Frenzied Daddy

This was sent to me by someone over ICQ. Sigh. I don’t know where it originally came from. Oh, and if you’re a kid, don’t read this.

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, I yield. I’ve been trying to use ‘complementary’ colors on the Wishease Site, trying to take a page from my lovely wife’s scrapbooking and put color theory to the test for creating harmonious, pleasant experiences for my users. She did a whole series of pages with complementary colors, split complements, and other variations on the theme.

I even found a great website to help with these complements; it must be my wretched choice of beginning colors (a kind of bright green, and then an opposing purplish). So, instead, I’m turning to another site that creates monochromatic color selections by using the opacity CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) tools. Here’s to hoping the look of the site gets better.

I’m starting to get worried. I’m hunting on Ebay for a very special dish to preparing our family’s traditional Eggs Benedict for Christmas, and I need a shiny sterling silver platter to serve it on. It’s really important, because you know there’s no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise.

Let me know if you see one.

First, let me apologize for that last post. I think I was having cold medine flashbacks from last February. Yes, the Incredibles was great. No, you probably don’t need to quit reading because of my inane Incredibles and Fantastic Four references. Please.

One of the biggest markets in the Internet (ok, after porn), is Search Engine Optimization. What that means is using the knowledge of how a search engine works in order to get higher ratings in the search engine. For Google, for instance, the best way to get higher scores (or at least the best way a year ago) is to have good solid links with keywords in or near the link from other sites to your site, with positive words around them. Because that’s how Google handled ‘pagerank.’ Of course, the best, most honest way to get this is by writing excellent copy. People make links to excellent copy, as a general rule.

When I was asked what the best way to generate traffic for the (company deleted) website, I showed my naivete; I announced that the best way would be to scrap some older sections, track what our users were looking at, take some polls to find out what they wanted to look at, and generate rich key-word intensive copy for new pages. In short, improve the traffic to the website by improving the website. Yeah I know, it was a radical idea. They eventually decided to go with paying Google for advertising space.

Google also rates on the ‘freshness’ of a web page. How recently was the web page updated? This is the key to why weblogs are so … dangerous and powerful in the Internet’s economic world. It’s not just about a voice for every person (although the political aspect of that is an excellent topic for another time), it’s about people making fresh pages (the running joke is: a post for what you ate for dinner, and then a post for what you watched on TV that night), with great links. And frequently when an awesome weblog makes a link, other bloggers follow suit and also link to the page. I’m sure you’ve seen the effect.

There’s a reason I posted that link to the Zero Boss. Yes, he’s got a terrific weblog. But he also updates it very frequently (sometimes three or four times a day), and includes lots of rich links. By ‘rich’ I mean ‘positive, keyworded ‘ — the kinds of stuff that Google (and other search engines, now) look for. Some of his posts are no more than ‘hey go check out (some blog) where (something happens)’ — and that’s OK, because it generates traffic for them. But it also helps his pagerank, which in turn I’m sure helps him. So that’s how he does it, and why.

The Incredibles was fantastic. I give it a fantastic four stars. Pixar really did Disney a favor with this movie. It’s too bad that if any sequels get made (the Incredibles on Vacation, the Incredibles Christmas), they’ll be made by Disney.

Ok, the story line was incredibly predictable. But when I got bored of pre-thinking the plot, I could just get lost watching the play of the incredible animation. Capes flowed, wet hair behaved like wet hair. Skin glowed with the inner light of the people animating the characters.

A big thumbs up from Miss B too– she announced that it was the Best Movie Ever (a tribute which Ms B still gives to Mulan.)

Posted a link to Child’s Play over there on the right. I hope you’ll go check it out- it’s a worthy cause. And it’s evidence that gamers (like me) aren’t all stuck up social neophytes with lunatic tendacies.

In myself, oftentimes, I feel a lack. Most people, especially men, seem to have something I don’t. It’s called “aspirations.” I don’t aspire to be much; I just want to do whatever, have some fun. Well, my aspirations are more family oriented; I want to be a great dad and husband to my family. But most people, when they say “aspirations,” mean a more business kind of thing. I don’t want to be a vice-president, I definately don’t want to own my own business ( well, that feeling may change someday ). I’m content working “for the man.” I don’t need to earn 75,000/year (though it’d be nice).

Read the rest of this entry »

I had no idea.

Most of my comics, I read because I enjoy the story or the characters. I picked up Something Positive a while ago- it’s sick and twisted, but usually very good. Today, I learned about “Thinspiration” and “pro-ana” (anorexic!) websites. Holy crap ladies! Leave the sad, sordid stuff on the internet to the professionals and the perverts, ok?

I’ve heard it said that Chang’s Mongolian Grill is neither Mongolian nor a “grill.” But what it is — sheer genius. I’ve eaten at Chang’s since it was at the (now closed) third and Burnside location, a dingy hovel of a shop. I’ve never gone there for the soup (hot and sour, and it tastes like a bad Campbell’s knock-off), the service (rarely good, mostly indifferent), or the bathrooms (all of the Chang’s I’ve been in, for it is a chain of Chang’s now, have had bathrooms that look like they were decorated by the Union 76). I go for the stir-fry.

It’s a veritable stir-fry buffet. You take your bowl (the trend for guys is now to take two bowls, because they can eat that much), fill it with frozen sliced meat, vegetables, and an array of saucy goodness, and then they stirfry it on a convex “grill” with all the juices running down the sides.

If the food tastes bad, it’s your fault. Or the fault of the person who had the food cooked next to yours. They provide plain rice, mooshoo pancakes and plum sauce. It’s all-you-can-eat.