The Internets

    Unless you're Amish or a foreigner (or in the band Foreigner) you probably know who Andy Rooney is. Andy Rooney is the crotchety old guy who complains about stuff for two minutes at the end of every episode of 60 minutes. He's like a hundred and fifty years old which, I guess, is why he only has to work for two minutes a week. Anyways, if you like listening to old guys complain about stuff that most people don't have any problem with (ie. computers, cell phones, kids, lawns, or kids on lawns) then you probably enjoy Andy's weekly gripes. For me, I prefer the Andy Rooney Game method of receiving my Andy Rooney content.

    I ran into this the other day. It's like Myspace... but with babies. At first this seemed pretty lame, imagine all of the people who are concerned their teenager is being stalked online, getting online themselves only to post pictures of their two year old. Hypocrisy aside, this site just seems like a really bad idea. You've got people posting pictures of their kids on the internet and making cyber buddies with other stay-at-home moms and dads around the world who have nothing better to do than look at your stupid kid. Great, but aren't you really just putting out a welcome mat for perverts? I mean, this site must be like the mother lode to them...

    You may not have heard of Cuil before. They've actually only just opened up shop today. So what is Cuil... well, it's like Google, but different. It's a search engine built by former Google engineers, it even has a weird name like Google's top secret projects. Supposedly it's pronounced 'cool' which is mildly ironic, because the site is anything but cool.

    If you're between the ages of 14 and 30 you've probably heard the "Arnold Schwarzenegger calls [insert place of business here]" sound board calls. The premise was simple, someone would call a customer service number or a restaurant and record the reactions of unsuspecting employees as they tried to have a conversation with audio clips taken from Kindergarten Cop or some other Schwarzenegger movie. These calls usually ended with the human on the call getting yelled at by "Detective John Kimble" as he demanded to know who their was was and what it is that he does. There are several variations on this theme involving sound boards of other celebrities. These are all pretty funny but they are limited in that the caller can only react to the sound board for a limited time until they hear the same clip one too many times and realizes what is going on. The next incarnation of sound board harassment has arrived and there is much more human interaction this time.

    It's not too late to get in your nominations for the 2008 Pwnie Awards. The Pwnies celebrate the darker side of the internet in a light-hearted fashion. The categories range from the benign, "Most Overhyped Bug" to the LOLtastic, "Most Epic Fail." These aren't meant to be serious and there is plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor. To quote the description of the Mass 0wnage award, "Awarded to the person who discovered the bug that resulted in the most widespread exploitation. Also known as ‘Pwnie for Breaking the Internet.’" So if you have any friends that enjoy creating hysteria and ruining other people's fun then now is your chance to give credit where it clearly isn't due.

    Alright so the title is a little sensational, but that's the whole idea. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is all about drawing attention to your site. Through the use of proper code, good content and a little promotion you can get anyone to find anything you want. Sounds easy, sounds boring too, but it doesn't have to be... Any SEO discussion has to start with looking at the two fundamental parties here, your content and your viewer. Ultimately you need to find a way to make the two cross paths.

    Myspace recently changed things up a little. The "new design" isn't really all that new, there are a grand total of two changes. The new navigation is better than the old nav but it's still nothing to write home about. What is notable though is this story which points out how these changes will 'free up' space on the site for more ads. And who doesn't like more ads, I hardly ever notice the ads on myspace, especially the one where you can win a $50 Macy's gift card if you shave Brittney Spears' head before the timer runs out.

    NEWSFLASH: No one cares what you are doing right this second! Despite what the people at Twitter want you to think, no one really needs to know that you've already taken three dumps today and you're getting ready to mow the lawn before the urge to dump strikes again. Micro-blogging, for those who have better things to do, is like regular blogging for people who are either too busy to post on a regular blog or are too important to only post on a regular blog...