because I like to fill out forms, and less because I wanted to guest blog here. I mean, take a look at my blog--I hardly ever post there.
Well Jim isn't actually leaving until the 17th; but since he said we could start posting I figured what better way to send him off than with a picture?
So in the extended entry, Jim said to post pictures that may not be work safe in the extended entry portion, I've posted a picture of a hairy pecker. And it's even from Washington State, which is even more fitting since Jim's headed to Spokane.
* The picture should be work safe; it's not the hairy pecker you're thinking of pervo.
I'm very happy to announce that I have a cadre of experienced motivated writers set to amuse and entertain you during my upcoming hiatus. For those of you unfamiliar with military parlance a "cadre" is, in this case, a half dozen. Unless you're talking about a baker's dozen, in which case a cadre is approximately 0.46153846153846153846153846153846 dozen. This is in no way related to "The Dozens", an urban game of insults dealing primarily with your mother. Yes, YOUR mother. It doesn't matter who's playing The Dozens, they're all talking about your mother.
Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the Snooze Crew™:
We begin with frequent commenter and occasional SnoozeBob poster Diamond Dave. Dave's a local and I fear his FartBlast so he's in.Next up is Phin. He's new to Munuviana but not to blogging. Any man who needs to actually point out that he could whoop Aquaman's ass needs all of the support he can get.
Victor's been a blogneighbor for eons. Victor likes rats and swimming in ladies underwear. I mean he likes rats swimming in ladies underwear. Victor himself seldom, if ever, engages in ladies underwear swimming. With rats.
Denise's hobbies include tormenting me in my comments and having sex. That's a winning combination if I ever saw one.
The coveted number five position (not to be confused with "The reverse wheelbarrow" which is also position #5 but in an entirely different context) goes to Rob. Rob isn't Rob from Xset but a completely different Rob. To avoid confusion, close one eye when you read Rob's name.
Rounding out the
half dozen0.46153846153846153846153846153846 dozensix is vw bug who I think is blogrelated to me through some sick twisted chromosonal chicanery of Harvey's. I'm not sure what the laws are regarding cohabitating with blogcousins but I'll be out of the place while she's here so I think it's legal. Especially in Virginia.
Snooze Crew™, I'll be sending each of you an email with account and login information where needed and restraining orders where appropriate. Probably not until Monday though as this weekend is supposed to be exceptionally fine weather and I need to suck up as much of that as possible before we go to Spokane.
One more thing - I forgot to mention this in the application post but these are paid positions. These motivated volunteers will all be earning some Snooze Points for their efforts.
Check this out! Snooze Button Dreams is a gay blog. No joke - I've been indexed by Spidergay.
Denis (the Spidergay webmaster) sent me a very nicely written form email to give me the good news. They hope that my "indexation will provide you with a greater number of GLBT Internet surfers". How sweet is that? I am now eagerly awaiting an influx of glibbet surfers.
And guess who didn't show up in a search of their directory? That's right. Snooze Button Dreams is more gay than Trey Givens.com. Boo ya! In your face, Trey!
They also include a handy one press link if I want a deindexation but forget that. Traffic is traffic.
Wednesday is starting out to be a pretty cool day.
UPDATE: Victor thinks it might have been this post that got me indexed. That would be ironic since I was first accused of hating gays due to that post.
In this post I posed the following question:
Once is luck,Twice is coincidence,
Three times is a charm,
What is four times?
The clues I gave to the correct answer were that it was work related, I came up with this in a business meeting and that the answer could be gleaned from my previous posts about work. The correct answer is "Four times is a process".
I was hired here as a QA Specialist and the vast bulk of my first months was spent designing and implementing processes for Development. For the last month I've been designing and implementing processes for Project Management as well as taking on my own Business Analysis and Project Management tasks. I came up with this little saying during a meeting on those processes to make a point that it isn't enough to say what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. We actually have to DO IT like that and we can't consider it a success process until it has been verified by actual repetitive successes.
If anybody has any experience with change management (getting people to do something differently than they have been) you probably have a fair idea of how difficult it can be to get people to "follow the plan". It's where the term "herding cats" comes from.
Anyway, there were some great guesses and points shall be awarded!
Third Place (1 point): vw bug Four times is... one partner too many.Second Place (3 points): Oorgo
Four times is... repetitious.First Place (5 points): shank
Four times is... the fine line between persistence and harrasment.
And a bonus point each for the folks who tried to find the business angle:
vw bug for ...only good for brainstorming.knpepper for ...a project plan complete with willing project sponsor;
a real budget with real money; and real target audiences.Wendy for ...a contract.
Helen for ...a promotion.
The aftereffects of SnoozeBob Day will last for months. Or weeks maybe. Days? Okay, the aftereffects pretty much fizzled away mere moments after SnoozeBob Day ended.
But the points remain!
Here are the points awarded for the many guest posts:
1 point for Most painfully honest post goes to Lovely Wife for "Have I?"2 points for Most blatant link whorage goes to Rob for "Do I still have time?"
3 points for Best impersonation of one of Jim's posts goes to pylorns for "Movie Quotes Time"
1 point for Post exposing the truth about French culture goes to Rob for "Because I always do as Jim orders"
2 points for Funniest depressing post goes to shank for "While the Cat's Away..."
-1 point for Post causing Jim the most real pain goes to dafyd for "Annoying German Pop"
1 point for Best combination of high tech and reprodutive organs goes to Dave for "C'est l'Oorgo, oui!"
5 points for Post exposing the most mangina goes to diamond dave for "Always wanted to ask this..."
My thanks to all of the guest posters!
Update: Thanks for playing! SnoozeBob is back in his cage.
I'm off to Denver today so I've brought Snoozebob out to play!
Snoozebob comes around when I am especially lazy am so burdened by other committments that I can't attend to my normal bloggish duties and he throws the doors open for y'all to abuse the Snooze guest post. It's easy as pie. Just go here and log in with username and password "snoozebob".
The door will be open until tomorrow morning. You can post just about whatever you want as long as it isn't spammy or overtly francophilish. There are a couple of things to remember though:
- Don't do something so stupid that I or one of my proctors will have to ban your ass.
- Put your name in there so we know who wrote what. In the title is the best place, as a header or in closing work too.
- If you have a blog don't forget to
whore it out hereinclude a link. - For the category, please choose "SnoozeBob".
Enjoy!
(This post will stay at the top as long as open posting is enabled.)
POINTS: When I close guest posting I'll hand out some points based on which posts I thought were the funniest/most meaningful/bestest. It might be in categories or an overall list - not sure at the moment.
Number of posts in my aggregator after wiping out the ones from a couple blogs I'm probably going to drop because I just can't keep up with all of the blogs on my blogroll any more.
Maybe I'll move 'em out to an "On deck" blogroll.
(And no, if you are reading this I can just about guarantee that it's not your blog I'm talking about. Relax already.)
Going to UGA today, busy weekend, will be in Chicago Monday and Tuesday.
See y'all Wednesday.
Thought I forgot all about updating for this one, didn't you? Well, you were right. But fortunately Outlook didn't forget and successfully pestered me into doing it today.
The Points board is current for everything that's closed and there's still one contest post open for those looking to increase their totals.
[crickets chirping]
Yeah. Well, you see...um...
When the folks were down visiting I dug out a CD-ROM for them so they could install a perfectly legal copy of MS Office on their new computer. While searching for said CD-ROM I also came across my long lost CivIII and CivIII Play The World CDs*.
Sorry about that.
If you don't understand the connection between finding these CDs and the quietness of this blog ask Ilyka. She'll fill you in.
Anybody out there care to design a site? My friend Amy from work is about to start a weblog. She knows basic html but little CSS and no MT and could definitely use some help from the magnificent talent that runs around here.
Rob is my go-to guy because of his mad design skillz but I've got him tied up pretty well already with a redesign for Zero Intelligence.*
She's looking for a simple, attractive design. Here's the skinny on the site focus (from the post linked above):
Her site will serve as a resource collection for abused kids and parents who need help. The blog posts will be news items and editorial/Op-ed pieces related to the same topic. Overall, very similar to Zero Intelligence so take a look over there to see what she's aiming for.
So who's volunteering?
* Then again, Amy wouldn't mind waiting a little bit if necessary. So Rob, if you want to queue her up feel free to jump on this fantastic offer too! No, wait. It's not a fantastic offer. It's more work. Let me rephrase that:
So Rob, if you want to prove beyond a doubt how masochistic you are, feel free to jump right on this and queue her up!
Yeah, that's a bit more realistic. ;-)
The tombstone contest is complete. There were four entries and four finishers so everybody wins! Putting them in 'best' order was hard enough with just four. There's just something about grave markers that makes me smile. Must be my rampant morbidity.
Anywho, on to the results:
First place, with a prize of 5 points, goes to Jen. The beautifully morbid self reference put me in mind of the classic stones at Tombstone. She really stole the show with this one:
(Click for big size)
Second place, with a 3 point prize goes to Frick. Frick went rebel with this one, profaning the ease of the tombstone generator to photoshop a message for the cockroaches of the internet:
(Click for big size)
Third place, for 2 points, is VW with a line from my favorite Monty Python skit:
(Click for big size)
Fourth place, for an additional point, is Frick again. This one came in last because it has far too great a chance of actually happening in the real world:
(Click for big size)
Congrats, y'all! The point board will be updated around lunchtime.
Somehow I pooched a recent post and lost my liveblogging of the power outage at work. Uncharacteristically I don't have a notepad file for it because it was all short updates.
My misfortune is your good fortune!
Here's what you need to do:
In Internet Explorer go to File in the menu bar and select "Work Offline". Other browsers will be similar.Open the problem child post.
If you see a full and beautiful post with time marks on the individual entries you are looking at my lost baby. Copy the text and send it to me.
Those of you with newsreaders may also have the full post in your readers.
First person who retrieves the post gets 5 points!
This will only work if you happen to be one of the 30 or so people who saw the full post before I mangled it. Hopefully it still exists in one of your caches.
Update: dafyd wins! Yay!
Tiffani wins first prize for the Bumper Sticker contest. She was the only entrant but she was the obvious winner right off the bat. Probably why nobody else bothered to challenge her. After all, how can you improve upon perfection?
Five points for Tiffani!
Clancy has revealed his news. He's married and pregnant! Luckily, so is GF. The big winner of the Guess Clancy's News contest was me. Hah! I rule!
I'd like to thank the Academy, my agent and all of the people who didn't guess as well as I did.
My points are a bit reduced though as Helen, Kathleen and Holly each extorted a point from me. What can I say? I'm helpless against the power of estrorage*.
That clears the docket for points posts at the moment but we'll get some more up soon. I've got a Shamming/Sharing in the works and an excellent photo for a caption contest.
* I've proven to be quite the coward in this regard so threats upon my life will continue to be paid off with my personal points until they are depleted.
I found this over at LeeAnn's Cheesy Castle of Doom (TM). Ralex Whitlock (what sort of name is "Ralex" anyway?*) made a list of ten things that he thinks bloggers do wrong. A list of common failings, if you will. LeeAnn did a self-analysis against the list and, since I'm nothing if not a slave to rule number 1, I have too:
1. Only link to what we've already read and only say what we've already heard.
Nah. A goodly bit of my stuff is original and I don't go around parroting people via links.2. False modesty.
False modesty? Moi? Hehe. Hahaha. Mwah hah hah hah hah!!
Um...no.3. Clearing the archives.
Nope again. All of my tripe is out there for your enjoyment. Actually it would be a great benefit and increase usability quite a bit if bloggers (like me) cleaned out half of the garbage in their archives.
I got a very nice email from Tre at 21st Century Paladin. He complimented me on my site, told me he had blogrolled me and asked me to look at his site to see if I liked it and maybe put him on my own blogroll if I did. Happy to oblige Tre.
But this got me to thinking about my blogroll. How do sites get on my blogroll? Well, I'll tell you.
But first, allow me to present my excuses. I am a terrible template updater. It's not in my genes. I'm in software QA because I like to break programs. I am an inherent danger any time I open a template. I am a destroyer of bytes, not a creator. What I'm saying is I don't update my blogroll very often.
Excuse number two is that although the blogs I read are the ones on my blogroll I don't read blogs with my blogroll. I use a newsreader. If a site doesn't have a feed the chances that it will ever get to my blogroll are pretty slim to non-existent. Oh, I know that there are loads of excellent sites out there without RSS feeds. My heart bleeds a little bit every time I think of all of the great stuff I'm missing. However, real life has shown that I seldom, if ever, remembered to (or bothered to if I did remember) actually go read blogs outside of the ones in my newsreader.
So what happens to a prospective blog is I'll put it in the newsreader and follow it for a while. If it bores me or pisses me off I delete it. If it's still there when I update my blogroll it becomes one of the elite and gets put in the correct alphabetic order.
Tre, you're up there in the pending section right now. So far, so good.
Ilyka made the 5,000th* comment on Snooze Button Dreams. It was a Happy New Year wish too, so that makes it extra special.
Ilyka, you win a year's supply of air and all the toilet paper in your house. Congratulations!
* Not counting the 10 or 11 thousand spam comments that have been deleted.
So I joined BlogExplosion*. It's a nifty idea. You surf through blogs and accumulate points which are then spent to direct other surfers to your blog. You spend 30 seconds on a blog to get credit for viewing it.
One notable problem is that although surfing through the blogs takes a manual click there's nothing to stop people from keeping the surfing window open and just returning to it periodically to click to the next blog without ever giving a site even a cursory look. Oh, well. There are asses in every crowd, no sense crying about it.
The cool thing is that you might actually find a couple of blogs that you like. I've got a half dozen in the evaluation stage now. That's sweet.
Another sucky thing is that you get exposed to a whole lot of absolutely horrible blogs. True garbage, presented on a bed of skank with a side of rotten. After a short while surfing I've identified several instant elimination criteria. Any blog that pops up with any of these gets clicked off right away. Yeah, that means no credit for viewing but my browsing time is limited and I'm not about to look at a piece of crap for half a minute when there might be something worthwhile right around the corner.
So what are these items that ring the death knell for Jim's surfing? I'm glad you asked!
Black backgrounds with blue text. Or any dark background with any dark text. Any light background with light text too for that matter. If I have to highlight text in order to read it the site is dead to me. Ditto for obscuring background graphics.Yet another female blogger set up with a pink background. Sorry, it's just too trite and common. I'm sure there are many fine pink-backgrounded blogs out there but the vast majority of these are full of inane posts and whining about terrible fate and the vagaries of being misunderstood.
The first post is a health complaint. Or the title is something along the lines of "My life with incurable rectal stenosis" or "My battles with chronic depression". Don't get me wrong now, I'm a compassionate person - I've got compassion leaking out of every orifice. I'm very interested in the travails of my friends and acquaintances. From them it is sharing and support. From strangers it is just depressing. Think of it this way; if you were on the subway and you had the choice between talking with the depressed guy with facial ulcers or the well spoken and cheerful accountant you'd probably pick the accountant. Unless you had some sort of ulcer fetish of course.
The first post is hard-line partisan. Strident tones from the right, left or middle. I like reading political commentary and opinions from every side but I'm fed up with the temper tantrums. Instant site failure.
sk8r kr@p. If u t1pe l1ke dis ur s1te sukz.
Too much crap in the sidebars. For the love of all that is holy, don't have so much crap on your site that it can't possibly load in 30 seconds over a T1 line. Animations, massive graphics, a hundred link buttons, busted java scripts, clutter, geegaws and toys. A weather pixy with a tagboard will get me off of a site faster than Michael Moore downs a Krispy Kreme.
And that's about it. It just comes down to the essentials really: have a site that is easy to load and navigate and doesn't immediately turn me off with depressing or angry content. And yes, I know that on any given day my site would fail one or more of these criteria. That's okay though, I already have the best readers in the world.
* Sign up with BlogExplosion through this link and I'll get 'points' as your referrer. That would be cool and would put a big smile on my depressed ulcerated face.
Comments are going to be just a touch different now. In an effort to defeat the spambots I've implemented this solution (pointed out by Pylorns). You'll need to preview comments before you can post them now.
Hopefully this, along with the comment script hiding that Pixy has already done, will keep these sumbitches at bay until I can move to MT3.
I'm under a constant stream of crapspam bombardment. I started to go through entries one by one to turn commenting off but that is just this side of ridiculous seeing as I have a bonifide shitload of posts.
How the fuck can I turn all commenting off on an MT blog?
Protomonkey is reborn!
Protomonkey was my attempt to goad myself into writing more and better. Being the stubborn SOB that I am, I was unable to force myself to do so and the site languished. It has now risen like the monkey from the flames, changed into a new and stronger site.
What, you might ask me, is this wonderful new concept? Well, I say to you, it is now a group blog. It will be a collective home for any creative writing. Short stories, anecdotes, essays, you name it, it's welcome. For a more complete (and dare I say humorous) introduction see the FAQ.
Joining is simple. Just comment in the FAQ thread or send me an email and mention that you'd like to be a contributor. If you don't have my email address you can get it from the sidebar here or just contact your friendly neighborhood spammer. Apparently they've all got it.
So what are you waiting for? Get over there and look around. My short stories are posted over there and there's already a second protomonkey churning out goods for you.
Well my friends I'll be incommunicado until Thursday as I brave the bitter cold wastes of Chicago. Fortunately my hotel connects to our office building so at least I won't be freezing my nads off walking to work.
Whilst I'm gone avail yourselves of this space, so generously granted by yours truly, to toss out ribald bon mots, incessant chatterings and other nuggets of your literary genius. I'll be quite sad if there aren't at least a half dozen terrifically naughty jokes here when I get back.
Coming next week:
Rebirth of the ProtoMonkeyAnother caption contest
The political party startup
Possible anecdotes about the Chicago trip
The 2004 Weblog Awards polls are now open, featuring yours truly and quite a few of the folks in my sidebar. I pulled out all of the Munuvians who made the cut and posted that over at the central Munuviana blog.
The campaigning and politicking for votes promises to be fierce. You won't find that here, of course. As exemplified by our failed presidential campaign, I am an incredibly lazy politician with almost no skills whatsoever in successful campaigning.
So without further ado, here's who you should vote for. Voting for other people in these contests will make me sad. I could possibly enter a pouting state if things get bad enough. You can (and should!) vote once each day in each poll. The poll category lines link to the actual polls, the blog names link to the blogs. You're probably reading all of these regularly anyway but I've included the links just in case.
BEST ONLINE COMMUNITY
Munuviana
BEST AUSTRALIA OR NEW ZEALAND BLOG
Ambient Irony
BEST OF THE TOP 100 - 250 BLOGS***
Bad Example
Patriot Paradox
BEST OF THE TOP 500 - 1000 BLOGS*
Snooze Button Dreams - This is the most important one!
BEST OF THE TOP 1000 - 1750 BLOGS**
Everyday Stranger
Boudicca's Voice
BEST OF THE TOP 1750 - 2500 BLOGS
Ravings of a Corporate Mommy
BEST OF THE TOP 5000 - 6750 BLOGS
Ilyka Damen
* Jen would have been in this category if she made the cut. Since she didn't get in due to some administrative oversite, thus giving me some small chance of victory a guarantee of victory in the face of all other blogs, I'm pledging to share my award with her if when I win.
** Both of these lovely ladies fell into the same category. Voting for either of them will make me happy. You do want me to be happy, don't you?
*** Similar to the ladies, supporting either of these two gents is goodness incarnate. Yeah, I know that this third footnote is referenced first. It came on an edit, okay? Live with it.
RP inquired about Protomonkey a few days ago. There's been one post in the past 3 months and he was wondering when I might put up something new. I didn't answer right back because I really didn't have an answer.
The purpose behind Protomonkey was to separate my creative writing (tall tales, short stories, essays) from the rest of the stuff here at Snooze Button Dreams. I thought that if I set up a separate site with a goal of posting one item a week it would get me back into the habit of writing that type of work. Well, it didn't work very well.
Turns out that type of work either comes or it doesn't. I'm an abysmally poor 'on demand' type of writer. When the muse is with me the stuff pours out. When the fickle bitch smacks her ass on the way out the door I end up staring at a blinking cursor.
In my mind Protomonkey had failed. In fact when I posted that recent short story it went here without even a thought of putting it on the 'classy' blog. Can I force it to work? No, I don't really think so. I'm just not a performance writer. I'm not dogging myself here, I'm just acknowledging that my writing style isn't conducive to a regularly scheduled metered output.
If I just post the Protomonkey-type stuff when it happens to get written that site will never attract a following. People just don't follow a site that is scantily and infrequently updated. It would be a waste of effort to put my gems in a location where few if any people will read them.
So Protomonkey is doomed? Maybe not. I'm not the only blogger out there who writes the occasional story. Protomonkey could succeed as a team blog, if it had a decent amount of support. So here's my idea:
1) Protomonkey becomes a group blog.
2) Posts can be short stories, tall tales, creative works, etc. or links to the same type of post on other blogs.
3) Members can therefore post their own stuff or link to their own stuff or that of the people who they read.
4) Membership would be figuratively unlimited. In the event that it gets too big and unwieldy we can deal with such happy fate at a later date.
Thoughts? Comments? Anybody care for a mint?
Clancy sent me a note about a poll in yesterday's print edition of USA Today:
USA Today, print edition (I couldn't find it online, but I only looked for a few minutes) in the Life section - they have a mini-poll. Anyway, the results of the mini-poll say that 60% of the respondents don't hit the snooze button and thus have no idea what your blog is about...
I'm ever the optimist though. To me that says that 40% of respondents owe me fealty as well as numerous presents.
Of course a realist would just say that 100% of the respondents wasted several seconds of their life answering a meaningless poll but we'll ignore the realists but they'd no doubt have a similar comment about the people reading this post.
By the way, Clancy, your blog is looking as empty as Bill Clinton's bag of morals. 60% of your readers want some more stuff from GF. The other 40% are too busy taking polls to notice. ;-)
I've been seriously remiss with my blogroll lately. One of the things about using an RSS reader is that I don't use my own blogroll as a surfing point any longer. I add and subtract blogs in the reader, think "hey, I should update my blogroll" and then get distracted by something shiny.
I've finally taken a couple of minutes to make the blogroll actually match the blogs that I read. The list is a lot shorter than it used to be. The reasons why I trimmed blogs out are varied. Some had closed shop. Some had moved or modified and are there under their new guises. Some had changed considerably since I first started reading them and they just didn't peak my interest any longer. Some were just too profligate and I simply didn't have the time to invest in reading them any longer.
The saddest ones by far were the ones that were warped out of the zone of readability by politics. Blogs that I had picked up because they were informative and pointed became echo chambers of partisan rhetoric. Very, very harsh rhetoric. At a certain point I just couldn't read any more about how Bushitler is jackbooting all over the world or that Kerry was Sonny Bono reincarnate (only not as good looking and unable to carry a tune in a bucket with a Ziploc lid). I still followed those blogs for some time, judging by post titles whether I'd read the individual entries or not. Eventually it got to the point where I wasn't reading any of the posts so I removed the blogs from my aggregator.
Now my blogroll matches my actual blog reading and the horrible rent in space-time caused by that disparity is healing itself. When you don't get sucked into a parallel dimension tonight you can all thank me.
(I just realized that getting "sucked into a parallel dimension" could also be taken as a sexual metaphor, in which case it would be a very good thing and I hope it happens to you tonight.)
I haven't gone the way of the dodo, just very time challenged at the moment.
I've put up a new post at Protomonkey. Enjoy!
UPDATE:SnoozeBob day is over, y'all. Thanks for all who played along. I'll hand out points tomorrow for those deserving.
Y'all remember Snoozebob, right?
Snoozebob comes around when I am especially lazy am so burdened by other committments that I can't attend to my normal bloggish duties and he throws the doors open for y'all to abuse the snooze guest post. It's easy as pie. Just go here and log in with username and password "snoozebob".
The door will be open until tomorrow morning. You can post just about whatever you want as long as it isn't spammy or overtly francophilish. There are a couple of things to remember though:
- Don't do something so stupid that I or one of my proctors will have to ban your ass.
- Put your name in there so we know who wrote what. In the title is the best place, as a header or in closing work too.
- If you have a blog don't forget to
whore it out hereinclude a link. - For the category, please choose "SnoozeBob".
Enjoy!
(This post will stay at the top as long as open posting is enabled.)
POINTS: When I close guest posting I'll hand out some points based on which posts I thought were the funniest/most meaningful/bestest. It might be in categories or an overall list - not sure at the moment.
Remember this picture?
(Click for biggie size)
Even though I'm most of a week late, winners have indeed been selected. Look on the bright side; when I'm late with one of these it gives more people a chance to participate!
First place (5 points): The social worker approached the shirtless boy. "Just take one more step, pretty boy..."
Simon
Second place (3 points): There was so much pee in the kiddies pool that even the water pistol turned yellow.
Spirit Fingers
Third place (1 point): "This is my rifle, this is my gun..."
diamond dave
Okay, so I'm pretty loose on my definition for "caption". It comes down to what tickles my funny bone.
And they say them about me! A few days ago I asked readers to come up with quotes for me and/or my blog. The winners are:
1st Place (5 points): Your blog is like whoa. I could eat it with a spoon. -Spirit Fingers
2nd Place (3 points): Jim makes me want to hit the snoozebutton a few times a day. -Tiffani
3rd Place (1 point): Blogger I'd most like to see naked. -Emma
Honorable Mention: Ha...I have never said one nice word about you...terrible, even more terrible than I usually am... -Ilyka
Those and a couple others are now up on the sidebar under the new "People love this place" section. The "Best Of" has been moved into this section as well.
Enjoy!
The latest entry at Protomonkey.
There's a new entry at Protomonkey and damn is it good. It involves partial nudity and severe pain!
Special points bonus: Name the source for the title of the Protomonkey post and get 2 points. Answers in this post please - Protomonkey itself is a points free zone. Don't forget - no searching for the answer. Thanks!
If you want to be advised whenever a points offer goes up send me an email. I had to take the subscription form off of the sidebar because some jackass was putting in fake email addressess.
Why not? I'm going to put up a sidebar portion with things people have said about me and/or my blog(s). Here are some examples:
A new high point in the politics of victimization. Or is that low point? Well, it's a point, anyway.
-Instapundit
OH MY GOD. That site is yours? You are fucking AMAZING!
-Everyday Stranger
I love it!! Your style is fantastic and you're very funny
-Rachel Lucas
I'm handing the "king twisted" crown to you.
-Harvey Olson
You may as well change the name snoozebuttondreams.com to glennreynoldsismybitch.com because he's that good.
-Jen
So dig out those cool pithy things you wrote about me the first time you (in trembling amazement at my wit and insight) linked to Snooze Button Dreams (or one of my other blogs) or make up something completely new. Originality is cool, so is creativity.
Whatever quotes get used will be linked so you get a little bonus there. I'll also get the 2004-2005 Points season cranked up by throwing out a couple handfuls of points for the good ones.
Awards are way, way down at the bottom of the extended entry of the post. Sort of like the way they save Best Picture for last.
The last points awarded were for comments on this post and the pictures therein. The most definitive (and frightening) picture bears reposting:
The winning entries
1st place (5 points): Helen with "Social services intervened when it was revealed a local couple made their children fight to the death, all for the prize of just being able to wear a shirt."
2nd place (3 points): Emma with "Whatever doesn't kill them before they are ten will be a fine personality trait when they are 30."
3rd place (1 points): Simon with "No children were harmed in the production of this story."
Emma gets honorable mention and a bonus point for offering to babysit the spawn my kids. Victor gets a point for his excellent impersonation of a French politician.
There's a new item up at Protomonkey. Enjoy!
Feel free to subscribe to the notify list over there (in the sidebar). I'll announce the next couple of entries here but after a few weeks it'll be on its own.
There were a lot of excellent captions submitted. The first place entry gets 5 Snooze Points, the second place one gets 3 and the third gets 1. There were also a lot of crappy entries but don't worry - I won't take any points away.
Winner
"Amazing new ironing board allows women to simultaneously iron, rub pussy." - Rube
Second Place
"Ever the thrifty spender, Jim has discovered a new way to get LW that black fur shoal she always wanted. The neighbor will never miss the cat anyway." - Clancy
Third Place
"Ironing bored." - Tiffani
Won't be here today. Sorry, y'all. Just too busy today with all the clean-up from yesterday and then the relaxing and stuff. Bear has requested chicken wings for his B-day dinner so we'll be doing those tonight.
The party was a smash, thanks mostly to Trey. Everybody else took off at around 4:30 pm but Trey stayed and we had some lovely conversation to the setting of the sun. Not only did Trey charm Lovely Wife and I, he was also adopted by Bacon. (Click for mondo size.)
I think Bacon had just stuffed a handful of Nerds in his mouth. Either that or he's turning into a weasel.
So anyway, big news tomorrow with more party pictures and maybe some house pictures too.
My little blog is a year old now. Celebrate and rejoice!
Many of you weren't expecting this post until tomorrow since the oldest archive post here is from July 25 of last year. Fooled you! (And me.) Seems the first two posts from the Blogger incarnation of this weblog were lost in the move. The actual first Snooze Button Dream post was Thoughts on snooze buttons, posted July 24, 2003. Thusly a blog was born. (I've reproduced that post in the extended entry here, just in case Blogger is still going psycho on my archives.)
As it is Saturday this is about all you will get from me but expect big news tomorrow.
Update: This post will be up top until Friday morning. Theoretically unlimited points are available. (Points are realistically limited by physical laws.)
I recently implemented a tweak shared by The Bartender to put a Best Of list in my sidebar (it's under "Linkage"). This is neat as it handles things dynamically whenever I put a post into the "Best Of" category.
My problem is that for the past 6 months or so I hadn't updated any of my best link categories so my "Best Of" has a whole lot of best posts that aren't in there. What I'm looking for are what posts y'all think are good enough to be considered some of the best things I've written. I'm looking more for the anecdote style (story, humorous semi-fiction, kids, etc) posts.
Nominate a post that you think is worthy. If I agree and put it in the Best Of category, you get a point. Just one at a time and first come, first served please. That way it'll be a bit more fair for the out of country readers. As soon as I reply with a yay/nay on your submission you can nominate another one.
I've also got some on the Best Of that probably shouldn't be there. Instead of nominating one to go into the category you can nominate one to come out of it and that'll be for points too.
Even more points: One point each for artist and debut album for the song that inspired the title to this post. No searching, y'all!
...I'd put my money on one of these readers to win the very long running points contest:
Mike the Marine, 34 points
Rob, 34 points
Tiffani, 33 points
Simon, 32 points
What was my first blog called? 5 points for the first person with the correct answer (and no searching). A handful of bonus points also available for especially vulgar humorous guesses.
UPDATE
Um...no. Nobody got it yet and I think I see why. Back a few months ago if you Googled "Jim Peacock's first blog" it was in the top 10. That doesn't work any more. In fact, if I didn't know where this thing was I don't think I could find it now either. I'm raising the reward to 10 points and opening it up to searching however you want.
Just a note - we're looking for the name of the blog, not the URL. As an example, this blog is Snooze Button Dreams, not www.snoozebuttondreams.com.
Finally, there are a handful of folks that get a point each for answers that made me smile:
DeAnna: Snooze Button Queens (Not that there's anything wrong with that)Jen: An Udder Blog (References to my cow sucking picture get extra points for the nostalgia factor)
Jen (again): glennreynoldsismybitch.blogspot.com (Oh-freakin-yeah, baby)
Claire: spamload.blogspot.com ("Spamload" would be an excellent name for a heavy metal group)
I'll still hand out points for these types. Hey, we can use all the humor we can get, right?
There are a bunch of new faces in the ol' blogroll. Some are shiny new and others are long overdue. I've been terribly lax about updating this thing. As recompense for my near-malicious negligence these newcomers get a special introduction here instead of the normal stealthy addition I typically use.
Bloviating Inanities - Sorry, Bill. This link should have been up there many moons ago. It got missed somehow (probably my subconcious at work).
It's All About De - DeAnna was one of my first readers and one of the first blogs on my blogroll. Somehow she got dropped (I think it was when we moved her to Munuviana). That's not really important right now. What's important is she just had a terrible loss. Would y'all take a minute to drop by her place and offer condolences? Thanks, I appreciate it.
Memeblog - Stay tuned for all of your meme needs. Hurry please, it's getting a bit weak from lack of participation.
New Blog Showcase - Now this one is going strong! This blog lets new bloggers showcase a bit of their best for the enjoyment of all.
Precinct 333 - Writen by Texas Teacher, a long-time commenter at my serious blog ZeroIntelligence.net. Well written and topical, poli/educational for the most part.
Random PenseƩs - Found from tracking back comments or maybe from the New Blog Showcase. Fantastic mad writing skillz. Talk about erudite - if I could write half as well...
Where the Dolphins Play - Found this one through Texas Teacher's blog. Hey, if a liberal writer can get on Precinct 333's blogroll that's good enough for me. Who am I kidding? Of course that's not enough for me. But after reading this for a couple weeks the Dolphin definitely passes the SBD Blogroll Getin On Challenge.
Willow Tree - I tracked back Rachel Ann from comments and then promptly forgot about her (gimme a break, I been distracted lately!). She politely reminded me and even went so far as to turn on her syndication feed just for me. You just can't beat service like that!
The default submission email address for the Bestofme Symphony (bestofme@jpeacock.net) has been shut down. If you mail to it you'll get an auto reply saying that submissions can't be taken at that address anymore. Basically it's been getting to an unhandleable (is that a real word?) spam load (that sounds vaguely dirty, doesn't it? "spam load". i like it). It started getting viruses. Today it started receiving regular targeted attacks from an email server somewhere out there. It was past time to put that old submission address out of its misery.
From this point forward the submissions for a particular week will go to the email address that the host specifies. For this week they should go to gcruse at netscape dot com. The submission address will be sent out in the Bestofme Reminder mailings. I recommend that you join the list if you haven't already so you won't miss where to send your submissions.
Now for the really big announcement:
The Bestofme Symphony is Moving
This is unrelated to the item above. I've been too busy to give the Symphony the attention it deserves. I've neglected to get reminder emails out several times, most notably the past two weeks in a row. I've just got too much going on at the moment.
Fortunately for the Symphony (and all y'all) Gary Cruse has agreed to take custody. Y'all know Gary from his blog The Owner's Manual and from the many Symphonies that he has hosted. In fact, I think he's posted more than I have at this point.
I'll be cleaning up Symphony posts here to point over to Gary's place. Please help me to spread the word about the move as well as the new submission method.
Due to the special holiday schedule (i.e. because your dumbass Symphony coordinator neglected yet again to put the reminder up) the Bestofme Symphony will be posted tomorrow instead of today.
Take advantage of this extra day to send in those submissions. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Tomorrow's edition at WetWired.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Get your submissions in for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at The Smallest Minority.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
My blogger code is B4d++t+ks-u--fi--ox-elc-. Get your own here.
(Hat tip to Rob)
Do a Google search for 'Jim Peacock' and my sites come up as #1 and #2! Woo hoo!!
Finally knocked that damned insurance salesman down a few pegs.
A half of a year already? Yup. Monday will bring the 27th edition of the Bestofme Symphony. That means we'll have crossed the half year mark for this best of the best post compilation meme. The Symphony will return to the nest for this special edition.
Help me to make this demi-annual edition a smashing success. Send your submissions in to bestofme@jpeacock.net. The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old.
Take a look at your blogroll. Does a favorite site of yours have a veteran post that's crying to be included in a Symphony? Now's the time to submit it.
Got a blog? Spread the word - let folks know that the Bestofme Symphony is going to be celebrating it's demi-anniversary on Monday and their submissions will help to make the party a smashing success.
Thanks for supporting the Bestofme Symphony! It rocks because you do.
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
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Get your submissions in for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Book of Life.
Please note that the autoresponse you are used to receiving may not be working. The emails themselves are getting through, itās just not sending out the confirmations.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
A post over at A Small Victory (It's about an article in the New York Times that basically equates bloggers with underarm dandruff. Michele rips it apart really nicely - you should read it.) prompted me to do a comparison check on my Sitemeter Recorded vs. Actual visitors. For ZeroIntelligence.net I came up with these:
Visits* recorded by Sitemeter: 66,411
Actual visits** from log analysis: 136,362
* Site Meter defines a visit as a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views.
** A visitor is counted only when bringing up more than one page and taking no longer than 30 minutes between individual pages.
So Sitemeter is trying to count more sessions as visits (criteria of one page view versus a criteria of two or more page views) but is actually ending up with less than half (49%) of the actual visits.
Does anybody else out there have actual numbers they can compare to see what percentage of their visits are getting recorded by Sitemeter?
Yet another anonymous comment troll has been corrected. It's the one with today's date, obviously.
This is pretty fun actually. Usually when I edit things I have to be serious.
If you leave me an insulting comment and don't have the balls to post your real email address, obviously I'm going to edit it to amuse myself.Obviously.
Get your submissions in for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at WOLves.
Please note that the autoresponse you are used to receiving isnāt working. The emails themselves are getting through, itās just not sending out the confirmations.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
drew at logic2@hotmail.com (though that's probably a fake address) is the latest person to sign my guest map. He's a Brit but is for some ungodly reason living in France. After reading the comment that he left I wonder if that is such a coincidence. Here's what drew (that's the french spelling, using no capitals - less chance of giving offense using only lower case letters you know) said:
Jim is so clever that he has invented a new word to replace "causation" - "causality"! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL ps get a clue moron.
If I'm reading this correctly drew is upset because I used the word "causality". He apparently doesn't know that it is a real word so he is trying to make fun of me for using it. He even gives me credit for creating the word itself! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
ps get a dictionary fucknob.
Get your submissions in for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Blown Fuse.
Please note that the autoresponse you are used to receiving isnāt working. The emails themselves are getting through, itās just not sending out the confirmations.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Every once in a while I'll get curious about what people who find this site were looking for. I'll put on my rubber gloves and my thickest apron and check in the referral logs. Here, for your amusement, are some of the most recent search phrases that have brought people to Snooze Button Dreams. As always, my smarmy comments follow.
do you bite your thumb
No. And I stopped sucking on it months ago.
there's a party in my pants
Am I invited?
rape stories written by authors
I think that if it's written it sort of has to be by an author. Can you have a rape story written by a non-author?
You jerk off for two days and make your readers work the site for you and then on the day everybody is expecting you back (perhaps with some sort of entertaining anecdote from two days of corporate scholastics?) you play the bastiche again and go AWOL. What gives?
I received the email above (in slightly altered form) and would like to take this time to say "bite me" "sorry y'all". I took the day off yesterday to attend Bear's graduation from Pre-K and had an awesome family day. I didn't take time on the PC to do anything except scan emails and the news aggregator occasionally. I'm back now so keep your panties on. (Or don't. I'm good either way.)
All has been settled. Copious points have been handed out and freebie codes sent to Rob and Simon.
This was pretty neat but I think that next time it'll be just a day long. With two days in a row the second day didn't seem to get much attention. Also, I'll see about getting the word out ahead of time so people will know what's coming up.
What do y'all think? Better than crappy post day? Worse? Would you rather have a pencil shoved in your ear than read just about anything on this site? You tell me. I want to know.
Final Update: SnoozeBob is back in his cage. The winner of the advertising at ZeroIntelligence.Net is Simon. Yay, Simon!
Thanks to all who participated and special thanks to Rob for heavily promoting the open Snooze event. Hell, Rob gets ZI advertising too. I'm feeling spunky.
Particulars will get sent out tomorrow once I set up the code thingy at Blogads.
Thanks, y'all!
I'm in class today and tomorrow. I'll be wandering by the computer through the day but definitely won't have time to work up any decent posts. Instead of having a Crappy Post Day two weeks in a row I figured I'd ape some of the more successful bloggers and have an open microphone day.
There are only a couple of rules that you need to follow:
- Make sure to use a title on the post and put your name in parenthesis at the end. Example: What I learned in class today (Jim Peacock)
- Use the "SnoozeBob" category. That's going to be the general category for guest posters. Nothing like simple and easy to understand category titles to help folks navigate the site, eh?
- Don't do anything that will get your ass permanently banned. There are no hard and fast rules for this because a goodly portion of my readership are clever and evil and if I made up rules or guidelines they would take a savage delight in finding loopholes through them. Just don't do anything remarkably and intentionally stupid or malicious and you'll be just fine.
If you're a blogger, don't forget to include a link to your own blog. Never pass up the opportunity for free advertising!
Here's the particulars:
Login URL
Account: SnoozeBob
Password: password
All y'all that already have accounts that can post here, feel free to use them or post using the SnoozeBob account. It's all good.
BEGIN!
PS - In case you've forgotten what he looks like, here's Snoozebob!
PSS - Munuvians will need to log out as themselves in order to login as SnoozeBob. It's that "logout" button at the top of the MT interface.
Get your submissions in for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at the all new and completely redesigned ultra spiffy MuNu. (Hey, Pixy - how's that redesign going?)
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
It's Crappy Post Day (tm)! For those of you who have joined us since the last Crappy Post Day (tm) and for those regulars who have managed to blank Crappy Post Day (tm) from your minds, allow me to give a brief explanation.
Crappy Post Day (tm) is what happens when I am too busy to write anything for myself but the gut wrenching pangs of guilt force me to attend to my bloggerly duties regardless. What you get on Crappy Post Day (tm) are links to other peoples' stuff (said stuff being way better than things you'll find at The Snooze on this fateful day) and things that people send me or I pick up on my wanderings. Oh yes, I'm still wandering. No time to write something amusing for y'all but plenty of time to aimlessly trek through the drek (that rhymes!) that is our beloved blogosphere. Does that make me a bad person? I doubt it. Next to signing up everybody on my notify list to the Al Franken fan club, that hardly registers.
And after I've got that I'll be commanding you to send in an entry for the next Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Dramaqueen.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
It's time to get those submission in for the Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at The Owners Manual.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Anybody out there (besides Pixy) catch what Jim Taranto (from The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web") said about ZeroIntelligence.Net?
Zero Tolerance WatchWe started covering "zero tolerance" madness three years ago, but we really ought to pass the torch to Jim Peacock, whose ZeroInteligence.net blog has become the best source on the subject.
3 months old, 154 regular subscribers, 56,010 visitors. So it's not quite Command Post level performance but I'm still happy. :-)
It's time to get those submission in for the Bestofme Symphony. Send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at WOLves.
As a special bonus for this week and this week only, every author featured in the April 5 Bestofme Symphony will get a Snooze Point. That means that at a minimum they'll get a spot on the Snooze Point Leader board for the rest of the calendar year. They may also cure cancer and end third world hunger but those last two have requirements in addition to being on the Snooze Point Leader board.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. It just can't get any simpler!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and win a million dollars! (Please note that sending in a submission does not make you elligible to win a million dollars.)
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Rocket Jones.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog. Now that's accomodating!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
A smaller button for those who have size issues with the first one.
A little sidebar button for us Tactlessly Correct blogs:
Send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and help bring a smile to a little girl's face. Not that the one leads to the other, I'm saying you should do both.
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Practical Penumbra.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Send in those submissions for the Bestofme Symphony and I'll make ya hot like you had enough!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at The Owners Manual.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
As long-time readers know I occassionally run out of new material (this never actually happens) or am just too lazy to come up with an interesting post (yup, that's the one). When this happens I delve into the deep, dark, recesses of my referral logs and find the oddities that all y'all are looking for when you find my site in the search engines. Some of these are funny, some are just...ewwwwwwwwwwww. Either way, they earn a comment from moi.
deodorant commercial
I can understand the attraction. I am also drawn to these vignettes of American culturalism like a moth to the flame. Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. Indeed.
my pants r 0n fire
In the good way as in "I'm a horny skank" or in the bad way as in "I really need a fire extinguisher"? Either way, I'm sure you can make some money if you get it on video.
homemade melting cheese
Is this for real? Can I really make my own melting cheese at home? I am sooooo sick of supporting the cheese establishment and their militant cheese monkeys forcing me to pay my hard earned money for their crappy melting cheese. My life would be close to perfect if I could make melting cheese at home. Fight the power!!
chippendale's man video download
If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times. Works from my "artistic" phase are available only from my agent. I don't sell or distribute anything directly.
bloody penguins
Yeah! Stinkin' rot grubbers! Always eating their fish and waddling around all over the place without so much as a "how do you do" or a "nice day we're having". I hope they all get eaten by a bear!
dirty little whore stories
Ah, I never get tired of talking about Joe Theismann.
Over at the ZeroIntelligence.Net site is my first ever original reporting article. Yup, that's all me there. Nothing taken from another site or found somewhere or picked up at another location. Took the raw info, made a news article. Wow.
I feel all empowered now. Cool.
Sorry, y'all. No new sham/share yet. Work was a collosal whore today and I'm hating on the computer right now. I got the caption contest finished but that's all I'm going to manage. Look for whatever I didn't get done today to be done tomorrow instead.
The Symphony is coming and I'm here to shout it!
Ah, flashbacks to High School. And isn't that what the Symphony is all about? Flashbacks to the best stuff in blogdom?
Submissions are needed for the Bestofme Symphony. What are you waiting for? Dive into those archives!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Irritable Blog Syndrome.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. It doesn't even have to be from your own blog! Can it get any easier? I don't think so!
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
Want to host a Symphony?
Get reminder emails.
Lovely Wife is off getting shots for the puppy and I'm here fighting off a mild nicotine attack and simultaneously getting a two year old screamer to shut his yap. He seems to enjoy reading over my shoulder, so to speak, so I parked him in his high chair and let him look. We draw a picture together. Well, I did the drawing, he did the artistic management. May I present Snoozebob!
Snoozebob is a youthful character. He's got a full head of hair that might be a white guy afro (like Richard Simmons). He's got freckles. He also has fangs. I'm not sure if he's a vampire or if that's just some wacky birth defect. With such innocent and trusting eyes I just can't see Snoozebob as an evil unlive blood sucker. We'll go with freakish mutant.
Submissions are needed for the Bestofme Symphony. Get 'em in while you can!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at Ambient Irony.
The only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. And it doesn't even have to be from your own blog! How's that for ease of use?
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
We need you to host a Symphony.
Want to get reminder emails?
A few weeks ago I posted a piece at ZeroIntelligence.net on a Champaign, Illinois coach who was railroaded out of his job due to a run-in with a zero tolerance policy. The story has developed a bit.
After a hue and cry from the populace, Coach Anderson was reinstated with the agreement that he would resign at the end of the season. He coached the 8th grade basketball team to win the state title.
On a more personal note, ZeroIntelligence.net is no longer accessible from computers in the Champaign School District. Their filtering software now says that the site is pornography and bans it. This could be explained in one of two ways. First, their new software is more stringent than their previous version and/or it is badly configured. Second, my site was manually added to their banned sites list.
It could be a total coincidence that my site was available to Champaign students and staff before I posted an article critical of Superintendant Culver and now it isn't. I've requested a review and statement from Dan Casing (Assistant Superintendant of Business Services & Operations for the Champaign School District) and sincerely hope that this is software error and not deliberate censorship.
Still having DNS difficulties where snoozebuttondreams.com isn't working for some people (including me at home). For now I've rebuilt the site using a base address of snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu so the site should work correctly for everybody who can actually get here no matter how they got here.
Pixy mentioned that it looks like there's a DNS server out there with a bad cache and it keeps propagating the wrong info. That makes sense as the .com worked for me at home yesterday for a short while and then it cut out again. Very frustrating and not really anything we can do about it.
For the time being I'm just going to chill a bit and play with Grow.
(Hat tip to Dopple-G for the game)
If you got here through www.snoozebuttondreams.com or snoozebuttondreams.com then all is right in your snoozy world. No problems at all.
If you got here through snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu, go ahead and try to get to www.snoozebuttondreams.com. Did you get there? If so, you're fine too. If it didn't work then your service provider sucks as badly as mine and even though you can get around a bit on the index page the site overall is going to blow for you.
The problem is DNS propagation and how some servers are updated proactively and others are updated days later. The provider at work for me is proactive and everything works fine. My home provider (rot in hell, Charter!) is one of the lazy bastards.
It'll be cleaned up in the next 24 hours or so as even the layabouts are sort of mandated to get their shit together at the 48 hour mark.
Submissions are needed for the Bestofme Symphony. Last week's performance was a fine rally against recent participation dropoff. Thank y'all and let's do it again!
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition at The Owner's Manual.
Remember, the only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. Don't have your own blog? Who cares? Send in a favorite post from whatever author you'd like to.
The basics of the Bestofme Symphony.
We need you to host a Symphony.
Want to get reminder emails?
URL: 81.9.106.157
Email: Anything fake. Particuarly fond of @mail.com
Name: Hero aka Acanty aka Creno aka Meban (very clever that last one. get it? it's "ban me". hahaha)
Crimes: Accumulated irritation over time. Too many fake IDs.
Seems like everybody in the blogosphere is commenting on the school bathroom regulation story today. I did this story three days ago at ZeroIntelligence.net.
[sigh]
By the way, if you're interested in items like this one, there's at least one a day over at ZeroIntelligence.net.
So Snooze Button Dreams is getting simpler. Yay!
How's it getting simpler, you ask? Well, the recent redesign (and follow up tweaks) have removed some stuff that wasn't necessary. Specifically, the comment and trackback pop-ups are gone. When you hit the comments link it opens the individual post archive page at the point where the comments start. Same thing with the trackback link. Those pop-ups were extra pages that had to be rebuilt whenever a comment was left (or a trackback, as the case may be). They weren't needed since that info is already on the individual archive page anyway.
Cool, eh? Can we make this an industry standard?
The Snooze Point Leaders have also been tightened up. The top 10 are always displayed. Other point holders are there in a collapsed list. Don't worry, all of the links still count for Ecosystem stuff.
Special thanks to Harvey for finding a problem with the way we had trackbacks working. Harvey gets a Snooze Point!
Points: 4 points to the first person to name the movie that this post's title came from. The points are higher for this one (it's usually 2 points) because it's a lousy movie that nobody probably saw. No searching, please. After 24 hours this will drop to 1 point and you'll be allowed to search for it.
If you'd like to be notified whenever a post goes up with points available, just put your email address in that box in the Snooze Points section of the sidebar and click on that little submit button.
He's got the switcherbar in place!
Yes my beloved fans, Rob has got the style switcher working and you can now select from three (count them - three!) fantastic styles (also designed by Rob). Just use that dropdown box at the top of the sidebar to pick your preferred look.
One more will be coming - that fun-lovin' style worked up by The Bartender.
Comments on the styles are very welcome. Which is going to be your Snooze? Let me know. And let Rob know how much ass he kicks, too.
And in case you didn't notice yet, he's also put in the "view comments in the post" doohicky and the "show trackbacks in the post" whatchamacallit. I know the terms are technical so please try to stay with me here.
Hey Rob? You rock!
Points: 2 points to the first person to source the inspiration for this post title. No searches please.
If you'd like to get an email notification when posts with points get posted just put your email address in that box in the sidebar (the one in the "Snooze Points" section). That'll give you a chance against the hordes who just hover on my site hitting refresh all day in order to be the first ones with a chance to guess.
Submissions are needed for the Bestofme Symphony. It's crunch time, y'all. Jay has only received a short handful of entries for the Feb 16 performance. Is the Symphony failing? It's all up to you.
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in Monday's edition.
Remember, the only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. Don't have your own blog? Who cares? Send in a favorite post from whatever author you'd like to.
Okay, so if anybody emailed me anything this morning or tried to do a Symphony submission or tried to go to ZeroIntelligence.net they discovered that 1and1.com has locked down my email addresses and websites. Seems the fuckers can't figure out how to bill a credit card without also crediting the credit card so my account balance can't seem to go down to zero where it should be. Contacting them is very close to impossible but I'm trying my best. Of course today also happens to be the morning that we're taking the three monsters to the dentist so my efforts are more limited than I'd prefer.
In the meantime you can email me here with anything, including Symphony submissions, and I'll make sure it gets to where it should be going.
Remember that old axim "You get what you pay for"? Yeah, they weren't shittin' about that.
UPDATE: All is better now (for now?). Seems they had a glitch that has been fixed and they've unlocked my account. But according to the bank they've yet to administer a correct charge so I'm going to await further developments with baited breath.
UPDATE2: And they're gone again. Supposedly it'll all be fixed at 5:00pm. I think that coincides with their office closing time. Convenient, eh?
UPDATE3: And we're back up again. I feel like a yo-yo. I'll grudgingly give 1and1.com one prop here - it was fixed when they said it would be fixed.
I've passed my 100,000th site visit. 100,000 visits in a little over half a year. Wow.
The odometer was tripped on Feb 11 at a bit past 5:00pm (EST) which means the big winner of the .1 Million Invitational is Margi! Nobody nailed the date but her guess of Feb 10 (which was also her birthday) was the closest.
Due to a rogue nipple throwing off projections very few people guessed I would hit 100,000 this soon. That's what you get for not respecting chaos theory. A bit of double exponential smoothing would have taken care of that boobage with no problem. Margi didn't fall into that trap, though. She had faith that I was a hit machine and would get the tenth of a mil mark on the early side and she's walking away with 6 Snooze Points as a reward. Way to go Margi, you rock!
Joining Margi on the winner's podium are 2nd place contestants Pylorns and JimiLove who were the next closest guessers under and over Margi. They each win 3 points. 3rd place finishers AlGore and Pixy Misa receive 1 point each. Pixy's guess was the very latest date guessed and the earth is round so it sorta made him the very earliest guess too so I gave him the point as nobody guessed earlier than Pylorns.
Hey, Rob, oh great and terrible guru of skins and designs! Can I muss about in my template? I need to give out some points.
My email address is out there in public and it's been taken and used by spambots like Ned Beatty was used in Deliverance. I get around seventy or eighty spam emails a day. Now this was something that I knew was going to happen so don't cry for me. It's actually not such a problem for me since I'm using a kick ass spam filter and I have it cranked up to eleven.
SpamBayes separates out all of the obvious crap into one folder and all of the questionable crap into another. I actually take the time to peruse the sender and subject of the items in the questionable category. Two reasons for that: first, they're questionable; second, that's how I train my vicious spam attack program. If I recognize the sender or the subject line appears suitably non-spammish I'll actually open the email and take a look. Of the 70 or 80 spam mails a day only a handful will be in the questionable folder. I'll take a cursory glance at the obvious crap too, but it's really not with any intent to rescue emails. I'm just scanning for unusually humorous subject lines at that point.
Happy Crappy Post Day!!*
In celebration of Crappy Post Day I give you Trey Givens on the Nefarious Ways of El Qaeda**. It's humor - we try to avoid serious stuff on Crappy Post Day.
* Crappy Post Day is when I don't have the time to write up any sort of decent post on my own so the only amusement you'll find here are the occasional gem I've found elsewhere or perhaps some cheesy jokes.
** Remember that the posts I refer you to are not the Crappy ones, those are on this site that you are currently viewing. Trey's post is one of those 'occasional gems' noted in the first note.
Submissions for the Bestofme Symphony, that is. Get your minds out of the gutter - y'all are naughty.
Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net and they'll be in the Feb 09 edition at Pragmatic Conservatism.
Remember, the only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. Don't have your own blog? Borrow somebody elses. Just send in a post from one of your favorites.
I've had a few people ask just what points are and since I'm running short on flippant rejoinders I figured I'd just do a post and handle it the nice way.
Points are...well they're just points. When you earn them you go up on the Leader Board over in the sidebar. At a minimum this gets your link up on my site and might get some traffic to you. At a maximum this will be the culmination of your life and you can die happy. Most people end up somewhere between those two extremes. Maybe I'll give a prize to the top point holder at the end of the year. Anything's possible.
There are a couple of ways to earn points:
- The most common is knowing the same obscure things that I do. When I recognize that I've used some wierd, odd, or little known phrase or bit of past culture I'll offer points to the first person who can name the source of what I've used. The more obscure I think the knowledge is, the more points I'll offer. Searching for the answer using the internet is not allowed for these. It's the honor system so there's no real way I could stop you (apart from the vicious hex I've put in place) but it's all for fun so why bother cheating?
- Sometimes I'll have contests, like the .1 Million Invitational. The winner(s) of these contests will get points.
- I'm not beyond bribery.
- Or flattery.
There are two ways to keep abreast of point earning opportunities. The preferred method is to visit this site several times a day and read everything that's posted. The lazy bastard way is to put your email in the box at the bottom of the Snooze Points section of the sidebar and press the submit button. You'll get put into the subscription list and you'll get an email whenever a post is made where points are offered.
UPDATE: Button doohicky removed as it doesn't work. You'll just have to keep checking back after all.
UPDATE2: Button doohicky replaced as it does work now! Yay!
UPDATE3: This post is being attacked by a crapspambot so I must close the comments.
I've gone ahead and implemented the black & white design that Rob worked up for me. Pretty sexy, eh? I love those clocks!
Don't worry, Rob. I saved everything before I started mucking about.
UPDATE: Had some problems to start but I got those fixed with MojoMark's tip. Have some problems now pointed out by Mog. The comments and individual archives still have the old styling. Not much I can do about that at the moment seeing as I'm pretty inept at design stuff. I tried switching stuff in and out but it didn't work (reference previous statement of general ineptitude). For now, just enjoy the beautiful clockworks on the main page and consider the other pages a tribute to a venerable warrior that served honorably and continues stolidly onward despite knowing his doom approaches.
UPDATE: Time's up! All are aboard that are coming aboard. Now the waiting begins. Who will be the point winners? Ooooh...you can cut the tension with a butter knife.
I was just reading about it being Michele's 3rd blogiversary and I realized that it's my own .5th blogiversary. (Or would that be hemi-anni-blogiversary?)
6 months of Snoozitude. That floors me. It feels like just yesterday when I started this thing.
No maudlin' or "what I've learned" stuff this time - you'll get punished with that when the blog's a year old. This post is really just an excuse for another point earning opportunity for y'all.
POINTS: 2 points for the artist of the song in the title of this post. 1st correct answer only, of course. And no searching, of course. And it's all on the honor system so I won't know if you cheat, of course. But I'm pretty sure y'all are as honest as Clancy since it's just for fun, of course. I'll stop with the "of course" stuff now, of course.
Damn, just couldn't resist that one more. I stepped over the line, didn't I? Turned it right from mildly amusing (or at least only slightly pathetic) right to irritating. I'm such a slave to my impulses.
Occasionally, when I have absolutely no idea what to post desire to give y'all a particularly lighthearted and spirited little humorous romp, I'll delve into the recent searches on my site to see what people are looking for when they find this site out of the blue. I then generally humiliate them for our collective amusement try to help those poor souls who couldn't find what they were looking for here. Shall we begin?
Well, technically I need you to submit to Dodgeblogium. They're the hosts for the January 26 edition of the Bestofme Symphony. Send your submissions to bestofme@jpeacock.net.
Remember, the only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. Not a blogger? Send in a post from a favorite weblog.
Itās time to send those submissions in for the Bestofme Symphony. Robert at XSet will be hosting the January 19 edition. To make sure he receives your submissions send them to bestofme@jpeacock.net.
Remember, the only requirements are that you think the post is good and that it be at least 2 months old. Not a blogger? Send in a post from a favorite weblog.
Would you like to be a host for the Symphony? Just send an email to jim@jpeacock.net and let me know.
Want to get handy reminders to submit for the Symphony and to be notified when a new Symphony is posted? Send an email to bestofmereminder@jpeacock.net. Can't get much easier than that now, can it?
As always, thank you for supporting the Bestofme Symphony.
I can't believe that I forgot to mention that today is Crappy Post Day*!
I suspended Crappy Post Day over the holidays as it would have been an almost daily occurence and I didn't want to rename the blog to Snooze Button Crap. But since the holiday fury is over and the out of town guests are all departed (as in "gone", not "dead") I've actually started writing real posts again, which means the return of Crappy Post Day. Yay!
* Crappy Post Day is what happens when I haven't the time to write up an actual amusing or meaninful post using my very own prodigious writing talents. All you get on Crappy Post Day are links to other places and stuff fed to me by my many contributors (mainly Lovely Wife and Dopple-G).
Or at least get it off of Blog*Spot. So far almost 50 weblogs have joined the Great Blog*Spot Exodus. This is one hell of a deal. Free hosting for three years and experienced MT veterans to get your weblog set up. The only money expense is domain registration and that's a measly $5.99.
What are you [*cough* Ryan *cough*] waiting for? You [*cough* Ryan *cough*] know who you [*cough* Ryan *cough*] are.
UPDATE: There's a little sense of urgency here too, as the free hosting offer ends on January 21.
POINTS: 2 points for the first person to identify my source for the title of this post. No searchifying!
Get those submissions in for the first Symphony to be hosted outside of Snooze Button Dreams. The Bestofme Symphony road tour starts this coming Monday with Ilyka Damen. Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.
Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info
Host a Bestofme Symphony. The tour schedule is filling up nicely but there are many concert dates still available.
Webloggers: How about a little linky love to help drum up submissions for Ilyka's Symphony? She's just a girl so she needs all the help we can give her. [Pardon me for a moment while I dodge that uppercut.]
All y'all: You can submit any post, whether it's yours or not and whether you're a blogger or not. It only has to be good (in your opinion) and 2 months old.
Thanks for your support!
I've had 989 comments since moving here to Munuviana*. 11 more to the magical 1000. That's pretty cool and will probably happen tonight or tomorrow morning. I think I'll commemmorate the occasion with a 2 point gift to the poster of the magical 1000th comment.
* I have no idea how many comments I had back on Blog*Spot.
The numbers are in. Thanks to everybody who linked to me in December. Special kudos to the top dogs:
Top 10 Referers for December
Everyday Stranger
Electric Venom
Anger Management
Rachel Lucas
XSet
Phillip Coons
Madfish Willie's Cyber Saloon
Wizbang
Wetwired
Jennifer's History and Stuff
I'm going to work this into the sidebar. Of course I said that last month too so no breath holding, please!
Get those submissions in for the Bestofme Symphony! Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.
It's another holiday week and that means another week of light submissions. Last week saw a late rally to bring the Symphony up to snuff and I've got my fingers crossed for a repeat performance. This will be the last Symphony held at Snooze Button Dreams for a while as the Symphony will be going on tour the week following. Help me to send it off in style!
Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info
Host a Bestofme Symphony. Be the envy of your neighborhood and get on the Leader Board at the same time!
Webloggers: Link to this post and you'll get a tiny bit of good karma. This can be redeemed for valuable prizes in the afterlife.
All y'all: You can submit any post, whether it's yours or not and whether you're a blogger or not. It only has to be good (in your opinion) and 2 months old.
Thanks for your support!
Not even a nibble for a blogger willing to take the Bestofme Symphony out on tour? Very well then, I'll resort to bribery. The first person to volunteer to host the Symphony will get 5 points. That's enough to put you smack dab in the middle of the Leader Board. Or for somebody already on the board to surge to the top. Point reward will decrease by one for each host after that until it gets to one point, where it will stay. Yes, that's right - you heard correctly. Every Symphony host will get at least one point. Hot damn!
There are other benefits to conducting the Symphony, though. First, the schedule of Symphonies will be in my sidebar with a link to the appropriate blogs. Second, when you actually host the Symphony you'll get massive amounts of traffic and probably pick up some new regular readers. Third, I'll name my next child after you.
Okay, so we're not having any more kids, but if we were I'd do that!
Conducting the Symphony is as painless as possible. The only requirements are:
- No censorship - If you have a problem with a post, posts, abuse of the Symphony, etc, just pass it to me for resolution.
- Post it on the scheduled Monday.
- Email me when you post it.
Pretty easy, eh? Some suggestions that have worked for me:
- For the honor spot (first link in the Symphony), find a post from a blog on your own blogroll. This is sweet for two reasons. First, it gets you looking back into the archives of blogs you already like - something that might not happen otherwise. Second, it gets great exposure for a blog that you like.
- For the closing entry (last link in the Symphony), find a post from your own blog's archives.
- Consider emailing the people who submitted entries when you've got the link for the newly posted Symphony. It helps get the word out that the Symphony is up and it gets links to the Symphony.
- Keep it simple. Yes, big is beautiful but simple is readable. You don't have to be as spartan as I am but I definitely recommend keeping it relatively clean and neat as opposed to colorful and complicated.
I'm planning on putting the Symphony on the road starting with the January 13 edition as I'll be hosting the Carnival of the Vanities that week and the two together might be a bit overwhelming. So who's up to the job? Just email me or post in the comments here if you are interested.
UPDATE: Bribery works! We've got 2 and a half volunteer conductors already. Sidebar schedule to come out some time today.
UPDATE 2: Sidebar schedule added and Leader Board updated. Who else wants some?
LeeAnn might have the tops for wacked out searches but my humble site attracts its own share of wierdness. Here's a couple from over the holiday weekend (Paris and Joe searches excluded because they bore me now):
cruise missile stops at red light
Is that why Bill couldn't bag Osama?
look my vagina
Where? I missed it. Come back!
boner hard-on peeing
This is actually a competitive sport in remote regions of Nepal.
boy in plastic pants
You're too late! I've destroyed the film evidence.
things women hate about men
This again? If I told you once, I've told you a dozen times, it's our inability to find anything that has been moved by our evil significant others who then tell us to look past our own noses before yelling out "Where the hell is my toothbrush"! Or something like that.
Get those submissions in for the Bestofme Symphony! Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.
Traffic is pretty light due to the holiday and some DNS problems so the Symphony is looking a bit like an ensemble at the moment. That means I'll be even more grateful than usual for any submissions you send in.
Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info
Want to host a Bestofme Symphony?
Webloggers: How about some link love?
All y'all: Remember that you don't have to be the author of a post in order to submit it.
Thanks for your support!
Starting January 13, the Bestofme Symphony will be going on tour. There will be a couple of requirements for the conductors:
- No censorship - If you receive spammish entries, flooding entries, entries that you find reprehensible, etceteras, check with me. The default is everything goes and the decision to stifle anything will be my burden.
- The first post of the Bestofme Symphony (the first chair?) should be a submission by you for a post in another weblog's archives.
- Post the Symphony on the scheduled date.
And that's it. Not too bad, is it? I suggest keeping it easy to read and navigate but however you want to format it, theme it, etceteras is totally up to you. During the week before your Symphony, all submissions sent to the regular submission address will be forwarded to the email address you specify. You may also email people, post, comment or otherwise make a pest of yourself to drum up support for your performance. When you've posted the Symphony you need to email me so I can send out notices to people on the reminder list. I also send an email to the people who've submitted posts that week and it would be nice if you did the same thing but it's not a requirement.
Anybody still interested? Comment here with the date you would like to conduct the Symphony. First come, first served. Reserved dates are the 26th (Jun 7) and 52nd (Dec 6) performances - anything else is fair game. Don't forget to include the email address that you want submissions forwarded to. If you're leary of posting that in the comments then send it to me via email.
| Date | Conductor |
|---|---|
| Dec 29 | Snooze Button Dreams |
| Jan 6 | Snooze Button Dreams |
| Jan 13 | ?? |
| Jan 20 | ?? |
| Jan 27 | ?? |
| Feb 2 | ?? |
The first two designs from Robert at XSet are up and viewable. Please take a moment to check them over and comment on the looks:
Elegance (black/white)
Dreamy (blue/orange)
Also, still taking feedback on the design done by The Bartender:
There'll be one more style by Robert coming up and eventually we'll have a nicely skinnable site for your viewing pleasure.
Don't forget to send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony! Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.
Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info
Webloggers: How about some link love?
All y'all: Remember that you don't have to be the author of a post in order to submit it.
Thanks for your support!
As amazing as it may seem, searches on a certain nubile yet skanky, rich, braindead, amateur porn star have faded to the point where other search terms stay in my site logs. Yay! And that means I once again have the opportunity to assist people with the wierd ass things that they are looking for and not quite finding on my site.
sun bitches
I'll need more information for this one. The only thing I can determine for sure is that it involves the French in some fashion.
nemo burger
Sounds yummy, I know, but skinning a clown fish is annoyingly difficult. Try tuna or mahi-mahi.
"little people" dwarf etiquette
One hand on the shirt collar, one hand on the belt. And never toss them before they have secured their helmet.
the things I hate about men
What, am I psychic now? How am I supposed to know what you hate about men? I'll hazard a guess that number one is how we get together with our buddies and act "unilaterally", mademoiselle sun bitch.
I've mentioned a couple times about the new site look that The Bartender has done for The Snooze. Due to my time problems and then my tables messing things up y'all haven't been able to see it. Well, go take a look at it now. This is the preliminary design, looking for feedback. That page is a duplicate index so it has the very same article content as this one. Sidebar content is different since this one's been updated a few times in the past weeks and that one hasn't.
Let us know what you like, don't like, etc.
Don't forget to submit posts for the second Bestofme Symphony, which will be posted this Monday. I'd greatly appreciate if bloggers would link to this info post to help spread the word.
And remember, any qualifying post may be submitted by any person so you do not need to have a weblog in order to participate.
Notice something odd about this site the past couple of weeks? I mean besides it being FUBAR yesterday.
Yes? You in the back. What was that? Yes, quite correct. The content blows. I think there's been one lonely little SBD post in the past two weeks and that was a shorty. I haven't had a Carnival submission this month! What happened to the amusing content that got me a readership in the first place? There are several reasons and they all boil down to one thing. Time.
It's the Holiday season and that puts new demands on my time. We're in a very busy section of our release cycle at work and that puts some fantastic demands on my time and on my brain. The Bestofme Symphony is another thing that is taking up creative blogging time. We've got company now and will for the next week and a half. It's very cool having old friends and family up to visit but it is a disruption and time committment.
So what's going to happen to the Snooze? We shall persevere, that's what! Okay, so don't expect the fantastic SBD posts until close to the new year. That'll mark the end of the holiday season, crunch time in the release cycle, visitors, and Bestofme Symphony. Until then it's going to be mostly punditry and linking with the occasional humorous or interesting stuff thrown in by Dopple-G.
No, the Symphony won't be ending. I'm just planning on turning it loose like BigWig did with the Carnival. Once it's established and flowing smoothly I'll ask for hosts and it'll make the rounds. Hopefully at least a week before I host the Carnival itself! Both of those in the same week could be a recipe for disaster.
The Great and Powerful Pixy has worked his magic and Snooze Button Dreams is back in action. Thanks to everybody who helped figure out the problem and to Pixy for implementing the DNS fix.
Now, on with the show!
Several people have commented that the site is fubar today. It was fubar last night but should be fine today. Here's what happened:
The Bartender designed a new look for the site. He was done quite a few days ago but due to my schedule and some stupidity (when I did get time to implement the new look I didn't have the files with me) I wasn't able to make the changes. I finally caught a couple of minutes yesterday around 2:00 my time to make the changes but my large table from the Bestofme Symphony was beating the hell out of the new template. Just as I was preparing to return to the original index and style I had to leave for home as my ride (Dopple-G) had to leave.
This left the site in a FUBAR state for about an hour and a half until I could get home and get the time to restore it. During the FUBAR time the new style sheet was apparently cached for some visitors and since I'm now reverted to the old style it is making the site look FUBAR PLUS.
If it looks like there's no formatting or style present on the site, try forcing a refresh by hitting F5 (Internet Explorer) or whatever the steps are for your browser. If the wrong style sheet is cached somewhere on your service (ISP, proxy, whatever) then Snooze Button Dreams is going to look ugly until they recache it.
MuNu also suffered an attack on our DNS servers last night so that could be playing a part in this hullabaloo. Pylorns is pulling up sonicwall.com when he tries to go to www.snoozebuttondreams.com. Others are probably similarly affected.
It's difficult for me to diagnose because everything is working perfectly from my seat. If you encounter wierdness please comment on it.
UPDATE:
The problem is all DNS. The $mtbloghost$ is www.snoozebuttondreams.com so every time that reference is used in scripts, generated pages and links, etc, it is fucked for people who can't resolve www.snoozebuttondreams.com.
By the way, here at home I can't resolve it either. Yay.
Anyway, I changed the script reference in the index file to reference snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu instead of $mtbloghost$ so at least the index page will be usable for people who get here via snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu.
Help me, Pixy, you lord of the DNS services. Help me please!
If anybody knows how to set cookies for multiple websites please comment over here.
Thanks.
Not sure if you're trolling or just having a problem with the comments but I've gone ahead and banned you. If you were suffering from browser conniptions send me an email and I'll get you fixed up. If you were just jerking off on my weblog then fade quietly away please.
Vote for Snooze Button Dreams in the Most Egregious Ommission category of the 2003 Weblog Awards.
Everyone who votes for me will be wildly successful in life and win their local lottery. And I'm not talking the lottery where they sacrifice you to the corn god either!
Tonight at midnight EST is the deadline for inclusion in the very first Bestofme Symphony. Participation has been very good and the virgin performance is going to be great. Many thanks to all of the folks who spread the word and/or submitted entries.
If you miss the deadline, send in your submission anyway. It'll go in next week's Symphony.
Coming Monday...a new site design from The Bartender at Madfish Willie's. It would be in place right now except I just discovered that I forgot to forward the files to myself at home so they're still on my PC at work. Feh.
And I'm still holding out for a face lift by Rob at Xset. If you haven't seen his site redesign you should go and check it out. Very sweet. Very clean. Hopefully he'll be caught up enough to play here soon. Then I'll have selectable skins just like the big boys. Woo hoo!
There's been some really good participation for the Bestofme Symphony. A nice round 20 submissions so far!
To recap, submitted posts need to be 2 months old or older and should be of gemstone quality. See this post for submission particulars. The submission address (bestofme@jpeacock.net) is functional so please use that when you send posts in. Mail sent to my regular contact address will still be processed but it's easier for me if you use the Bestofme address.
Deadline for submissions for the first edition of the Bestofme Symphony is midnight EST this Sunday (05:00 GMT Monday).
Thanks for the support and keep 'em coming in!
I had lots of referrers in November and I'd like to give them all a big thank you for linking to my site. The top 10 are going into a new section of the sidebar. They are (in order of number of referrals):
Everyday Stranger
Electric Venom
Anger Management
Silflay Hraka
Rachel Lucas
Deadends CENSORED
The New Criterion
Wetwired
Yourish.com
Madfish Willie's
Touch it! Love it!
Changed up the sidebar a little bit, eliminating the tacky "hours of operation" thing and the Ecosystem doodad (I want a single line, not 4 lines!).
Added in a holiday links section, Bestofme Symphony section and (coolest of all) a Point Leaders section. You know how I occasionally hand out points for the first reader to identify the source of something I regurgitate? Well, I figured I'd go ahead and make that worthwhile. I'm keeping track of the points now and the point leaders will be the very first weblog links to be seen on my sidebar (excepting seasonal promotions, of course).
In the spirit of the game, 5 points for the ispiration/source of the title & first line of this post.
Let the games begin!
Update: LeeAnn grabbed those 5 points in a hurry. There's more available in the previous post if you're interested.
This post compilation meme is structured like the Carnival of the Vanities but concentrates on the best posts from the history of weblogs. Post submission criteria are very simple. The post must be at least 2 months old and the submitter must think it is a very good post. How easy is that?
Bestofme@jpeacock.net is the address for submissions.
Submissions should include the following:
- Post Title
- Post Permalink
- Author's Name (or handle)
- Weblog Name (if not obvious from the link)
- Submitter's Name/Handle (if different from Author)
- Description of post and/or why this post is being submitted (That is, what about this post makes you think it is one of the best from the weblog).
The only absolutely required item is the permalink. Other items may be left blank on the Bestofme Symphony post if they aren't provided with the submission. That could mean less people will go to read the post so submitters are encouraged to include as much of the info as possible.
Note that a post does not have to be submitted by its author so readers and lurkers with or without their own weblogs may contribute.
Deadline for submissions for each week's Symphony are Sunday at midnight (Eastern Standard Time) and a new Symphony will be posted each Monday. Submissions are accepted 24 x 7 so any that come in after the cutoff will appear in the next week's symphony.
If you would like to receive a weekly reminder for Bestofme Symphony submissions just drop me a line.
That's pronounced "Best o' Me", by the way, and it's my idea for a new meme. There's all sorts of compilation memes for current content such as The Carnival of the Vanities and its offspring or Kate's Letter of the Day and Hunting of the Snark. We've even got LeeAnn's new Monday Madness and The Cheddar X that drive new content. But what is there for old stuff? Those really great posts from a couple of months or a year ago that new readers don't know about or that even regular readers would like to see again (if only they remembered)? Nuthin, that's what!
I've replaced the weblog description at the top of the main page with a random thought. This weblog defies description anyway.
If anybody is interested in the script for it, let me know.
Made one last change for the collapsable lists, hopefully they'll work for Mozillans now. If not, I haven't a clue where else to go with them. But the links are still there for them, they just don't get them nice and tight and collapsed, so I'm going to keep them either way.
Speaking of collapsable lists, I've moved "Best of" to a collapsed list and expanded it with entries from other categories. There's only one recipe post right now but there will be more. And of course there is only one Bageldonut and so long as we stay in God's good graces there shall never be another.
I had to get rid of that graphic for the Guest Map. Any time I saw this site it was there flashing at me. I despise animated graphics on web sites. Flash is good. Animated gifs blow. So now it's just a link and will get less attention but oh well, such is life. I'd rather have less people sign it and have it not annoy me than vice versa.
The Recent Posts section was removed as well. It only duplicates the posts on the front page and last time I asked nobody admitted to using it. Clutter. Gone.
And I finally added Survivor to the sidebar. Woo Hoo! It was my intent from the beginning of the game but I am horribly, horribly lazy.
My wishlist is linked too. Not that I'm expecting loads of presents but this way you can check out the wierdness that is on my list to Santa.
Last but not least, the Ecosystem doohicky is there too. Don't know if I'll keep that or not but I figured I'd give it a shot. I don't like the way it shows up on multilines unnecessarily. Anybody know a way to get that so it's just a regular line of text instead of 4 lines?
Could all y'all Mozilla users let me know if the collapsable lists in my sidebar are working now? That's the stuff under the "Linkage" section.
Thanks!
Buggre Alle This is in my daily reads now. I've been checking out Joey's blog since it showed up in my referral logs a couple days ago but this post earns an instant slot in the sidebar.
Maybe censorship isn't all bad after all. My own encounter with it really brought out some great discussion and showed me that when push comes to shove there are people out there who'll stand up for me (at least when I'm right). That's so cool.
And it's given me something very precious. A link from Meryl Yourish!
Please note that anybody who attributes sarcasm to that exclamation will be virtually slapped upside the head by yours truly. Meryl's was the first blog I ever followed seriously. This was before I really even knew what the hell a blog was. She's been over in my "Daily Reads" since this blog's first incarnation as "Apropos of Nothing" (which nobody even knows about, that's how bad it was).
So getting a link from Meryl is very super cool to me. And to make it even better, she's in support of my position.
Thanks, Meryl!
I've had over 2000 hits from people searching for that porn video of a certain hotel heiress. It's not here!
For all of you folks who came here looking for it - sorry you wasted your time. The closest thing I have is The Somnolence of Clouds. It has sex and nudity and there's even a certain amount of controversy over it. Go check it out. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Update: Over 7000 visitors looking for a porn video that isn't here. Gawd. Remind me never to comment on porn videos again.
Hi ho the derry-o, a banning we will go!
I had my very first comment spammer. Yay. Can anybody tell me how putting an advertisement in a weblog post that is over a month old is going to translate into sales? Idiots.
Anyway, IP 81.218.181.128 has been banned. If you are connecting via Bezeqint.net you may have problems here now. Drop me an email if you do.
And if anybody else would like to inform this jackoff of exactly what an ass he actually is, here's his contact info (from the whois database):
berr, poule poule_ber@yahoo.com
12 Kimosol st.
Limasol, xx 79324
GR
+732-66974858
His domain was set up just a day ago at EV1servers. Jackass wasted no time getting out the spam, eh?
Well I finally took a couple of minutes to gather a "best of Snooze" list and stuck it in the sidebar. Hopefully that will help new visitors to decide on making SBD a regular stop (or adding it to the NetNanny filter). Also bumped down the archive section and the recent posts section. Thinking of removing the recent posts section. Does anybody actually use this?
And, most importantly, I've come to the decision that my blog looks like crappola. I got half way into making it presentable until I realized that it was more actual effort than I was willing to put into it so it's stuck half way between a basic outline of a scheme and what I was going for.
Being a logical sort I've come to the conclusion that my skills as a website designer are pretty lowsy. Back when Notepad was high tech I was right in the forefront of web design. These days I'm still using Notepad. Say no more.
So, I will swallow my pride and ask for somebody to do the work for me assistance. Anybody out there that can give me a clean and fairly unique style sheet for my blog? The only requirements are a single sidebar setup, white or very light for the bulk of the background (posting area) and no pastels. Teal is cool. Pastel green is not.
Your reward shall be your noted presence in my sidebar in a "Site designed by" section thingy. And my undying gratitude, of course.
I could use a decent header graphic too if anybody's interested. Apart or with a workable style.
Crapola. I totally missed my counter passing 20,000 hits. I was going to do a blog retrospective there. Ah, well. We'll reschedule that for 25,000 then.
I've posted the epilogue for Writer's Noose. I was going to wait for tomorrow but since tonight is Halloween I have no idea if I'll even get a chance to turn the box on tomorrow. I took the easy way out, posting it now with tomorrow's time stamp.
Go enjoy and spread the word. It's a pretty decent Halloween Story after all. >:-)
I think Chuck has said his final goodbyes over at Writer's Noose. It doesn't seem like the tale has ended but I don't think he's coming back from that walk in the woods.
Sorry blogging has been so light lately. Blame all of the usual suspects. And blame Chuck too. Though I don't think he's in a mind to appreciate it after last night.
I've had a couple people interested in the collapsable lists that I use for my sidebar links so I've gone ahead and prepared some easy to use files that will help anybody to implement the same. These can also be used inside posts. Just right click on this link and save the zip file to your PC. Inside are 4 text files. Read the one called instruct.txt and it will guide you through setting up your blog to use collapsable lists.
Note that the instructions are tailored to an MT blog with the MuNu setup. I don't know how differently other blogs function but some tweaking may be necessary.
Also, credit where credit is due: This is a script implementation I got from Microsoft FrontPage.
UPDATE: As MojoMark reminded me in the comments, these collapsable lists will not work for Mozilla. At least not up to version 1.4. Future versions? Who knows. The good news is they fail in an uncollapsed format so the worst that will happen is that they show up expanded, even on Mozilla.
UPDATE2: Just encountered this helping Simon get his lists set up. When you create the outline.js script file you must also build it. After you save it there will be a "rebuild" link (or button) underneath the "body" field. Click on that.
Looks like Chuck's troll has forced a confrontation with some pretty sad results. Is Chuck's story over now?
I'm not sure if he's falling apart or getting it together. At least he seems to have handled his troll, thanks to a suggestion from Susie.
Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. He's got the scoop on a device that can greatly speed up your commute. At least until the next guy gets one.
Is Jim actually blogging on the weekend? Heck no. It's a beautiful autumn morning that's promissing to evolve into a fantastic autumn day. I'm about to mobilize the troops for an invasion of Stone Mountain.
But you can catch a couple of quality posts over at Writer's Noose. Chuck had a wierd morning and he has his very own troll now. He also has a post on a very disturbing EULA development.
Go visit and say Hi.
How are y'all liking the story aspect of Chuck's site? Good mix of actual development and bloggish entries? Anybody actually following along? Lemme know.
Looks like Hosting Matters is under attack again. What's this, the 3rd in 3 days?
It's finished but it won't be posted here. I was about to post part 2 when I had an idea. A perfectly wonderful, awful idea. Don't be saddened by my grinchy nature for in about a week my heart will grow three sizes and I'll let y'all know where to find it.
I am continuously amazed by the things people search for that get my blog as a match. Let's take a look:
I made a blogchange that you might like. The website links in the sidebar are now in collapsable/expandable lists instead of that long-ass string of links. Yeah, I know the category color is too light. I'll work on that later. It was all about functionality so far.
UPDATE: Got the formatting fixed on the collapsable link lists. How do y'all like this? Good? Bad? Ugly? "Oh my Lord I cannot believe I have lived this long without collapsable lists!"? Lemme know.
Strange stuff, me blogging on a Sunday. Lovely Wife is still abed, children #1 and #2 are quietly watching Rugrats and child #3 is still quiet upstairs in his crib. The planets have aligned to give me the very rarest of opportunities - weekend blog time.
So what have I done with this most precious of commodities? I've frittered it away on template work. I'm about 50% of the way towards what I can live with. Links have been brought over and a good portion of the formatting/color is fixed. 2 problems I could use some help with:
1) What code do I use to put in a sidebar item for archive post categories?
2) See that rude little teal section above the sidebar where the body color shows thru? I can't figure out where the heck that is coming from. As far as I can determine, my elements should be covering up all of the real estate there. Anybody care to take a peek and see where I screwed up? As a special incentive, I'll let you disparage my sitebuilding skills if you can identify the problem. How can you pass up that offer?
The DNS hasn't propogated yet but it should happen soon. When it does I'll be closing down the old place and officially start advertising this one. Probably will be tomorrow morning as I hear #3 bumping around upstairs now so I expect my blogging window is about to slam shut on my quickly retracting fingers.
To Blog*Spot that is. Snooze Button Dreams has left the land of server outtages, messed up archives and broken dreams links.
A very HUGE thank you to Pixy Misa who has deigned to host my poor self and welcomed me to the Munuvanian community. You are the man, Andrew.
Thanks also to Margi for convincing me it was worth it to get off of Blog*Spot and that it was easier than I feared. It was even easier than that, Margi! Andrew did everything. Hehe.
The old posts will be coming over sometime soon (as soon as I get the stuff that Andrew needs) and I'll monkey with the template when I get some time. Otherwise, please bear with me as I make the change to Moveable Type.
Yes, despite my very best intentions this will be a Crappy Post Day (tm). For those of you who have arrived since the last Crappy Post Day, that simply means that the posts you'll find today will pretty much blow chunks of partially digested gastronomica be pundity instead of the individually and lovingly crafted masterpieces you are accustomed to. In other words, I'm too busy to write so all I have time for is bitchin'.
H lost her comments today. In the interest of fairness in our current Mapwar I have sabotaged my own comments. Well, not really sabotaged, per se. And it really wasn't in the interest of fairness at all to be perfectly honest. Basically all I did was reorder them so the most current comment shows at the top when you open a comment window.
So, it appears that H has surged into the lead in our little Mapwar. I am not afraid. You see, we have different blogging styles and different reader types. Everyday Stranger readers are looking for an orgasmic experience. They want instant gratification. Pleasure now! Of course they are signing her map right away, it is their very nature. Snooze Button Dreams readers, on the other hand, have an involved and accute sense of humor. They are merely waiting. They will let H think she has this thing well in hand (no pun intended) and then yank it from her lubricated fingers at the very last moment (okay, that might have gone a bit too far).
Attention SBD readers with involved and acute senses of humor: Knock it off! Don't be so cruel, sign my map now. Have mercy on poor H. Don't string her along like this. We have a chance to be kind and magnanimous in victory by crushing her now instead of giving her false hopes throughout the week. Can't anybody think of the children?!?
G says I should surrender now. He doesn't think I can compete with a gal writing sexy stuff.
Me: Could be either. Probably split pretty even.
G: She's also describing the 5 orgasms.
Me: Shut up.
To quote a Tim Allen character from one of the worst movies I've ever seen: "Never give up! Never surrender!"
Did Lee quit? I mean before that Appamatox thing. Scratch that.
Did Jared quit? Did he get the munchies 5 months into it and just say "Forget this crap. Gimme a half dozen meatball subs!"? No, he didn't! How's that for willpower, by the way? Quite an accomplishment on ol' Jared's part, I must say.
But the important thing is he didn't quit and neither are we! That's right, I'm grouping y'all collectively into this. We win together or we lose together. Sign the map (it's on the right side, just under the picture of me orally pleasuring a cow). Support Snooze Button Dreams! Do it for the children! Do it for Jared!
H has declared war on me! You see that white box in my right sidebar? The one that says "View the Guestmap"? Well H has a guestmap as well and she has declared that she will have more signatures than I do! The affrontery! The hutzpa! The balls! This is made more astounding based on the fact that she currently does have more signatures than I do.
Let's get it on! It's Mapwars I. Take no prisoners and may the best man win. (H - I'd say let the best person win but that would be like saying whichever of us is better should win. That's not what I'm about at all. I want me to win no matter how outclassed I am so I'm keeping that as "best man wins". Thanks for understanding.)
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I beseach you. Will you let this wonderful and comedic site be defeated by some uberwench with pictures of her hot, lithe, young body on her blog? No! Will we be distracted by stories of just how many times she had an orgasm over the weekend when her hubby was away? Heck no! Will our determination be weakened by her erotic writing and sometimes humorous rantings? No freakin' way!
Help me combat this darkly seductive female by clicking on that "View the Guestmap" box in my sidebar and signing my map. And whatever you do, don't support her cause by signing hers or checking out her hot kilt picture or her weekend orgasm summary or the Swedish Dentist Sex Cult and especially stay far away from the Layne inspired sex fantasy.
And if, by some chance, you should find yourself on her site, and should also feel compelled to leave a comment on anything, please use small words. She's a woman so she won't get the big ones and she's in Sweden so there's nobody around to explain them to her. (Sorry, H. Had to get at least one dig in there. It is a war after all!)
Thank you for your support. General Peacock out.
I think I've found a new hobby. Trying to figure out what the hell people are doing looking for the stuff that they are apparently finding on my site. I am a helpful sort though so let's see if I can assist these misguided folk:
habanero peppers sensual feelings
I see where you're going here but even Vegans stop before "relating" to their vegetables in that manner. In any case I would recommend a cucumber over a habanero pepper any day of the week. They are a better fit and have far less incidence of damage. For an idea of the dangers involved with habanero intimacy, read this.
Bacon's Recourse email addresses
Bacon has no recourse. It is food. Dead food. Even if it did have a recourse I doubt it could use email. I mean, have you ever tried to type with bacon? It's terribly difficult.
CARING TIDBITS
Euphamisms ahoy! "I am tantalized by your caring tidbits." "Did you see the tidbits on that chick?"
canadian press jiggling bra
It's not the bra that jiggles, it's the caring tidbits that are concealed within. If you're looking for jiggling Canadian tidbits, try The Canadian Ballet.
"joe theisman, broken leg picture", "joe theisman broken leg video", and "joe theismann leg"
Apparently I'm an expert on Theismann's leg injury now. I'm also the top search engine return for joe theismann the slut whore
Man, I love this stuff.
I've opened up a Cafe Press shop to provide y'all with your Snooze Button Gear. All the prices are $1 over cost and any dollars I get from it will go toward moving off BlogSpot and supporting SBD out in the wide wide world.
If anybody wants anything that's not in the store just let me know. I'll whip it right out for ya.
Just got an extremely helpful email from a reader who has solved my Mozilla display issue. Thanks Mark!
Just a bit of blogmaintenance today. Had played with collapsible lists for the links and it'll just be too difficult to do here on Blogspot.
A big welcome to Tom Bux and Officer Bob, the two newest entries in the blogroll.
The Daily Reads section of the roll has been split up. The new section (Constant Reads) is full of the Dailies that serve with RSS.
Updated the Best of section (finally). Figured the two posts that have resulted in about 10,000 incoming visits should probably be on there. Plus, just for Ilyka, I put links to the poop posts in there.
Of course I can't verify that any of the new links work right now because frikken Blogspot won't serve anything except the default page. I will just cross my fingers and send a prayer to the Blogfairy.
Joanne is sending 'em my way again, this time from a link in her article at Jewish World Review. Thanks again Joanne!
New visitors please note that the vitriol in some of today's posts is generally reserved for pedophiles and the Miami Dolphins. This is normally a happy place.
(Apologies to KISS)
It's about time to retire the SNL poll and put up something fresh. Any suggestions/ideas/bribes?
The things people search for (and apparently find on my blog) continue to amuse and frighten me. Here's the last crop:
- how many fish did the boston tea party kill (Only two but Samuel Adams multiplied them and fed the entire angry mob.)
- rape fantasy (Surprised this didn't also have "highschool football" in the search.)
- Shay's Rebellion lesson plan (No plan is really needed. It's been over for a loooong time. Try one of those "Instant MOB" things - it's the closest you'll get to rebellion these days.)
- female porn stars methods (Screw that. Try "female porn stars addresses".)
- bearded clam synonym (Must. Resist. Too. Many. Female. Readers.)
- interpretation homoerotic dreams (I'm not a psychiatrist but I play one on my blog. Send 'em in, I'll interpret for you.)
UPDATE: I guess I was doing this wrong. H tapped me gently with a clue by four in the comments so this post has been updated to be a lot less dull.
Sweet!
My post on wrods wtih srcmelabd ltetres bieng radeble has been linked from FOXNews.com.
I'm a journalist!
UPDATE: The article is by the lovely Joanne Jacobs, who has already funneled more than a boatload of visitors to my site from her own blog. "Boatload" being the unit of measurement greater than a "Whole heap" but less than an "Instalanche". She's over there in my suck up section the top referrer section on the left sidebar.
Thanks Joanne!
For anybody that doesn't know what Googlewhacking is, it's when you put two real English words into a Google search and it returns one, and only one, website. It's supposed to be pretty difficult but I didn't have a big problem with it. Just pick one very esoteric word (medical terms would work very well) and then match regular words until you get it right. I got a Googlewack on my first try (very lucky) and then again after a couple dozen more.
sanguinous + pimple = Googlewhack
sanguinous + dentifrice = Googlewhack
Yes, it's Crappy Post Day. Yippee!
I spent my writing time this morning in trying to fix the blog to display well on non-Borg browsers. Everything except Mozilla should be seeing things normally now. I've tried every trick I know but I can't get Mozilla to see straight. It seems to have some real issues with CSS and div tags.
For those Mozilla users out there - my apologies but it's going to be freaky probably up to the next Mozilla build. The content is still there, you'll just have to continue scrolling past the whitespace to find it.
New: Added a "Top Referrers" section in the left sidebar (entries are listed alphabetically instead of numerically - I just like to be different). I'll update it whenever I feel like it about monthly. I put up 12 instead of the traditional 10 since Instapundit and IMAO are on there and they're likely going to be permanent fixtures.
Crappy posts to follow! It is Crappy Post Day after all. ;-)
Blogspot is pooched again. Grrrr.
Formatting is screwed, total blog death this morning, preview and actual blog look totally different.
At least it made it through my Instalanch in decent shape.
Get me outta here!!!
This is pretty neat. It's free (as are all elements of this blog - remember how cheap I am) from Bravenet and I found it at the Everyday Stranger. Give it a whirl.
It's an Instalanch! I was going through my RSS feeds catching up on the Instaposts and was shocked, nay I was stunned, to open a link and find my own blog. Yes, the mighty Blogfather has linked to SBD. I will now take a few moments to wallow in the hits. Oh yeah, it feels so good.
Partly bloggy with a chance of postage.
Yesterday was really light postwise and today promises to be similar. Busy, busy, busy. There will definitely be one largish post for Voices coming up later but that's all I can guarantee today.
I'm not sure whether to feel amused or violated. SBD is a search return for some wierd, wierd searches:
I think I'll stick to feeling amused. Start taking this stuff seriously and I could end up in a funny farm. Or Congress.
And they're making the page load take for-freaking-ever so I've temporarily removed them. I'll put 'em back later.
Update: They're back. The problem with the load was Blogger. Who'd a thunk it?
Sorry folks, just too busy. There'll be some editorial and/or serious stuff later since I can pump that out without thinking. Humor is harder and I have to give it actual concentration and effort. Real stuff just sort of forms in my head while I'm doing other stuff or it is from carpool conversations with G so I'm basically just transcribing when I write those.
Wish I'd gotten this up earlier 'cause more than 140 of you have already come here from Anger Management, Don Watkin's blog. Better late than never though, right?
Don, thanks for the linkage. You made my biggest weekend since this thing here started. Woo hoo! Now put me in your sidebar. The Gooder category would be acceptable but I should really be in the Goodest portion. Just kidding, of course. The Gooder category isn't really acceptable.
Nah, I value my hide too much. I'll settle for Extreme Tracking, which I've just added. It seems to offer much better reporting than Sitemeter and I've heard many bad things about how inaccurate Sitemeter is. I'll run 'em parallel for a while and see which one floats to the top (I love mixed metaphors, don't you?).
I don't see any easy way to specify the overall start count on Extreme. For the record it's 1,991 right now according to Sitemeter.
Snooze Button Dreams has been alive for a month now. My first luniversary! In that month I've:
- Had over 1600 visits. (And this is according to Sitemeter, which supposedly underreports badly.)
- Found 7 new regular blogs through looking at my referrers and checking who is linking to me.
- Learned to use the div tag and CSS (My html editor of choice is notepad because that was close to the best you could get when last I coded.)
- Been linked to a minimum of 48 times.
- Been blogrolled (on Blogrolling, that is) 6 times.
- Started participating in 3 different weekly blog submission memes.
- Had a blast writing again. Something that I thought I'd lost many moons ago.
The other objective was to reevaluate after said month of blogging and decide what the blog was about. This is a tough one. Looking back at the things I've posted I like a lot of it and dislike some of it. One thing that stands out is that the humorous posts are easier to reread. They were also more fun to write. I think I'm going to bend in this direction and try to concentrate on witticisms, commentary and anecdotes of a humorous nature.
So, look for SBD to continue. Look for more (SBD) posts and less political ones (not that there were a whole lot of those anyway). Don't look for me to move the blog for a while. I'd like to get off of Blogger but it's free and that's infinitely cheaper than paying (and I'm a cheap, cheap, cheap bastard).
Thank you all for your support!
Tomorrow, Friday the 29th of August will be the one month anniversary of Snooze Button Dreams. Wait a sec. That doesn't make sense. Anniversary, by definition, can only be used for years. "Anni" is for "annual" after all. What would months be? "Moniversaries"? Nah, sounds like a problem ladies would discuss with their special doctors: "...and besides the discharge there's this odor. Doctor, do I have moniversaries?"
Lets check some synonyms for month and see what we can find. Dictionary.com gives us...nuthin'. Just synonyms for "indefinite time". Indefinite? Hello? Look at a bloody calendar. A month is pretty definite! Let's wander over to Merriam-Webster and see what they've got. "No entries found that match month." WTF?
(Note that the "F" in the above "WTF" stands for "Freak". I'm working on my potty mouth. You should too.)
Now I'm getting pissed intrigued. No synonyms for "month". Hmm... Let's try something cyclic but still representative of the time slice we're going for - the moon! After all, months used to be defined by the phases of the moon. "Mooniversary"? Nah. Too similar to "Moniversary" (go figure). Do I dare look for synonyms to "moon"? You betcha.
Hmmm. Merriam's has one entry found for "blue moon". Includes such niceties as "coon's age, dog's age, donkey's years". Hmmm... "Cooniversary?" I don't think so. I'd end up getting lynched. Dictionary.com has...holy frejoles! 21 entries! The mother load! Let's check these categories... Desire? Nope. Liking? Nope. Shape Entity? Heck no. Okay, after further review there is 1 out of 21 entries that may be workable - Landform. Options include "celestial body, crescent, full moon, green cheese, half moon, heavenly body, new moon, old moon, planetoid, pumpkin, satellite, Sputnik". Sputnik? This is a synonym for "moon"?
Alrighty then. I'm on my own. Let down by the most modern reference materials that have been developed since man first put brush to the cave wall. It's a sad, sad, day when I can't reproduce my precociousness through phony internet research. Sad indeed. The gloves are off now, might as well drop the pretense. What was supposed to happen here was that I would go through some make believe research, creatively "guiding" my choice towards what I had already really selected. It's "luna" or "lunar" I was going for. Lunaversary, get it? Like "Loony-versary". Loony = crazy. 'Cause it has been a crazy month and "Lunaversary" would also give an amusing self deprecating slight at my own borderline sanity.
How can "luna" not be related to month or moon? Thanks a whole lot, dictionary.com. You just screwed my whole freaking post. And don't EVEN talk to me, Merriam!
UPDATE: I apologize profusely for the gross stuff at the beginning. You know, the "discharge and odor". Don't know what I was thinking there. Yuck.
UPDATE2: And those two so-called reference sites, those cast iron bitches of alliteration, don't have any synonyms for "luna" or "lunar" either!
PREVIOUS POLL
Would you let your kids go to this party? (Adult supervised, alcohol served)
Yes: 42 (76%)
No: 12 (21%)
Maybe: 1 (1%)
Excellent. That should mean that there's a decent chance I won't get arrested when I throw one for Bear in a dozen years or so.
NEW POLL
Wow, I'm really blogging today, aren't I? Two referrals in less than two hours. I'm not sure if I've had two of those since I put this site up.
Anyway, I've got a couple of nice "(SBD) style" posts that I'm working on but you won't see those or much of anything else from me for a few days. My little bro is in town visiting from the apple state. I haven't seen him since he was a kid (he's 26 now) and I just saw you today so you can see why I've got to give him the preferential treatment.
Have a great weekend everybody. Don't wait up, I'll be out late.
I know, I know. It's free so what do I expect?
Well, I'll tell you. I expect it to work right! I expect it not to introduce problems in other applications. To be honest I expect it to function perfectly as it's designed. You see, I'm fairly anal retentive. Little things that most people shrug off irk me. When I see something slightly "off" it begins to invade my thoughts in a pernicious and aggravating fashion, growing in scope beyond all rational boundaries until it becomes an obsessive need to fix or destroy. This is actually a positive trait in my line of work (software quality assurance, otherwise known as bug hunting). This isn't an all encompassing character trait though. I don't obsess about a clean desk or a tidy silverware drawer. My anal side manifests primarily when I'm dealing with something that I'm personally responsible for - something I've created.
My own blog is now putting me into the throws of obsessive behavior because of some screwed up crap in Blogger that I can't identify. Look at my right sidebar. Notice the 2 pixel wide line of white along the right side? That's not supposed to be there. In fact, according to the template coding it isn't there. Can't possibly be there. When I preview through Blogger it isn't there. When I take the html and display it on a local page it isn't there. It's only there when it is BlogSpot that is serving the html.
What the hay? The sidebar is also wider when BlogSpot is the host. By a good 30 pixels. What the heck is going on here? Is that intruded BlogSpot banner ad screwing things up?
So what do I do now? The situation cannot be allowed to continue. That's simply not an option for my sick mind. I can either change the template again (but I like this design!) or move off of BlogSpot to a host that won't screw with my html when they display it. A new host would be nice but it has to be free. It's also a hassle of immense proportions compared to the size of the problem.
Crap. Guess it's time to monkey around with the template again.
Update: All better now. I moved the sidebars in so it doesn't matter if there's a wacky 2 pixel screwup off one side of them. Nice little whitespace addition. Sort of makes the blog look more "magaziney", if you know what I mean.
In my drug induced delerium I have decided that now is the perfect time to dismantle my computer and all its periphery and move them to a more secure (read: childproof) location. If protracted silence from this corner ensues you may safely assume that I fucked it up.
Finally decided to take the plunge and start messing around with the blog template. I'm going with teal as the main color. Although my prefered colors are mostly blues I've always liked teal on web sites and other electronic media. Blues tend to be too bright, too pastel, or trying too hard to be teal. Future improvements will include a real live graphic for the site name, another sidebar (links will go on the left, a picture and all the other junk on the right) and more whitespace. Or should that be tealspace? My writing tends to be longer than that seen in a lot of blogs so more empty space will make my stuff look less intimidating.
Any suggestions or requests are quite welcome.
Update - help needed: Got the second sidebar working but a problem has become evident. Specifically, it looks like crap where the left sidebar cuts off. I like the way the two sidebars look, framing the posts, but my anal retentive nature can't allow that messy transition when the left sidebar ends. Anybody know how to force a CSS element to take 100% of available height? I tried specifying exactly that (height:100%) but it had no effect.
Update 2: Got the picture up. My wife has taken just about a gazilliion pictures of me and the kids and this is the only one where I don't look like a total dork, just a partial dork. Maybe I'm just not photogenic. Or maybe I'm a dork.
Nah.
PBD has a poll. Check out the sidebar. Cool, eh? Courtesy of Pollhost, I'll now feature a new, exciting, topical and amusing poll each and every month (except when I can't think of anything or I forget about it or get too lazy).
How to get more search engine hits? Do a piece on the search engines! Hehehe. Sometimes I'm so clever I shock myself. I'm sure nobody has ever done something like this before. [/bragadoccio]
Seriously though, I started peeking around at what people really are searching for and was a bit surprised. First off, most of the search engines give you a peek into what is being searched. Take a look:
Altavista Top Queries
Top 5 Gaining Queries
miss universe
amber frey
amelia vega
miss universe 2003
martha stewart
Top 5 Declining Queries
memorial day
Matrix Reloaded
Bob Hope
indy 500
VBScript.NET
Ask Jeeves IQ
Top 10 Searches
Bob Hope
Uday Hussein
Neil Armstrong
Kobe Bryant's accuser
Lara Croft
Seabiscuit
Governor Jane Swift
Internet dating services
Dubai
Atom bombs
Lycos 50
Top 10 Searches
Kobe Bryant's Accuser
Kobe Bryant
KaZaA
IRS
Clay Aiken
Dragonball
Pamela Anderson
Brooke Burke
Britney Spears
Las Vegas
Yahoo Buzz Index
Top 10 Overall Searches
Britney Spears
Kobe Bryant
Angelina Jolie
Atkins Diet
Kazaa
NASCAR
50 Cent
Christina Aguilera
Jennifer Lopez
Playstation 2
Google Zeitgeist
Top 5 Gaining Queries
lance armstrong
seabiscuit
bob hope
angelina jolie
eiffel tower
Top 5 Declining Queries
british open
celia cruz
ronaldinho
orlando bloom
beyonce
What does all this tell us? Most obviously it screams out that internet users as a whole are primarily entertainment mongers. The astonishing thing it says is that users of Ask Jeeves are generally looking for more serious news related items than users of the other major engines. The other really astonishing thing is that sex searches aren't nearly as prevalent as generally believed.
Credit where due. Most of these links were found at Search Engine Watch
This is neat. PBD has been found by somebody doing a Google search for 9 minute snooze. This blog is the number 1 return for that search; ranking above the price comparison shopping that you get on every bloody search result now. It ranks above the "find this totally unrelated stream of disparate words at Amazon.com". It even ranks above a couple older blogs (none has Snooze Button as their overall title or description).
Now, how do I get more Google hits? Hmmm...I'll have to think on this.
De caught Snooze Button feva. Venomous Kate bit me (it hurts so good). Who's next? Come on, you know you want me on your blogroll.
I've got De in my own daily reads now but I almost missed her. Thanks to Site Meter I caught referrals coming from her blog and went to check her out. Good stuff. That sort of figures though - If I'm entertaining to her then there's a decent chance she'll be entertaining to me. That goes for all the rest of y'all too. Lemme know if you roll me cause I want to check you out too. (I'm paranoid that way.)
Unrelated but important:
Per Venomous Kate's frighteningly legalesque disclaimer she will no longer be refered to as The Venomous One in these posts. I may, if deemed necessary, continue to misname/describe her as Adorable and/or Callipygian with the knowledge that the party of the first part (once removed, on my Mother's side) (that's me) would then technically be classified as an asswipe, per disclaimer item 1 as set forth postwith and heretofor relayed by said party of the second part (Adorable Callipygian Kate).
Excellent suggestions and hints from Sheila and a very helpful FAQ blog. Bookmark the FAQ and go visit Sheila.
Now!
Okay, so instead of writing a humorous or vitriolic yet amusing post I've taken up my limited free time this morning in discovering how to do comments and finding a place to do them for me. Of the several I tested out, Enetation is by far the fastest. Unfortunately they were also the last one I tested so I've wasted a goodly bit of time this morning. That's my lame excuse in case I don't get a real post out today. Or I could just fall back on that cheater post...
Update: I suppose a standard comment policy is in order. Try to stay with my convoluted and legalesque terminology:
1) Post whatever you think is reasonable.
2) If I don't think it is reasonable I'll remove it.
3) My determination of what is reasonable is not restricted to what I personally find offensive.
4) I'm fair game as I've willingly presented myself for your consideration/worship/ridicule.
5) If you offend my wife or kids I will hunt you down like the dog you are.
6) Feel free to offend my dog. He doesn't care.
7) Number 5 will most likely also apply to any female acquaintances whether in the real world or the blogosphere. Sorry, I was raised that way. I hold doors open and walk on the side next to the street, too.
8) There's a decent chance I won't see your comment if it's on a post more than a few days old. My comment system doesn't automatically notify me of new comments.
Nah. I'll keep on in my self amusing, possibly offensive and/or libelous style and hope for the best.
Coming soon, today's post. It'll be one of these:
1) Kids trade bad habits like Pokemon cards.
2) Still more (i)FAQ.
3) Cheater post comprised of links discovered by other bloggers.
4) Reasons the medical field sucks, with special attention on why it sucks extremely bad at this particular moment. (This would be a rant.)
The div tag is your friend. Well, it's my friend anyway.
Added my favorite links. This is more for me than you as it will let me hit my favorites no matter what computer I'm on. But I recommend all of them for you too. It will help you to become like me and that will make you a better person. Honest. Except for the butter and lacrosse stick thing, of course. But we don't need to mention that.
Also added a Google search for the blog but apparently I haven't been spidered yet so it's fairly useless at the moment.
Also added Sitemeter so I'll be able to tell if anybody actually visits. Cool, eh?
Anybody know how to add comments? I'm all ears.
