I am not a big Radiohead fan but I bought the new album because I supported the sales model in principle. I paid a few bucks for it, but nothing close to the current retail price for a CD.

The numbers have been reported for this experiment and a whopping 62% of ‘buyers’ opted to pay NOTHING. Maybe the bulk of these ’sales’ were not fans, but I am pretty sure that some of them are. I am happy with my purchase, by the way. It’s not my wife’s cup of tea so I have only listened to the track a couple of times. I plan to get them on an mp3 player at some point for my airport listening. I think the music is the kind that grows on you.

George W. Bush and John Kerry aren’t going to be too happy about this. I am going to expose the secret of the infamous ‘Skull and Bones Society.’

First I am going to show you the secret hide-out:

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Now for the big secret (drum roll please…)

There is no secret. They are just a group of white rich dudes with a huge collective sense of entitlement. They propagate exclusivity for its own sake. They are like the 19th century version of Mac users, but gayer.

If there’s a bustle in your…

It’s been a long time…

I am going to try to get the jump on as many lyrical tie-ins as possible before all the press gets rolling about the release of Led Zeppelin’s catalog as digital downloads.

Alimony, alimony…

Squeeze my lemon…

Ok, so there probably aren’t that many lyrics that relate well to the event. But that’s not going to stop people from trying.

I don’t know if I am really going to do that title justice in this post. With the attention being paid to my other blog, I have started to feel like I am talking to myself a lot of the time here.

I decided a little while ago to avoid doing most of the advisable things that people do to increase readership. I want to try unique things and wait to see if they work.

I recently got my blog to #1 for the Google query look at my blog. That hasn’t generated much traffic. When I checked to see if I was still there I noticed that the text blurb with my blog link had been updated and I am worried that it might be misconstrued…

I think explosives are a valuable social and emotional outlet in my community.

This was from yesterday and I would like to point out that I was talking about fireworks.

The memes that I take part in over the weekend generate some traffic and I enjoy interacting with the other participants. I really don’t want to pile on a whole bunch of memes though.

My ‘Naked Week’ was fun. That’s the kind of thing that you can only do once in a PG blog.

There are so many blogs on the Internet. There are blogs that I really like that I end up not visiting for weeks because I am too busy with everything else. How can I expect to have a devoted following when I am mostly writing in a way that is meant to amuse myself? I am looking for an actual answer to that question. Anytime I think up an oddball way to draw attention to myself I will give it careful consideration. If I can tailor it to suit societal norms, I will do it.

The phenomenal success of reality tv is spilling over onto the Internet. Check out this wholesome Canadian girl auditioning for a show called The Next Internet Millionaire.

Several episodes have aired already and four contestants have been sent packing. Jaime from Toronto is still hanging in there. Joel Comm is the host and executive producer of this thing. He is a successful internet marketer and the big prize in this contest is a joint venture with him. His experience, connections, and of course CAPITAL, will most likely make the winner of the show very wealthy. Even the losers in this show are learning valuable lessons in marketing. Losing on a reality show is probably less stressful than failing with a startup of your own, and possibly less embarrassing. Most entrepreneurs that are going the conventional route don’t, however, find themselves eating worms.

I often think that people using the Internet should be called browsers. I have a Bachelors Degree in Animal Science, so I am well acquainted with the original meaning of browser. It is an animal that spends much of its waking hours traveling along biting off small selected portions of a number of different plants.

12 years ago, when I looked out my window and saw a white-tailed deer having a bite of the MacIntosh apple tree that the previous homeowner had spent much money on…the voice in my head said “CAN I HELP YOU ?” The imaginary deer voice in my head said “NO THANKS, I’M JUST BROWSING.”

Anyway, I was going to talk about how we often skip over and miss some very good bits of the Internet as we are browsing. The thing I noticed today for the first time was Google Books. I don’t know how I managed to be oblivious to it up until today.

Ask.com is a fundamentally different search engine. I would try to go into detail about how it is different from Google, except for one thing. Nobody except Google really knows how Google works.

Ask.com claims to put the best items first. The quality of being the best is calculated using a complex algorithm that certainly has the potential of more accurately measuring relevance.

I have Googled myself far too many times, but I have never Asked myself. It’s about time I did…

When I use my full name as a search query on Ask.com I cannot seem to find anything that I have ever done on the first 15 pages. I gave up after that. When I Google my full name, this blog is the fifth item on the first page. The about page for my business blog is number nine.

Clearly, Ask.com and Google are very different. If I accept the claim by Ask.com that they provide a more accurate ranking of relevance, I have to conclude that I myself am irrelevant. I think there was a computer on StarTrek (It was made out of a lava lamp and some construction paper) that exploded after considering a situation like this. I couldn’t find any support for my sense of self importance in the image or news search either.

‘:-)’

Reportedly, the standard text smiley face was first used 25 years ago, tomorrow.

I have been using them very sparingly myself just in case they turn out to be a non-renewable resource. The creator of the smiley has a very engaging smile IRL, LOL

Some of the flaws that scammers exploit are greed, lust, vanity…you know those deadly sins.

Of course there are also those that appeal to our sympathy and compassion under false pretenses. Those are the ones that I hate the most. Unlike the ones that are appealing to your greed, you can’t be mean to them because there is always that remote chance that they are telling the truth.

I recently received a very interesting attempt in my comments. It would have been fairly convincing if I didn’t have some rudimentary knowledge of economics and international trade.

No, the title of my blog is not the cute mispronunciation of spaghetti by some toddler, pagefetti is a design embellishment that you can use to bedazzle people who come to your web page or blog.

Webfetti is a customization tool that can makes things like Layouts, Generators, Glitter Graphics and Music Skins easy to accomplish by almost anyone.

I commented recently about how teenage girls were tricking out their Blogger blogs to have an appearance and function similar to that of a MySpace page. With a bit of critical thinking, I realized that they probably all attended schools that had blocked MySpace. Some of them may be living in countries that block MySpace. Pagefetti is compatible with Myspace, Hi5, Blogger and Zwinky pages.

You can get glittery graphics like this to place wherever you think it will make the most impact.

I recently drew some criticism from a fellow blogger for not doing anything to customize the boring template that I use for this blog. I have to admit that it is true that some readers do not stay long if they don’t see a custom template that reflects the writer’s personality.

Plain default IS my personality. Right at this moment, I am wearing a plain black tee shirt with nothing printed on it whatsoever. I do not have any glitter or confetti strewn around my work station. I don’t even have a single bobble-head.

But everyone is unique and the millions of teenage girls that use Myspace, Hi5, Blogger and Zwinky all need to be able to put every one of these flashy, cute decorative elements on their pages. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to be the only kid in your class that wasn’t unique.