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Posted on 11.30.07 by Widge @ 1:15 am
Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 11.22.07 by Widge @ 4:46 pm
Jhayne, the Lady Porphyre, is going to Alberta next month. In an effort to raise the $250 needed to prevent a crater in the middle of her wallet, she's selling digital prints, original or no, for $10 a piece. This actually a pretty good deal for everybody involved, because her casual photos are better than any I've ever staged. So. I mean: I'd be paying you $10 to take one of them. Anyway, if you want to see her work, check it out here. Her LiveJournal is here, and you can see the work that I received here. Filed under: Uncategorized
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Posted on 11.16.07 by Widge @ 12:34 am
Slightly late to the party on this one, but here we go. Now that it's been revealed that worrying about terrorists targeting gumballs is fucking lunacy (because really, when all of our public transportation, ports, borders, and everything else is pretty much an open target, gumball protection being a priority is the height of madness), the aldermen reveal their "real" idea: licensing gumball machines. That's right: of all the other problems facing the town like "overcrowded housing, taxi ordinances and redevelopment projects" says the Daily Record (cached version here), not to mention others we can probably think of because they're problems everywhere (education, perhaps?), we want to license gumball machines. [Alderman Frank] Poolas said he is convinced that the town needs to license gumball machines and other currently-exempt devices to better protect children against food-borne illnesses and defective toys. He also said such a licensing scheme could make it easier to track down someone who might use gumball machines in an unlikely, if not impossible, attempt to poison kids. Source. Question: when was the last time you heard about a kid getting sick from something they ate out of a gumball machine? Has there been an E. coli outbreak from gumballs that I haven't heard of? I'm being serious when I ask that…is this really some sort of safety issue I've just missed? And the defective toys business…what does that mean? If the spider ring breaks within 30 days of purchase? (And yes, I know some toys shouldn't be given to kids to screw around with, but if the parent won't check the toys to ensure they're not going to kill their kid, they probably expect Alderman Poolas to come and ensure that the doors to where they keep the drain cleaners are secured as well. Should we license parents?) And let's go ahead and think like a loony alderman for about five seconds. Let's assume that all gumball machines are licensed, and the government is wasting lots of money and time making sure they know what goes in the gumball machines and where it's come from. Then let's assume, because we're in Loony Alderland, that a terrorist decided that poisoning gumballs was a good idea. Are they going to log this on a schedule somewhere? No, they're going to do Bad Things to the gumballs without said Bad Things showing up anywhere. So all your vaunted licensing won't help you. No, you're trying to build a bridge not just where there's no water, but in the middle of the Gobi desert. Why not just be up front about it and say you want to eek some more money in a scheme that adds absolutely no value to the experience of getting a gumball out of a machine? At least then I could have some respect for you idiots. You must be proud, Dover. You must be so proud. Filed under: Ranting
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Posted on 11.14.07 by Widge @ 11:51 pm
Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 11.08.07 by Widge @ 10:10 pm
This is interesting. So Headspace2, the badass plugin that I'm using over on Needcoffee currently, has a Frame Breaker built into it. WTF is a Frame Breaker? Well, you know how when you search in Google Images, you get presented the site below a Google frame up top? The Frame Breaker breaks you out of that frame, natch, so you get served the site without the Google flavoring up top. I always did wonder about that, so I flicked it on. That was around the 22nd or 23rd of October. I decided to come back and check to see how it had affected my traffic on Google Images. Now, let me state this up front. My understanding is that Google Images doesn't update very often. And I also understand that for the majority of my images, I haven't SEO'd them up worth a good goddamn because at the time I was putting them up, I had no idea why I should. (Of course, people still seem to find me and force me to do shit like this.) So I don't have a great deal of traffic coming in anyway. But let's look. Google Images spiked the day I turned it on, then went to a reasonable trickle. As for Google Images.ca? I went from a trickle…to nothing. Google Images.uk? From an erratic mess to…nothing. And pretty much on down the line. Did it do anything to my regular Google results? No. No discernable change. In fact, if I just do "images" and pull that chart up, I spike, and then crater. Fascinating. Now. One of two things is happening. 1. Either Google Images doesn't like the frame break and has something built in which makes me show up lower in the results because of it. Or… 2. Google Images needs the frame to show up as Google Images in my Analytics. I don't know which. If I had a huge amount of Google Images traffic, I would be able to see if my Google hits went up an equivalent amount, so maybe Images traffic was being counted as regular traffic. Just a theory. Or, if I had Analytics installed on my Version 3 archival part of the site, which has no Frame Breaker, I could see if it suffered, yes or no. I've heard rumors that breaking the frame caused Google Images to not speak to you anymore, but never really saw that substantiated. And trying to Google terms like "frame breaker google images penalty" and the like didn't really get me anywhere. Either way, I'm taking off the Frame Breaker. I'll see if it changes anything and if so, how quickly. And hopefully, I'll get Google Images out here to reindex my site with the SEO'd bits I do have. If anybody has their own experience, I'd love to hear it. Filed under: Fun With SEO
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Posted on 11.08.07 by Widge @ 7:52 pm
ScottC sent me this: On Halloween night I was attacked by zombies. Funny thing is, I think I recognized one of them. "Hey, aren't you Ben Franklin?" Go read the whole thing. Well played. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 11.07.07 by Widge @ 4:00 am
And everyone else had left the world, and I was all alone. You were all just gone. Then for the next week I fancied that the entire world had Then the worst of it was gone, and I spent several months I kept myself busy. For a solid week I provided chalk outlines I went and lived in abandoned houses and pretended I It's going to be fine. I've stopped incessantly checking my voicemail, The last man on earth. There's not even any vampires here to harass me and be Nothing. I'll be moving south before it gets cold. Just in case the grid It's strange, you know. I'm not feeling lonely, really. I'm If I could talk to someone and find out what And that someone would be free to go. Filed under: Writing Fodder
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Posted on 11.07.07 by Widge @ 1:51 am
Okay, so it really is Overstock's policy to be pushy. You know how you dread going into some stores because you're going to be pounced on by a sales rep? I'm on their site looking at comforters again, yes? And I'm going back and forth between two browser windows, scrolling up and down and comparing information, when guess what pops up?
Good God, people. Can't you just leave us be? I feel like the screaming guy in the second episode of Black Books. When I want to buy something from you, I'll let you know. Otherwise, just simmer down, wouldja? Filed under: Ranting
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Posted on 11.07.07 by Widge @ 1:45 am
Okay, well, I had to work way too hard to try and help a guy on 43 Folders. Anyway, here's what he was complaining about: tucking away songs that you don't want because they are tied to a particular event. Xmas, for example. Real simple. It helps if you have everything tied with a genre like "Xmas" or "Holiday" or something. Select all the songs you wish to tuck away somewhere else. Then right click and "Get Info" on all of them. Change the album to "Xmas Tunes" or whatever you want to call it, and make sure you check that this IS a compilation. Now…go to your compilations folder, grab that Xmas Tunes folder and move it wherever you want it. Then just go back into iTunes and delete the songs from your library. When it becomes time to celebrate our favorite "reformed" pagan holiday, just throw the songs back into your library. Done. Now, if you don't have everything fixed with a genre, then just use my previous tip about using stars to mark things needing action, and if you come across "Jingle Bells" when you shouldn't, mark it with the right amount of stars and then deal with it when you get home. As to the comments on 43 Folders: I had to register, fill in my personal info, do a captcha, then wait for my password to show up. Then I put the password in and was told that I was denied access to the comment form after all that. No error messages. No whoops, you did something wrong. Just nada. If I ever put in place a scheme so user-unfriendly as that bullshit, please promise me one of you will call me on it, okay? Filed under: Free Ideas
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Posted on 11.03.07 by Widge @ 3:27 pm
Here's a chat my wife had with the people at Overstock.com regarding a down comforter we're trying to get. The name has been changed to "Smith" for the protection of the guilty.
First of all, if you were wondering–we're trying to avoid Chinese products, at least until they get their shit together. And I know you're thinking: Widge, what would be the chances of you getting a tainted product? And if you have to ask that, then you don't know me very well. I was voted Most Likely to Wind up a Statistic by my high school class. So I know better than to tempt fate. Anyway, I was fine with this until he automatically assumed that we were ready to purchase. And then he turned into Used Car Salesman guy by trying to talk her into buying when it was obvious she just had a question. And then he took it one step further by saying, essentially, "Well, what can I do to help you think it over faster, so I can close this sale?" The only thing I can take away from this is that Overstock.com chat people, if they are people and not Skynet drones, must get some kind of bonus for selling their shit via a chat. Because can you think of another reason they would act like this? Has anybody else ever run into this? Dear Overstock: when you're coming on stronger than comissioned salespeople in brick and mortar stores, then you're forgetting why most of us shop online to begin with. Filed under: General BS
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John Robinson is a writer of prose, poetry and comics who also writes under
the pseudonym of Widgett Walls.
This is my latest book. Short stories written especially for you, or at least someone who reminded me a lot of you at the time.
