Archive for October, 2011
Blogging to Rock Star status
Wanna achieve uber success in the world of blogging? Here are 7 rockin tips:
1. Pick a niche (pronounced neesh) subject. Your niche can not be too niche. Like dolls? Not niche enough. Like Barbies? Probably not niche enough. Like those certain Barbies that only Chaz Bono collects? BOOM! Blog it.
2. Pick a killer unique name. You must own Google. Pick a name, then google it. If you pick say, “Working Mommy”, guess what? You will never hit the number one postion on Google for that term. Google “Zipop”. Impressive huh? If you can buy the dot com of your killer unique name then you are probably golden. If you can get the Twitter and Youtube account, you will rule.
3. Blog everyday. More if you can. Don’t have that much to say? Then get out your Barbies because you ain’t got what it takes.
4. Drop in some pix. The pictures you use in your blog posts should provoke curiousity to the visitor. If you can create a touch of ambiguity between your post title and your picture – even better. If you can take your own pix, awesome, if not, Google Images is your friend. Instagram is awesome and makes your craptastic pix look totes cool.
If your blog post title is, “I heart giving my baby a bath! Winkie face” and the image is a pic of you blowing bubbles off your baby’s hands, you loose. Make me want to read your post. Why would I want to read it if you’ve already told me the whole story in the title and the pic?
5. Links. Pretty cool the interweb. You can link to stuff. It’s a great way to show some love to your fav blog. They will probably return the favor. Plus it makes your blog more interesting. It’s like you can become an actual resource and stuff! Oh the links, I could have a whole blog just dedicated to links and their infinite power.
6. Comment on current affairs. So your hero, Chaz Bono appears on Dancing with the Stars. Winning! You’d better be mackin on those opportunities and quick.
7. Use keywords. Use your subject matter’s keywords regularly, habitually and chronically. If you aren’t using the terms, Barbie, Chaz, Bono and Fabulous in your post titles and body copy, then honey you ain’t serious biz.
This is coming for a guy who currently gets 11 visits to this site daily. Impressive I know. Oh, and my other site is running about 45,000 visits a day. BOOM! I so Rock.
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Death height
While sitting at my youngest son’s baseball game my middle son and I were scoping out the ball that was stuck at the top of the back stop fence.
We were fantasizing about how we could climb to the top of the very tall backstop grab the ball and keep it! That wouldn’t be wrong would it?
And as always the case with men the conversation turned violent. I asked my son how high could you fall from and not die. We discussed in some graphic detail things like compound fractures, head trauma and of course death.
The conversation ended with Dad’s proclamation that the height of a fall can be as low as six feet! It’s true Google it.
Then our discussion moved from fun and games like cerebral contusions and spinal paralysis to a responsible Dad lecturing his son to not do stupid things like jumping off of sheds, trees and house roofs. I’m a good Dad that way.
About 5 hours later my son was playing in the church gym – ready for this? He was standing right next to a kid that jumped off a stack of chairs, tried to grab the basketball goal, swung out to grab another stack of chairs with his feet and fell horizontally to the floor from about 9 feet in the air! Yep that’s three feet above death height.
He lived.
Compound fracture of his wrist. Severely bruised face and swelling and bleeding of the brain.
When my son got home he was probably in shock. He was really upset.
My wife and I assumed by the look on his face that he caused the kid to fall.
Probably because 6 weeks ago he broke that same kid’s nose.
Related posts:
Mean coaches suck
My ten year old plays for a mean coach.
By the end of this post you will hate him and it will be a short post.
A kid misses a ball. He yells, “catch the ball!” Brilliant.
This week at the end of practice he told the boys, “this was your worst practice ever.” Helpful.
He allows kids to tease each other in the dugout. *taking my blood pressure medicine*
You know its bad when the other two assistant coaches are like abused housewives.
We have been very fortunate when it comes to coaches. Six children and about a jillion coaches, we finally happen to get the prince of darkness.
Need one more? He promised my son he could pitch… he lied.
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The mall of contradictions
I love paradoxy.
I love the young kiosk worker that is supposed to be flying the mini helicopter around is working on her physics homework.
I love it that some family friendly stores display very repulsive imagery this time of year.
I love the guy with his girl friend at Victoria Secrets trying way to hard to act like he doesn’t want to be there.
I love the Pac Sun worker with an arm full of clothes ask a customer to move so she could walk by.
I love the Jr. High kid impatiently waiting outside Hollister for his Mom to finish her shopping for skinny jeans.
I love it that Brookstone sells, well adult toys.
I love it that mall brands spend billions in advertising and yet you can’t take a picture of any of it.
I love the mall cop that busts the guy for smoking a smokless cigarette.
I love it that some malls have piano stores.
I love malls that have two Santas.
Who needs money to go shopping?
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“Will they be making any more Apple stuff?”
Awe.
Almost two weeks after the death of Steve Jobs, my eight year old daughter laments his passing.
During a quite moment on our way home from the resturant tonight, she asks this question. I didn’t answer right away trying to figure out what exactly she was referring to.
Kinda thoughtful. Kinda sweet. Kinda sad. Very innocent.
However, after explaining to her ad nausium that publicly traded companies are required to have officers, org charts and sucession plans, all worries were easied.
Then my 10 year old son says, “So is Apple stock being affected in any signficant matter?”
That’s my boy. *sniff*
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Remember when stuff was good?
Remember when Pizza Hut tasted awesome?
Remember when going to a movie was a big deal?
Remember when a bottle of Pepsi was a real treat?
Remember the longing feeling you had for your girl/boy friend on the weekend and you couldn’t wait to get back to school on Monday to see them again?
Remember when you believed your life would never get any better when you finally went to Disney World?
Remember when that new Christmas toy was fulfilling?
Everything was epic.
We have and always will have unlimited wants. But back then resources were limited. They were deliberatly limited by economics, by decernment, by decency.
Now?
We have no time to want.
We eat fast food/junk food everyday. It’s normal. It’s daily.
We can watch movies sitting on the toliet on something we keep in our pocket.
We lug around things like Route 44s. It’s not a treat when its all there is to drink.
A 13 year old girl can now privately video chat with her boy friend while laying in bed at midnight on a weekend.
Disney World is so out of touch. No one truly wants what they have to offer. But we go there because its a childhood entitlement and a parental obligation.
Our wants are now just comsumed before we can recognize what they are.
We eat before we are hungry. We are just acting out because we are afraid of missing out.
There are no limits and very little decency.
There is nothing left to miss.
Let’s at least pretend to have enough humility to believe curbing our children’s appetities for consumption is actually a virtue and not a deparvation.
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More better is less bad
Where are we headed with all this social media? Fifty years from now when we are all old what will we have? More and more connectivity. More social media platforms to choose from, etc., etc.
Niche (pronounced neesh) is where we are going. More platforms will arrise and fall. Social media varity will become as thick as forums and message boards. That’s all Facebook is – just a fancy shmancy message board.
So Zuck was able to connect us all, but here’s the dealio, we don’t all want to be connected. It’s too much noise. We want our clicker in our hand and we want to surf. If we want to look at photos, we don’t want to see every proud parents pictures of their kids sitting on a Spongbob beanbag. When we want to look at photos, we want to look at a particular subject matter. Guns, tattoos, girls, and all three.
That’s why I like platforms like Instagram. It’s all photos. And you search for photo subject matter you want to look at. So these products tend to attract those that are interested in photos/photography. Sure Google images will provide more photos and better quality. but here’s the downside, Google images provides more photos and worse quality.
We say we want more. But we want better.
After all, we are all niche.
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Bored Games
I hate board games. Hate.
Going around in circles or in most cases squares, is not my idea of fun. Here’s why:
Problem: Time, baby. Don’t got all night. I get that going outside in flipflops and hitting a beachball in the warm sunny air is not an option at 9:00 pm on Thanksgiving evening, so we are all suck here together all day. But be for real. Shut your mouth and go already. And what pantywasted, kindergarten teacher, Milton Bradley wuss bunny came up with “turns”? I only care about one thing that’s my turn. When my turn is over, outta here, headed over to the sink to lick a bowl or somethin.
Solution: No “turns”. Humans are known for their multitasking skills. The whistle blows, everybody goes. And time limits, yes time limits. No game can go longer than the average cute cat video on YouTube.
Problem: No fear of the unknown. I can see everything at once. It’s like looking at a picture. I get the idea. I want to move on.
Solution: Ditch the folded board. Make it a bag instead. Reach in, pull something out. Could be a lollipop, could be a scorpion.
Problem: Dice? Seriously? On some cold, wintery day, sitting at the dinning room table surrounding the game like the guys from Myth Busters are about to crack open the freakin Ark of the Covenant and we are the first humans in 4000 years to see what’s inside and the fate of my manhood and bragging rights for the next hour will be determined by a couple of white wombat poops? Think not, oh game of chance.
Solution: Use skill instead. Wanna score a point or advance your token to the nearest railroad? Make your opponent cry – without touching them. Could take awhile. But verbal finese rules. Collect $200 if you can make them wet their pants.
Problem: So apparently just skipping around to different squares is not fun enough, we need cards. Booooooring. I already know what all the cards say and they suck. Not interesting. Too limited. And most importantly, don’t really care what happens.
Solution: Money. Land on the clowns head? You get a buck. Things not going well and you end up on the Placenta popcicle? Pony up a ten spot.
But if you disagree and think I’m out of line and way to harsh on America’s favorite kitchen table pastime, I have one word for you. Balderdash!
Related posts:
Friend Failure
This morning I looked back at all by daily blog posts (so far) on Zipop with pride. Good things happen when you make a blog post everyday.
Think about all the sites you frequent. They are pretty awesome aren’t they? They post every day. If they didn’t you would move on.
But it’s easy to read everyday but it’s hard to post everyday.
Think of how many billions of craptacular sites are out there, just waiting to be great. They are crying out to be. Left to rot in the digital dross (that’s another new phrase created here first).
So what in your life that needs some daily TLC? What do you need to do everyday? That’s how you become great you know. Work at it, whatever it is.
Once you find that thing that you WILL be great at, here are a few things you need to know:
Don’t give up, even when you feel like it.
Even when it seems pointless, keep going.
The forces of the universe don’t want you to succeed. Most everyone is against you. Show them wrong.
It’s ok to be down, just get back up.
If it looks bad, it will get better.
If everything’s going right, that will change too. Be ready for it.
Failure is your BEST friend. “Friend” lots and lots of failures.
Keep going, and going and going.
Want a story? Heard about the guy that built a company and 10 years later his own board fired him? He failed. That’s failure. What a looser. For 12 years his struggled for something else to do.
Twelve. Years.
Twelve years.
12 years.
Then…
he had to close down half of his company.
Then…
he sold off the other half of his company… to Apple.
Thanks Steve for not quiting.