I am going to tell you a little story about Buffalo, which happens to be approximately this [] big.

Around St Pat's day, we ran an article about Dave Moore, the uillean piper for Jackdaw. As a byproduct of the multimedia segment of the website, I came into an advance copy of their newest CD, which I promptly copied and gave to (e:dragonlady7) , who generally likes Celtic music, both classic and modern.

(e:dragonlady7) then promptly wrote some reviews where the words "anemic version of the Dropkick Murphys" were uttered.

A couple weeks pass. A couple anonymous comments show up on (e:dragonlady7) 's blog, saying you know, this may not be the best material for first impressions, maybe you should see Jackdaw live - signed "the bagpiper."

So I come home and she says, "Check this out! Do you really think that's him?" And I say, [shrug], I wouldn't be surprised. Buffalo is, after all, this [] big.

The sun sets and rises. The guy I bought my scooter from is hosting a grand opening party for his new shop. So we show up, hang out, good times ... and I'll be fucked if that one guy doesn't look familiar. No shit, it's Dave Moore, who bought his '77 Li150 from the same guy I bought my Stella from.

Turns out he's a really nice guy, and we hung out and bonded over scooters and Celtic rock and accordions, and those poor little girls with the bright orange and green dresses and the curly wigs that always end up at Irish festivals. A good time was had by all.

- Z

It has recently come to my attention that my employer is the worst kind of publisher - one who carries the banner of fair, balanced news coverage while participating in a vast Republican conspiracy . Many of you may find this difficult to believe but, to paraphrase Deep Throat, follow the hyperlinks.

Fact: Since I began collecting web usage statistics in January our web traffic has doubled. Our top two articles of the entire year have seen more traffic in the last three weeks than any other articles have in the last three months.

Where do you think all this traffic is coming from? Design and usability improvements? Give me a break, and I'll give you another Fact: The week of that issue our #1 source of referral traffic came from one site and one site only - an outlet operating under the guise of "media watchdog."

Coincidence? Then what do you think about this Fact: There is a demonstrable, concerted effort by this "unaffiliated" website -one member in particular- to drive web traffic to our site. He may seem like an angry person on the outside , but it doesn't take much to figure out it's all an act. This guy's gotta be on the payroll.

You think that's far-fetched, don't you? But you can't ignore the Fact: that 7500 pageviews per day from 3800 unique visitors don't lie. It looks like server logs to you, but to me it smells like advertising revenue potential.

You want me to spell it out for you? Check out this little-known Factoid: 'v5n10' upside-down spells 'Ol' USA.' Kinda.

- Z

_______________
Moral: there are some real mouth-breathers all over the political spectrum. Take advantage of the situation by merchandising their arguments.

Woke up this morning on the floor reeking of a two-day software development bender. I've got a tattoo on my butt that says 'I [heart] Python,' and this program I've never seen before is on my desktop saying I'm its daddy and now I've got to take care of it.

It seems that certain parties have taken issue with the way our annual popularity contest was held three years ago , but I can assure you the process is fair and transparent. Votes with fewer than 30 answers are rejected outright, and nonlocal establishments are disqualified [there's no surprise here - we say as much right on the ballot]. That having been said, even though the polls are open until Friday it's pretty clear who the top three in each category are going to be. Furthermore, if I really could get free Caramel Chameleons from Cafe 59, I wouldn't be drinking Folger's crystals with Coffee Rich every morning. And in closing, I feel that it should be mentioned that this does not negate the fact that I am a cheap whore.

- Z

I'm not usually fond of the idea of blogging from work, but this is so cool I peed myself.

The new editor's personal laptop [15" G4 iBook] just died. The new sysadmin had a look at it, took a deep breath, and said, I got bad news. The editor's eyes just lit up and he said, 'Can we destroy it?'

'Umm ... I guess ... if you don't need it, we don't really need it either.'

'OK, lemme go ask the boss!' So he quick ran out of the room and a minute later he came back and said, 'I asked the publisher and he said, 'meh, whatever,' so let's do it!'

At this point I stepped in and said ... woah, hold on there chimpy. You can't just go around throwing laptops off the roof. Not unless you take videos, too. We need Total Coverage. And while you're at it we've got some microwaves and TVs and vacuum cleaners I'd like you to get rid of. Our assistant music editor said, hey, before you trash that microwave, can I stick in a stack of crappy promotional indie CDs and see what happens? Sure!

So we're totally going to roof-test our crappy nonfunctional equipment and I plan on putting the video on our corporate website. Keep your eye out for it!

- Z

So I'm a shareware software developer, since I wrote a program last summer when I was unemployed that at least three people have paid me $5 for. It is a Gmail notifier for Mac OS X, much like the Windows 'Gmail Notifier' made available by Google. Since it had the same function but a different platform I gave it the same name - or, more accurately, 'Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X.'

At this point in history, most or all of the Mac Gmail notifiers were defunct or inoperable, and Google had not exactly thrown us Mac users a bone.

Until, that is, a couple months after mine hit the 'net. I got about ten emails that day saying 'uh hey, somebody stole your program's name, and you won't guess who it is.' Well, I knew who it was and I admit it was kind of an assy thing of me to bogart their name, so I don't begrudge them that. Their program had about the same feature set as mine, the main difference being that mine lives in the dock while theirs lives in the menu bar. Also the icons were different.

Ah yes, the icons. Funny, you don't really give icons much thought. Mine was kind of a weird ugly red 'mvelope' with your typical Mac OS X candy-coating:


Theirs was an admittedly better-executed blue mvelope, rotated slightly:


But today I got two emails saying, hey, how come Gmail Notifier is in my menu bar rather than the dock where I like it? And I said, ehm, it's always been in the dock; you're thinking of the Official Gmail Notifier, which is in the menu bar. And he said, no, I'm pretty sure this is yours, because it's got the same icon. So I grabbed a copy of the Official Gmail Notifier and holy shit:


What the Hell?!

Furthermore, they've confused a number of software-tracking websites who are now convinced that I am a Google developer and theirs is actually a continuation of mine - and confused those sites' users in the process. I had always planned to name the 1.0 release something else like 'Dave's Gmail Notifier' or something dumb like that, but I'm seriously considering renaming it 'The Google Asshats Can Suck It.'

- Z