hmmm....

Sundance is way too popular, a much better film festival is the one at the Charles Theater. Maybe we'll make it this year.

Someone left a little weird looking snowman outside on our sidewalk last night. I think it's supposed to be a cross between Mickey Mouse and Yoda. Snow, when it's in the 30s and Sunny is quite tolerable.

lightning strike residue

I can't believe it, in May 2004, but we're still feeling some of the aftershock of our home being hit by lightning. The home machine has had a quivering CD/DVD drive I suspected was on its way out. Did a re-install of XP Pro, added a DVD burner and replaced our TV card with a Hauppage PVR-150 and it ALL WORKS! I'm patting myself vigorously on the back.

gateway project

A recent update from Campus Partners:

Construction of South Campus Gateway is proceeding to an autumn 2005 completion. Extraordinarily wet weather has impacted some of the construction work, but retail turn-over and residential occupancy dates for Buildings A and C are being maintained. Retail tenant space in Buildings A and B will soon be available for tenant build-out, Barnes & Noble is on schedule to begin build-out of its bookstore space in Building C in March. All of the structural steel for Building D has been erected, the cinema floors have largely been poured, and the exterior sheathing is being installed.

Can't wait. A new artsy cinema nearby.

Do me a favor, the next time you see Jennifer Anniston saunter up to a camera and tell you to go teach and make a difference and earn near nil a year and take 4 years of classes at night while earning that lofty sum, while she turns to her $1,000,000/episode of cynical self-centered excuse for humor, turn off the television and flip the dimming image the bird. Thanks.

Wonkette and Traffic

What site creator wouldn't want 50K+ visitors per day? That's approximately the traffic Wonkette gets on workdays. Based on a quick estimate from Blogads' quoted prices, that much traffic can earn that site about $80-$140K/year in advertising. For sitting home in your warm space blogging (she's obviously not spending much time fact-checking). I think the content on Wonkette is as engaging as an episode of Will & Grace, only shallow. I glance through it once in a while out of curiosity.

My obsession, however, is the site's public display of popularity, the Site Meter Stats. The free version of Site Meter gives a bunch of running stats (referrers, search terms, duration of visit between two consecutive places on the site); the administrator can set the meter to be public or private. I consider her Site Meter to be essentially a daily GDP indicator. When "Average per day" (visitors) approaches 60K, the workforce is present, accounted for and bored out of their minds. When the numbers are substantially lower, it's usually a holiday or weekend. It's one of the places marginalized, privileged white people go when they're "working" to read about really important stuff.

She usually writes about titillating topics like a photo of a funny bulge in someone's pants, the Olsen Twins or whether or not McCauley Culkin is gay. BUT IT SELLS! 50-60K per day!! Why? It can't be the writing (lots of bullet points and short easy-to-pronounce words dominate the entries).

Why am I obsessed over this?

Because, it's a living. A darn good living for 10 or so entries a day (since she's a pro, she has a quota and stuff). I suspect, with that kind of exposure, all the contributors (site designers, hosting, etc.) are providing free services in exchange for advertising so the income is likely all profit. I run another site and fantasize about traffic like this (not here though, I like davesbeer's small audience). I guess I'll just keep probing search results and traffic and try to figure out the secret.

it's wicked cold

The way Columbus weather is supposed to be.

escaped

Scurrying for tp like the rest of the world last night proved unnecessary. We only got a few inches rather than the battering snow we were promised just 10 hours ago.

sell it on ebay

You know there's a business here in Columbus that'll handle the sale of any crap you want to unload on ebay? I think that's pretty clever. Wonder if it'll last. They get 30% commission.

a solution!

This is a recent "Obscure Patent of the Week" entry from a favorite site of mine, IPWatchdog. An excerpt: "This invention is a method of stimulating the hair follicles through the use of radiation. The radiation in question is a light source. Performing the method essentially requires the arrangement of at least two essentially parallel rows of light sources, which are then moved repeatedly over the area of skin to be treated in order to create a pulsating stimulation of the hair follicles." I just knew they'd figure this out someday.

William Shatner rocks! and it . . . hurts. But, I can't stop listening to it.

comments?

I use Blogger to facilitate updates to this site. It's not the best software but it's the easiest and owned by Google, so it's got to get better over time. One of its weaknesses is it's commenting system. Several friends have grumbled to me they'd like to place comments on my posts but don't want to register. I wouldn't either, that's annoying.

I'm writing to inform you, you don't have to register to comment. When you click the "comments" link below the post you'll be presented with a link that says "post a comment", when you click that you'll see instructions to register ... BUT, on the same page there is also a link that says "Or Post Anonymously". Click that and you'll be presented with a big box to enter plain old text. You can then sign your name at the end if you want or, if it's a mean comment, just leave your name off.

So, friends, Wiseman, if you feel so inclined to leave a critical comment about my thoughts on the horrible state of college athletics or my desire to see Andy Geiger dragged off to the slammer, please, comment away. And, leave your name (or link to your site; the text box allows html).

Where's Frankie?

I'm afraid we felt it best to password protect Frankie's site.

If you want to see Frankie's pics, please email me and I'll give you the password. If you already have it, click through and enjoy the cutest little girl in the world.

I apologize for the extra click, I know I hate clicking a link and seeing a cold, grey password dialog box. Makes me feel guilty. I figured this was a little more benign and it gives my visitors clear instructions on how to view Frankie's site.

Thanks.

the value of polls

Probably comes as little surprise; the decision was made before the poll went up. Just curious to see what people thought. Thanks for taking the time though. Like the poll a year ago for Santa, the votes were/are split. Soon Frankie's site will be password protected. It'll be an easy password, just a thin line of defense against the riff raff. Probably get things in order within a week or so. Email me at dave at davesbeer dot com (or Trish) for the loginid and password (they'll be the same).

Take the poll

I'm anxiously awaiting the images and video footage of Andy Geiger being dragged from his comfy office into the slammer (after some investigations take place). In the meantime, take a minute to take the poll on the sidebar. Think Frankie's pics should be password protected or let the world view her beauty?

Have a good weekend all.

Oh, and this poll, unlike the infamous Santa Poll of long ago, doesn't allow duplicate voting. One per machine. So you can go home and vote again but that's it.

Poor, poor, Andy

Sports fans, move on to another blog NOW.

Andy Geiger, the OSU athletic director is depicted on the cover of OSU's The Lantern wiping a tear explaining why he's stepping down from his billion dollar a year stressful position.

F*&# this whiner.

No one put a gun to his head to take a measly $250K/year base salary which likely ends up to be in excess of $1 million/year after all the extracurricular activities he partakes in. Tressel too is easily over $1 mil in salary and extras.

That's the pathetic state of college athletics. They rival drug companies in their largesse. In this U.S. News piece it states:

[at OSU] " . . . the university has spent $351,111.11 per varsity athlete on sports facilities, compared with $6,652 per student on other university buildings."

I know, it's what people want, supply and demand, blah, blah, blah. It's just not right. Geiger is sobbing because he's probably only going to make about $500K in consulting next year rather than a million. At least the poor guy won't be under as much stress.

Changing Life Through Work

My favorite topic.

NPR's got a great series running on changing life through work. One story was about a 57 yr old public school speech therapist earning about $40/hr and switching to being a bagger at the local Safeway for about $8/hr. He said it only required 16 hours per week to be eligible for full medical and dental. He didn't need the income but felt vulnerable without health insurance. It's unfortunate that jobs and health coverage are so tightly linked.

The series is great. There are four stories so far.

more sleep loss

Not even Dr. Sears seems to have any answers for a 21 month old kid going from great nights of 11 hours of sleep to wild and crazy and ready to play at 1 am. We prepare for the worst; go to sleep early and just get ready for two half nights of sleep.

Why Eeyore? He's just cool. Pooh is Frankie's new substitute for Nemo. Nemo's a great movie but we've seen it ALOT. I mean lots and lots.

Tonight's a new adventure. Wish us luck.

First words heard in 2005

Nack Papa pease. (Snack Papa please). Heard sometime very early this morning.