I wonder if the next president will know as much about the internet as I do. Or for that matter, will the next president know as much as you?

I doubt it.

We’re pretty web savvy.

Here’s why we will be smarter than the next president when it comes to web junk.

We don’t have a staff. Specifically:

• Obviously we blog, we read blogs. Some of you have been blogging for a long time. Probably since the word was coined. I had the benefit of a mentor who started early and was successful. He gave me encouragement and also guided me toward WordPress.
• Because we blog, we have expressed our thoughts and heard a complete stranger’s reaction.
• We email a lot. We started emailing a long, long time ago. We know about attachments, and bcc’s and forwarding, and reply to all. Some of us IM regularly.
• We have seen Myspace.com and Facebook.com. Some of us messed around with them and still are or have decided we’ve seen enough.
• We know about flames and trolls. We can be snarky.
• We’ve seen a lot of video online. Some of it by professionals, most of it by amateurs.
• We use Google ™ search engine - some of us a LOT. We know that we can access news, video, blogs, and images.
• We know how Google ads work.

Is there a point in all this braggadocio? Well, surprisingly, yes. A survey was taken…

They were asked” “Do you think that the next President will know as much about the Internet as you?” Almost 45 percent said, yes, and they should because of the importance of the Internet. And, 22 percent, didn’t think the candidates would be as savvy of them, but wished that they would be. Not surprisingly, 38 percent of 18-29 year-olds don’t think the candidates know as much as them, but wish that they would.

I’m hoping that the next president will recognize his or her significant shortcomings and (gawd I can’t believe I’m going to write this) form a cabinet level position to advise the president on the web.

The web plays a vital part of every part of government. Every existing cabinet level department has been dramatically affected by the web. To form a new department requires some smart people. Here’s a good place to start:

The Advisory Committee shares the goals of the Congressional Internet Caucus — a bi-partisan group of over 170 members of the House and Senate working to educate their colleagues about the promise and potential of the Internet.

I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATE: Read another thought along the same lines, by somebody that knows what they are talking about.

UPDATE: Angelina Jolie is an idiot. (whiny voice) “As Brad knows I don’t know how to turn on a computer.”

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Tags: , , angelina jolie, boomer, president

Janna reminded me.
Here’s most of my blogroll as a Wordle.
It’s much cooler full size, so click it.

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Tags: wordle

I’m sure there is a weather forecaster with the name Gale Storm. But since Gale Storm died, (real name Josephine Owaissa Cottle)  it lead to an exchange with my daughter about unlikely weather forecaster names.

We covered a few, outside of Gale Storm, and I know you must have a favorite, who might be an actual person, but just in case, I’ll get you started:

• Lee Ward
• Alberta Clipper
• Hugh C. Rain
• Dusty Rhodes (don’t we all know one of these guys?)
• Al Timiter
• Cap Twister
• Eddy Stream
• Hi Winds (and his partner Gail Force)
• Cy Clone
• Crystal Snow
• Dawn Sunrise
• Zenith Snow
• I. Wall
• Jet Stream
• Misty Morning
• Trace A. Mounts
• Sue Nami
• Jet Wave
• Sonny Day

Please take over and leave your Punny Weather Forecaster Name in the comments.

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Tags: gale storm, weather forecaster names

Link back to us at Sunday Stealing!

While waiting for the pork to cook on the grill:
(Six very thick pork loin chops, slop of store BBQ, some glugs of Diet Dr. Pepper, in a square foil pan. Cook to death.)

This isn’t going to be easy, I’m really going to have to think.

Sunday Stealing: The ABC Meme

A – An advantage you have – I’m lucky when it counts.

B – Blue or brown eyes – blue

C – Chore you hate – just one? Chores. OK, mowing.

D – Dad’s name – Leon Abraham (he wasn’t Jewish)

E – Essential start of your day – peeing

F – Favorite color – depends on the surface and purpose. All Corvettes Are Red. I like Adobe Red southwestern style homes. I just ordered a can of free purple paint for a public art project I will concoct. Lush green grass on a golf course is really quite loverly. I like Gold Finches.

G – Greatest thing you’ve ever done that made you feel really good – made somebody laugh.

H – Habit you have – picking my nose.

I – Issue you hate that the world tries to make you pursue – picking my nose.

J – Job title – Miraculous Generator of Mirth

K – Kohls or Target – Target because they sell Little Debbies and M&M’s.

L – Living arrangements – married.

M – Music you like – Tuirns out, from favorites in Pandora.com, I’m eclectic: here’s the list of artists from Pandora.com
Darude
Paco Pena
Deuter
Peter Kater
Enya
Jose Padilla
Liquid Mind
Abba
Joe Walsh
Brian Setzer
Jimi Hendrix
Hybrid
Alex Gold
DJ Logic
Reporter
Soho Boy
Jeff Mills
Mike Oldfield
Gipsy Kings
Robert Michaels
M.Y.C.

N - Nicknames – nope.

O – Overnight hospital stay – sleep study a while back. Did you read my post about getting thrown out of a sleep study clinic?

P – Pet Peeve – most currently it would be people turning left at an intersection that don’t pull into the intersection which means if traffic is heavy, only one car (them) makes it through.

Q – Quote that you like most – “No, I don’t have anything for you to do, go surf the web.”

R – Right or left handed – right

S – Siblings – no

T – Time you wake up – depends on when I go to bed. I don’t use an alarm except when I need to get up to catch a vakay plane. And then I usually wake up every three hours.

U – Underwear – boxer briefs

V – Vegetable you dislike – most of the green raw ones.

W – What makes you run late – I function on Lombardi time:” if you are five minutes early, you are fifteen minutes late.”

X – X-rays you’ve had – left knee and right femur. I used to get my feet X-rayed all the time at the Buster Brown shoe store!

Y – Yummy food you make – chocolate muffins

Z – Zoo animal – Giraffes. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is the perfect way to see giraffes.

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AARP Magazine’s cover story this month, you probably already read it, is about Ron Howard, or as I like to call him Opie Cunningham.

The question I have been paid $15 to ask is:
Would Ron Howard go to work for a company that does Corporate Video?

Ron Howard went to film school, but never graduated because he had this job playing Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. He never graduated, once again proving that having a college education is vastly overrated.

Ron Howard instead learned his craft getting on-the-job training watching and listening at six years old as the one of the actors on The Andy Griffith Show.

BTW: do you remember Mayberry R.F.D? That was what they changed the name of the show to when Andy Griffith left!

So yeah, if Ron Howard was alive today - which he his - and was just starting to work in the business, he probably would find himself buried immersed in video. He would be doing 2D graphics, 3D animations, text treatments, logo animations, stylized effects and animation wizardry.

And in the evening, he would make screwy videos and upload them to YouTube.com and make pennies for himself and dollars for Google.

And I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make $15 telling you about it.

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Tags: an, andy griffith, mayberry, opie, ron howard, video production

Want To Make a Living on Google Money?

AdAge has a good post about how Google’s promotion of making money online is undermining their brand…

In a world of double-digit unemployment and old-line industries in mid-collapse, here’s a sales pitch tailor-made for the times: Get Paid by Google.
Millions of people to visit sites such as Kevinlifeblog.com, Scottsmoneyblog.com, Maryslifeblog.com and Googlemoneytree.com, all promising some variation on one theme: We’ll teach you how to make thousands of dollars from Google, and you never have to leave home!

And don’t forget “Get Free Money from the Government” or “Government Grants.”

Make money in 5 Easy steps
1. Find a high paying affiliate program which sells a product about how easy it is to make money on Google.
2. The program will just charge for shipping to get the credit card details, and make most of the money through back end reverse billing.
3. Create a “blog” complete with fake comments about how you lost your job. Write about how the program you are affiliated with made you thousands of dollars.
4. Do keyword research to find freshly desperate and unemployed people.
5. Create ads targeting those people and market them through Google AdWords.

Easy Money Artists ***ARE*** Affiliated With Their Easy Money Scheme

“As Google is not affiliated with these sites, we can’t comment on individual claims,” a [Google] spokesman said.

Nice try, but Google is affiliated with such make money online offers, since they create the distribution channel.

Google gives webmasters this guideline “Your site’s reputation can be affected by who you link to.” Why shouldn’t it apply to Google as well?

As long as Google has 30%+ profit margins they are making a BUSINESS DECISION to run these make money at home ads. They could spend 1% of revenue on getting rid of earn money at home ads, and “Google will send you money” (if they wanted to), but they choose not to.

Google keeps running the ads because they want the revenue. And they know exactly how much revenue comes from scamming consumers with these ads.

Help Fix This Issue

Google has not put up consumer warnings and lots of consumers are getting ripped off, I think it’s fair for bloggers to alert people to these “work at home” and “Make thousands from Google”, “Get Rich Quick” and “Money from Google” ads.

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Tags: ad sense, get rich quick, google, make money at home

We changed from Dish Network to DirectTV when we had St. Todd DeCubbville install our BATV. I actually made the decision based pretty much on price. We got a good price with some free premium channels for a few months free.

But now that we have it, I’m finding that DirectTV is a lot better than Dish Network. We can’t get HiDef on our local network affiliates. Insight Communications, our cableco, just couldn’t figure out how it could be done via Tivo, DirectTV, or their own damn cable.

Actually, the cable guy didn’t even know what Tivo is. Serious. He. Didn’t. Know.

Anyhoo… when the U.S. Open was on NBC, we lost the chance to see it in HiDef. Once you have seen HiDef you know how I was suffering.

BUT: DirectTV had an interactive channel for the U.S. Open (maybe you have seen the commercials for some tennis tournament coming soon?) So I had a choice of four HiDef options:

• four screens at once
• hole #17
• featured pairing
• golfers in depth (features)

The other advantage is the DirectTV DVR records about a tritillion hours of programming. I think Tivo will only record 8 hours.
Plus I could get the leaderboard anytime I wanted, and some other cool junk.

If you are getting satellite television, or would would dump Dish Network for something better, Direct TV will give you $100 off. If you use my secret passcode: 82408932… then I also get $100.

Help fund the Going Like Sixty Dinking Around Foundation. You get $100, I get $100.
All God’s chillen’ get $100.

Buy Direct TV - use this number 82408932.

Give them your DIRECTV account number and tell them to order online at directv.com/refer or by calling 1-800-507-4045. They must have your DIRECTV account number when they order.

And thank you for your support.

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Tags: batv, directtv, dish network, insight communications, st. todd decubbville, u.s. open