Plain Vanilla

After my excitment sometime ago about the arrival in the UK of vanilla coke - which I still haven't found in a shop - I was very excited to see you can now buy vanilla absolut. The likelyhood of me and a bottle of that getting together in the near future is very strong and I'm sure the infamous Jules will get in on the act too. However I do draw the line with my vanilla fever at the news that vanilla monster munch is being realeased. Yuk!

Entry 349, Tuesday, May 20th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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If They Mated

Ever wonder what Apu and Marge's kids would look like? Millhouse and Lisa's? They're all here in If They Mated a wonderful section of the very lush Little Miss Springfield website.

Entry 348, Monday, May 19th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Shii's Song

Bordering on irritating but actually insanely cute this little cat sings it's high pitched love song which then sticks in your head like glue. For more Japanese Flash check this Blogjam post where I found this or there's always Sazae - one of my favourites from a while back.

Entry 347, Sunday, May 18th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Ad Watch

An advert related link especially for Mike at Song Of The Salesman. Cue irritating whiny voice - "these days adverts are the only thing worth watching on television". Now quite clearly anyone who says this hasn't caught the latest series of Will And Grace but there are some fine adverts out there and many of the current cool UK televsion adverts are stored at Ad Watch as well as an archive of the best from the last couple of years.

Entry 346, Sunday, May 18th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Blog Clog

An interesting article from Wired about how blogs fair in search result rankings in comparison to "traditional" commercial web sites. When I started this site - and more so as time went on - I was surprised by the quantity of search engine sourced traffic that reached this site. We're not talking huge numbers but somedays my traffic is 99% El Goog originated.

This compares oddly with the commercial sites I've worked on in the past where the referal rate has been pitiful in comparrison and with much more effort on my part to do something about it. The question is could I go back to commercial webmaster work and generate large amounts of site traffic by using blog - or blog-like - content? It would be an interesting experiment - not least as I love web-mastery work. I guess the main sticking point would be generating enough relevent and interesting content. As I've mainly done work with insurance and financial related products and companies it might be a bit of a struggle.

Anyway reading around this subject I found this great article on why Google loves blogs which gives you pretty much the template format you'll need if you want to try out my commercial blog theory. Well I say my theory but I'm sure someone out there is already doing to this. It would be quite interesting to hear about their findings.

While I was at it I also read-up some more on Google bombing/washing which I've found fascinating for some time now although I haven't experimented or participated in any of the schemes I've heard about or seen around. I guess a Google bomb/wash is so effective as Google love blogs so much. I'm sure there's some irony in there somewhere.

Anyway that's enough staring at my own feet for now - I'm sure one of things Google doesn't like about blogs is them being self-referential all the time. Just one more thing to note though - the links marked "popular" in the right hand column of this site (-->) relate to the articles on this site that generate the most search engine traffic - my own examples of the blog clog phenomenon. Although I'm not sure how much commercial traffic I'm taking with search terms like matrix cow and graffiti creator.

Entry 343, Saturday, May 17th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Shirk Work

I'm totally at the other end of any scale that measures the need to fake working hard but I did enjoy the Wall Steet Journal's guide: "How to Fake A Hard Day at the Office". Back in the day when I needed this kind of guide I just relied on the old walk around looking important holding a peice of paper routine but using tech for such devious ends really appeals. I don't think I could get away with this now though in an office of 10 people when I've barely got time for lunch let alone slacking.

Entry 342, Saturday, May 17th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Just William

Prince William is to appear in stamp format for his 21st birthday which is the nearest millions of the nation's girlies tongues are going to get to the young gentleman. The question is why can't the monarchy just settle for a massive pub crawl? That's what I did on my 21st and it never did me any harm...[pic from private-eye].

Entry 341, Saturday, May 17th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Milk And Hacked

Hopefully normal service will resume shortly but if you take a quick peek you might still be able to see that Milk And Cookies = Own3d. See my screenshot if you missed it. I can't imagine what "SpikE" has against Milk And Cookies it's one of the best sites around and I hope it's back soon.

Entry 340, Saturday, May 17th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Bizarre Rumours

The local paper reports the neighborhood English mother obligingly got naked with quite a few nondescript programmers [via optical poptitude].

Entry 339, Friday, May 16th 2003, Filed In Stuff
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Train Times

This link is of no use what-so-ever if you don't regularly commute through London Waterloo but since I do it's getting posted - the Waterloo departures board is now on-line. No more waiting for hours for delayed trains (hopefully).