Bot or Not

I'm not talking about the silly old Svedka ad campaign that I've talked about at least once before, I'm talking about my most consistent blog readership: bots. For a while it was just lonely Googlebots that would step into my dark corner of the internet (sorry, no capital for you here almighty internet). And it would originate from the Mountain View HQ. But even Google branched out a bit, sending their bots from the fine Canadian city of Toronto (go Jays). Perhaps they know of my old affinity for that team.

But Google's got competition form the Bings and Facebooks, the ruling families of the Americas. Bing's been working to get relevant as a legitimate search engine since obvious placements in Gossip Girl. The thing is, they might be [relevant], but I'm another of those who synonymizes Google and search. There's Google, and there's google. So even though you're googling things on Google, there's a separation. Google knows all about everything I google because with search I'm not very frugal.

I hope the bots like what they find here. I doubt they do. After all, to crawl and index my meandering thoughts can't be very much fun for them. I was reading a book on publishing recently and it advised one to be structured in order to establish themself (can this be back in common usage? Yes, good, okay) as an authority on something. But see, my place is as the authority of these seemingly inane things with a smattering of the old actual soul getting in the way sometimes. Oof, it also advises regularly creating content so users have a reason to come back. USERS. "Hey, that guy's content sucks," says one. "I know," says the other, "and such small portions!"

As inhuman as blogging tends to be, I do bring in my own humanity sometimes. I don't generally like it, and I don't imagine the bots do. I'm one of those still trying to be publicly private. At least part of it's that I think something's less meaningful when you simply share it with everyone. And at least part of it's that I think that good ideas can come from anywhere, the anonymous factor. It's for the opposite reason that people go around misattributing quotes. We take the quote more seriously coming from someone we respect. But how'd we go about respecting them in the first place?

So even though blog is short for weblog, I always think of it as the B-log, as opposed to the A-log. Let's hope my A game is really better than my B game. Then someone might be more game to read it.



**The blogger plans to return to whimsical inanity to close out the month.

Feb Up

Man, good thing February only gets twenty-eight days or, when we're feeling generous every four years, twenty-nine. Know why twenty-eight days later is the title to a horror film? Because it's meant to remind us of February. Let's face it, it's a crap month. Winter lingers, it fits neatly into four weeks, unlike any other month. I know it's Black History Month and I know too, that somewhere, someone's made a joke about how they gave Black History the shortest month.

Along with that, February also has the most "days." Two presidential birthdays, Groundhog Day, every single day being a Black History month day. February doesn't get to relax and just do its thing. It's trying too hard. Is this analysis a stretch? Yes. But I don't have the liberty of two-three more days to stir up content and research on a self-imposed deadline.

You know what I do have? The top hit for those searching the term "suckway." Killin' it over here. 

Also, Microsoft HQ seems to hit my blog a lot. Probably Bing trying to catch up on the webcrawling. A shame that search engines must also crawl my sector of the web.

Speaking of crawl, I believe I shall be doing just that, on into a bed. 

Thanks February, it's been short.

There's No Such Thing as Free Advertising?

Product placement cracks me up, always has. The other night I was watching the late late show with Fallon and he's got a Macbook on his desk in clear view at the edge of the frame. Why? Is Jimmy checking his email during the show? I don't think he actually used it or anything it was just...there. So, right, why?

On perhaps the very same evening, or at least a similar one, I was tucked into bed, laptop screen creepily illuminating face as I caught up on Gossip Girl. At the end of episode 20 of this season (spoiler alert), Jenny uses Bing! to do a search on cancer. Bing! That's the sound of producers cashing in on ad dollars. Not to be outdone, in the very next episode Blair is seen sleuthing on her Macbook. But Apple doesn't even really do search, so Microsoft should be looking to make Bing! a Mac thing too. And here I am talking about Bing! on blogger, owned by search giant Google. What's a boy to do?

Now I'm fairly certain I've raised this issue before, but stepping back to Gossip Girl, why don’t they actually drink from coffee mugs on the show? Anything in a mug, I promise you, empty. It’s a minor detail, but it just looks silly so why not make it minor and realistic. I don't get it. One more reason I will never make it to Hollywood.

As I was sitting sipping coffee just two days ago, I reached into my pocket to answer a phone call, only to discover what seemed to be sand all up in my phone. Know what I'm sayin? But really, there was. A bit baffled, I investigated said pocket in said shorts (as yet unsaid it seems) to find a sand-like substance in there. This, I admit, was the first wearing of now said shorts and I do not wash my clothes before wearing. I don't even wash them after wearing if I can avoid it. A Marshall's purchase, they were probably stripped from a man who died on the beach. Hey, whatever they have do to keep my designer clothes (including designers I've never heard of) cheap...Oh and, like, TJ Maxx owns them, right? That was rhetorical. So why is there little crossover? That's rhetorical too. It's so it's so much damned fun every time you walk in.

In fact, I might head there after this England match on my way to work. I hear they've got discounted NBA, MLB, and World Cup officials. There are some irregularities, sure, but you can't beat the price!