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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Inconsistent with Life.

Ok, so reading the above title, what do you assume?

If you google search it, it takes you to a bunch of junk about the Christian religion and how the death penalty is inconsistent with life... WTF?

The usage in this story is another of those wonderful trips the local Phoenix hospitals. (See:
Why Do All Hospitals Seem to Suck at Everything?) Now both my girl-friends parents are diabetic and they need to watch their blood sugar regularly to make sure everything is peachy. But recently her mother has been having problems with nausea, headaches, and just general nastiness. Unfortunately her primary care is out of the office so she decides to check in to the local hospital, when she gets there, she fills out a quick health questionnaire about her history and such, so one of the normal procedures for diabetics is that they will do a blood sugar test. The CNA walks in to get the test started and the machine reads 27.

"All set, thank you" says the assistant as shes walking out.

(Now for those who don't have to worry about taking these tests and subsequently don't know what the levels mean, first I envy you, second, I'll let you in on a little secret)

27 is EXTREMELY LOW, anything lower than a 50 is typically grounds to have you in a coma.

Obviously, this gal didn't quite know what she was looking at and nonchalantly walked back to the office to record her results as our patient is sitting in the room inquiring why her sugar is so low, possibly it's a mistake, you should definitely redo the test. All this falls of deaf ears, the assistant advised that the machine is correct and the doctor will see her soon. Eventually the doctor makes his way back into the room to re-test her and then her sugars came back much higher, around the 100 range, much more likely for a diabetic.

She explains her ordeal to the doc, who then replies with;

"That's why I needed to come back in and re-do the test, it must have been a mistake because those numbers are inconsistent with life"

Basically meaning that if that were true, she would be dead right then.

Oh lord I love hospitals.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Stats After 6 Months

So let's take a look, I've always complained about social media sites and how it never works out of them for me, so I'd like to share with you guys the way things break down for me. Let me know if I should be focusing my time elsewhere or what. Here's what we got:

  1. reddit.com
  2. stumbleupon.com
  3. entrecard.com
  4. (direct)
  5. digg.com
  6. google / organic
  7. blogger.com
  8. del.icio.us
  9. mixx.com
  10. monkeychapps.com
  11. propeller.com
If you look to the right, you'll notice that all of my photo pages are on the top, there's a reason my photo pages are the highest for this blog, reddit likes photos, check this out:

Landing Page
  1. /2008/06/google-thinks-i-have-problem.html
  2. /2008/06/2-girls-1-cup-meets-warped-tour-2008.html
  3. /2008/06/photo-dump.html
Part if it, I think, is just the fact that you can't explain your article in reddit like you can in Digg, or get it referred like you can in StumbleUpon, so that [PIC] tag will go a long way on a reddit post. So typically I judge my StumbleUpon traffic for more of an accurate gauge of how my posts are being received.

Landing Page
  1. /2008/05/must-be-mental-handicap-part-2.html
  2. /2008/05/in-phoenix-were-over-top.html
  3. /2008/05/screwu-stumbleupon.html
  4. /2008/05/how-to-drive-in-phoenix.html
  5. /2008/06/photo-dump.html
It's almost night and day, also, stumbleupon is showing a lower bounce rate, for some pages as low as 30%, there were days where reddit was giving me bounce rates of over 95%.

Everyone loves looking at search engine traffic, and this page is no exception to the bizarre traffic rule, I've only had 3 that have shown up more than once, and here they are:

  • how to be a good president x3
  • driving to phoenix humor x2
  • facts about the presidency x2
Here are the funnier ones that only popped up only once:
  • rebate on fleshlight
  • service pack 3 fucked up my computer
  • fraudulent itunes charges to credit card (how the fu--?)
  • 2 girls 1 cup (I'm impressed I actually pulled this one off)
Here's a nice one to freak out Microsoft, they always say IE has the highest user base on the net, the only problem is that most people who actually BROWSE the web, don't typically use IE, those people just check email and watch Youtube videos. Here's the browser breakdown for this site:

  1. Firefox - 76.14
  2. Internet Explorer - 16.84
  3. Safari - 4.56
  4. Opera - 1.62
  5. Other - 0.45
  6. Netscape - 0.16

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

If I Designed My Car...

The first thing I think of when I get in my car after it's been sitting in the afternoon Phoenix sun is this statement:

"The Designers sure aren't from around these parts now are they?"

I made a fairly cheap photoshop version of what my car should look like:


Photo credit originally goes to MSN Auto's, but it's the same make and model of my current car, so without further adieu, let the show begin.

1. The first and most obvious is the oven mitt placed snugly on the steering wheel. This will make summer driving in Phoenix a whole lot safer since people will be able to use their entire hand, instead of just their palms while driving.

2. Of course the air vents are going to be well placed in the car for optimum cooling, but also, it will have an auto setting that will make it so when the car is turned on it doesn't go straight to full blast(because this is what you had it set for when you were last in the car) and blow hot, scalding air right into your face and extremities.

3. Oh dear lord the chairs, this one is a gimme, any idiot who purchases a car with leather seats in Phoenix deserves anything the elements can throw at them, want your cajones stuck to a chair? you got it! through your pants? oh you've got that one as well my friend.

4. Now the fun part of Arizona summers is that around June 15th, we enter what we call Monsoon Season, which basically means that storms will gather and dump some rain on us every once in awhile. So unfortunately leaving a window cracked while at work is out because you don't know what day you will get the downpour since every day starts out clear and sunny. So what I suggest is a vent on the sides of every door that vent air in and out of the car, but have some sort of lip to keep it from getting rained in.

5. Everyone in Phoenix knows the value of a good window shade, but if you have a small car like a Yaris, good luck setting this thing up without causing yourself to need to run inside the building because you've now caused yourself to be late. What I say is that cars should come with an auto shade feature that you simply pull up from the base and then clip on your rear view mirrors, voila!

Not Shown: Find some way to make it so things you keep in your car storage areas don't become 17 million degrees, I cant even try to put on my sunglasses for at least 5 minutes, and good luck son if you're trying to pay with cash and your digging for coins in your drink holder. Say hello to second degree burns.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Navy Blue is the New Black!

No, I'm not here to educate you on the new fashion trends and how you need to wear your hair in August, I want to point out a sad little trend in state politics.

I'm sure everyone can gather by my post topics, I happen to live in Arizona. Which also happens to be the home of Senator John McCain, Republican Presidential Nominee, if you lived under a rock for the last few months. That little bit of knowledge aside, I have come to a conclusion:

The Republican Party only hires 1 good graphic designer, everyone else just copies their idea.

Case in point:

Sam Crump, incumbent nominee for the Arizona state legislature, his campaign sign looks very familiar...


Where do I know that logo... Where do I know that logo from? Oh that's right...

It's a play on the Navy and Star logo that McCain is using, hooray for word association, I must now vote for Sam Crump because he reminds me of John McCain. My money's on the fact this isn't as prevalent in other areas of the country, but most likely because McCain will win Arizona pretty heavily, since hes been the state senator for a bazillion years.

Given it's not an exact match but since most state legislature campaign signs are going to be right on the side of the road, and the only exposure you will have to it will be a quick drive-by, I'd say this is a pretty good campaign strategy for Mr. Crump, unfortunately his slogan is a little bit of an oxymoron.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Be Careful What You Wish For..

So anyone who saw yesterday's post, you know it was about how to be ignored by Digg, which was a play off the post on Cracked.com about rising to the top of Digg. I figured this page was diggworthy and wanted to see if I could beat my personal record of 40 diggs for 1 page.

Unfortunately, I got exactly what I asked for, to be ignored by the Digg community. Oh well, I kind of expected that, so I'm going to take this post in another direction.

I am looking for some advertising to place on the top of my page, I used to use Commission Junction, but that's no longer working for me. Any feedback would be great, currently the advertising seems overly small.

Please email me at 02sense@live.com if you would be interested in purchasing some advertising, I'm looking to go weekly right now, and it will be going for rock bottom prices so I can get my feet wet. Also the ads will need to be 728x60 in order to fill up the top line.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

How to be Ignored by Digg


So recently the guys over at Cracked.com did a post about How to get your site to the front page of Digg. Well obviously I'm the last guy who wants to give you advise on how to do that, as I have never been lucky enough to pull that feat off, although I did manage to get 40 diggs on my post titled Music Meet Ransom Notes. Lets see if we can break that record, shall we?

1. Have No Friends - This one's obvious, good friends are what get the ball rolling, sure, there are a few people who browse the very recently posted to see if they can find a diamond in the rough, but typically it will be your friends who get you the boost into the limelight. If you don't have friends, thats a good way to tread water.

2. Post Short Articles - I am the master at this, I build my blog to allow my visitors to stop in, read a page, get a quick chuckle, and move on. Unfortunately most of the top articles on Digg are very thought out, long pages that typically have more than 1 page to them. Again, strike 2 of 02sense, as this is just a list of 5.

3. Write Crap - If you work 40 hrs a week, spend time outside and then come in to blog for 20 minutes and through your page together, it's not likely to hit the main page. This is based solely on the fact that your "digg" is your seal of approval, if you digg it, it's showing your fellow browser that this is good shit, and everyone needs to read it. WARNING: This is not the same as man-law, in man-law it is mandatory that you expose your friends to as much horrible crap as possible, because it is funny. NOT THE SAME!!

4. Repeat the same tired old joke - It's only so many times that you can see the same de-motavational poster, or the same lolcat before you stop enjoying it. Now be careful, this is not the same on StumbleUpon, on SU your thumbs up isn't as binding, so you can see the same thing a few times, which is partially true because they get submitted at the same time and one gains popularity first and the other one is a straggler, but both are still funny. You just won't see them both on the front page of Digg at the same time.

5. Be Part of This Blog - Ok, so the guys at Cracked did it, so you had to expect me to do something similar, given this is a copycat version of their post. But honestly, this blog will likely never reach the top of Digg, although it may generate some good traffic and people will find it funny, it's not the consistent humor that you find on xkcd or Cracked.

Even after #5, lets see if we can get this puppy to the front, digg em if you got em boys. My Digg ID is Toggan, be sure to send me a message if you have something to say, or send me an email at 02sense@live.com.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

New Hobbies in the Digital Age

So as time change, we're forced to change our hobbies as well, stamp collecting is out, browsing the web is in. Here are 5 ideas for hobbies I've recently picked up that I'm sure everyone will enjoy

1. Wikipedia Grammar Nazi - Now, this is not your typical grammar nazi who will correct everything they see and scream obscenities at the author and demand it be changed. What I like to do is simply browse Wikipedia for articles I care about or want to learn more about, and notice how many times the person incorrectly uses a comma or misspells a word, bonus points if it's a word that would not be picked up in spell check.

2. Google Street View Parking Cop - Seriously, what's better of making fun of stupid people? I recently started this one when I was checking out the street view for the part of San Diego I was going to and noticed some dude who could arguably been the worst parallel parker, EVER.

3. Digg Stalking - Ok, so this one isn't as much as a hobby as it's just fun. Create an account on digg for the sole purpose of digging everything someone else does. Bonus points if you have no idea who they are, extra points if they send you a message because they noticed something.

4. Positive Forum Trolling - Everyone is used to the forum troll, some idiot who gets sick joy out of being a pain in the ass. This works the other way, show up on a random forum and pick the first screen name you say and write a post about how great of a person they are. FYI: Make sure said person is not a troll first, then the point is lost.

5. Time Traveling - Create a series of websites in tinyurl.com that go back to the same time in archive.org. After this, create a list and pretend your browsing the web back in 1998. Or use it to confuse your friends into thinking that they fell into some time warp... assuming they are gullible to think http://tinyurl.com/36hj8 is actually the url for google now.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

An Exercise in Futility

So... That nice Honda Civic Hybrid I wrote about in a previous post, it comes with this handy dandy navigation system, built in XM Radio, and a ton of other cool features. The problem is that the driver is a moron some times, and some times, Lola, as she has been named can be a moron as well.

I give you a hypothetical question: What is the point of having GPS enabled, when you don't listen to it?

A little take on PEBKAC, this time, Problem Exists Between Steering Wheel and Chair, or PEBSWAC.

Driving from our rental in Mission Beach and Seaworld, my father decided that he should use the GPS in the car to help us get there, instead of following the 8 million roadsigns that say Seaworld, next right. As we're driving along we get the "Turn Right in a quarter mile" it even gives us the name on the screen. But what do we do? continue to drive and say, "Oh, a quarter mile, we still have a ways to go." AND MISS THE TURN!

Now, the system can't always be right, I mean it is just a computer....

The system responds to voice commands as long as you hit the button on the steering wheel. Now I can understand if I lived in NY or London, and I have a think accent, but I don't, I live in Phoenix freaking Arizona. If I said "Find nearest Bank" it should find the nearest bank, amirite? Iamwrong!

"Air Conditioning Off"

WHAT THE HELL?!

"Find Nearest ATM" maybe?

"FM Channel 93.7"

Finally we just input it manually by pressing the items we are looking for on the screen, but unfortunately, sometimes the GPS is only as smart as the person using it.

Prior to going to see a Padre's game at Petco Park, we set the directions to the ballpark and had it minimize freeways, that way we can see more of the town. No problem, we get there perfectly in time and everything is good. Now later that night, we wanted to find us a Pizza joint. "Easy" we think, in a tourist town like Mission Beach, we got this. So we all pile into the car and ask "Find Restaurant, Pizza" Nothing. Find Restaurant by Name, Pizza. We get options! We find one that sounds good, and we have it map the directions, unfortunately the pizza place that was selected was in Iowa, so we had to wait for it to calculate a drive from San Diego, CA to Iowa. Minimizing freeways nonetheless, if my memory serves me, it wanted us to drive a couple thousand miles and take about a week to do it. No thanks, not for pizza.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Feeling of Failure

Before I started blogging, I did a lot of reading, on blogging. So it comes to no surprise to me that sometimes, posts fall flat on their face and I'm left groaning about what went wrong. This has happened to me more than one occasion, and I'd like to share with you the fun times I've had writing this blog.

First of all, criticism doesn't bother me, not everyone thinks the same way I do, that's a fact. I actually enjoy getting a comment on my post where the person just rips me to shreds, it tends to start a conversation, which drives more traffic.

Second, a friend of mine said he wanted to create a blog, but was afraid that he would be posting all this stuff for the world to see. What would happen if people don't like it? I told him it will happen and to just move on, he still hasn't created anything.

So this brings me to my purpose this article, everyone wants to create the greatest blog post that will grace the front page of Digg, Reddit, and have StumbleUpon send them thousands of visitors, but honestly, that doesn't really happen. I think it's more fun to create something and then watch it sit there, and sit there, with little to no views. Why? Because it helps me figure out what my audience is looking for.

Try it, I'm sure many of my viewers are bloggers themselves, so try varying your posts, see what happens, if you usually post about making money online, try doing a post on blogging, SEO, or something a little away from the norm, you will see ones that do really well(watch out, you dont want to get an influx of traffic to a money making blog because you did a post on fluffy bunnies), and you will also have some go flat.

What prompted this lovely little post on failure? My last post on gas prices: You Could, but You Shouldn't

Go Ahead, be jealous:

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Sure you COULD, but you SHOULDN'T

People make stupid mistakes, it's part of our nature. Also part of our nature is to insist that we are right, no matter who tells us otherwise. I just recently got back from a vacation in San Diego with family and friends(sorry for the lack of posting) and boy do I know a few morons.

Driving from Phoenix to San Diego is a very simple drive, I10 to I8, voila. In this drive you will pass the cities of Gila Bend, Yuma, and El Centro, in that order.

Driving out, we're taking a Honda Civic Hybrid, which during this drive will get near 50 MPG due to sustained speed and all that fun stuff. Which means, we'll be able to do the 350 mile drive on one tank of gas no problem. The other car in our caravan is driving a Ford F150, gets about 400 miles on a tank of gas, so it could make the drive no problem.

Here's where the fun begins, we hit Yuma(which is right on the border of Arizona/California) and we stop at the last gas station before heading out of town to top off and make a call to the other car to do the same, the conversation goes something like this:

"Hey guys, we just hit Yuma, how far are you guys back?"

"About 20 miles, we should be there soon"

"Ok, we're about to head out, make sure to fill up before finishing the drive"

"Don't Worry about it, we've still got more than half a tank left"

"No Really, you should fill up"

"Nah, we know what we're doing, we'll meet you there"

Now don't worry ladies and gents, they made it to the hotel no problem, but if you haven't figured out their moron decision yet, here you go.

To fill up an F150, you will need around 30 gallons of fuel, to fill up a Honda Civic Hybrid you will need around 11 gallons. Lets do the math, shall we.

If the f150 stopped for gas in Arizona, the price of gas would have been $4.09, which would have cost them $122.70(ish), and that's if they completely emptied their tank, which I might add, is what they did driving all the way into San Diego. The price of gas in San Diego is around $4.46, so their gas tab ended up at 133.80 vs the Civic fueling up for $45 in Yuma, and not needing to fill up until they hit Yuma going the other way.

Sure, you may be sitting there thinking, "Oh wow, $10, the world is going to end." all sarcastic like, but think about that, it's only 1 tank of gas, it could be higher if they keep doing it. Also, think of all the other morons who are likely to make the same mistake.

Friday, July 4, 2008

I Love Spellcheque

So everyone knows that a computer(at least for the next decade) is not smarter than the human using it. The greatest part of this fact is the wonderful world of spell checking, because the computer can really only check your spelling, not the context of the sentence and which spelling is correct, if you look at the title of this post, according to any spell checking program,that is spelled correctly because cheque is a correct word.

So I decided to do some searching to see what Word and Firefox will try and correct, various words to that would make no sense in writing, but according to those programs, are correct.

The first one I noticed was in my "My Co-Workers are Idiots" post, when I used the phrase USofA, the spellchecker decided that my spacing was incorrect, and instead of telling me to use "US of A" it decide to have me spell "U Sofa." I don't know WTF a U Sofa would be, but it definitely sounds comfortable.

Also, according to Firefox's spellchecker, people should not be playing World of Warcraft, instead, it's best they play World of Watercraft, as that is spelled correctly.

Currently in my wallet, I carry an "Amex", to a human, that makes sense, unfortunately to the computer it thinks I misspelled Amen, which is understandable, but my question is, how bad you have to fail at typing to accidentally hit the x key instead of the n key? It's on the complete opposite side of the f-ing keyboard.

Toggan is the username I use for both Digg and Stumbleupon, and whenever I type it, my screen tells me I'm and idiot and I don't know who I am, I am obviously trying to type Toboggan, and I just managed to miss both the b and the o. Seems logical.

On the topic of usernames, even username is incorrect, sure, you may be thinking that it will want to add a space and make it "user name" but no, it decided that you actually want to type tournament. I'll attach a picture just to prove it, this one is way out in left field.



Anyone else seen any crazy spell check options? Put em in comments so we can all see them.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Music Meets Ransom Notes

Hip-hop/Punk/Emo band Gym Class Heroes released a song titled Taxi Driver in 2005 on their Paper cut Chronicles album, I listened to it the other day and was thinking, "Wow, there are a ton of band references in that song." So I brought up the wonderful Wikipedia and discovered there is a list of 25 bands and a record label that are referenced in the song. Always the jokester, I decided to get copies of the bands in question's albums and pasted them on top of themselves to give the lyrics a little ransom note feel to it. Here, ladies and gentlemen is the finished copy, let me know what you think.