I got one of those dreaded emails tonight that is a list of jokes being forwarded to everyone and their mother. Except this one was pretty funny (the first 10 or so anyway):

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NEWEST AMERICAN BUMPER STICKERS . .

1) (On an infant’s shirt): Already smarter than Bush

2) 1/20/09: End of an Error

3) That’s OK, I Wasn’t Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

4) Let’s Fix Democracy in This Country First

5) If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran

6) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.

7) You Can’t Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Time

8) If You Can Read This, You’re Not Our President

9) Of Course It Hurts: You’re Getting Screwed by an Elephant

10) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?

11) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight

14) America : One Nation, Under Surveillance.

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I can email the entire list to you and your mother if you like. Let me know.

While hanging out at the marina I saw these two guys with there Mahi Mahi catch. I love the difference in expressions between them.

Comments temporarily down back up.

I was in Mexico last week and besides the break from an Iowa winter, I also enjoyed the break from an SUV America. I saw hardly any SUVs on the streets but tons of small cars that I don’t see here in that states. Most notably VW, Ford and Nissan hatchbacks and wagons that were compact but built to utilize interior space well, nevermind their fuel economy.

I’d like to think the lack of an SUV culture in Mexico is due to strict fuel economy standards (like Europe and Japan) but my hunch is a result of a lack of wealth.

If I lived in Mexico it would be a tough choice between the VW Crossfox and a tricked out VW Lupo.

John Edwards made me a contact on Flickr today. Even though making me a Flickr contact is just as easy as sending a form letter; it feels much more personal. I wonder if his team (I assume he doesn’t devote time to this) runs any kind of search before deciding to add someone to his Flickr contacts for all to see?

I’m in Mexico this week. Mosquitos 37 - Willi 0.

The renovation of my house wasn’t consuming enough of my time so I decided to renovate my blog too.

A couple days ago I get a voice mail from the owner of EasyClosets.com. He said he was calling to get feedback on my recent purchase. Later in the day it occured to me that it was unusual for the owner of a company like EasyClosets.com to follow up on an order that was relatively small compared to the amount of business I imagine they do. Then I recalled (and reread) this post I made about EasyClosets.com and assumed that was the reason for the call.

Sure enough after sifting through the server logs I see traffic coming from an East coast IP addresses performing Google searches on “easyclosets”, a search query that ranks this post at #4. This discovery created a dilemma for me - on one hand my post was an honest and good humored retelling of my experience installing my easyclosets, but on the other hand I could sympathize with the dissapointment of a business owner finding themselves faced with being at the wrong end of this blogger’s “humor”. I decided to wait for the owner to call back and listen to his take on the situation. I was considering updating my site to block the spidering of that specific post as a compromise (a quick update to my robots.txt and that post would fall off Google search).

Then today I get this comment from Jen Keenan, replying to my original post “Easy Closets Not Easy”:

The closet actually looks great. I have ordered from them in the past and have been really pleased. You must have known it would take time for this project, that’s why it looks so nice. My sister put a system that took less time but looks cheap (and I ‘m sure will not last) I’m curious as to why you went throgh all the hassle of taking pictures and writing this up only to make note of the fact the the UPS guy was a whiner. As for the directions, they are very clear and similar to instuctions for any product out there. I just bought a small computer desk at staples and it supposedly requires twice as many tools as the ones you describe.

Your site makes me think of a story 20/20 (ABC) ran 3 weeks ago. A guy set up an elaborate website because he was furious a water cooler he had bought didn’t work right and he wanted to let the world know. It turns out he misred the directions and put a filter in backwards. The point was he should have taken the time he took in putting the website together to re-read the instructions and he wouldn’t have had a problem with what really was an excellent product. If you are going to go through the trouble of writing “critiques” about products, you really out to have something solid to say. I’ve had 3 neighbors read your comments (we all used easyclosets) and we still can’t figure out what your point is.

I don’t even know where to begin with this one! The criticisms aimed at my post (and this site) are so bizarrely off target that any tit for tat response seems silly. It almost seems like Jen thinks my site is devoted to my experience with EasyClosets. That’s the only way the comment makes any sense right?

Aside: here’s a link to the 20/20 episode and website Jen is referring to.

The irony in all this is that as I said in my original post I actually like my EasyClosets (and my UPS driver), despite them being an absolute bitch to install. My post was not intended to be a method for deterring people from using EasyClosets, but rather to tell a story of an average joe wrestling with a weekend project. Haven’t we all been there? Despite the intent, the result is that my post has become a thorn in EasyClosets SEO strategy.

So this raises some interesting questions. Is there a difference between posting anticommercials like Jakob Lodwick of Vimeo, and my post? Both poke fun of a product. His is saying *not* to buy a product while mine is making no recommendation either way. Both achieve the same result - they show up high in Google when searching for the specific product and are not flattering. So regardless of intent, is there an ethical responsibility when publishing to the Internet to be mindful of the results of a positive search rank and the effects of that rank on other sites/people/businesses? I’m inclined to say yes, and then ponder the question, what is that responsibility?

Shortly after Apple TV was announced last week I heard three people refer to it as the “Netflix killer”. I’ll be honest, I didn’t like that claim because a) I love Netflix and b) I think iTunes is garbage and am baffled at it’s popularity. Besides my emotional response, I don’t see how the iTunes model can ever compete with the Netflix model ’simply’ on cost, site features and depth of product.

Oh and of course there’s this: Netflix is rolling out their own movie download service starting now. Offering 1,000 titles, quadruple the amount you can get on iTunes for about a fraction of the cost (Netflix is wisely choosing to use their subscription model for movie downloads too).

I stopped drinking Milk in my early twenties and switched to soy milk and then rice milk. I started slowly drinking dairy milk again since it was introduced back into our fridge as part of my daughter’s beverage line. A couple weeks ago my wife brought home a half gallon of organic, non-homogenized milk from ‘Radiance Dairy’ right here in Fairfield.

A couple nights ago I poured a small glass and took a big gulp. The experience was both repulsive and delightful: as I pulled the glass away I could see solid bits of milk in the glass and felt thick pasty bits on my upper lip.

If not for the applause of my taste buds I would have turned to the kitchen sink and gagged out the milk remaining at the back of my throat. I chugged the rest of the glass, poured myself another glass, and chugged that one down too. In fact right now I can feel my mouth getting dry. And I’m not craving my usual staple of filtered water. I want the cold and creamy coat.