AliBlog

Sing it, sister

Has this one been around for awhile? My boss sent it around the other day & I had to share. If you're a mom or a dad, or if you've ever had a mom or a dad (that about covers it), you'll relate.

If I hear the word futuristic one more time ...

Sorry to anyone who was still enjoying that Heineken spot. It had to come down. I couldn't stand to hear that song at full volume even one more time.

Next time you design an interactive advertising experience, dear Heineken, I suggest including some user controls for the final product (play, pause, volume, etc.).

Because it's not very often that I know something the NPR announcer doesn't know

I'm Trying to Buy an iTunes Gift Card

It's for a gift. For someone else. Who already has iTunes downloaded on her computer. Makes sense, right? So why do I need to download iTunes7 to buy the gift card? Shouldn't I just be able to provide my credit card number and the gift recipient's e-mail address and be on my way? No matter what path I follow, clicking on "purchase git card" leads me directly to the Download iTunes page. Come on. My computer is already running slow from the handful of media players I've downloaded in the past. I don't need another. Anyone know how I can get around this? Maybe I can buy an iTunes gift card at Amazon or through UPromise or something.

Logo A-Gogo

This is harder than you'd expect.

I scored a 41% - and I frequent each and every one of those sites. What did you score?

(h/t HOW blog)

I Don't Wanna Go Pro

Why didn't anyone tell me that flickr cuts you off after you've downloaded 200 photos?

Why Send a Regular E-mail When You Can Send a Monkey's Head?

That's the question Jeromy asked after Jen sent this note. Here's the monkey's head that I created for Sarah. The one Jeromy made for his brother Mike contains some not-so-public info, so we'll have to leave you guessing about its content.

None of the rest of this is related in any way to the monkeys.

If you want a good resource for how not to eat dairy, start here. Or here. If you've stopped eating dairy for the sake of your breastfed infant, start here. I've been falling on and off the non-dairy wagon since shortly after Moe was born. He had a problem digesting dairy, we think. But now he seems not to mind it, we think. How anyone figures any of this out for sure while they're nursing, I have no idea. I can tell you that I'm personally not one of those people who feels healthier without milk in her diet. I've missed it and craved it the whole time.

Recently, I did a quick search on the side effects of a certain antibiotic and found these candid first-person reports that amused me more than I should probably admit.

Jakob Nielsen says 90 percent of you aren't commenting, 9 percent of you comment only rarely and 1 percent of you are stealing the show with the interaction features on this here blog. Which group do you fall in to?

I keep running across cool online zines that I want to read, and then promptly forgetting all about them. Maybe someone else here will remember to read this one.

But really what I wanted to write about is the RDU airport and a few recent trips there from CLE. Instead, I give you nonsense links and monkey heads. You can thank me later.

Because Some Spam are Too Much Funny to Delete

Dear Sir/Ms:
   Hello!
   We supply a new patent fashion sport--FLYJUMPER, you'll love it.
   Have you ever want to jumper higher when you're playing basketball? Have you ever want to jump over a car like JACKY CHEN.
With FLYJUMPER,You can make it now!
   You can take one step 2~3meters and also jump 1~2meters high when you use FLYJUMPER. It will be one of hottest sports during this year! And it will be a windstorm in fashion, leisure and amusement throughout the world for people in different areas and different ages. Everyone can enjoy it.
Please click our website to know the detail and see the wonderful picture!Become a member of this new fashion right now!
   As you know,As you know,market is full now,no matter what products,lots of suppliers.You only can earn very little benefit from it.But as FLYJUMPER is a new product,still have a big market blank,and very popular in Europe and getting popular all over the world.

Homepage:www.flyjumper.com    or     www.06f.net

*Our advantage:

   We're the only producer of flyjumper  who is the only one had applied for the patent in CHINA! Anyone  supply flyjumper in CHINA  is forbided.
And their products will be detain by customs when export.

... Like a Hole in the Head

Here's another fun blog game found at ambivablog: the need game. You google (or blingo!) your name and the word needs, all in quotes, then make a list of what you find. I first tried blingoing "Alison needs" and quickly found that two other bloggers had already completed that list. So I searched "Ali needs" instead, and here's what I found

• Ali needs a passport photo for his US visa
• Ali needs to speak to the consumers agency to make sure we’re set to “do business"
• Ali needs all the help he can get
• Ali needs an 18-inch zip to replace a broken one in a cushion
• Ali needs more sources of funds, equipment, and resources
• Ali needs some answers and her first question is if Caleb turned Elizabeth into a vampire
• Ali needs someone to blame for her loss
• ALI needs virtual volunteers
• Ali needs someone on her side
• Ali needs 4 million squid to make his new film Boka
• Ali needs to back up her words

Now you're supposed to underline the ones that are true, but I (as usual) agree with amba - they all apply. Tell me the vampire question isn't nagging at you now too. And that four million squid? I'm not making a film, but I'll use it to "do business" for sure.

This is fun. You have to try it even if you don't have a blog. Put your best results in the comments section or send them to me via e-mail. If you play on your blog, let us know in the comments section when it's up.

Barry - I'm calling you out on this one in particular. I think you're ready for your first blog meme - no? 

Chuck Dynamite is Flippin' Sweet

Somehow, even after living in North Carolina for five years and earning a degree from North Carolina State, I've been mostly unmoved by the infamous sporting rivalries there.

After all, I'm not much of a sports fan (check in with Sarah or Erin if you are). Nor am I what you'd call a die-hard Napolean Dynamite fan (I liked the movie, but I don't own a single T-shirt or bumper sticker or even a copy of the DVD). And yet, this really cracked me up. It's an animated spoof on all the things mentioned above, courtesy of the Raleigh News & Observer (and I heard it was written and animated by a co-worker's brother).

You Win, I Win ... Um ... Some of Us Win

David just won a movie ticket at Blingo, and so did I - because he signed up as my friend.

Turns out I explained it wrong in my original plea for Blingo friends, though. I thought we all won if one of us won, but really only two of us get the prize - the searcher and that person's original friend. So it's a pyramid scheme - the Amway of Web searching. If you want to increase your chances of winning, you have to talk more friends into signing up as Blingo Friends.

Since I'm feeling guilty that all of my friends didn't win along with us (and since I already have family connections at a theater where I can see free movies anyway), I'm going to offer my free ticket to the first commenter who asks for it.

Just don't expect it in the mail anytime soon. Blingo says, "Please allow up to 8 weeks for delivery, even though we often send prizes much sooner." EIGHT WEEKS. Good mother of Jerome, that's a long time to wait for a movie ticket.

Hey - but it's still worth signing up and searching and being my friend, right? Next time, it could be an iPod, and that's worth waiting for. I'm not above another shameless plea for friends: You have to search to win. And you have to sign up to win - do that here.

Get Paid to Google

[Alternative title: Pimp out Your Web Searches]

I'm a big googler. I google all day long for work and play. And now google has this thing called blingo. If you go to blingo to search instead of going through google to search, you can win prizes. They hand out playstations, ipods, gift cards and more to anyone who happens to be searching during the randomly selected winning moments. Plus, if you win, everyone who's registered as your friend wins too. And vice versa.

To recap: You google blingo. I google blingo. You win. I win. We all win!

But first you have to register. Preferably as one of my friends. So sign up now, and start blingoing (it just doesn't have the same ring as googling, though, does it).

Around the Internet

Jakob Nielsen posts a great roundup on ten years worth of usability and Web design articles in his most recent Alertbox newsletter.

A friend from work just turned me on to these funny cats. Turn up the volume: the two most recent videos are great summertime beer drinking songs.

I also discovered three fascinating Web sites over on Richard Lawrence Cohen's blog this week:

• A rockin' site where you can map out the six degrees of separation between Soundgarden and The Sex Pistols or thousands of other bands.
• A real box of secrets reminiscent of the Griffin and Sabine books by Nick Bantock.
• This ridiculous list of the most "harmful" books of the past two centurys. Obviously, sex, equality and critical thinking are evil ideas in the minds of the conservative judges.

Finally, after Vanity Fair breaks the Deep Throat news, the Washington Post tells the story -- in first person -- from Bob Woodward.

Do you think anyone ever would have predicted that we'd be looking back on Watergate with a nostalgia for honesty and integrity? I mean, these guys were surrounded by liars, but they were doing something about it, and their voices were being heard.

Call me cynical, but today's leaks out of D.C. rarely result in good, honest journalism anymore. Instead, they start with scandalous memos and end with billion-dollar investigative committees that produce only a lust for dirt and piles of mundane reports. 

Waste Some Time Online

When I first saw that the Webby Awards were announced, I thought I'd go through the winning sites and pick out some favorites to share, but - Guts! - if the list isn't too long to even consider. I don't have time for all this high-quality knob rot. Honestly, I could waste an entire day perusing these sites. So I'm posting the link here in the unlikely event that I find a day to waste online later this week. In the meantime, if you see some sites on the list that we should all check out, tell us about them here.

Important Peoples

I haven't blogged about any interesting search strings for awhile, but here's one I couldn't resist: important peoples email contacts in las vegas 2005.

My site didn't rank very high, but it probably will now that I've spelled it out. That's the problem with posting strange search strings. Your ranking goes up exponentially once you type the words in a post instead of leaving it to Google to search them out randomly throughout the site.

But anyone who resorts to Googling for important peoples email contacts in las vegas 2005, deserves to end up someplace completely random like AliBlog, don't you think?

Test Your Robey Knowledge

Erika sent me this quiz all about her. So I made this quiz all about Robey. See if you can score higher on the Robey quiz than I did on the Erika quiz (a lousy 30 percent - I think I failed as a friend).

Okay, Robey says take my quiz now or check out the scoreboard or make your own quiz and e-mail us the link. (Especially Mich and Stan who make THE BEST quizes. Make us another fun Athens quiz, pleeease.)   

Name that Baby

Since nearly everyone I know is having babies or thinking about having babies, I thought a few of you might enjoy this cool Name Voyager applet, which visually charts the popularity of the top 1000 boy and girl names over the past 100 years.

It's still good fun even if you're not trying to conceive. Type in your own name or the names of your friends to see how they rank. You'll be surprised how many are included. Jeromy with an O is there but Robey is not.

You can see how names like Jennifer, Ashley and Jessica abruptly spike in popularity, becoming the "it" name practically over night. Traditional names like Ella, Ava and Amelia, which appear to be regaining popularity, chart out in more of a U shape. Others, like Claudia and Diana, have gone up and down in poularity over the years.

The site itself was designed to promote the book, The Baby Name Wizard, and there's even a Baby Name Wizard blog with weekly news on baby names.