Monthly Archive for June, 2008

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NotOverTheHill.com is the Gum on My Sock


Okay. Now you’ve done it. Now you’ve really done it.
I was in a crappy mood (the gum on my sock to start the day) then I read this pap…

NotOverTheHill.com provides an opportunity for the 40+ crowd to experience the fun and excitement that has made sites like Facebook and MySpace so popular. Unlike other social networking sites, which cater to a younger audience, NotOverTheHill provides a unique environment where mature adults can share photos, music interests, videos, and blogs. Membership is free.

The Savvy Boomer has documented many times how social websites targeted at boomers are a total BUST.
Boomer bloggers have had a spirited discussion about how we don’t want, don’t need, don’t like our “own” social network. We’re on Facebook or MySpace if we feel the need.
But these Michiganders think they have the answers to tap into our psyche and shepard us into a group large enough to get some ads.
The refer to their target as the “so-called” baby boomer generation.
In that context “so-called” gives the impression that there is no legitimacy to the term “baby boomer.” Ahem, it’s a recognized demographic term used for decades to describe us.
Their press release just keeps getting more and more patronizing. All the crap every boomer-focused-site has babbled before:

  • boomers have been ignored
  • boomers don’t like the content on big social nets
  • boomers are scared of the big social nets
  • blah, blah, blah

But I joined anyway, just to see what kind of initial experience they offered.

It’s bad.

Starting right with their registration page.

They have a CAPTCHA, I hate CAPTCHA

I flamed them about their CAPTCHA.

It’s CASE SENSITIVE!  So is that a zero or an “o” and the registration form clears passwords and “agree to terms” checkbox if you screw it up, well you care you can read the rest here.

(Boy that gum on my sock really got me off to a bad start today. )

Their next mistake was sending me FOUR (so far) “welcome” messages! SPAM. One message? expected and appreciated, two? overkill, three? SPAM. four? PISSES ME OFF!

My first impression of NotOverTheHill.com is bad, real bad.\

UPDATE: Social Net for adults 18+ croaks.

ReadWriteWeb’s resident Baby Boomer, Bernard Lunn, wrote a great post entitled: Why Eons, a MySpace for Old People, Failed. Bernard claimed that “the idea of targeting by age is just not smart marketing.” Instead you should target by content, he wrote. With both Eons and iYomu now having failed, it’s difficult to argue with that logic.

I Stepped In Gum This Morning. Equalibrium Restored in the Universe.


As the Saluki flies, it’s quite a distance from central Illinois to southern Kentucky. But apparently not too far for someone to pay a clandestine visit to our street for the sole intent of payback.

I stepped in gum this morning. In the street. I wasn’t wearing shoes. I wasn’t barefoot. I was in my socks.
I walk Oliver barefoot a lot. Usually he’s sitting on the end of the bed giving me the “my eyeballs are floating here” look and I take him to the “mailbox” our little code for “pee on my car tires and crap in the yard.”

I normally put on my socks, say “mailbox” and usually on the way from the bedroom to the front door trip over a pair of my shoes.

Just for review:

Oliver’s morning routine. Sniff tire. Sniff another tire. Hike. Trot to our mailbox, sniff, hike. Mosey to neighbor’s mailbox, sniff, hike. I have the newspaper out of the bag by now and am reading. Mosey to bushes, sniff, hike. Canter to corner stop sign. REALLY sniff, hike. I have now read all the section fronts and am ready to go back to the house. “Oliver. Go In. In. In. Go In. Oliver! Go! In!” Oliver trots to grassy area and circles, circles, circles, trots to different place, circles, circles, stops and gives me crap. And we go in.

Oliver finishes, I turn to saunter back to the house and one foot is not moving like it should. After eliminating the possibility that I am having a stroke, I look down to see the long gooey strand of gum.

I laughed out loud.

Never underestimate the power of a woman. Catch Her In The Wry ranted about gum chewers, I responded bragging on how I never throw my gum where people walk.

Result: I have gummy socks (which I still have on.)

I hope she enjoyed her visit to southern Kentucky.

George Carlin’s Death Cause Rash of Car Stupidness

George Carlin died. Naturally this got me to thinking about cars and other forms of transportation.

My RSS runneth over.

A 7-year-old Indiana boy who wanted to go to the mall drove there in his grandmother’s Geo Tracker, although he crashed the vehicle several times.

Coke can added for scale

Finally: Am I totally nuts because I saw this laying next to the spinning wheel and when I was told it was Blue Faced Leicester, I responded, “blue? it doesn’t look blue to me.”

Seems this is a Blue Faced Leicester…

Still doesn’t look blue to me.

No wonder Carlin died, with the internet it’s just too easy to get material. The internet killed George Carlin.

BRAKING NEWS: I’m Innocent of Speeding Because the Road Doesn’t Exist.

Small Dog With Extraordinary Prowess for Word Power

A dog may die tonight.

Somebody chewed up my Book for Essential Blogging.

Just a month ago I was bragging how it had lasted 40 years with hardly a scratch. JINX!

However, a dog will not die tonight.

The only part that isn’t salvageable are two pages of “W” all of “X” “Y” and “Z” and some other garbage about punctuation and grammar that I never pay any attention to. When it doubt, comma it out.

WD 40 won’t fix it, but duct tape will.

Bug Girl Talks Toxicity and One Part Per Trillion.

How much mercury would you have to consume before it killed ya? I don’t know either, but as Bug Girl explains, there is an effect called Biomagnification.

Generally, each step in the food chain (plant-> plant eater -> predator –> bigger predator) multiplies contamination by a factor of 10.  We have known for some time that mercury was a problem for fish and fish-eating birds.

Bug Girl has a chart on her blog that deals with contamination levels of Parts Per Trillion (ppt)
I recall my dad had a clipping from a newspaper under the glass on his desk which gave layman’s illustrations of Parts Per Million. I’ve searched an number of times for that information and couldn’t come up with it.
Bug Girl did, here and here.
So check this out for a little mind bender for the day:
One-Part-Per-Million

  • one automobile in bumper-to-bumper traffic from Cleveland to San Francisco
  • one inch in 16 miles
  • one minute in two years
  • one ounce in 32 tons
  • one cent in $10,000

One-Part-Per-Billion

  • one 4-inch hamburger in a chain of hamburgers circling the earth at the equator 2.5 times
  • one silver dollar in a roll of silver dollars stretching from Detroit to Salt Lake City
  • one kernel of corn in a 45-foot high, 16-foot diameter silo
  • one sheet in a roll of toilet paper stretching from New York to London
  • one second of time in 32 years

One-Part-Per-Trillion

  • one square foot of floor tile on a kitchen floor the size of Indiana
  • one drop of detergent in enough dishwater to fill a string of railroad tank cars ten miles long
  • one square inch in 250 square miles
  • one mile on a 2-month journey at the speed of light

My mind is suitably bent, yours?