Every Damn Morning

Just making my daily rounds of the internets, and read xkcd for today. This perfectly sums up how I wake up each day! (Don’t get me going on the dream I had last night involving Morgan Webb! And no, it’s not what you think!) Check it out HERE.

Bad Spelling & Good Blog Stats

I’m a bad speller.  Even with spell check, many misspellings have made it onto this page.  And oddly enough, a misspelling has lead to many people discovering this site!

I was checking my blog stats the other day, and on May 23rd, I had the most visits ever to this site (A Whooping 115 Unique Visitors!!!)  This was surprising to me, and it made me happy, in a weird egotistical way.  But, I got curious about why and how people where discovering this little site o’mine. (and then I lost that weird happy feeling when I discovered the truth.)

Well, after digging deeper, I discovered that people who are searching for funnyman Jon Lajoie are coming to my site.  Apparently, when you search Google for “JohnLajoie.com“, the second listing that comes up is an old version of this blog (which is still sitting there over on Blogger), which then links to this page.  And when people look for Jon Lajoie on this site, they can find an old post entitled “Funny Ha Ha“.

(on a side note, if you want to got to “JohnLajoie.com“, why search for it on Google, and not just go right to the site?  I dont get it.)

Anyway, maybe you have already caught the typo/misspelling/glitch that causes people to find SenselessBabble.com…  The mans name is Jon Lajoie, yet I link to JohnLajoie.com.  See the propblem?  See the “H”?  Ah ha!

So, the actually site is JonLajoie.com.  JohnLajoie.com appears to be a “non-site” site. So, now I’m torn; do I correct the mistake?  And possible loose the biggest draw to this site, or do I correct it and hope some good e-karma will come my way?  Well, I’ve decided to do both!

I will correct the typo on this site, so that people who visit SenselessBabble.com will be brought to Mr. Lajoies real site (which is very funny, have a look if you haven’t visited it yet!  Tell ‘im SB sent ya!), BUT, I will leave the mistaken link alone on the old Blogger version of this site.  It’s a dead/abandoned site anyway, so, it would be kinda morbid to dig up it’s bones at this late date just to fix the cuff links on the suit of the corpse. (gonning with a bad metaphor here folks, stay with me.)

So, there ya go.  Another blog post about the blog, which normally I hate.  But this time out, I think it’s kinda interesting.  Also, just a hello to any Jon (and John) Lajoie fans who have stumbled onto this site.  Leave me a comment or send me and email just to say hello!  Thanks!

Sad. Very Sad.

I’m not an “elitist”, but man oh man, why would they lower themselves to this level?  Ugh.

Denied Before I Applied

It’s been a busy week, with lots of kid-orrient activities and duties. No time to myself. No time to write.

And, I’ve been a bit too bummed to write. Remember my post last week about trying to write a new cover letter? Well, here’s a recap…

On Friday, I found a job posting within my company that I intantly knew was for me. It was in a bette department, for better pay, it was a job I had done before, and was a job I wanted to do right away. Well, on Monday, my currently manager said I should send an informal email to the hiring manager, so introduce myself, and to let him know thay my letter of interest was coming this week. So, I sent a nice little email on Monday.

I don’t work on Tuesdays. So, I come in Wednesday to find a responce from the hiring manager. I’m going to paraphrase his reply here for you, but it basically boiled down to… “Oh, is that job posting still up? We’ve pretty much made up our mind, but if the listing for the position is still on the intranet, then your welcome to try.” Ugh.

Ugh.

Ugh. I just feel so deflated now. I made the misake of getting all excited for the job over the weekend. In my mind, I all ready had it and I was on to bigger and better things, (even as I stressed over my letter and realistically knew I would most likely not get the job.) But no- Ugh. (Yes, like an idiot, I’m still going to submit my cover letter this week, even though I wont even get an interview; told the guy I was sending it, and I dont want to tlook like the quitter/loser that I am.)

Well, that’s about it for now. I’m too busy this week to writing anything else. Sorry to be so distant. More next week.

Why the hell am I sharing this?

This is a bit from a dark time in my life. A sad, horrible, waisted time I called “college”. Meeting my wife was the only good part about that time. And yet, I’m going to let you sneak a peek at one night I would rather forget. Thankfully, this is one of the only times from that period that I have on video tape. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… “I Wanna Sex You Up”NOTE - I’ve edited the video and updated it so that the credits are readable. So, if you’ve saved the old clip, then you may need to change to this newer version of the video.

Bebo

I have decided to create a page on every social network site I can find. I will set up a page, join a group or network or two, and then ignore the site. So far I have done MySpace, Facebook, and now today, Bebo. Here is my Bebo page. Pretty much word for word the same as Facebook. Perhaps I will try to make each page different from now on. We’ll see how creative I feel.

I dont know why I am doing this. I’m not really a big fan of these sites. Heck, I down right loath them. Well, no, not really, but still, maybe I’m too old. I just dont get it. I get that they are great tools to use to keep up with friends who are far apart or who have a hard time keeping in touch. But, the whole making “friend” with strangers, no, sorry, I just dont get it, and I’m not a fan of it.

Anyway, if your on Bebo, friend me, or what ever it is people do on Bebo. Thanks.

Frustrated >:-(

I absolutely HATE when I get flummoxed by the ‘puter!  And it’s happening now.  Here’s the problem…

I have a video file in the .mpg format, that I want to burn to a DVD, so that it will play in a regular DVD player.  I went to one of my favorite tech forums, Leoville, the site run by Leo Laporte.  The kind people there recommended a piece of software called FFMpegX.  But darn it, i can’t get it to work right.  I can’t figure out what I am doing wrong!  But I can tell you what I am doing right; I’m making coasters out of disks, that’s what I’m doing right I tells ya!

Anyway, the “learning process” and problem fixing is one of the things I enjoy most about playing with new stuff on the computer, but… I’m tired and frustrated and not happy right now about this dilemma.  It makes me feel a bit stupid!  Ugh.

The Great Fire Wall Of China

I was reading an article about the Great Fire Wall of China and the unrest in Tibet on Boing Boing. I found these two paragraph interesting, the second one more so. This was a reply to the article by a western professor who teaches in China…

“…you wrote about Native Chinese antipathy to those “ungrateful” Tibetans. This seems to be the consensus of my students as well. I had them read an article from the NY Times that I had printed that showed the difference in quotes between Chinese authorities ( 8 people dead, no soldiers, no guns) and what Tibetans and reports have confirmed (80 confirmed dead, soldiers, tanks, gunfire throughout the day). My students’ response to this was, “well of course they say that. They are foreign. They do not know.” (paraphrase). Put it simply– even when confronted with such blatant contradiction, the students still believed their government.

This is nothing unusual for the multitude of students I’ve talked to about censorship. They honestly believe that governmental censorship protects them from foreign lies and “The Bad Things” (as one class a year ago referred to it. When I asked what “the bad things” were, they really had no answer. Finally one student piped up, “we don’t know because our government protects us from it!”). I know this is not a universal attitude here in China, but I think it is an interesting anecdote, and important to keep in mind when contemplating the average Chinese Netizen and her response to blatant censorship.”

I feel like I should have some sort of comment about this, but I think the words speak for themselves.

Yeah, but…

I found THIS article over on The Times Online (11 years ago I lived in London.  I still read the British papers.  I so want to go back!).  According to a new report, blogging is a theraputic activity for those of us who suffer from depression.  (A theropist once told me to keep a journal, and what is a blog other then an online journal?)

Anyway, I can understand the argument, that blogging makes you feel more connected to the world and part of a larger comunity, but I wonder, what about a case of a blog like this one; a blog that no one reads?  Wouldn’t that make the writer a bit more depressed?  More detached from the world?  More alone?

On a personal note, it doesnt make me feel “worse” to be unread, because I know I haven’t taken any steps to “advirtise” the blog.  Maybe some day I will join discussion groups and fourums and comunities to “spread the word” about SenselessBabble.com, but for now, I don’t think this site has a “voice” or an identiy.  Maybe some day.  Hopefully soon.  Now that I finally have a good computer, I can’t make any more excuses about not having the “proper tools”.

Anyway, this was just a thought that crossed my mind as I was reading this.  Just wanted to share.

Scary

When I read stuff like this, I regret that I had children, for I fear for their future.

As Promised…

I mentioned my mini-car accident recently. As promised, here are the photos. Click the picture to be brought to more shots of the damage over on my Flickr page. The grand total came to $5123.98 to be repaired.

whatikilledtoday

Saddest blog I’ve ever read.  LINK

Randy Pausch

This is amazing/sad/inspiring/funny/cool/depressing/uplifting. I don’t have the words to describe the story. Do yourself a favor and watch the full 1Hr 44Mn video HERE and visit Randys site HERE, HERE and HERE for more info.  I have never hated my own laziness as much as I do after learning his story.

Eleanor Rigby

Wow! Boing Boing linked to this Beatles video on YouTube today, which separated the different tracks on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. It’s really cool to listen too. Check it out! (update: the link is down)

With that, i give you my own version of a Beatles classic. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… “Eleanor Rigby”!

Another advirt

I just posted another add on Craigslist. I wonder what kind of replies I’ll get to this one…

Subject: I Just Need $5000
Body: I will do anything for $5000. All offers of employment excepted for contemplation. Email with the details of your job. Thank you.

(Update:  Oddly, no takers.  Not a one.)