eKettle

Pop-tarts taste like shit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:22:00 +0000

I’m sorry to have to write another negative post, this time on pop-tarts and pop-culture. Do not read any further if you would like to maintain a happy disposition.

I just decided to try one of the pop-tarts I bought the other day, since it had been a long time since I had tasted one. I thought maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I remembered – I was wrong.

With this salty-doughy-acid taste in my mouth, the question that keeps running through my mind is: how can anyone eat this? Have kids been conditioned to think that this represents good nutritious food?

I’m sorry Kellogg's, but pop-tarts are dry, tasteless, too sweet - not even a nice kind of sweet. Pop tarts feel like eating wet cardboard covered in a thin spread of strawberry glue.

For me pop tarts represent how extreme capitalism can destroy a good way of life. Back when everything was hand-made, warm bread fresh from the oven covered in melting butter and homemade jam would make the perfect breakfast. But who has time for that anymore? And who has the money to pay the brave baker who goes out of his way to make the best tasting bread?

It’s far easier to open the packet and consume the crap which is being churned out for us and passed for food, if we would only convince ourselves that it’s so good... mm.. I just love pop-tarts!

I can’t help asking myself if what I’m feeling is due to a lack of solid traditions in a country which only goes back a few hundred years. Bits and pieces from other cultures are borrowed and copied sometimes more successfully than others, but maybe what’s lacking is the pride of traditional artisanship, something made right, in the best way using the best ingredients, with pride (and not just a slogan claiming it). Maybe America has not yet found her cultural soul. Maybe we still need to learn how to live.

I’m disappointed with the food in almost every restaurant (granted I can’t afford the most luxurious ones). But everyday food is just plain horrendous – worse than in the UK, and that’s saying something.

Once again I apologize for the negative tone. If you feel offended by this post, I would encourage you to travel outside the US and sample the local food along the way.

I’m just venting after a shockingly bad experience. I suppose it’s ultimately up to each person to decide whether he or she is going to continue stuffing this crap down themselves and their kids. For me, I will keep seeking out good food; maybe even bake my own bread!

And I swear on everything sacred that I will never buy pop-tarts again.

Microsoft calls the kettle black

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:05:00 +0000

This from Microsoft, in response to a statement from Yahoo announcing that it is testing Google AdSense:

"Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options," said the statement attributed to Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith.

Oh the irony!

A tasty blog entry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Made myself eggs this evening, sunny side up. One thing led to another and I soon had a terrified face looking back up at me. By the time it was done the eggs were cold and didn't taste good - such a small sacrifice for the sake of culinary art. Cordon Bleu baby!

Stay Fresh in what Amazon Context?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Amazon Context Links is still in Beta mode, and I installed it to see how it would work. I really like the idea of instant links leading straight to the store - the less effort the better! The challenge is, how does a robot establish the proper context for words or names within a sentence, given that the English language can be so easily twisted out of context?

Here's an example from eKettle. Context Links figured that the words "stay fresh" (on Google's April Fools post from last week) meant something other than "continuously updated."

Below is the product for sale in Amazon's fresh veggie isle. But don't get me wrong, I would love nothing more than to sell my reader something to keep his veggies fresh. Go ahead and purchase this container in support of eKettle.com ;)

Another slight issue is that only 20 links per page are allowed - could use more on a front page which is a mile long. The number of links permitted may go up when Amazon Context Links launches officially.

Once they get the context thing right I'm sure it will be a really awesome!

Context Links, Dan in Real Life and other news

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:47:00 +0000

I get caught up in things and forget to post about what I'm doing. Here's a quick update.

Blog header - I'm finally happy with it - NO more changes, forever and ever, amen. Forgot to even mention the switch to 3 columns which is working really well for me. Found the three column template here and was just a matter of downloading it and pasting code into Blogger - easy. Lost previous widgets but that's easy to add back. Also went to a white background. The only issue I can't fix is the different font sizes in Firefox and Explorer - can't get around that at this point.

My interview went really well yesterday - I love the work atmosphere and the people - the job sounds like a challenge but perfect to learn about accounting - they're interviewing a couple more people (unfortunately) but when they told me this almost said "...but" - which I hope means "but we like you." I think it went well although they did most of the talking and I could barely get a word in - made sure that when I could it was to say why I would fit in and how I could make a difference - I was prepared for tougher questions (not complaining).

I'm adding Amazon Context Links (Beta) which is supposed to automatically link to products directly from my posts. I'm trying it with Dan in Real Life, which I watched last night and found really good - great family movie and of course Steve Carell is funny yet still down to earth. Worth watching out if you haven't seen it.

Context Links are a quick and convenient way to add links to your website and monetize your content. Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products, unlocking new ad inventory and saving you the time from having to manually create links. You can add the links to your pages in minutes, and we provide a wealth of options to customize how they are displayed.

Jargonfish is working - thanks Justus for excellent follow-up. I have it set to pop up on all words - I'll be playing around with it and hopefully make good connections with other blogs. I'm interested in how Jargonfish and Amazon Context Links will interact - hoping they will play nice with each other.

That's all. I don't really like bunching everything together into one post, but it does save time so there you have it.

Fishing for jargon with JargonFish

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:51:00 +0000

Got an email from blogcatalog introducing JargonFish. I thought it looked interesting so decided to test it.

On of my keywords is "interview." Technically the JargonFish widget should place a line under this word and when highlighted a pop-up should present related content. This is just a test. Nothing ever works for me the first time.

Funnily enough I do have an actual interview tomorrow, which I'm very excited about because it's in the accounting field. I'm going in there prepared to shine. Hopefully I'll know before I leave (or very soon after) if I got the job. Whether or not I do get this one, I'm confident that I will find what I'm looking for soon.

Anyway, this is the email I received -

Dear MadMerv,

BlogCatalog is always on the look out for new features that can get your blog more traffic as well as enhance the value of your blog to visitors, so that they keep on coming back.

We found a tool that we think you'll really like. BlogCatalog has partnered with JargonFish, a company that offers a free, customizable widget that when added to your blog will increase your blog's traffic and provide your readers with a convenient way to find blogs from other BlogCatalog members.

So how does JargonFish work?

Once on your blog, the JargonFish widget highlights keywords that you select. When a visitor click on those highlighted keywords, a small JargonFish window is launched providing the visitor with a variety of helpful resources related to that keyword including related blog posts from BlogCatalog members, as well as some other leading content providers, including Digg and Technorati.

What does this mean?

This means that you will be receiving traffic from other members who add the JargonFish tool as well as providing your blog readers with more reasons to visit your site.

To see the JargonFish widget in action and add it to your blog visit http://www.blogcatalog.com/jargonfish/

If you like what you see, visit http://www.jargonfish.com/builder/signup.htm?sourceId=5 where you can further customize the JargonFish tool.

The BlogCatalog Team

Turnkey Blogging with Google Weblogs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Google Weblogs looks like a giant leap forward in blogging. From the Blogger Dashboard:

Google Weblogs, or “GWeblogs,” or “Gblogs,” which will launch later this year in a public beta, is the next revolution in personal publishing. Here’s what you can expect:
Don’t limit yourself to “reverse chronological” publishing. Our advanced Google algorithms put your best content at the top of your blog. Even if your later work goes downhill your previous posts will still shine.
No more template languages to mess with or sidebars to get right. Our advanced Google algorithms automatically populate your blog’s sidebar with the most relevant possible content.
Stop worrying about your PageRank or your search engine optimization. Post directly into Google search results for maximum visibility.
Save your readers time and effort. We’ll automatically extract the most relevant sentence from your post for the index page, along with any necessary ellipsis. We'll also put some words in bold!
Your blog’s header will stay fresh with new images from our team of artists, each and every anniversary of a scientific achievement.
Unsure of what to post about? Just click “I’m Feeling Lucky” and we’ll “take care” of the rest!
Excited? So are we! Take a look at this sneak peek of Blogger Buzz, powered by Google Weblogs.

We’ve put together a quick video tour to take you through the highlights of Google Weblogs. Check it out! [This links to a youtube performance of Never Gonna Give You Up Karaoke By Tay Zonday -- PAINFUL Hahaha!]

I'm happy I switched back to Blogger because there's just no telling what they will come up with next! I'm always up for a chance (as my loyal reader has noticed over the months), and this looks to be a very promising one. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" option promises to help with writer's block by bringing up new ideas, and it will even write my post for me. How cool is that?

Lights Out! Google Goes to the Dark Side...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Google isn't the first name which comes to mind when you think conservation, but all that seems to have changed when they blacked-out their page this morning to draw attention to Earth Hour (see below). Google has also "joined with others to launch Climate Savers Computing, which has a goal of reducing total power consumption by more than 50% for all computers by 2010."

It's the first time I can remember that such a amount of awareness has been raised so quickly by the search giant. So, will you be turning all your lights out this evening? Will you also be shutting down your computer?

From Google.com:

Google users in the United States will notice today that we "turned the lights out" on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don't do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

Given our company's commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.

Positively Forward with Kettle Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:22:00 +0000

That last post was a bit negative, so I've decided to be positive from now on. Only good stuff to make people happy, as there's nothing like seeing people smile all day, in spite of the miserable and alarming conditions of our modern society.

But I'm supposed to be positive. So anyway, I just finished changing my blog to 3 columns using one from this wonderful blogger template site, which allows me to place a few sweet ads on either side (I'm sure you won't mind).

I've added the aStore widget from Amazon as well. As you've noticed I'm trying to cash in on the electric kettle theme (no shame). So far I've been very unsuccessful at generating any revenue whatsoever from the web (although I did fairly well on Second Life, more on that some other time). I've changed my meta tags to reflect kettles of all sorts, but it's also important to have matching content, which mean I may have to come up with a few keyword-rich posts in the near future (sorry).

Then I decided to mess around with the header and came up with this cheesy thing, combining the picture from my old blog, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and the president of nothing at all, yours truly. So there it is, I hope you don't dislike it too much.

Let's see.. what else? I'm trying to get my domain name www.ekettle.com to forward here, but godaddy doesn't seem to be updating it all that fast. I'll give it a day and then contact their customer service people.

While I was at it, I also decided to start a blog about things I dislike but with a humorous spin. 99-reasons. This whole list thing is a bit strange but I suppose if everyone else is doing it, then why not me?

On Being Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:56:00 +0000

People have told me when you're applying for something, don’t use humor, shave your beard (then regrow it later), basically kiss ass, talk about yourself with confidence in order to get hired – brag about your accomplishments. Unfortunately, I say that’s just not me. I don’t brag, I use self-depreciating humor and I won’t change a damn thing about myself just to please a fucking recruiter. If they’re not happy with me now, they never will be when they find out who I really am. Recruiters have the nerve to say I'm not good for a position, or I "didn't do well" on my phone interview after speaking with me for 5 minutes – after I’ve opened up to them – how dare they claim to know me?

OK. Maybe I don’t take rejection all that well; and unfortunately rejection is a big part of just being alive. Yes I take things personally because I take them seriously. I’m not a damn sales rep who will just move on with indifference. Granted, I’m also far from perfect. I have a lot to learn, a lot about myself that needs changing and refining, but I embrace constructive criticism.

Real mentors, those whose life experience is an asset they are willing to share with others and help them grow, are a dying breed. Recruiters, these motherfuckers are out for the sweet commission and will dump you like a ton of bricks if they think you’ll make them look bad.

So I’m continuing on this journey in search of gainful employment. It’s stressful to think that I haven’t found a decent job yet, knowing that I’ve turned down a couple which didn’t pay nearly enough. One involved selling to my friends, which is just not going to happen. I don’t think there’s a selling bone in body – I’m useless at embellishing (if something is truly beautiful, it can stand on its own merits).

Besides the stress and the rejection, I have also realized that I’m probably cut out for accounting after all, due to my boring, analytic, personality. It looks as though I'll be stuck in a cube for the next 30 years. So be it. At least there’s good money in accounting.

Stroke Induced Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:31:00 +0000

This is life changing (20 minutes).

100 Niche Job Boards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Working Girl Karen Burns has put together a list of 100 job boards, an invaluable resource for every job hunter.

The sites are grouped into 7 categories: Online Specific Boards (18); Brick and Mortar Firms (15); Job Boards Found on Blogs (9); Staffing Services and Recruiting Firms (15); Government Resources (14); General Job Boards (20); Just for Freelancers (9).

I have this page bookmarked in my Career folder and intend to explore each one of the sites. Thanks Karen!

Screen Capture Methods

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:00:00 +0000

There are some good screen capture tools out there, but being the cheap person that I am, I'm looking for something free that will cut down on time.

I usually don't bother adding pictures to my posts because it involves doing a print-screen, pasting it into Photoshop, cutting out the part I want, saving it to my hard drive, uploading it to Flickr, then posting to the blog.

What I want to be able to do is: select the portion I want (from the capture tool), post it directly to Blogger. I have found a free program to select any part of the screen and it copies it to the clipboard.

Unfortunaltely Blogger doesn't allow pasting into the post editor, so I have to save the image somewhere and use the link to post. I don't think there's a way around this, but please correct me if I'm wrong! I'd love to know a way.

The danger of over thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:42:00 +0000

When it holds you back from taking action.

There's only so much you can find out before jumping in. You can learn valuable lessons from the experience of others, and it is wise to glean all this valuable information. But you don't want to freak out about the negatives and talk yourself out of it without even trying. Many times you will have to take the first step before you find out what challenges will apply to your unique situation, and then make a decision once you find out what they are for yourself.

Two basic questions:

Is this a real need? If it is a real need, the negatives are best dealt with sooner rather than later anyway.

Is this the right thing to do? If it is the right thing to do, the positives will by far outweigh any negatives.

Ignorance is bliss?

It's better to learn about difficulties along the way and deal with them as they come, because you will be in a better position to tackle them. If you had known all the challenges you would face in life you may had second thoughts.

Having progressed along the path makes you better prepared to handle difficulties. If you truly learn from your mistakes, you will avoid repeating them.

Change is a constant

By the time you are finished analyzing a problem, it will have already changed. Then you will have to re-think it, ad nauseum. If you accept that everything changes, you will be ready to adjust your actions to survive.

Think over, but don't over think

Deal-breakers don't usually go away. Therefore you encounter one at the outset, it is best to react to it immediately. Over thinking will cause you to rationalize and you may ignore the potential for trouble down the road. It's best to be honest and deal with the issue as it stands, letting the chips fall where they may.

Meta Tag Analyzer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:14:00 +0000

I just punched my url into the free meta tag analyzer at submitexpress.com. Meta tags help search engines properly categorize and rank websites, hence the importance of a well optimized site.

Here are the things about my blog submitexpress thinks need improving:

Meta tags analysis.
Description: Found no description meta tag.
The description meta tag is used by most of the search engines. Consider to add a description meta tag.

Keywords: Found no keywords meta tag.
The keyword meta tag is still used by many search engines. Consider to add a keyword meta tag.

Robots: Found no robots meta tag.
This tag is not really required but helps spiders to index the web page.

Author: Found no author meta tag.
This tag is not really required but helps for your (company) name recognizing.

Web page analysis.
This page contains too many URLs.
This tag contains 208 urls. Some Search Engines have problems with more than 100 urls on a page.

The size of the web page is to big.
The size of the web page is 82703 bytes.

There are several lists of keywords found, the most interesting of which is Keywords found on page (by times found and density). Here are the top ones for http://e-kettle.blogspot.com:

get - 130 - 2.73%
data - 102 - 2.14%
widget - 99 - 2.08%
blog - 74 - 1.55%
title - 67 - 1.41%
age - 56 - 1.17%
content - 48 - 1.01%
div - 45 - 0.94%
html - 40 - 0.84%
name - 40 - 0.84%
class - 40 - 0.84%
74data - 36 - 0.76%
his - 33 - 0.69%
her - 33 - 0.69%
74b - 32 - 0.67%
include - 30 - 0.63%
out - 30 - 0.63%
late - 27 - 0.57%
post - 27 - 0.57%
kettle - 27 - 0.57%

Huh?

URLs found in the page: URL - Times Found
Found 208 urls from where 144 unique.
...And they are all listed.

This is an easy way to see what the spiders are seeing and not seeing (more importantly). Something to sleep on.

Luckily, SubmitExpress also has a handy meta-tag generator which I used to do some tweaking. I now have meta tag description to page content of 93%; 25 keywords with relevancy to content of 96%. I still don't have a robots meta tag but did add an author tag, which seems to just list my email address. To achieve high relevancy I had no choice but to include some of the top keywords in the list that submitexpress generated.

To reduce the number of urls and page size, I changed the archiving frequency to Weekly and removed the Labels element, bringing my urls under 100, and page size to 55222 bytes.

iFreelance - do you?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:08:00 +0000

I just joined iFreelance to see if I can generate some income. It's cheap and you can place an unlimited amount of bids.

The only catch is that you're only allowed to be in one category per subscription, and bidding is limited to projects within your category. "Each category is priced individually, depending on the level of demand and opportunity."

I chose the Writing / Editing / Translation category for my provider profile. I hope this will pay off, or at least pay for itself. Who knows. I'll definitely give it my best shot.

Unemployed in a floundering economy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:52:00 +0000

The Bear Stearns meltdown and bailout yesterday was a wakeup call to investors and policy makers, and shareholders lost everything. To me it seemed kind of surreal to watch a bank fail before my very eyes.

How it relates to the big picture I'm not sure, but pumping money into the economy weakens the dollar and could lead to inflation, which would be a bad blow to the consumer.

Meanwhile, I have my own financial situation to worry about. I've been out of work since I quit my job in December to stay at home with the baby. The funny thing is that although it was probably a stupid thing to do, I don't regret it at all from a personal standpoint.

The financial side is another matter. I would really like to work from home, but it's easier said than done. The trick is to find that legitimate opportunity among the many work-at-home, multi-level marketing scams out there.

I've been looking into freelance sites like Elance, Sologig, iFreelance, and VirtualVocations, which charge a fee to gain access to contract work in writing, design, translation, etc... So far I've been reluctant to put any money up, but I'm beginning to think it may be worthwhile.

Does anyone have experience with freelance sites and freelancing in general?

Blogged

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Blogged is a reader-focused directory of 200,000 blogs, all manually added and reviewed for quality by the editors (read about page). It looks like a quality site which will allow me to discover many new blogs.

I like how each blog has a homepage (see mine), and how easy it is to review and rate blogs. There's also a widget (!) which I'm adding to my sidebar. If you've got a second give me a 10!!! Actually I'll take the honest 6.6 based on editor's review, because it's obvious my blog needs to improve.

I also need to verify ownership by inserting the following code/button

Exhausted

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:12:00 +0000

This weekend was pretty awesome but it's late and I should be in bed, so here's the 2 minute rundown.

Play-date on Saturday - met 2 families from the neighborhood, 4 kids came and it was a blast. Spoke French with a couple from Africa who had also spent time in France. Speaking French felt good. Among other things they import coffee, and later brought us a packet - I savored some delicious coffee most of today :)

After the play-date father-in-law came by to help fix the garbage disposal, which he did in a snap, and we talked about genealogy for a couple of hours. Later watched Mr Bean's Holiday - light entertainment, quite funny.

This morning mother-in-law called needing help, so without wasting a second we piled into the car and were there 45 minutes later, after stopping to pick up lunch on the way. Boxes got moved. Found out she started smoking again. Was friendly and listened and avoided argument/contradiction. All went well and 3 hours later we headed home.

I noticed ShareThis on several sites including Technorati and decided to add it - glad to report it was a snap. I registered as a publisher, chose Blogger, and it took care of the rest.

At first it looked like it was adding a widget to my sidebar, but the ShareThis icon does appear at the end of each post. The code itself was actually added to the sidebar - how crafty! I just went back and deleted the title and nothing appears in the sidebar.

ShareThis only offers 14 social networking sites as a default, but it includes the most popular ones which is fine with me.

I give it top points for ease of installation, and for how it fits in nicely without taking up much space.

Plumbing problems

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:36:00 +0000

Things kind of fell apart under our sink this evening. The garbage disposal jammed on a beer bottle cap (no finger pointing, please). I had a hard time getting it out because my fist wouldn't fit down the drain, but with a little assistance the cap was removed.

Problem still unsolved, and now water backs up and slows the right sink to a trickle. Since the dishwasher drain also feeds into the same disposal, this means I can't run the dishes until this thing is fixed. Maybe I should point out that I'm not much of a handyman.

To make matters worse, the pipe under the sink connecting right sink to the left/main drain comes loose, causing water from left sink to flow liberally into the closet. A bowl quickly gets jammed in next to the bucket.

Now comes the fun part: actually getting the dishes washed, by hand. It's back to the stone age, except that for now the faucet still works (knock on wood). I plug up the left drain and fill the sink with soapy water, while using the right side to rinse, periodically emptying a full bucket down the toilet. I'll be joining the circus tomorrow.

Two things came out of this unusual experiment.

First, the amount of water I used kind of surprised me, because I thought I was being careful. I went through almost 3 buckets of water, totaling at least 10 gallons. Is that more or less efficient than a dishwasher?

Second, it made me wish everything would just stop working. Yes it's a bit nuts, but I thought that if the power went out permanently, if the entire grid went down, that it would force us all into survival mode. We would get up off our fat asses and go back to the bare essentials, the basics of life. So what if we would have to dig a hole to use the bathroom, bathe in a stream (hopefully upstream from the hole), and make use of sunlight by day and fire by night.

Something as silly as broken plumbing made me yearn for a simpler life. Did I just say "yearn?"

Bummer - Tagenie test result

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:22:00 +0000

Well it didn't quite work out as planned. When I clicked on that Tagenie icon I landed on their main page with the list of social bookmarking sites.

Clicking on any of the icons on this page would theoretically save me the step of having to manually add my post to each one, saving me a few precious minutes each time.

I tried Technoraty, and was presented with a final step inviting me to add some tags before saving it as a favorite. Unfortunately when I clicked save, it did not recognize my post..

Oh well. If I'm missing something maybe I could use a couple of pointers. It was worth a try!

Testing Tagenie

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:11:00 +0000

This is a test of the Tagenie mass social bookmarking system. This is a mandatory test required by the state of my anal retentiveness. This is just a test.

It's also a bit screwy just because I can't figure out where to add it to the blog template, RSS wizard that I am. So I pasted it directly into the post template and we'll see what happens.

Obviously this post is not very worthy of being submitted to all these wonderful social bookmark sites, but please don't ban me. This is just a test. If it doesn't work, I promise to never bother you again.

Page Rank: -1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:23:00 +0000

I'd say having a PR of -1 is worse than terrible! This blog is running in the negative numbers, meaning that instead of adding to the web's collective wisdom, it's actually taking away. [I just realized -1 actually means 1. Still slightly confused.]

Website: http://e-kettle.blogspot.com/
Page Rank: -1 / 10
Alexa Ranking: 0
Indexed Pages: 0
Back Links: 0
(from http://www.whatsmypagerank.com/)

Thanks to web guru 100cute, all this may change. On her blogcatalog group, Web Guru Exchange Market, she introduces us to a powerful tool:

I am going to introduce a Genie for Social Bookmarking and a gold mine for PR3 to PR9 one way links to your web site, It can bring massive traffic and high link popularity to your web site.

Yes it is - www.Tagenie.com

Tagenie, here I come. Bring on the -9.

How to piss off 100 friends

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:03:00 +0000

This is the deal breaker with the insurance sales job I've been pursuing. As part of the pre-employment evaluation process, AIG American General requires me to complete something they call "Project 100."

Project 100 requires me to provide the details of 100 relatives, friends and acquaintances, including their yearly income, occupation...ability to provide referrals... Then I would need to call them to arrange a visit for them to view a 12 minute video pitching a life insurance product. I'm supposed to approach them as if I'm asking for help to "practice" with my training manager. This supposedly helps AIG determine whether I'm cut out for the business.

It's a though decision, and I'm struggling about whether pitching to friends crosses the line. I don't like involving friends in this kind of thing. It's usually not a good idea to mix business and personal.

I really don't mind helping a friend in any way possible, that's what friends are for. But if a friend of mine blatantly used her personal network to advance his career, I would probably feel insulted and think this he-she is a bit of a moron to even dare ask. I may even be pissed if I found out it had shared my information without my consent.

There are people out there, the multi-level types, who shamelessly use this sort of strategy. I didn't expect it coming from a reputable one like American General. Do all insurance sales companies expect the same? Am I just overreacting?