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Archive for » September, 2008 «

Ziggs. Who is googling you. Creepy or useful?

Just when you thought I was packing it in for today…

Ziggs.com is a new social network that makes promises others don’t, won’t or can’t.

From College Of The Record:

Thanks to Ziggs.com, you can practically see who is Googling you. See, Ziggs is sort of like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn all rolled into one, but with the ability to make yourself more visible on the internet. To measure that visibility, a free membership to the social networking site provides Ziggs users emails every time someone Googles them and looks at their Zigg profile.  

Before you get too nervous though, the service can’t go as far as to tell you exactly who the mystery Googler is. But it can get pretty, damn close… like uncomfortably close. CBS4 reports:

Ziggs alerts them to where the searcher is located, what time the search occurred and what key words were used in the search.

Once they get a nibble, they can spend time marketing to the people they know have some level of interest in their businesses.

The idea is to help users personally and professionally. If someone Googles a company, for example, that company can then tailor their marketing specifically to them. Creepy, much?

Now, I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but it’s certainly something we should all be thinking about. We’ve already gone places because of the internet, where once upon a time, we’d not have been even remotely willing to accept.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the internet and have since being part of the first batch of people where I live, to try out something better than dial-up. I have always though, understood that the internet is not unlike a wine glass. Lovely to have and use, makes everything better, but damn… it can cut you!

So I’ll be thinking about Ziggs a lot in the next short while, and I’ll be reading what I can find to make an informed choice. Here are some links to help you do the same too.

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Sarah Palin painted nude? Looks more like Peggy Hill to me!

This was the funniest thing I’ve seen today, and following several hours of reading and researching to write about a serious topic that could easily have kept me in the dumps for the day… this was just the ticket.

A Chicago artist is drawing crowds to his bar after painting a portrait of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the buff.

Bruce Elliott unveiled the 4-foot-tall portrait at the Old Town Ale House on Chicago’s North Side last Thursday, the Windy Citizen reports. The governor is wearing her trademark hairdo, holding an automatic rifle and standing naked on a polar-bear skin rug.

“I don’t see how she could be offended by this,” Elliott told the Windy Citizen. “I made her into a sex figure.”

Bruce Elliott's painting he claims is Sarah Palin but really looks more like Peggy Hill!Upon first site, my immediate reaction was, “That’s not Sarah Palin, that’s Peggy Hill!”

Now, I’m not much of a King of the Hill fan, but I’ve seen the show, I’ve seen Sarah Palin on the news. 

I know when I see Sarah and I know when I see Peggy.

In this painting, I see Peggy.

I suppose that’s not such a bad thing, and while the story behind how this painting was made is on the icky and creepy side, perhaps Bruce Elliott has a secret thing for Peggy Hill?

Peggy Hill... now doesn't this look more like the photo than Sarah Palin?He wouldn’t be the first. At the source for the lovely Peggy Hill photo you see here, I learned that maybe there are men out there who do have a little thing for Hill. Or Marge Simpson, or Lois Griffin.

So it must be all good then?

Umm, not exactly.

Recall my passing mention to the story behind how the painting came to be? Recall I said it was on icky and creepy side? Brace yourself now…

Elliott told the news service that his daughter Grace posed nude for the portrait.

“My daughter is a heck of a stand-in for Sarah Palin,” he said. “She can even do the voice.”

That’s right. You read correctly. His adult daughter posed nude for him so he could paint this portrait of Peggy Hill Sarah Palin, and garner all kinds of business for the bar.

Oh.. one more thing.

This bar?

He just happens to be a co-owner, not to mention an Obama supporter.

Click here to read another article that includes photos of Elliott and his daughter. Poppa thinks his daughter is a stand-in for Palin, but I don’t see it. Maybe you do?

I also don’t understand why he’d want to see his grown daughter nude… and then paint her to look like Peggy Hill. I do though, understand why he’d claim it’s a painting of Palin… everyone wants to increase their business, don’t they?

Now that I’ve written this, the humor in it seems to have waned.

I guess if I want to lift my spirits I’ll have to head over to someplace where I might have a chance at reading something really funny.

See you later.

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Eminem is not dead

These hoaxes are getting boring already.

Though clearly not as popular as the Miley Cyrus hoax, or the Oprah Winfrey hoax, another death hoax is making the rounds online, this time about Eminem, otherwise known as Marshall Mathers.

Screen cap image of eminem fake death reportAn alleged (Yahoo) news story is what’s causing the buzz, only there seem to be no actual reports of it, and often you end up at an Angelfire page showing a 2003 death hoax attempt. That story looks real until you notice, as with the other hoaxes… bad grammar and spelling errors. I won’t be giving them the benefit of a backlink, so if you want to see it for yourself, copy and paste the url into your browser… but remove the word ‘fake’ from the url first. Though they don’t get a link from me, your going there still gives them hits. If you’re ok with that, then go. If you’d like to deprive them of the hits too, feel free to view the screen cap of the full page (with location bar and all) by clicking here. The broken url is below:

http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/FAKEyahoonews000/

I suppose your average, everyday, garden variety kid wouldn’t notice the grammatical errors, but you’d think they’d notice something as obvious as the misspelling of Marshall Mathers! Frac, I’m an old lady and I noticed it.

At any rate, he’s not dead and here’s the rule of thumb to go by with these death reports that seem to be happening about one per week…

If all you can find is a questionable source that’s been added to Digg, or a “real” news report that’s not still displaying at the original alleged news agency but is being brought to you via some other site and a screen cap… it’s probably not real, it’s someone’s “I want to fool the internet and get lots of attention” attempt.

I don’t have any idea if these hoaxes are all being put out there by the same kids, but they have so far, involved kids.

And by that, I don’t mean goats. Although at this point, that would be more interesting, wouldn’t it?

Cartoon about a goat trying to use the internetGoats… fooling the internet!

However… the only goats I know online are Nanny Goats in Panties, and this fellow who, while he doesn’t call himself a goat… is a bit of an old goat.  Just please don’t tell him I said that. He’s likely to ’cause some kind of a barnyard kerfuffle if he finds out.

Lastly… no, I don’t mean goatse either.

That’s just sick.

You’ll have to look for photos of that yourself. The only link you’ll get from me, is to Urban Dictionary.

Carry on….

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Blogthings Are Psychic

Once in a while I do a quiz or two at Blogthings. I’d do them more often, but they scare me. They’re almost always right and I’m scared to death they’ll tell me something I don’t really want to have to accept about myself.

In the past, I’ve learned that I’m Black Coffee, I should be A Fiery Redhead, I’m a Rainbow, and I’m Pink (the celebrity) but my Brain is Green.  All true facts.

Today, I found myself at raincoaster’s blog, clicked on her ‘what felony are you’ results and decided to see what crappy Christmas gift I was. After all, Christmas will be here in barely two months and so shouldn’t I get ahead by at least knowing what crappy gift I am? That way, I won’t have to pretend for the next two months.

Turned out… I wasn’t anything crappy after all! No siree, there I was in all my glory, as the one truly delectable treat most of us only enjoy at Christmas! Yup… I was…

Fracas is a fruitcake - image.

You’d think I’d be offended at that, but nope, I was ecstatic.

No really, I was.

Why?

See for yourself. I told you Blogthings is psychic; it’s exciting and creepy all at the same time. I think I’ve had my fill for today though. I’d like to continue living in the bubble of what I think of myself and not have too many things ruined for me, so I won’t be taking the are you boring or interesting quiz, the are you a wimp quiz, the are you charming quiz, or the what’s normal about you… and what’s not  quiz.

I just can’t risk it.

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