The radio's back! With my new officemate came FM 97 and all of their popular music. Such as:

"I Kissed a Girl" - 7:59 AM, 9:19 AM, 1:41 PM & 2:30 PM
"Take a Bow" - 8:12 AM, 9:34 AM, 11:13 AM & 2:01 PM
"Pocketful of Sunshine" - 8:20 AM, 10:04 AM, 11:31 AM & 2:15 PM

The box was cut at 4:00 PM, so I'm sure each hit got another run prior to rush hour. I also could've probably churned out similar data for "Leavin'," "In Love With a Girl," and that lousy, Oldies 96.1 inspired Kid Rock song.

On the flip-side, WLAN does offer a request-a-song feature on their web page (I'm your DJ now, Princey!). I marked the "Closer" checkbox the last two days and they did manage to squeeze in the Ne-Yo tune this afternoon.

Labels: music, work

Months ago: It took awhile, but watching dishes finally became pain-free. However, reviewing monthly statements with a fine-tooth comb is strongly advised. Expect to make some phone calls.

A month ago: Cha-ching! A 15-1 (Charlie Batch = dream-killer) week 17 propelled The Institute Pick'em Frenzy's 10th ranked entrant all the way to the top of the final standings. He is I and I am him, slim with a tilted brim.

A few weeks ago: Corporate structure shake-up at the Institute. Marketing's top dog tabbed fall guy. Domino effect?

A week ago: You know, this '08 Bushisms page-a-day calendar was a clutch gift from MJ. Sure they've been around for a few years, the Bushisms become poetry knowing this is W's final year on the job. "First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."

Just days ago: This, That and He Said What? makes it's triumphant return! This semiannual posting craze is sure to catch on.

Yesterday: In a roundabout way, a sister school is claiming that they're sitting more students because their web site is (intentionally?) crappy. If they had a well-designed, easily navigable web site, so goes the argument, prospective students wouldn't be frustrated into calling. Sister please! (Noss-ism?)

Today: There wasn't a trace of ice on my morning commute until I started down that hill on Little Creek Road. Suddenly, my brakes wouldn't catch and I was flying, veering to the left and to the right, seemingly out of control. There was a pick-up off-road by the stars-and-stripes barn and a fellow on the other side of the road waving his arms frantically, then bailing as my swerving sport wagon barreled closer. I was going too fast and the road was too slick to turn off into an open field. A car was at the bottom of the hill, astutely peeling off onto the nearest driveway. I zipped by that car as Little Creek began to finally level off. My speed lowered and my brakes finally caught. Eeeewwwwwhat a rrrrush! A rush I hope to never experience again.

Labels: Dish, MJ wants to be on my blog more, nfl, road-trips, work

Speech quirks are generally cool. But when an individual's quirkiness spreads like wildfire and becomes common lingo within a greater body politic, it's time to squash the quirk.

Case in point, IT's love affair with "straw man," their VP/Chief Officer's vocal treasure. Considering it's intention to foster discussion and argument, straw man's often an appropriate phrase choice. But now everything is a straw man: a list of meeting attendees; a staff brainstorming session; a working copy of a site's navigational tree.

My underlying problem with this newfound lexicon is that I used to draw Straw Man. My illustrations of a pin-striped, overbiting ol' #18 were seemingly well received... "nice Straw Man." Did they like my Strawberry or were they looking to start an argument? Were my depictions of an unorthodox leg-kick perceived merely as a flawed, unpolished first attempt? I don't know... I'm just throwing it out there... as a straw man.

Labels: rants, work

Happy Constitution Day everyone! Now playing on the Instutute's campus monitors is the U.S. Constitution in its most unthinkable format - a powerpoint slideshow chock full of bullet lists, fun facts and Pepsi Can-ized US Flag graphics. I've been bewildered by the I's fuss over this holiday, but as usual, Wiki clears things up:

The law establishing the holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an
amendment by Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004. Before
this law was enacted, the holiday was known as "Citizenship Day". In addition to
renaming the holiday "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day," the act mandates
that all publicly funded educational institutions provide educational
programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day. In May
2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any
kind.

Why should the kids have all the fun? Here's your Constitution Day Cookout primer:

• First off, allow yourself plenty of travel time as traffic will no doubt be heavy. It's never polite to arrive late, or worse, pull a Rhode Island.
  
  
• It'll come up for sure, so dig deep and allow that pesky Preamble to resurface. I'll get you started: "We the people..." ...lost yet?
  
  
• Be ready to rule on "friendly discussions" with authority by packing a Pocket Constitution.
  
  
• If you're doing the grilling, cut your patties thin to keep your guests from waiting too long for their burgers. After all, you're cooking beef, not framing the Constitution! (101 days)
  
  
• Finally, party in style with your favorite Constitution Day tee. May I recommend "The Second Ammendment?"

Labels: holidays, work

An $85 entry fee normally ends any conversation of me jumping in an office pool. But I've been struggling to get to know people at the Institute and thought this might serve as an excellent talking point. Plus, with over 40 participants, there are plenty of weekly and seasonal opportunities to recoup lost funds. And what's great is that there are no point spreads - just pick the winners straight up and let the chips fall where they may. Okay, I'm in. Now who's running this thing...

IT.

Ugh. Let me guess, there's a database app to manage the pool that looks like it was built in 1992. Check. Ooh and I bet a shortcut to this eyesore will conveniently appear on my Citrix app panel based on my log-in credentials. Check. Surely they came up with a clever name for this operation... what?!? Frenzy? Nooooo!!!



I am off to a nice start having pocketed 15 singles in week one and am currently tied with a few others atop the leaderboard. But no matter how well I fare as the season progresses, I'll still only be as imaginative as an IT guy. Bleh.

Labels: work

I'm often asked how work's going and rarely offer much of a response. My reticence isn't due to the fact that it's not going well though. In fact, much to the contrary say these recent emails:

Bill Walton's mastery of hyperbole is more than welcome during any NBA broadcast. Various co-workers' unwitting insertion of the same into my mailbox... not so much. Multiple exclamation points, smiley faces - what I really think when I get a few of these within the span of a day or two is that there is some kind of inside joke going on and the Instituters are just having fun with me. Brilliant? I converted a series of HTML pages into a PDF document.
Awesome? I uploaded a word file to our web site to override the outdated version. I rock? Cool.

By the way, can you take exclamation points and smiley faces into a performance review? "Sir, as evidenced by correspondences saved in my Exclamations and Smileys Outlook folders, I've accrued 427 exclamation points and 88 smiley faces over the last fiscal year. Need we really discuss 'being a team player' and 'future challenges?!?'" ☺

Labels: rants, work

As my week without an office-mate winds down, so does my Rose Radio independence. Pandora, it's been a blast:

Old Man was right...
The best thing about Pandora is exploring/discovering new music. I've also realized that I'm much more receptive to discovering new music while listening at work, since solid background sound is the main objective and singing along to familiar tunes ain't happening. I took the most artist/song notes (Palmer would be proud) while listening to my Kaskade Radio and Consequence Radio stations. The former for some house stuff, the latter for some bearable contemporary rap.

Most appropriate track...
"Busy Doing Nuthin" was played yesterday on my Special Ed Radio station. We know this simply as a Biz Mark album cut from the early 90's, but the Genome knows it as:

Features Of This Song
east coast rap roots
swingin' beats
consistent rhyme patterns
clean lyrics
acoustic drum samples
an electric bass riff
prominent horns
the heavy use of funk samples
a dry recording sound
thin orchestration
lyrics by a famous rap artist
These are just a few of the hundreds of attributes cataloged for this song by the Music Genome Project.

Poppin' the hood...
The only list letdown I experienced was my 3rd Force Radio station. Looking to smooth things out a little, this didn't quite peg my brand of jazz. I wish you could pop the Genome's hood and take a look at some checkboxes. Since most level-headed music fans dig thick orchestration, what if "thin orchestration" in the above features list could be unchecked to further refine your station's mix?

Speaking of the Genome...
Isn't creating a New Edition playlist like giving the Genome a day off? If I create Keith Sweat Radio will all the songs be sung through a pinched nose? Is there a group putting more stress on the Genome attributes database than the Beastie Boys?

I miss the wrap...
Pandora's design used to feature full-site ad-wraps, which I actually liked. These were usually appealing designs that would refresh the look-and-feel every few songs. I wonder if their backers pulled given the cloudy future of Pandora and similar sites.

• Pandora
• The Music Genome Project
  
• The only way Flood will consider any of this
  

Labels: music, work

"I'm back."

So it's been about a month since my last post, plenty long enough to be put officially on notice. And I realize that I need to make a splash if I ever hope to regain the readership of my 5 & 1/2 loyals. (That figure might be a reach actually.) With the pressure to deliver staring me down with raised eyebrow, I give you...


... the best icon I've seen on the worldwide during my hiatus! Isn't this a great "Contact Us" icon? Sure this features an obvious means of communication, but IntelliContact managed to use a phone style that's familiar in the real-world, but uncommon as an icon. I say a job well done IC.

Won't you agree?

Labels: props, web design, work

First off, the pretentious chef thing. I may have touched on it briefly in the past, but this issue really got under my skin after reading an email recently from a co-worker. In an announcement about an upcoming culinary event, references to Chef This Guy and Chef That Guy were aplenty. And to top it off, the email was signed by program director Chef Firstname Lastname. The funny thing is, when I first started working here at the Institute, the emailer was in the position of Admissions Director, known simply as Firstname Lastname.

Now I'm going to venture a guess that at least 99.5% of all people past and present know or have known how to cook food. I mean, it's so easy a caveman could do it. Therefore, I reason that doing something professionally that everyone else can do on at least some level is not worthy of a title. In other words... get over yourselves! Identifying the taste of paprika is a far cry from detecting coronary artery narrowing. And another thing... I'll take a Chick (with no pick) over Seared Tuna with Dueling Pepper Coulis everyday!

I think I'll stay in my Inbox for a second as it leads me to my next victim: an old English teacher. Let me tell you something Outlook spellchecker, I know how to spell Monta Ellis' name. He's not Monty. He's not Monte. He's Monta. The red squiggly line under his name reminded me of a paper I wrote in 8th grade about Isiah Thomas. The teacher circled the name in red and wrote "Isaiah" next to it. My '90/'91 Hoops cards must have conflicted with the Bible or something. Bottom line Mrs. Pitzer... mark-up my paper until your Sharpie runs dry, but don't question my NBA authority and expect me to forget about it (17 years later)!!

While we're talking spelling, let's jump into the dictionary. Since coming across The Situationist web site, I've found many of their posts and articles interesting. To keep things straight, I need a dictionary handy and my preference is www.m-w.com. Yo Merriam, Webster, what's up with including defined words in their definitions? In no way have you helped me make sense of "disinhibition." What more do I now know about "heuristics?" Mrs. Pitzer may not know how to attack a 2-3 zone, but she sure knows you can't use a word in its own definition! Turn off Colbert for a few nights and get to defining!!!

Speaking of obnoxious (in this case unintentionally so) on-air personalities, I had the misfortune of tuning into ESPN Radio this morning on my drive to work. Although I rarely listen, I find Mike & Mike to be likeable hosts, but it seems that even they cannot escape the sports-talk agenda. How in the world, with Spring Training right around the corner and so many fans craving their peanuts and crackerjack, can Roger Clemens' situation be such a headliner story deserving detailed analysis?!? It's a simple story that we've seen unfold before. It's older than the On-Star hotline guest delivering the insight. We don't care.

My use of ESPN.com parallels my use of ESPN Radio... you try to stay away for the most part, but sometimes you get confused and think it's the best option available. For instance yesterday, when I saw a line about Dennis Johnson passing away. I thought that the WWL would be a decent place to find a good ol' AP release, which was the case. Additionally, ESPN's trend-following user comments section trailed the standard article. The "conversation" for this particular piece highlighted the silly side of Web 2.0's underbelly. Many readers posted comments to the effect of "Even though I'm a huge Lakers fan, RIP DJ." First of all, I don't know what the whole typing RIP into a message board thing does, but how about the "Even though I'm a Lakers fan" themes? Just plain silly. I guess people talk because they think they have to in the virtual world too.

Labels: bunkum, rants, work

8.01%.

That's the percentage of the Institute's site visitors that viewed our site in November on an 800x600 monitor. I have yet to wipe the cringe off my face. At least the number falls to 6.63% when dated back to the beginning of August, when Analytics was applied to our site.

Screen Resolutions in November

1. 1024x768  66.22%
2. 1024x738   9.41%
3. 800x600    8.01%
4. 1280x1024  5.07%
5. 1280x800   3.57%
6. 1152x864   2.04%
7. 1024x742   1.33%
8. 1440x900   1.11%
...
22. 640x480   0.03%

Labels: web design, work

Since moving to a new shared office environment, Warm 103 has become part of my work-day. As usual, my thoughts are random:

Ads in heavy rotation

• The Phil Avillo spot didn't work for the state as much as it worked for me. PA didn't send in a marine.
• The Wawa "wah" pedal thing drives me nuts.
• Sounds like the York Revolution hired the Piston's PA guy to do some voice-work on their ad.

DJ Mix

• West is back in the mornings, Garder takes you from AM to PM and Sten is now on 106.7.
• I think Melanie's playlist is decent - she throws in some good 80's stuff.
• This jury's still out on the afternoon guy.

The Tunes

• It's funny how these Soft Rock stations frequently mix in songs that were on trendier pop stations a year ago... why not just play these kinds of songs when they come out?
• Occasionally they drop a slogan that goes something like "From John Mayer to Phil Collins to Rod Stewart"... thanks for the variety?
• And they're not kidding about Phil Collins - I think I might have to start a spreadsheet on him.
• The Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet is still a station fave. Strangely enough, "cocaine" is not edited out. I guess Contemporary Adults won't go crazy if they hear the word.
  
• For some reason, Tracy Chapman is averaging 1.5 spins a work-day.
• Keep that Ambrosia coming!
  

Today's Trivia

• I'm not terribly proud of this, but I nailed the lunchtime trivia question today. The answer? MacDonald Carey.

Labels: music, rants, work

Finally, after all these years of “consumer injury”, I finally got my money back. Not that I ever asked for my money back, but an unexpected $30 check from the good ol’ FTC is all kinds of fun.

Back in ’96-ish I fell for the classified ad described in the bullet points on this page, and paid $30 (apparently) for the natural “postal test study guide” and “how to get rich off of auctions” combo. I did feel kind of duped at the time and did nothing with the books, thus ending my dream of sorting mail.

And now, about 10 years later, the FTC sends me a check. But don’t think they’re all give and no take. This little parting shot in the letter included with the check threw a little salt on this consumer’s injury:

As a reminder, you never have to pay for information about job vacancies or employment opportunities with the U.S. government or U.S. Postal Service. It is available for free at www.usajobs.com.

Labels: work

It was mentioned during this morning's meeting that San Diego Golf Academy is considered our primary competition in the Golf Course Management market. So I thought I'd check out their site, and Googled them by company name. Obviously, they were right there near the top on the results page, but the same URL appeared as a sponsored link. I spared them a buck and clicked on the standard listing, but a negative keyword addition to their AdWords campaign would remove the possibility of having to pay for a click they would have gotten anyway. Could there be a benefit that I'm overlooking?


How do you get Travis to actually click on a blog title displayed on his start page via RSS? I'm sure something like "Panther Football", "Ricky Gervais", or "Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits" would induce a click. I call them FloodWords. I'm also guessing "AdWords" is a FloodWord.

Labels: web design, work

After many failed attempts, The Institute's newly redesigned web site will be going live Monday at 10am-ish. However, Blah, Blah, Blog has acquired this exclusive sneak preview of the forthcoming design:


Software/Scripts that I'll vouch for:

• Zoom Search Engine - Free version for sites under 50 pages
• Fadeshow Slideshow Script
• DU Gallery - Free image gallery application
• FipsForum - Simple Bulletin Board Application

Labels: web design, work

Everything everyone needs to know about my new job at The Institute...

• Gotta like the title - Internet Marketing Specialist
• Mary J Blige would appreciate my extension - 411
• Having a trash can is extremely convenient
• CampusPortal could save me from a lot of "I can check with a programmer on that."
• This monitor is huge

Labels: work

The official announcement finally came yesterday. Rumors were true and Comcast has purchased SusCom and will become the cable operator in our area. Below is the blurb from today's Multi-Channel Newsday:

Labels: news, work