by

The Birth of a Meme

You can blame Julian Assange for an awful lot: This whole Cablegate kerfuffle. The Collateral Murder video. Embarrassing virtually every nation and security company on the planet. Really stunningly poor relations with at least two exes. Annoying the staff at the Ecuadorian Embassy by humming to himself too loudly on occasion. That jacket.

And now, this. It’s all yesterday’s fault.

Words, my friends. They fail me.

Particularly when the poster in question fails to back it up with the magical words “I’m buying.” Sigh. Tease. Story of my life.

Now this girl, she has got it going on. Or had. Since nobody has heard from her since posting this.

Here Cthulhu! says Summon Cthulhu Kid

Here Cthulhu!

Seriously, I’m dying to find this kid and her dad, for soooo many reasons. So many questions.

  • Did she summon Cthulhu?
  • Did she do it twice, since she got over 2000 Likes?
  • Did she summon Cthluhu instead and if so what does s/he look like?
  • Did she summon Cthulhu and then just pick a random additional Great Old One to summon, and if so which one and why?
  • This.
  • Who the hell is she and where did she and her dad come up with this brilliant idea? Seriously, I want to interview her for the Daily Dot if I can find her but the only lead I’ve got is that it was uploaded to the Atheism Loves You Facebook page on Monday and they can’t remember where they got it. Anyone?
  • Also, what is an atheist site doing supporting theist endeavours such as this, however eldritch and unspeakable they may be?

COMPLETELY UNRELATED POSTSCRIPT: Today’s celebrity encounter, thanks to a comment I made on a story Fidel wrote about “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell.

About these ads
by

Operation Global Media Domination: the mash note situation

To raincoaster love Julian

To raincoaster love Julian. Awww, isn’t that sweet?

NOTE TO NEW READERS: it’s not always this insidery. Just usually this insidery.

Well, I had been working on an epic Storify of the even-more-overcaffeinated-than-usual drama over Thursday and Friday, including multiple Ron sightings (hi Ron!) and relentless attempts to get my Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts suspended (all unsuccessful), but Storify’s Twitter search succumbed to the heated atmosphere and fainted, rendering me unable to do more than say “and then he said this, and I was all like bitch please and then … ” etc, etc, etc although it must be said that Storify themselves were very nice about it, particularly as I’ve bitched at them before for offering a WordPress.com embed code that does not embed anything readable in your WordPress.com blog; still, they mean well and if they can get that Twitter search to stop collapsing and asking me to sign in with Twitter instead of my Storify account, it’ll all be hunky-dory.

And yes, I believe that was all one sentence, why do you ask?

Still, drama has its uses. Always good for the Follower count if you have the right enemies, as I seem to. Here’s a tiny slice of just one of the four dramas that went on over that period.

Apparently if you tweet to his family and ask the entirely logical question “WTF?” he stops. Useful.

So both the computer and the iPhone have started overheating, to the point where it hurts to handle them. Gonzo gave me a great suggestion: A Belkin laptop desk/fan/thingy which costs about $20, which is easily ordered from Amazon possibly even using my own affiliate ID. Beats balancing it on a block of frozen soup stock as I am doing now.

The iPhone is a trickier brick altogether; it’s no longer emitting or detecting sounds on its own. With the headphones plugged in, I can listen to things. When I plug it in to charge I cannot have it connected to the cord first, prior to plugging the plug into the wall, or it will not charge. If I plug the plug into the wall and then connect the iPhone, it will charge.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to have something which simply worked? I wonder what that’s like. Wait. No. I take that back. My notebook works just fine, it’s just a bitch to upload is all. You have to spindle the pages really teeny.

But as you can see, Julian is keeping his spirits up and maybe someday he’ll be in a nice enough mood to just mail me one of those compromised phones or laptops he’s forced to discard (do you need the PO Box? Lemme know).

UPDATE:

OH, so much drama that I forgot to add my ACTUAL celeb encounter; Tommy James, yes THE Tommy James of “and the Shondells” Favorited a tweet of mine when I complained the cats were not sophisticated enough to enjoy Crimson and Clover. As indeed they are not, being both well below teenage.

And Ruth Buzzi Followed me.

And no, Julian Assange did not really write me that postcard. But I’m quite pleased so many people think he did. Going to go around with a swelled head all day.

by

ZOMG LIKE THE CONSTITOOSHUN PROTEX MEEEE!

There's one born every minute

There’s one born every minute

Just the latest and greatest of the bizarrarie in the forum:

Oh Leonard J. Gojer, what have you done? [besides deleted your blog since this post went live?]

  1. I paid for traffic from http://www.visitorshark.com. The contract with them says that there is no guarantee that the traffic will show up on my analytics, which is your WordPress analytics. The traffic was for 6 million visitors per month. The traffic does not show up, just like they said it would not.

    How can prevent this problem in the future? That is, what do I do to insure that I chose a source of traffic that DOES in fact show up on your analytics?

    The blog I need help with is npcompleteproof.wordpress.com.

  2. Hi,

    You can see your WordPress.com site stats through your My Stats tab. There’s a link to get to your My Stats tab at the bottom of this support article.

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/

  3. I’m not sure if that will completely answer your question, but it’s a start.

    Also, although you don’t specifically mention Google analytics, this support thread may also help with your question of analytics in general.

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/how-to-add-google-analytics-in-wordpress-free-account?replies=2

  4. I was going to hire a programmer on Odesk who had promised me that I could see the analytics if I hired him. I need to know if there is any way, whether with Google Analytics or some other analytics that this can be done, because I don’t want to pay the programmer if the idea doesn’t really work. This is a low budget project for a website.

  5. If you are paying for traffic, you are paying for spam hits. Spam hits are stripped out of WordPress.com analytics, because they are spam.

    You can try building legitimate traffic instead of paying for robots. Do you even know what you just did to your brand by posting this in a forum that shows up in Google?

  6. So, it’s not good to pay for traffic?

    My objective is to convert my personal labor, (let’s say about 2 hours a week, give or take), into quality traffic to the site. How can do that in a reliable way?

  7. 6,000,000 robot hits will do nothing except lighten your bank account – why do you want the traffic? If you are that desperate how about going down to the local coffee shop and giving cookies to anyone that clicks on your blog – waste of time I think

    Search the forum here for SEO or traffic – you will find hundreds of suggestions

    see also: http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/

  8. So, what you’re suggesting is that ALL of these services on the internet, (not just the expensive ones), don’t accomplish anything at all.

    I started my “career” (if you could call it that) in internet marketing by reading these paperback books that they have in popular bookstores.

    What I am trying to avoid is to devalue the hourly worth of my time. I have a normal daytime job and this work is supplemental in addition to that. Think about this, why I would want a “second” job that only is worth minimum wage hours?

    What you’re saying is that spending money doesn’t get the value of the money spent.

    This website that I am promoting is a university academic topic. I am trying to target people who are like Computer Science students. Perhaps I should find some forums that have more of those types of people.

  9. On your blog, you say you believe you’ve proved P=NP. If you really believe that you have, then the most profitable use of your time would probably be to write it up, submit it to a peer-reviewed journal, and then collect your million-dollar Millennium Prize.

  10. The literature that I read says that my objective is to obtain a lot of traffic. If the traffic can only be generated by my labor, that limits the total income that comes from the work, because there are 24×7 hours in a week, and I already have a job.

    I think that these people who send emails saying that you can get rich in internet marketing and don’t mention anything about the method that you would reliably do this should be put in prison for creating a big scam.

  11. With respect to what you say about P=NP, I spoke with the dean of computer science from my university where I graduated, and he said pretty much the same thing that you said.

    I have been paying a lot of money to scam websites thinking erroneously that at least one of them would not be a scam.

  12. When I discovered my formula, I was a student in the university, and on the day that I was thinking about it, it created a “ruckus” among the students in the school, and I basically got expelled from that school and had to graduate from another school.

    I am trying to avoid situations that operate like scams.

  13. One thing that all of this experience has taught me is that scams have a certain sociological structure to them. At the top of the scam is someone who is malevolent who is directing the scam.

  14. Long ago advertisers figured out how not to pay for fake robot traffic – in fact advertisers are good enough to figure out if you are trying to run up your count or getting a few friends to fake traffic for you – then you get suspended from their program – and you can’t sell ads on your blog here anyway – you can signup for Adwords and a lot of traffic gets you not much money -

    You want traffic – read the link I gave you – all you did with your “research” is make the people that sold you the book rich – there is a sucker born every minute – sorry

  15. I charge $200 per hour for my advice as an independent WordPress consultant, and for free I told you that was spam. You may persist if you so desire, but be aware that Google is sophisticated enough to know what kind of patsy pays for spam hits, and vindictive enough to throw his search engine rankings down a well.

  16. “People who send ‘get rich quick’ emails may be scamming me” WELL DUH.

  17. I will read the information that you gave me. (to auxclass).

    (to raincoaster). I don’t want to take advantage of you, because you are a dedicated person to your profession. I am doing something that is like a “pastime”. That is to say that I don’t need the money to function at a basic level. I only need the money if I want to have “nicer” things.

    I got into a big argument with the employees of Google about two years ago, for the same thing that you just mentioned right now.
    They were very angry that I was “moonlighting” from my existing job.

    You have to keep in mind that my daytime job is for a construction related company, and those people don’t have any legal obligation to take orders from Google, because construction requires a university degree in Civil Engineering.

  18. PS – once they find a sucker they will sell your info to other people that will scam you – sort of a round robin thing

  19. A person like me can use the mathematics of the “Net Present Value” computation, (if you don’t know what this is, look it up on wikipedia), to evaluate internet marketing propositions. That is a more suitable method for determining if a financial arrangement is a scam.

    What is really a shame is that all of these companies on the internet are committing the crime of “material misrepresentation”. If you buy something in a store, (like Target or Sears), you don’t have that problem.

  20. I have been dealing with someone who is an attorney. He said that this problem falls under the subject heading of “due diligence”. The task is to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate.

    There is a way to make this work. It just takes work.

  21. The difference between what I know and what you know is that you know things about the internal mechanism of the internet, (like what happens inside of the servers). I never learned those things, that’s why I am at the mercy of those paperback books which don’t tell the whole truth.

    Do you think I can find a book on such a topic?

  22. So two years ago Google told you that what you were doing was wrong. Yet you persist.

    I don’t give a rat’s ass what your day job is, you are clearly not entering the internet space with anything like authenticity and honesty and thus you are getting the results you deserve. Either stop behaving like this or deal with the fallout, which is (as you’ve noted) basically ostracization.

    There is no way to make what you are doing work. It does not work. In fact, your WP.com blog has already been reported for violating the Terms of Service over this issue. STOP DOING THIS.

    Duh.

  23. Please explain that last statement to me about the “Terms of Service”.

    I don’t know anything about that. I did not read them very well.

    You talk about honesty, but you forget one very important thing. As long as there are scams going on out there, you haven’t “cleaned” up the world by attacking me, you have only stifled a very good idea, which is my formula.

    I am not going to spend any more money on those services.

  24. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re going to spend money at WordPress.com; my concern is that people who buy into scams don’t pollute the statistics and the blog pool here.

    If you didn’t read the ToS before, I suggest you read them now.

    If you haven’t gotten the point, con artists don’t generate legitimate web hits. Legitimate web hits are what is counted here. If you wish non-legitimate web hits, you will have to go somewhere else.

    No-one who pretends to a knowledge of algorithms can be ignorant of the import of these statements: take your spam farm elsewhere.

  25. What you just said right now is in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and you know it down to the core of your being.

    The politics of the world DOES NOT revolve upon what you say it does.

  26. You’re hilarious. The internet was not invented in 1776, moron. Spam and con artists do not enjoy the protection of the Constitution or the Amendments, which is why fraud is punishable by law in the United States. Fraud. Which is what you have engaged in. You have paid for fraud, and you have posted to this forum complaining that your Fraud was not counted as the equal of lawful web views. You’ve done all of this in writing. Congratulations, you are truly the stupidest person I’ve seen online today and that counts Ron Brynaert.

by

A very Mötley Twö

Gzerod Von Staaf

Gzerod Von Staaf has this to say: Too Metal for Motley Crue: my new Willie Nelson-look-alike friend and I both deemed “unacceptable” for a “metal” show. Note our “dangerous and inappropriate” necklaces. I am done with this city.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s what you get for trying to be edgy in placid Victoria, BC. Gzerod Von Staaf (possibly the most metal name I’ve ever heard) is, to no-one’s surprise, the frontman of a band, Staaf Only. His commitment to the heavy metal lifestyle and look is clear from the eyeliner-and-yes-metal-heavy photos on his Facebook page. His popularity is clear from the several thousand Likes he’s collected. He was probably as excited as any fellow musician in the field to have tickets to the Mötley Crue concert in town, and regalia’d himself out appropriately, as you can see in the above instagram. We shall say nothing about instagram not being metal, for we are not a hardass.

Unlike, apparently, the security guard at Save On Foods Memorial Centre (“Memorial?” is it bankrupt or something?). Here is what happened, from a couple of posts on the Motley Crue Facebook page”

Renee LaFortune said, “The rent-a-cops security at Save-on-foods arena in Victoria, BC, would not admit Gzerod Von Staaf to the concert tonight. Not cool.” and garnished it with footage of a truly impressive guitar solo, for bonus cred.

Then on my friend Jodie’s wall, she elaborated on what had happened.

  • It wasn’t the band, nor the arena (or so they tell me), it was a contracted security firm, hired by the arena.
  • Renee LaFortune The ticket money was NOT refunded. Complaints have been filed all over the place.
  • Renee LaFortune note: the above photo was taken outside the arena. The two people (Gzerod and the Willie Nelson look-alike) were denied admittance.

Stephanie Landucci, Von Staaf‘s girlfriend was also apparently denied admittance to the show for dress-code-related reasons, which left her plenty of time to post about it on Facebook and challenge the Crue directly.

Tonight, my boyfriend and I were denied admittance to the Victoria, B.C. concert, based on the fact that he was wearing several chain necklaces. Moments before this occurred, a group of Ed Hardy clad, gold chain sporting coke heads were ushered in with no problem at all.

My boyfriend is a conscientious, law-abiding non-drinker, as well as amazing musician and great admirer of the Crue, yet these partially-literate fucktards, who are the most likely to cause harm, undue violence, drink and drive, and ultimately date rape some girl they meet at the show, are welcomed and encouraged to get drunk. Where is the justice, Crue?

Indeed. If it can’t keep Ed Hardy-wearing douchenozzles out of your show, what the hell kind of dress code is that? Related: I was not there, so I don’t know, but by any chance were the band sporting metal?

Best comment of the night goes to Greg Bulmash: “Motley Crue’s idea of “metal” these days is the iron supplements their nurses give them with their morning porridge.”

by

How to Facebook

How to properly scream

How to properly scream

As I remarked on Facebook earlier today, I really find it impossible to understand the kind of person who goes to Facebook, looks around, and decides “What this place needs is some more photos of executions.” As if it weren’t unpleasant enough, what with all the Its Complicateds and photographs of sub-par risottos and animals with adorable birth defects.

But yeah, if that’s what you really want on your Facebook wall I guess you can put it there. You gotta be you, right? Amirite?