Why you are not as awesome as a dog

http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1321
Awesome

New Video for Cooperstown Lodging

I put up my first video for http://cooperstownlodging.com today. There will be more to come. In the future there will be background music in all new vids. So check it out on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHEv6HrFJY

Best Pizza Restaurants in Oneonta, NY

Just added my personal favorite for Best Pizza Restaurants in Oneonta, NY to http://www.squidoo.com/oneontapizza-ny
Of course it's Mama Nina's!

Worst Rock Lyrics Ever Challenge

Had a bad night of no sleep, with some terrible lyrics stuck in my head last night. "Ten Years After"s "I'd Love to Change the World" (Please, god, make it stop! Make it stop!) So I spent another night on the web researching the worst lyrics of classic rock history. Got any personal "worsts?" Leave 'em in a comment.  (Oldies don't count because they were too early to be in the era of self-absorbed songwriting, and anything from 1980 and beyond was already effectively dead and rotting since the disco era and whatever followed). So let's say from The Day the Music Died (Buddy Holly's death on February 3, 1959, to when John Lennon died (1980).

Keep in mind this only means lyrics. "Worst Performances of All Time," such as William Shatner singing(?) "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" will have to wait for another time. (Damn, just thinking of that made me throw up in my mouth.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2nFE_kuyeA

A joyous seasonal ditty that should warm the cockles of your heart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/sarah-palins-favorite-com_b_787936.html

Sarah may be an ignoramus - but at least she's consistent about it!

Absolutely brilliant, concise piece on procrastination. Drop what you're doing and read it now.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/10/11/101011crbo_books_surow...

Happy Birthday Robert Louis Stevenson

Wrote, among many other things, "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "Treasure Island", and "A Child's Garden of Verses". Was friends with J.M. Barrie, (my favorite author) author of "Sentimental Tommy", "the Little White Bird" and one that you might know - "Peter Pan" (although I like his novelized version, "Peter and Wendy" much, much better.
Tonight, let's raise a glass of Scotch to a great Scotsman, Robert Louis Stevenson!

Google adwords slapping us silly

Anybody else been slapped by google adwords recently? Apparently there is an unresolved bug that started about two weeks ago, demolishing quality scores and raising minimum bid rates, sometimes up to 1000%.

It started on EXACTLY the same day that I took over the adwords campaign for a great new client. It's causing us a lot of anxiety because this is the high season for her service, and we're getting hammered by it.

If anyone out there in my circle knows anyone who's been affected, or has any "ins" with adwords gurus, please get in touch with me, OK? I'm putting out feelers everywhere.

If you've had this problem and have no "ins," contact me anyway. If I get some answers, I'll gladly pass them on to you.
Spoly-oly,
Foley

Waiting for the shot...

This ia about my twentieth visit to this eye surgeon to find out that the hell is wrong with my right eye. Getting my third injection right into the eyeball. Oh, boy! I've been here since 11 AM waiting, getting one little exam after the other, one new machine after the next. Nice to get the attention, but it's been 2 freakin' hours! Glad they have T1 internet service here in the hospital, so I can work on some adwords and other strategies for a client.
Glad Mimi's here to drive me home. Can't drive too well after a shot in the eye, eh?

Dumb Things Americans Believe - Newsweek

via newsweek.com

We also believe we have the best schools in the world.

Macintosh Users Group of Oneonta (MUGOne) meeting tonight

Like the first Wednesday of every month for the last ten years (except for maybe twice), I'm off to the MUGOne meeting. 
Today we're getting a lecture about some of the hidden features of iLife '11. I'm psyched. 

Mimi and I got a new MacBook Pro last week, and we're loving it.

My Open letter to Congressman Michael Arcuri of NY, who just lost to his Republican Challenger...

I just sent this letter off to Congressman Michael Arcuri's office. He just lost to Mark Hanna (one of the more reasonable Republicans concerning the threat that natural gas drilling represents for NY).

Dear Congressman,

Sorry about your loss. You were very graceful in your treatment of Mark Hanna, and I think that serves you well. I'm hoping he won't be a total loss, and he'll keep up your work concerning fracking.

I'm sure there are members of your re-election team whom you can legitimately thank for their work. On the other hand...

Every member of your re-election team that I spoke to was instrumental in your loss. I've never seen a more arrogant, ignorant bunch of counter-productive losers.

Let me explain - I was contacted by phone by a young person who will remain unnamed. He wanted me to join in making calls and going door-to-door.

I know that those things are very important, but not everyone likes to be contacted that way, and not every volunteer should be focusing on only those things.

I said I would be willing to help, because I am a search engine optimization consultant, and know how to reach people on the Internet, and make voices heard In a 21st century way.

The person who called me had absolutely no idea of what I was talking about. He said, “We have a communications person doing that.”

He missed the point entirely. You also have people manning the phones, but he wanted more people to do that. That is correct. For a good social networking campaign, you need more than one “communications person,” too.

I tried to explain this to the caller, and in a very offhand manner he repeatedly pooh-poohed the idea, repeatedly asking me to make phone calls, although I repeatedly said, “I don't want to annoy people in their homes.”

I know the traditional theory is phone calls and door-knocking, but relying on those methods alone is why you lost the election.

Finally, I fairly had to cajole this person to meet me in person so I could convince him of the value of what I could have offered you. He was very unreceptive, but begrudgingly made an appointment with me for a few days later at your headquarters in Oneonta.

When I showed up for the meeting, he didn't. I left a note on the locked door at the office, saying I would return in half an hour. When I did, the office was still locked, and he wasn't there.

So I left a note with my phone number. He didn't even have the common courtesy to call me later.

This was not an isolated case. When you came to speak, with Mario Cuomo, in Oneonta, I talked to a woman on your staff, and once again offered help with your Internet campaign. She told me to talk to the same person who had called me and stood me up for the meeting!

I told her that I found that person basically useless, and it was pretty imperative that your people get on the ball, because you are having a terrible time reaching students, and that I could help.

The woman looked at me disdainfully, and obliviously stated that they were doing a good job reaching students. I looked around the room, and mentioned to her that there was not a single student in the crowd. She gave me a resentful look, and that was that.

No wonder Jon Stewart has a segment on the, “Daily Show,” called something like, “How will the Democrats fuck it up for themselves this time?”

It was really disheartening to see the young members of your staff repeating the mistakes that Democrats have made over and over.

Howard Dean must be in his 60s, and has more on the ball concerning modern communication than your young supporters. I'm in my 50s, and when I left after your speech in Oneonta, a row of shiny young Michael Arcuri staff members were greeting people. I took that one last opportunity to mention to them that there wasn't a single student present for you or Mr. Cuomo, and they really needed to work on getting the college vote out.

One of them said, “We are doing that already,” as the other staff members looked on vacuously.

There is no hope for the intentionally ignorant. I just didn't expect to see so many of them on your staff.

A few days later I got a call from someone on your staff asking me if I would make phone calls and go door to door for your campaign!

They're doing a, “heckuva job.”

I wish you much success in anything you choose to do in the future, but if you want to enjoy the success, you're going to have to jettison some of the chaff on your staff.

The bright side is, I have met Mark Hanna, and he seems like a decent man, and if we can believe what he says, it seems like he is against the invasion of the natural gas industry.

Good luck Mr. Arcuri, and all the best to you.

Sincerely,

Brian Foley

The Triumph of the Stupid

Yeah, they hate big government, but they want the government to give them jobs. They praise responsibility, yet it's the fer'ners who they blame for their lack of a job.
Buncha' whiney hypocritical idiots voting against their own interests. And they have the nerve to call themselves patriots and pretend they are restoring some kind of honor.
Not exactly America's finest hour.
Although I feel bad for Christine O'Donnell ever since that house landed on her sister.

Cooperstown Trip

Thought I had a meeting with a client today, but it turns out it's tomorrow. So while I was up in the area I had lunch in Cooperstown. Nice day for a drive.

8 Nasty Conservative Lies About the Democrats and Obama That Must Be Debunked Before the Election | News & Politics | AlterNet

Advertisement

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.

Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.

Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.

Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.

Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.

Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.

Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.

Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.

Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

This stuff really matters.

If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.

If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.

• 1
• 2
• Next page »

View as a single page

via alternet.org

This is pretty easy stuff to understand. But if your frustration and impotent rage make you proud to be "mad as hell," you can't be in a state of mind to understand these simple facts.

Charlie Chaplin's "Proof" of Time Travel

Which really only proves that what you see/read on the internet has about as much truth as what you read truck-stop bathroom wall.

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

The question posed by “The Daily Show” on Wednesday is whether a political satirist loses credibility when hobnobbing with a sitting president.

via nytimes.com

Credibility as what? He's still a comedian, and still funny, still political, and still a satirist. If Obama had come on as an idiot with something Stewart could have hilariously skewered (think Palin, Beck, Bachmann, O'Donnel, et naseum), he would have done so. But if someone is presenting a reasonable case reasonably, what do people want, doodie-head humor? (Well, maybe...)

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia

The question posed by “The Daily Show” on Wednesday is whether a political satirist loses credibility when hobnobbing with a sitting president.

via nytimes.com

Credibility as what? He's still a comedian, and still funny, still political, and still a satirist. If Obama had come on as an idiot with something Stewart could have hilariously skewered (think Palin, Beck, Bachmann, O'Donnel, et naseum), he would have done so. But if someone is presenting a reasonable case reasonably, what do people want, doodie-head humor? (Well, maybe...)

adwords

Working on the adwords account for a new client I got on Monday. I'm loving this. Wish I'd been into computers when I was younger.

Nuts on a Bus

These guys are brilliant!

Happy Anniversary, Mike Doonesbury!

Today is the 40th anniversary of Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" column.

In about 1985 Trudeau took a sabbatical, and I realized how much I missed him. I was living in Germany for my fifth year, and was jonesing for the States. When he returned in a year, I decided that I'd cut out each strip (usually from the International Herald Tribune) and save them.

For 25 years, I've been faithfully saving them in plastic bags. I have thousands and thousands of them in my basement. Don't know why. it's gotten so that I can't function until I've saved today's "Doonesbury."

Just listened to a nice, but short, interview of Trudeau on NPR.

I hope he keeps it up for another 40 years!

Google adwords

I spent all day honing my google adwords chops. I've used adwords before on my own websites, now I can't wait to help clients with it!

What a day

What a rotten day. Mimi's had a stomach flu all day. I feel so bad for her. No relief for about 20 hours, although it may be subsiding now. On top of that our freakin' toilette broke in the middle of the night last night. I had to replace the intake pipe and the fill valve. Once they were fixed, the flapper started leaking. What timing! So I had to make a second trip into town (another 30-mile round trip) to get a flapper. Luckily I got two, because the first one didn't fit.

Naturally the instructions for the valve installation were written in Elbonia or somewhere. God, tech writers need to be publicly caned.

What ever plumbers charge, they're worth it!

But Granma to the rescue. I called her to say hi, and she told me to go out and get pepto bismol. Look like "Dr. Gussie" was right. Thanks, Grandma.

Cheap plastic crap for less...

Mimi got a stomach virus in the middle of the night. At the same time, our toilet refill valve broke. What a night! I had to wait till 8 am to get a replacement valve, and then, as usual, had to wrestle with the moronically incomplete instructions.

After we lynch the folks who are responsible for the economic melt-down, we ought to go after the mother-f**kers who write technical instructions.

Wicked River

My copy of Lee Sandlin's "Wicked River" arrived today. I'm psyched. Wish I had more time to actually read it this week, but a skimming whetted my appetite even more. The cover is awesome. Makes me want to pack a case of Steamboat 88 cards and head to a game of whist on a paddlewheeler.
http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-River-Mississippi-When-Last/dp/0307378519/ref=sr...

Help me before I procrastinate again...

http://www.mathmojo.com/chronicles/2007/05/29/the-wayback-machine/

Lions and Tigers and Bears, not quite!

On the way to the truckstop on Rt. 88 where I go every now and then to use their broadband connection (we can't get DSL up our road, and the satellite connection isn't good enough for huge downloads) I saw the following animals along our road:
rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, groundhogs and deer. Thank goodness skunk season is over! But that was just along a two-mile stretch.
I love living here. When I got back home I saw my two golden retrievers and a fox (my wife.) This is heaven.

... and then came the hail...

After we got our first snow, it warmed up enough for it to melt. But then we got hail! Not as big as last month's large marble-sized missiles, but hail, nonetheless.
Tonight's forecast - frogs!

"Buying Democracy - One Race at a Time"

Just got this from MoveOn.org:

http://www.republicorp.us/

"Buying Democracy - One Race at a Time"

Very well-done send-up of how the government is being subverted by people who claim to want freedom, but simply want to sell our to a different master.

It's freakin' snowing!

It's snowing! Oct 22 and it's coming down heavy. I don't think it will stick, but it's kind of depressing that the fall is pretty well over. I love the autumn. I like winter, too, but only when I know there's going to be tons of snow that sticks, so I can go cross-country skiing and take the dogs along in the hills around here.

DEC commissioner Pete Grannis fired

Just posted this at the OtegoNY.com blog about the newest development in the predatory natural gas industry's threat to New York State:
http://otegony.com/dec-commissioner-pete-grannis-fired

New Client

Got a new client for my Upstate Business Websites today. I love making sites for local business. Never thought I'd ever be into selling and marketing, but it really is fun. You get to know so much about your town.

Last week I got a my vet as a client. He is one of the few vets in this part of the country who does a new surgery technique to repair canine knee injuries. So now I'm becoming an expert on the anatomy of dogs' knees!

The site is still under construction, but you can check it out at http://caninekneesurgery.com

This vacuum sucks!

I spend two hours in the morning, from 7 - 9 am, taking apart my old Hoover TurboPower 5000 canister vacuum, in order go repair the cord reel. You know - the one that reels the cord back into the machine. Checked online for repair manuals (none) hints on how to do it (no good ones) and called Hoover customer service (they don't have tech support). No avail. I took the damned thing apart and fiddled with the mechanism for two lousy, dusty hours. Cleaned it, oiled it, tried to somehow wind it tighter.
Nuthin'.
At 9 AM I called the first repair shop to open in the morning. 60 miles away. The guy was nice, and told me those things can't be repaired. Gotta' buy a new unit, and it's $60. Probably $20 for shipping. No labor, as I can install it myself. But you know the deal - it will either be defective when I get it, or it will work fine and some other part will explode next week.
Time for a new vacuum.
Planned obsolescence - The American Way.

Best Pizza Restaurants in Oneonta NY

via squidoo.com

I just put this site up about Pizza in Oneonta.

http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2010/10/why-the-_____s-hate-the-____s.html

Why the _____s Hate the ____s

And now, the post that renders all other posts unnecessary: Gerber and Schwarz's timeless all purpose fill-in-the-blank list that explains why the ______s hate the ______s:

1. They stole our _______!

2. At the Battle of _______ in the _______ Century, they used unfair tactics to defeat us. We cannot rest until the souls of our dead are avenged.

3. Their religion is absurd. Offensive, really—did you know they actually believe __________? And they won't be happy until EVERYBODY believes it!

4. While it's not "politically correct" to say so, science has proven them to be _______.

via andrewhammel.typepad.com

It never ends...

Country Craft Supplies

CountryCraftSupplies.com (formerly Farmandfield.net) provides many resources for your country and decorative crafts projects.

You’ll find many interesting and useful articles to use as accessories to your homemade crafts ideas.

We have an on-going collection of dried cultivated and wild vegetation mostly produced and/or gathered from the Leatherstocking region of Upstate New York near Cooperstown since 1999.

A number of our items are organically grown and can also be recycled (in compost) rather than be added to the waste stream.

Gift Certificates are available and we encourage barter proposals.

Bookmark, share or print this page:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Edit

via countrycraftsupplies.com

This is a site I recently put up for a client/friend. I think he has a great Idea for providing country craft materials for art-and-crafts projects. Good stuff for Halloween and Thanksgiving, too.

Just how Awesome is it?

It's so awesome, that it defies description. But I'll try...

I've set this site up to share some of the things I've found interesting on the web and elsewhere with people I think who can benefit from it.