The Dolphin Picture!

Thanks to Josh, I now have the dolphin picture that I was referring to in a previous post.



Here's the full scoop. Scientific research showed that children can't recognize certain erotic scenes. Instead they see 9 dolphins.

On the other hand, an adult's mind is rather "corrupted" so an adult person may have problems spotting the 9 dolphins at first glance. AND if you have trouble spotting dolphins in the first 6 seconds, then your mind is heavily corrupted, and you are seriously obsessed with sex!

I can only see 8 dolphins. I wonder what that means. Maybe I am going blind or something.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 16

Yep, it's that time again. Time for another edition of "What I found in my email" Monday.

I got this email earlier today and you could probably call it "Why Women Live Longer - Part 2."

A while back I posted some pictures that I received about men doing stupid things. Both in today's post and in this one, we can probably add the topic of on-the-job safety to the conversation. Today I got a whole new batch of images from my sister-in-law pertaining to these very topics. In the email, she said that she could see her husband (my brother-in-law) in every one of these.


I don't even know what to say.


Simply AWESOME! A hay bale scaffolding, complete with stabilizing boards.


How did he get up there?


Must not have had that far to go.


What's safer? Rocks or posts?


"I'll be fine, I can see through the little holes."


"You'll be fine Jimmy. Them there are treated logs."


All anyone ever needs is a little help from your friends.


What's with the buckets?


YES, Stack 2 ladders! Great Idea.

So there you have it. More great moments in man history, captured on film to be remembered in perpetuity. Have a great week everyone!

 

Online Ad Spending Is Up - No Kidding?

Is it really any shock to hear that Internet advertising is up again this year?

For the 8th consecutive year, the number of dollars spent on Internet advertising has again gone up. In fact, the amount of money that advertisers spent on Internet related ads was the leading increase with 18.9% more than any other media category increase according to Nielsen. The next closest thing to the Internet was national magazines with only a 7.6% increase.

Newspaper advertising has shown a steady decline year after year and in a post about the impact of the Internet on newspapers I wrote almost a year ago, I asked the question; "will we see the death of a media in our generation?" Again, there was a decline in newsprint ad revenue which equaled over 7.5% which is up from last year's 5% decrease.

The one big surprise for me in 2007 was the increased dollars that are being spent on outdoor advertising. Normally when I hear outdoor I immediately think of traditional billboards. Now there are these fancy new-fangled digital billboards that have the capability of switching out the message very quickly to accommodate sales or whatever may be an immediate and time sensitive call to action. I have noticed that companies are also spending more money on things like vehicle wraps. From city buses to company cars, this too can be considered outdoor advertising.

According to Forrester Research, online spending is expected to hit $204 Billion, this year. Yes I said billion. The 3 big "C's" are going to continue to dominate the online market; clothes, computers and cars. The 3 of those combined will account for over 1/3 of all online sales or $70 billion.

Here's another interesting tid-bit from the recent surveys. Free shipping, a big draw in past is garnering less interest on both the consumer and the retailer levels. With the increase in ad AND consumer spending, we may see free shipping go bye bye for a while. However, I do think that it will surface frequently. After all the .99 cents or 99 dollars on almost all consumer goods has never gone away.

One last fact about demographics and online behavior and then I will leave you to your day.

"The casual shopper goes online to look for the best price, leveraging the transparency of the Internet to save money. However, more affluent customers appreciate the convenience of shopping online and are not necessarily looking for the best deal. Retailers would be wise to recognize there are significant opportunities within both audiences and should market to them accordingly." Via Forrester

Yeah, I still think this Internet thing is a fad. You'll have to pry my CB radio from my cold dead hands.

 

The Chow Is Giving Away 10,000 Entre Creds!

I have been trying to pick and choose what contests I enter lately so as not to consume my posting with entries. However, here is one that's somewhat worthy of your attention.

John Chow, or the guy I affectionately refer to as, The Big Cheese is running a contest that I thought I had better enter. He is giving away 10,000 Entrecard credits and since I am an Entrecard member this is worth the entry. AND for those of you who don't have any idea who I am talking about, Mr. Chow is one of a few top ranked bloggers and he makes a TON of Money doing it.

John posts his earnings every money and right now he is making about $30,000.00 per month doing nothing more than blogging. Well, it's a little more involved than that but it's still a big chunk of change.

Signing up for Entrecard will definitely toss some traffic your way. Entrecard and SiteHoppin continue to send me a significant amount of traffic every month.

Anyway, all you have to do is post about the contest and cross your fingers.

I wonder...Hmmmm. Now that I have linked to John Chow with the anchor text of "The Big Cheese" I wonder how many other links it would take to have the him index well when the big cheese is searched. Who's up for a little experiment?

Good luck everyone.

 

The Winner Of The March $100

Here it is, the moment you have been waiting for. We can now finally announce our March winner. This month, the winning entry came in the form of a comment posted on GorillaSushi.com.

After gathering up all 1,740 entries, we drew our seed numbers and averaged them to find the winning entry, which was entry #606. That entry belongs to diggnfordiamonds.com. Who will be getting $100 cold, hard PayPal from me as soon as he or she replies to my email.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering where your hundred bucks is, right? Keep entering and we’ll keep handing out money. April is already half over, so we’re gonna give out another wad of cash in just a few weeks.

TIP: The posts people make about the contest usually make up around half of the entries. Write a post about the contest and drastically increase your odds of winning.

This prize was provided by:
- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- Jason Boom
- Mr Javo

Thanks to everyone for participating. Good luck this month.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 15

Better late than never right? Quite a few of you were wondering what was going on. Nothing tragic I assure you, I've just been swamped. Thanks for your notes of concern and comments of care, especially you Brenda!

I know it is a day late and this is the second week in a row that the "What I found in my email" Monday post is getting put up on Tuesday. I think I'm back on track now.

Without further delay, I give you "BAD LOGOS."

Now, most of these I have see before and have been around the net a LOT. However since one of my most popular posts of all time is an article that I wrote about bad logos, this will fit right in.
Some of these may be intentional (like these designers) but in my "happy place" I like to think that the artists were completely clueless when it comes to the examples shown below.











Here's a question for you. Could it be possible that there is nothing wrong with any of these? Is it our dirty minds? I saw a picture once where it looked like bunch of people having sex. But once you read the text, it said that it was a picture of dolphins according to any child that looks at it. Evidently, the children are uncorrupted and can not see the sexual images. For the life of me, I couldn't find the picture anywhere.

I guess it is a question of perspective.

Thanks again for being a part of The Big Bald Blog! Have a great week everyone!

 

Don't You Just Love Spam?

I have certain customers that love to sign up for "free offers" on the internet with their primary email address. About a week after they sign up for the "once in a lifetime deal", I get a call and listen to the woes of a person afflicted with self imposed "spamalotis." Yes I just made that up. Spamalotis is not really a word, but I bet The Big Bald Blog will index really well for it in a few days. But I digress.

Most of the time, I explain to them that all it takes is for their email address to get on one list, and it's all downhill from there. It seems like common sense but here are some things that you can do to avoid getting spam.

Don't take any "free IQ tests." This one seems to be the inbox killer that most people fall for. If you HAVE TO provide your email address to complete an online transaction or you want to sign up for something, USE AN ALTERNATE EMAIL. Go get yourself a Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail and use that email every time you are required to provide an email address. Save your primary email address for professional correspondence.

ITnews reports that a new spam site is found every 3 seconds. "New figures suggest that 92.3 percent of all email sent globally during the first three months of 2008 was spam." Yes you read that right. 92.3% of all the email sent was spam. Wow, what a staggering amount. "The data from the study also indicated that 23,300 new spam-related web pages were created every day during the period, or one about every three seconds."

I have a discussion board on another site and I always thought it was strange that I got a ton of spammy sign-ups from .ru domains. The ITnews report also said that, "...the number of spam messages sent from compromised Russian computers has more than doubled over the past year.

In the first quarter of 2007, Russia was in tenth position in the chart, relaying just three per cent of the world’s spam. Today this figure stands at 7.4 percent."

There are all kinds of free spam killer options out there as well as ones you pay for, but the more you protect your primary email address the better off you will be.

 

Keywords That Led To You

Just for fun, every month when I look at my stats I take a look at the complete list of key words/phrases that I have been found with and sometimes the strangest keywords show up in the report. These are not keywords that appear on my blog with any frequency or have a whole lot of relevance to anything.

Here is my top 10 list of strange keywords that I have been found for.

"140 pound condom"
" is Elton John bald" (I figured this one out)
"can you show me pictures of bald girls"
"4794279" (among many other 7 digit numbers)
"big pooty"
"mini clapping bald eagle"
"mark eating cactus"
"is chuck norris bald"
"delay carpet cleaning and worry about downtime"
"lobster boy server blog"

But the one that I am most shocked about is, "big bald men." I mean seriously, what does that have to do with me?

Here's what I want to know. What are some keywords that have brought people to your site, and I am talking unintentional. I am not talking about you setting out to capture the "poop deck pappy" or "the dingle droppers" traffic by optimizing for those words.

Let me know what you have found. I will collect them all and may even give the winner a text link to your site, not that its worth a whole lot but it's something right?

 

As I Sit Here And Ponder

Sitting here, thinking about going turkey hunting this weekend, I was wondering if I will get eaten by a cougar. There have been numerous sightings here in Iowa and just the other day, a guy hit one on highway 30. Now highway 30 is a bit south of here and I am going North. However, I AM going NORTH and North is where the woods get thicker and there are more places for cougars to lie in wait for fat, outta shape, slow guys. I am sure I will look like a big camouflaged piece of jerky to a couger. So after this weekend, if you see no more posts out of me, you will know what happened.

Here is a picture of the cougar that was supposedly hit near Jefferson on HWY 30 here in Iowa (or so my buddy said).





Wish me luck.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 14

Yep, it's another edition of "what I found in my email" Monday... uhhh on Tuesday. Hey, I was trapped in a special pre-tax day blizzard so gimme a break!

In keeping with tradition, I really did receive this on Monday and here's the story.

In an email entitled, "Computer Problems", we read about a person who is having a tiny issue with her PC.

"Technical support, how can I help you'?

LADY: "Last night my computer started making a lot of hissing noises at me so I shut it down.This morning when I turned it on the computer started hissing and cracking, then started smoking and a bad smell, then nothing."

SUPPORT: "I will have a technician come over first thing this morning, and leave the computer just like it is, so they can find the problem and fix it, or change it out with another computer. Give me your address; phone number and the technician will be there just as soon as he can."

When the technician got there, the lady showed the technician where the computer was and asked what happened to it. This is what the technician found wrong.











The technician told her: "It must have been after the mouse!" The woman didn't think it was very funny at all!

Have a good rest of the week!

 

Trapped In An April Blizzard!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I have been trapped in Wisconsin in some kind of a freak April blizzard. And I am not talking about the blended Dairy Queen confection here.









Right now I am playing catch up. I will be back on track tomorrow and I will put up the "what I found in my email" Monday post on Tuesday.

The above pictures are actual photos that I took on the road to my cabin on Saturday. 5 trees were down across the road and the car was dragging bottom the whole way up the road. We were so unprepared, no boots, no gloves, nothing. Luckily one of my neighbors up there came out and loaned us his chain saw. It just kept snowing and snowing.

Be back tomorrow.

 

The Glory of Fast Food

Do you prefer McDonald's or Burger King? For me, it has been a toss up based strictly on service and convenience. Several months ago I wrote a post about how McDonald's had to close because the computers went down. Since then I've discovered how excellent Burger King's coffee was so I decided to wear a path to BK instead. Seriously, it has got to be some of the best coffee around. After all, McD's coffee beat out Starbucks, it would be logical that another fast food giant would have good coffee too right? Trust me it is awesome!

I have been frequenting BK for nothing more than coffee for several months now. A couple of weeks ago I started buying the $1 sausage biscuits. That buttery little cholesterol dose tastes reaalllly good and goes great with their coffee. The biscuit costs $1 and a large coffee is just under $2. For 2 biscuits and a large coffee it comes to $4.17 with tax (local tax here is 7%).

Now stay with me here.

About 2 weeks ago I thought to myself, "You like cheese a lot. Could it be possible that cheese on your biscuit would make it better?" Indeed it did.

Last week I walked into my friendly neighborhood BK and stood at the counter awaiting what was sure to be a lovely grease laden treat. The cash register attendant greeted me with a smile. I said, "I will take 2 sausage biscuits with cheese and a large coffee."

BK Girl - "You don't want egg?"

Me - (re-playing my order to see if I ordered egg) "No, just sausage and cheese"

BK Girl - "You don't want egg?"

Me - "NO just a sausage biscuit and I want you to put a piece of cheese on it for me."

BK Girl - "No egg? hmmm." She stares at the keyboard for what seemed an eternity in "fast food time" and finally enters the information. "Your total is $6.73"

Remember the total from above? Now, I am not one to slow down the progress and expeditious delivery of the obesity causing fast food establishment but for some reason the price struck me as a little "off."

Me - "That doesn't sound right?"

BK Girl - "That's what it says" (referring to the cash register as if were speaking to her on some inaudible level)

Me - "OK, the sausage biscuit is $1 and the coffee is $1.89. That means you're charging me $1.20 per slice of cheese?"

BK Girl - Blank stare.

Me - Waiting for a response

BK Girl - Blank stare.

Me - "HOW MUCH WOULD YOU SELL ME A PIECE OF CHEESE FOR?"

BK Girl - Looking at the register, "It looks like 20 cents?"

Me - (as the people are getting grumpy behind me)"Bingo! Now sell me 2 biscuits and 2 pieces of cheese and a large coffee and I will be on my way"

BK Girl - "uhhh ok. uhhhhh hmmmm. Ok I think I got it. There we go"

Now, normally I pay attention to small purchases that I make and confirm that I am, in fact, paying the correct price. However, I am not the type of person that checks every item in my grocery cart to make sure I am not getting took. A buddy of mine told me that grocery store over charging is a HUGE problem and happens all the time. I just like to think that I have some sense of what something should cost and tend to pay attention a little bit.

As it turns out BK Girl was charging me for a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit and taking off the egg as a special order. This was the only way she knew how to ring it up. Anything outside the paradigm was completely unacceptable.

2 days later I went into the same BK and ordered the exact same thing but in a different manner. I asked for "2 sausage biscuits and after the order was complete, I said "oh, can you put cheese on them for me." They were able to figure it out and simply added 40 cents to my purchase price.

My fast food conclusions - You shouldn't eat it and the understanding of your order largely depends on your delivery.

 

Another $100 - NO WAY!

Yes it's true! We are giving away another $100. I am a little late on the posting but hey, better late than never right?

The winner for last month's $100 will be announced soon.

What do you have to do for some cold, hard cash? It's simple.

- Make a comment of value (not just “i agree”, etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)
- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)
- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries

Where is all of this money coming from you ask? The following rag-tag band of bloggers are the ones that are putting up the kitty.

- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- How 2 Blogger
- Jason Boom
- Mr Javo
- AFrogToKiss.net

BUT, I need your help. When you comment with your entry make sure you: Give me the link where you posted about the contest AND leave me your email so I can verify it. If you don't want to leave your email in the comment drop me a line at over at the contact page.

Thanks again to everyone one who has been playing and good luck this month.

 

Microsoft Surface and AT&T Partnership

Most of you have seen the Surface videos floating around the net. Now Surface is becoming a reality in a retail environment.

From the AT&T Newsroom:

"Las Vegas, Nevada, April 2, 2008

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced a collaborative alliance that will transform the way consumers shop for mobile devices. AT&T will become the first company in the world to bring Microsoft Surface™ to life in a retail environment, giving customers the ability to explore their mobile worlds using touch and device-recognition technology...Beginning April 17, customers can experience Microsoft Surface in select AT&T retail locations, including stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco. Based on the success and learning from these initial pilot deployments, plans for further expansion across AT&T's 2,200 U.S.-based retail stores will be determined."

As you can see from the video, Microsoft Surface is table-top type display that allows users to interact with it through touch. Your interaction with Surface is based on gesture and compatible devices like cameras and PDA's.

I look back at how computers and technology has advanced in the last 10 years and you really have to marvel at how far we have come. Surface truly is the next generation of web/computer interface. You have to admit, this is the stuff that science fiction writers used to wow us with over 30 years ago. However, this is much more amazing than what could be conceived when the original Star Trek series was on the air.

Here's a question for you. As technology continues to improve and ads convenience to our lives, how much should we rely on it? I think we could already be seeing a generation too dependent on technology.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 13

Yawn! Yep, it's another Monday. The good thing is that it's time for another edition of, "What I Found in my Email" Monday.

This one comes to me from a family member who got back from Iraq not too long ago.

The email was entitled "What to wear when your wife has chores for you."



It may not work real well in the desert but it appears to blend perfectly on the couch. Just put some camo on the remote and I should be good to go.

Welcome to the week!

 

How Fast Do You Down?

Most of us know that the internet in the US is much slower than the rest of the world that has what we could call an equal amount of development.

Since the Telcos welched on their bargain to add those 200 billion (said with your pinky finger at the corner of your mouth) tax deferred dollars into the US infrastructure, we are behind most of the countries of similar status.

Here at the office I have a DSL by Qwest, it does OK and I regularly get about 2.5mbps down. This is not as good as the neighboring community who has a muni that offers 3 times that speed for a touch less than what I am paying.

So here's my question. What kind of internet do you have? Speed and ISP?

 

Traffic Presents Part Deux

Last month was a pretty good traffic month at The Big Bald Blog. Here's the final breakdown for March.

Unique Visitors - 94,113
Page Views - 183,696
Total Hits - 2,008,009 (that one deserved a bold)
Bandwidth - 70 GB

My biggest day (March 17th) had about 16,000 visits. RSS subs went up about 10 but the comments increased significantly. It feels pretty good to say I got over 2 million hits last month. I know, I know, hits really don't mean anything, BUT it's still pretty cool to say.

My server worked great without a single hiccup. This is good to know since I am hosting a large number of client websites.

Now all I need to do is have someone show me how to monetize my site properly. Anyone want to take BigPappa under their wing or adopt The Big Bald Blog as a pet project?

Again this is all due the YOU, the reader, who has graciously supported this tiny piece of the web. The credit is all yours. Thanks again for being a valued reader of The Big Bald Blog.

And to think, some people say that being nice is not as effective.

 

My Posts on Someone Else's Site

For those of you more experienced in the blogosphere than myself, I need a question answered. I ran across a site called "www.making-me-money.com." Basically it has a pant-load of Google AdSense on there with MY rss feed and one other blog's feed acting as the posts. There is however a link to The Big Bald Blog in the blogroll.

From what I have read, I am assuming that this is "feed scraping" site. I do have my FeedBurner feed set to "partial" content so it's not looking the best.

My question: Is this something I should be concerned about? I don't think so, but then again, I am only the 5th smartest person on the planet.

Your thoughts?