Quote of the day…
“Sedulously eschew obfuscatory hyper verbosity and prolixity”
– unknown
Time, and having too much of it
Proper opossum massage
The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is North America’s only marsupial. Should you ever come across one that is homeless, orphaned or otherwise in need of help and could not be taken care of by a professional wildlife rehabilitation center, ME Pearl presents ‘The Practical Opossum Series’. Here is part 1, titled ‘Proper opossum massage’.
Tomorrow: Proper opossum pedicure. Stay tuned.
Where Did the Money to Rebuild Iraq Go?
Quote of the day…
“Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.”
– Benny Hill
Equilibrium
Angelo never felt quite right …
He was a strong young man, bright, passionate, yet growing up he always felt out of place amongst his piers. He felt a passing tourist in this world rather one of its residents. He wasn’t distraught about this fact, a little perplexed perhaps, slightly uncomfortable, but not distraught. In fact he found it rather pleasantly dull and uneventful, though he did not spent much of his time pondering it.
The only aspect of his life he found vexing at the age of fifteen was his father’s persistent insistence that he should decide what to do with his life. In the 1950’s, in this small Sicilian town, such was the norm and custom. After all, all his friends were already committed to a craft or profession that would occupy and provide for them. This, his father would remind him daily.
And such was once more the conversation, rather the soliloquy, that was taking place on a summer Saturday night as Angelo and his father walked to the festivities. The touring circus was in town and that was a wonder to behold, a grand local event anticipated every year by all, including Angelo.
They sat down, the lights dimmed, the show began.
It was funny, it was exciting, it was exotic, and magical, it was all that was expected, until …
Until …
The lights went dark, the music stopped, a shuffle ensued, strange noises and whispers, and then … the lights!
Two masts, a rope in between, and a man, with a balancing beam.
Angelo had seen this before, nothing particularly new about a tightrope walker … yet somehow something was different this time. The lack of a safety net was observed yet it is not what captured his attention. But something did, almost instinctively, and a sentiment was triggered that he could not yet describe.
As the act began Angelo was mesmerized by it. Something about the balance of the man, about his grace, his skill, his precision, his indifference to danger, something … he could not take his eyes of every one of his movements or the rope’s, Angelo was entranced.
He knew there and then what he wanted to do, he wanted to do THAT!
The rest of the show flew by as if it took a second and Angelo took no notice of it. A million thoughts in his mind at once and his heart bursting with excitement.
The show ended, he composed himself, and started figuring out how he would tell his father of this decision. What would his father say, he will surely think him crazy, he might even throw him out on the street. But Angelo was determined …
And so it was that night at dinner when Angelo told his father of this ambition, and his father declared him crazy, and his father threw him out on the street.
It must have been midnight when Angelo found himself in the periphery of the circus. The smell of manure and wine indicated as much. He walked around the camp in a daze, smelling the food, watching the sparks of the bonfires, hearing animals and random violins. Faces half made up looked at him with smiles, drunk performers stumbled by him, and all was perfect.
He found himself before a small tent, he walked in, and the tightrope walker stood before him. Angelo sat down, told him of his experience, told him about his father, and with barely enough volume in his voice to cary his words, asked the man if he would take him in as an apprentice. Angelo said he would work for free, he would ask for nothing but a meal a day, he would work unconditionally, he would do anything to one day walk that rope … anything to learn that wondrous craft that he was called to, indeed born for.
The tightrope walker looked at Angelo and said yes.
And so Angelo’s destiny began to materialize and Angelo left with the circus that next morning and never looked back.
For the first year of his apprenticeship all Angelo was allowed to do in regards to his education of the craft is walk on a rope on the ground. For a year all Angelo did is learn every fiber of that rope under his feet as if it was as familiar as his own skin. First on a slack rope, then on a rigid one, by the end of the year he knew every bump and twist of the rope and walking on it was as natural as pacing the ordinary ground.
On the second year the exact same thing happened, but with the rope now a foot off of the ground and the beam in his hands. Angelo felt the slack, learned to balance himself, compensate for the rope’s elasticity. And by the end of year two, after tortuous repetition and practice, Angelo felt on that rope as if he were born on it.
On the third year of his apprenticeship, the rope beneath him having become first nature to him, he learned all the tricks, and all the showmanship. The rope was raised to a hundred feet, the net beneath him, and Angelo became a master at the skill of tightrope walking.
Angelo fell often, he never complained, he was the happiest soul on earth. And after three years happily devoting his entire existence to his craft, he was incredible! His master himself stood in wonderment at Angelo’s skill and grace. His master thought Angelo the best tightrope walker he’d ever laid eyes on.
To Angelo the rope was no rope at all. His skill and comfort upon it was such that the rope might as well been a bridge.
And so the night of his debut came.
The lights went dark, the music stopped, a shuffle ensued, strange noises and whispers, and then … the lights!
And Angelo stood where he once gazed, ready to take the first step.
He stood there confidently, for the rope was his home, his skill was beyond doubt, his talents second to none.
He looked down, he saw that there was no net, and thought of the peril. His mind suddenly aware of consequences and his heart filled with fear. He tried to shake it off, after all there’s no difference between a foot and one hundred feet to the feeling of the rope. And his skill was not an issue … he could do this as he had done it thousands of times before.
Sensing the rising anticipation of the crowd, and with these thoughts filling his mind, Angelo took his first step upon the rope …
As Angelo fell to the ground to die, and as he flew through the air for what seemed like hours, he wondered how this happened to him … he wondered how he let his mind create the very fear that was about to kill him, and sadness overtook him in his wonderment of how and why he allowed this of himself.
I wonder too …
Also available on: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread598071/pg1
When worlds Collide
Particle physicist Brian Foster of the University of Oxford, UK, has teamed up with the British musician Jack Liebeck to create a special lecture and performance about the legacy of Albert Einstein and the role music played in his life. The show, which is currently touring the UK, concludes with Foster joining Liebeck on stage to perform a duet. This exclusive physicsworld.com video gives you a taste of the collaboration as the pair perform an arrangement of a violin sonata by Mozart in C Major k.296.
via When worlds collide: physics meets music – physicsworld.com.
Quote of the day…
“Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself.”
– Charles Baudelaire
Which way is North again?
Bob Marley On How To Love A Woman
“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect – you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break – her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”
Quote of the day…
“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– William Shakespeare
This is Nothing
More commonly known today as Choice Theory, Control Theory states that behavior is caused not by an outside stimulus, but by what a person wants most at any given time. This theory of motivation proposed contends that behavior is never caused by a response to an outside stimulus. Instead, the control theory states that behavior is inspired by what a person wants most at any given time. William Glasser, who developed the theory, contends that all behavior is intended to satisfy one of the following five internal needs:
1) To survive.
2) To belong and be loved by others.
3) To have power and importance.
4) To have freedom and independence.
5) To have fun.
This theory of motivation proposed contends that behavior is never caused by a response to an outside stimulus. Instead, the control theory states that behavior is inspired by what a person wants most at any given time: survival, love, power, freedom, or any other basic human need.
By understanding the drives for SURVIVAL, POWER, LOVE, BELONGING, FREEDOM, and FUN in people, we become more conscious of the need for our world to be a quality world of our choosing (retrieved May 02, 2005, from http://raider.muc.edu/~schnelpl/Control%20Theory%20-%20Overhead.html).
Thus, the Choice aspect of Choice Theory–that individuals have the power to change their lives for the better based on the choices they make.
The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory
1. The only person whose behavior we can control is our own.
2. All we can give another person is information.
3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.
4. The problem relationship is always part of our present life.
5. What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy our basic needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in the future.
6. We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures in our Quality World.
7. All we do is behave.
8. All behaviors are Total Behaviors and are made up of four components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology. All Total Behaviors are chosen, but we only have direct control over the acting and thinking components.
9. We can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.
10. All Total Behavior is designated by verbs and named by the part that is the most recognizable.(retrieved May 02, 2005, from http://raider.muc.edu/~schnelpl/Control%20Theory%20-%20Overhead.html).
How this is done
A person can take greater responsibility for his actions and make the proper behavior choices by examining the following questions:
1) What do you want?
2) What are you doing to achieve what you want?
3) Is it working?
4) What are your plans or options?
More: Control/Choice theory
Local idiot to post comment on Internet
Local idiot to post comment on Internet
HAZEL PARK, MI—In a statement made to reporters earlier this afternoon, local idiot Brandon Mylenek, 26, announced that at approximately 2:30 a.m. tonight, he plans to post an idiotic comment beneath a video on an Internet website.
Mylenek, a moron, prepares to publicly address the “dumbest shiz [he’s] evr seen!!!1!”
“Later this evening, I intend to watch the video in question, click the ‘reply’ link above the box reserved for user comments, and draft a response, being careful to put as little thought into it as possible, while making sure to use all capital letters and incorrect punctuation,” Mylenek said. “Although I do not yet know exactly what my comment will entail, I can say with a great degree of certainty that it will be incredibly stupid.”
Mylenek, who rarely in his life has been capable of formulating an idea or opinion worth the amount of oxygen required to express it, went on to guarantee that the text of his comment would be misspelled to the point of incomprehension, that it would defy the laws of both logic and grammar, and that it would allege that several elements of the video are homosexual in nature.
“The result will be an astonishing combination of ignorance, offensiveness, and sheer idiocy,” Mylenek said.
According to the idiot, he will become incensed at the quality and sentiment of the comments already posted below the video—which will include such replies as “not great, nice try tho,” “FIRSTIES!!!” and “wtf?? lol so random.” At this point, Mylenek said, he will feel a deep, unwavering desire to offer a dissenting opinion, which he has hinted will include the words “gay” and “reatrd” [sic].
“It is my moral obligation to alert the Internet community to the fact that this video is totally gay, and furthermore, that the individual who made it is a fag,” Mylenek said.
Pressed for further details regarding his intended post, Mylenek, who will comment under the Internet pseudonym “xblingdaddy2005x,” revealed that there is a strong possibility he will inadvertently post the comment twice.
“After clicking the ‘submit’ button, I will immediately refresh the page so that I can view my own comment. I will then notice that my comment has not appeared because the server has not yet processed my request, become angry and confused, and re-post the same comment with unintentional variations on the original wording and misspellings, creating two slightly different yet equally moronic comments,” he said. “It is my hope that this will illustrate both my childlike level of impatience and my inability to replicate a simple string of letters and symbols 30 seconds after having composed it.”
Mylenek confirmed rumors that he will be momentarily sidetracked by another inane task while drafting his comment. The distraction is scheduled to come at 2:25 a.m. in the form of a “related video” link featuring a man being sodomized by a horse, which Mylenek will re-watch seven times and laugh obnoxiously at with his friend and fellow idiot, Steve Blanchette, 28.
“Once this minor diversion is complete, I will finish posting my comment, then sit there like the worthless human being I am and wait for other commenters to respond,” he added. “Because, as I mentioned before, I have nothing better to do with my life.”
Mylenek said he fully expects that his comment will spawn a series of replies from other idiots around the world, who will either agree with his stance, disagree with his stance, or call Mylenek himself a “d0uche” and post an irrelevant link to a separate video that they will claim to be “way funnier.” According to Mylenek, this is all part of the plan.
“We are blessed to be living in an age when we have a global communications network in which idiots, assholes, and total and complete wastes of fucking human life alike can come together to give instant feedback in an unfettered and unmonitored online environment,” Mylenek said. “What better way to take advantage of this incredible technology than to log onto the Internet and insult a complete stranger?”
According to media critic Judy Turner, this type of behavior is not uncommon among idiots.
“Brandon’s comments in particular contain a degree of unoriginality and stupidity that you only see in the most muttonheaded and imbecilic Internet commenters,” Turner said. “In fact, I’ve seen him use at least a dozen variations of the word ‘gay.’ Suffice it to say, Brandon Mylenek is a truly stupid, stupid idiot.”
Mylenek concluded his press conference with a solemn vow to uphold the awful, unintelligible, anger-inducing quality of his past Internet comments.
“I promise everyone that this post will be exactly what you have come to expect from an idiot like myself,” he said, “and that I will check my comment regularly so that I can call everyone who says it’s stupid a fag.”
Abandoned in America, The Death of Awareness
This was written by a good friend of mine a couple of years ago … a worthy read:
I fear the morning is coming when we will wake up in America to thousands of dead and a public that has drifted into such a mind-numbing ignorant bliss to the degree that when it happens it will have devastating effects. However, even more than this, I fear how this misinformed and ignorant public will whip back in such an intense emotional state with politicians driving along that knee-jerk, sound bite solutions will destroy years of progress within the counterterrorism community and not only not help to make the country safer but simply create illusions of safety when there is in fact none.
There is much I don’t know but there is one thing I do and that is terrorism. It has consumed the past 15 years or so of my professional life. I also know a little about journalism having spent a brief stint in the print world and having spent the last 12 years working with and providing materials to just about every wire service, newspaper, magazine and network around the world.
The average American has been abandoned. Journalism in this country has always held a privileged role and rightfully so. There was a reason why a newspaper had certain rights and privileges that do not exist for a comic book publisher or a Hollywood studio or the people that make soap. It was a sacred duty of the media to inform the public. Something now only conveniently bandied about when a catchy scandal is breaking and “news” organizations sue to get access to government documents or say Paris Hilton, Michael Jackson or the Runaway Bride have an upcoming court appearance and well, the ratings on streaming that live…
Here’s the question though. Where is an average American able to learn about how much of a threat al-Qaeda or FARC or Ansar al-Islam or any other major terrorist organization poses to this country? Does not a news organization in the US have a duty to, under its privileged status, make sure the public is informed on issues of such consequence? Or is the sole measure of what gets air time and resources and one of ratings and clicks.
Watch CNN, MSNBC and Fox for enough hours and priorities become clear. A horse or worker stuck in a trench, a high-speed chase or a Paris Hilton and her ilk rule the day, only to be superseded by that favorite national news past time of “gotcha sound bites”. Funny though, these things never seem to drive coverage on France24 or al-Arabiyah. They seem to be hopelessly lost in covering such things as an attack on the US Consulate in Turkey, or developments in Afghanistan or even far flung places like Mauritania, which yes I understand poses a real challenge for Americans who don’t even know which continent to look for it in.
I could recount endlessly major terrorist attacks the world over, many involving American targets, that got little or no coverage in the US but did get covered everywhere else. One of the deadliest bombings in the world against tourists in Egypt a number of years ago wasn’t even cause for CNN to switch away from a Larry King interview of Tammy Faye Baker. It’s no wonder American’s are either completely ignorant or horrifically misinformed about world events and why self-promoting, book-selling talking heads who claim there is no more al-Qaeda are seen as credible.
The majority of Americans continue on in ignorant bliss of the shifts and changes in the world around them. They watch in glee as “reality tv” bleeds its way into the broadcast news networks with their “iReports” and celebrity gossip coverage. I can recall just a month or so ago when a headline on CNN’s website proclaimed that iReporters were having trouble buying food, apparently they have not formed a union yet or realized they are just a cheap way to avoid sending crews out. Those Americans who know better are aware there is more going on in the world but if the news is not going to deliver it to them then where do they go? In the broadcast world, if they are lucky they can get France24, BBC News 24 or even CNN International. However, that is a role of the cable/satellite programming dice. I can get one out of three where I live and I have both satellite and cable.
It brings me back to the remarks of CNN’s Miles O’Brien a number of years ago when the news media in a summer slump decided to coin an average number of shark attacks into a media event dubbed the “summer of the shark”. Miles ruminating on air about the disturbing turn the collective American conscience had taken since 9-11 commented how before 9-11 “news” coverage had drifted into a world of how to better seal your windows to save on air conditioning, get better gas mileage or pay down your credit cards. He carried the thought through to how when 9-11 happened Americans were blindsided because no one had been bothering to do the story and how between the sharks and a lost boy scout in the woods (the other big media event of the moment) we appear to have already drifted right back into the same place.
We love to use that phrase “Never Forget” in America and we speak it with deep impassioned sincerity but oh how quickly we do. It is both our strength and greatest curse. We move on like perhaps no other society, however, in doing so we fail miserably at retaining any of the lessons learned of the past. Immediately after 9-11 news organization after news organization held endless public hand-wringing sessions on how we need to do more, send more reporters around the world, more international coverage, etc. etc. and for a bit it happened. However, month by month, year by year, the public and media turned away. 9-11 was a historic event. Al-Qaeda was over in some place called Afghanistan and Iraq and well if they could attack us here they would have by now so therefore they obviously and quite logically cannot. So the sharks and the boy scouts and home improvement and Paris Hilton and workers stuck in trenches came back in droves and all those who trusted that if something important was going on in the world, it would of course be on CNN or MSNBC or Fox, went soundly back to sleep.
The problem, however, is that complicated, nuanced stories that leave people feeling uneasy and require thought will never, ever draw the ratings of the bear in Circuit City or the shark jumping behind the surf board. Spoon fed adjective laced fluff and gossip does. You can dress the terrorism issues up in a political fist fight with battling talking points or a sexy government investigation, then sure it will hold its own for a bit more but by that point you have gutted all the fact and context for a snappy headline designed to get more clicks than actually inform and there is the rub.
Are you a news channel or entertainment? It is a simple black and white question only made gray by those who want the ratings of the entertainment world while trying to play under the guise of credibility and status afforded to a news organization. For my two cents I don’t understand why everyone does not just stop playing around and go straight to porn. You could lay off just about everyone, shoot it on the cheap and ratings would be through the roof. Heck you could even have iReporters shoot it and then you would not even need to have cameramen. I have little doubt there would not be droves of volunteers. If it is just about return on investment and clicks then instead of showing clips of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show on endless loop for days as Fox News did a few years back while talking about how horrible it is that this was aired on one of the major networks when kids could watch (apparently kids don’t watch Fox News), why not just leap ahead to the inevitable conclusion.
The 24-hour network news channels in America right now have more in common with TMZ, arguing radio talk show hosts, CourtTV, Jerry Springer and 5th grade level debate between political hacks spitting out talking points that are as predictable as the sun rising in the morning, then they do news organizations.
From my perspective this is not the fault of many of the top old-school correspondents, producers and anchors who work tirelessly with little resources and fight endless battles just to eke out a minute here or there to try and heroically explain something that can’t humanly be done in less than 10 minutes. Many of you are on this list and I know the situation you face. The problem lies deeper within the evolving culture and revenue driven model of what’s passing for a news organization today.
The painfully short major network news heavyweights at NBC, CBS and ABC still hold to a higher standard but in a changing media market and different lifestyle schedules many people simply do not happen to find themselves sitting in front of the TV and tuned to the same channel as they once did 15 or 20 years ago and even when they do, the extremely short time spans these shows have to inform their viewers of all the key events in the world makes it impossible to get all the high profile stories in, let alone do them justice in two minutes. However, I have watched in amazement as people like Lisa Myers and others do just that under what seem to me to be impossible constraints.
There are also other true hardcore journalists still out there who can get air time to share just a small fraction of what they know. Michael Ware at CNN is one of those people. It’s balanced, well-researched, insightful and informative reporting. The catchy headline takes second seat to actually informing the viewer and helping them walk away smarter on an issue than they were 10 minutes before. It’s reporting like that which we so desperately need more of in the States. Either that or France24 needs to increase its profile here.
Making all of this worse is that the problems are not limited to broadcast. Shrinking budgets, staff and resources at major newspapers, magazines and wire services are only further complicating things. As old business models are turned on their heads and the all-mighty click metric rules the day. Wire services like AP, AFP and Reuters are the staple of life when it comes to knowing what is going on in the world. Should a push to do more entertainment or resource cutbacks begin to impact coverage in certain areas, it would quite literally be as if those places ceased to exist in many ways for those who read the news but for now their reporters strewn around the world continue to fight the good fight and provide that one reliable outlet. AP reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan and elsewhere has been terrific and showed a depth of knowledge and source development that is what real journalism is about. The problem here though is not that the stories are not being done but rather how many people are seeing the stories if they do not get picked up.
On the newspaper side there still is no one that can hold a match to the in-depth reporting that is done by papers like the Washington Post when they really get behind a story. The Washington Post’s two multimedia features in recent years on al-Qaeda and most recently the IED issue were a more solid and informative treatment then I have seen in any American media and not just on those issues but on almost any terrorist issue. They are an example of what can really be done when the appropriate time, resources and space are allocated to allow the journalists to do their job and the reader to be informed. All is not well in the newspaper world though and the changing landscape is bearing down heavily on the old models. Much of this was captured in the final season of David Simon’s brilliant insight into urban life in America on HBO, “The Wire”, when he focused the spotlight on The Baltimore Sun.
Despite these two last bastions, I’m deeply worried. It’s simply not enough. As a print person it pains me to say it but in today’s day and age, if it is not on TV, more often than not, it did not happen. Whether in the circles of government or in the mind of the public, the morning paper may still often set the news cycle but it is the 24-hour news networks that determine whether or not it grows legs. Even as an intelligence professional, myself and my colleagues often find ourselves running in circles because someone saw something utterly insignificant and unimportant on TV and well of course then it must be urgent and so emails get dispatched and everyone stops what they are doing to answer the questions of the customer who happened to flip on a TV. Give the same person a critical intelligence report on something they do not get and that is not on TV and you are lucky if they bother to read it in some cases.
This brings me back to one simple question. If all the news powerhouses in this country are not going to buckle down and decide that ratings or not, in the post 9-11 world it’s important to educate and inform Americans on these issues, then who will? Also, informing does not mean taking one out of hundreds of FBI bulletins that leak removing all context and common sense and flashing them across the screen as breaking news. More of this tired practice is not needed. What is needed is knowledge and context and real reporting.
At IntelCenter we just released a wall chart with the logos from 39 different active terrorist groups. How many Americans do you think could even think of the names of say five or more groups? Similarly there are more than 50 groups actively operating in Iraq right now. I’d put money down that if you were to walk the street and ask Americans to name just one group other than al-Qaeda they could not. Yet these groups are killing Americans on a regular basis. If we cannot name the groups who threaten us, how can we even begin to understand the nature of the threat and the challenges that face us.
My small part in this battle is to give tens of thousands of dollars every year in free books, DVDs, intelligence reports and video licenses to every news organization and documentary crew doing real reporting on this stuff but beyond that informing the public is outside of our scope and responsibility. Our products are simply too expensive and technical to be able to fill that role. Schools cannot help because well most of us are long done with them. Think tanks and other questionable organizations often only serve to spin the data to serve their political objectives or agenda. They are not beholden to the ethics and professional practices of an intelligence analyst or a journalist. Academics are often too far removed from practical concerns to significantly contribute and they do not have the profile or exposure to reach people on a regular basis. As for the government, some more information coming out of DHS might help but that is trickier than it sounds for a whole host of reasons and the role of a quasi news agency is not one it should be serving.
So I ask, if the news organizations that serve the American people do not step up to the plate and say on this issue, ratings be damned, this is our responsibility and duty, well then… we’re just fucked.
That morning will come and for weeks on weeks following, questions will be asked, “Did you see this coming? Were you surprised?”
And we will all say “Never Again” as we slap billion dollar overnight sound bite feel good fixes into place that will not be sustained.
Until of course we forget yet again…
via: http://www.bigmedicine.ca/benvenzke.htm
his website: http://www.intelcenter.com/
Quote of the day…
“The description is not the described”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
Civilization
I’m at the airport in Paris waiting for my flight back home to Washington DC .
I have discovered the definition of a civilized nation … it is not in its culture, history, language, art, architecture …
It is defined by the fact that it still has a smoking section at the airport.
The ability to self destruct at one’s convenience is a fundamental right … only a virtuous nation will provide such comforts.
See y’all on the other side of the water.
Cheers!
Quote of the day…
“When you’re looking for the gorilla you miss other unexpected events.”
– The Monkey Business Illusion
On another note …
I dished out the big bucks and registered our own domain name!
Can you believe schrodingersdog was’t taken? 🙂
So as you can now see on the url we’re real and with it internets peoples!
No worries about having to re-bookmark the home page as the old wordpress still works and redirects automatically.
What will I do next? 😀
Feedback from the Dog-Heads please!
I have noticed that every once in a while wordpress, in order to pay their bills, will embed a few ads on comment pages. To be clear I see no revenue from those ads. I have to carry them as a part of the agreement for their free service.
No problem there, they provide the service and software for free so I take no issue with that, especially since the ads use up very little space and are low profile.
However I want your visits here to be as enjoyable as possible and not to be encumbered by lots of ads.
I have the option of turning them off for about $30 a year. I have absolutely no problem spending that to improve the user experience … all I am seeking from you is your take on whether or not it does have that affect.
So if they are a distraction and are bothering you just let me know and they’ll be gone forthwith … if you’ve never noticed them or they don’t bother you in the least I’ll do nothing.
Also, I welcome and appreciate any constructive input as to any idea you may as to how to improve the site. This is literally my first rodeo so I’m really all but winging it.
Cheers and Regards!
serge 