They say about 30-100 different animals species, including insects, birds, mammals, and amphibians become extinct every single day in the rainforest!
I don’t know about the rainforest animals but I can tell you a lot of cultural items that have died out in my lifetime. Here are 10 items. Are you less ordinary? Do you miss this stuff?
The Hummer (I heard on the radio that they closed all production and fired a lot of people)
As the buzz words from yesterday fade, we get new ones like the crippling disease mesothelioma or the compelling medium called “blogging.” Some of those listed above you have to be a certain minimum age to remember! These 10 are just off the top of my head … Please help me bring back some memories for my readers and make this list longer!
Okay, so I covered the first two letters of value: “V” for visceral and “A” for aphoristic. Now the third: “L” for linkage! Link love is the #1 way to make friends and influence people (namely bloggers you link to on the web. After you’ve written your visceral post of around 200 words and given it a catchy and creative title, it is important before you press the “publish” button to add 3 deeplinks (links to other posts on your blog) and 3 linkloves (links to other blogs). This can become a standard practice and you will find it easy then. IT IS VERY CUMBERSOME AT FIRST. You need to try and automate the process however you can. It should be like brushing your teeth every morning. Just to give you some of my tips:
For backlinks I have a shortcut to my most popular posts page. I open it in a new tab and getting relevant backlinks that are my most popular is as easy as copy/paste. This helps with rank and authrity. It also links your best stuff for people who are interested in it. REMEMBER: The best way to include links is within the context of your writing. Just inserting them random looks like spam and worse than that, it turns off your readers. You can automatically insert links in your blog (I recommend for a 200 word post 3 backlinks and 3 linkloves) and have it enhance your content.
For linklove: I use WordPress. As I add new faves to my blogroll, I can go to Manage / links in the admin section an choose the “blank” window feature. Then when I want to get a link open to check out or copy, all I need to do is click. I try to consistently link to my favorite blogs and I notice they really appreciate it. ONE NOTE: Chelle reminded me that the anchor text that the url is assigned to is important to rank, so choose appropriate words. For example: I really like this guy, if guy is the anchor text, then they only get juice for the word guy. If I says: “This guy knows music!” Then you link more effectively to his site about pop culture, music, and being a D.J..
Linkage of external sites along with the 2 types listed above is the third letter in blog value. Coming up tomorrow: The mysterious “U.” Keep following these guidelines and who knows, maybe you’ll be lookin’ into those las vegas hotels
The 90’s had some great commercials but for my time between shows, the best was the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” chihuahua. This ad campaign put Taco Bell on the pop culture map. When you saw one of those bobble-head dogs on somebody’s dashboard you couldn’t help but utter the phrase. It was a way of making taco bell Mexican again as well. It had started as a quite vanilla company selling Mexican food. When it was acquired by Pepsico in the late 80’s, the authenticity of the brand waxed and waned. This slogan used actual Spanish and it was catchy, anybody could say it! Instead of having to understand the conjugation of the very querer in the first person “yo,” anytime could just repeat this phrase and say “I want some Taco Bell” in perfect Spanish.
Ironically, the years this slogan was on the airwaves, Taco Bell’s sales slumped. They fired the ad creator and hired new ones. Sales did increase after the new campaigns were in place. I don’t think Taco Bell will ever get a better spokesperson however than that little chihuahua, he was definitely cooler than Spuds Mackenzie or any other dog I’ve seen on TV commercials. In case you missed it, or just forgot, here’s one of the commercials below:
Online dating helped me find and marry my soul mate Sarah. I even found her during the “free trial” period so the service was free! I thought I’d write a blurb about Yahoo! Personals because I feature them as an advertiser. It isn’t just demographics that makes me do so (most my core readers are married). On the other hand, I chose them because I believe in their product. Most of all, I feature their ads because it worked for me.
I remember at that time feeling quite lonely in a new town with a new job and Yahoo! Personals connected me with Sarah when I really had no friends or family around to help me meet people. (interested readers can find more details on our &#....)
It works like this: You sign up and upload a small picture of yourself (actually this is optional but it really speeds things up!) Then, you fill out some profile questions and send out a few emails to members that you are interested in. Some, you will find, are indeed certified loony cases. Just keep telling yourself “All you need is ONE.” From there, as you sort through replies you will undoubtedly start to make email friendships. You will find yourself at your parents for thanksgiving sneaking to the computer to see what your online romance has to say.
If it works out perfect like it did for me, you’ll get married within a month! That was 5 years ago and now my wife and I have a wonderful family with laughs and memories that keep on going. If you are single and wanting someone special or if you know someone in your friends and family circle who feels that way, get tuned in to Yahoo! Personals. Trust me, it can work. All you Need is ONE. (and don’t be surprised when the ONE plus ONE turns into one or more beautiful kids! Be ready because it can happen fast!)
In the spirit of link love and inspired primarily by Derek Semmler’s excellent “Speedlinking” series I followed throughout 2007, I’m getting back into doing what I call “Blog Safaris.” This being the first of 2008 makes it especially cool for me. So, won’t you hop in the Jeep and let’s go on a safari of some memorable blog posts I read last week!Lorelle van Fossen did the blogosphere a great service in promoting Gravatars. These are avatars that show up whenever you leave your email in a comment on the web. I have these installed on my blog so why not go get your free gravatar and start seeing it show up wherever your safari takes you?
Nick Mercer reflects on the past year. This guy is great and he’s a good friend to this blog. He has a lot to say and it always makes me think.
Sarah Riley wrote a fun yet sort of deep meme that I intend to do New Year’s Day. Head over and try it yourself, it’d be neat to read your answers. Also, check out her amazing new theme artistry.
Malcolm has a great article about the indefatigueable late guitarist Bo Diddley. Malcolm has a great Pop Culture blog.
Keiron writes about getting motivation back at Christmas and reviews, briefly, an amazing book.
Amy Palko Takes amazing pictures! She’s an excellent and thoughtful writer too. Go check out her blog.
As for Me, I had my third article published at Blogritics in December. It’s an opinion piece on the ongoing tv writers’ strike. I also started a home for my weekly “greatest post” blog called “Cheese Enchiladas.” The current post is on New Year psychology. 2008 feels promising! I appreciate your continued readership.
I know I couldn’t possibly have listed all the great reads last week. Sorry if I missed yours. I also want to recommend every blog on my blogroll as great reads if you’ve run out of places to go (uhhhh yeah right that could ever happen lol).
Oh, and a real special mention of Life is Rantastic is in order. Jessica the Rock Chick is hands down the biggest commenter on this site and I sure appreciate it! Check out her blog, it’s a crack-up and sometimes quite thought-provoking on a non-comedic level as well.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Safari! More is to come this year. Fasten your seat belt and Jeep over the potholes until our next adventure ;) Happy New Year, make it the best year of your life.
Thanks for suggesting your blog here Don. I will read it for sure. I am always one to favor the underdog anyway. That’s the way we roll at the Funny Farm. Peace. -Damien
This is an amazing blog I discovered on a Dateline story. He focuses on the homeless culture in Los Angeles. This photo links to his story on foreclosures at Christmas. A thoughtful blog read.
The subject of graffiti often brings out strongly polarized reactions from urban dwellers, who either support it as art or criticize it as vandalism. Brandon Baunach of DesignCrack has developed a project based on an idea of Drew Heffron that has amazingly drawn both fire and criticism from both sides: Graffiti Report Card stickers for rating urban street graffiti.
Do you ever watch reruns from the 70’s and 80’s, before cell phones and the internet, and think to yourself: “Was life ever really that simple?” With much technology has come much anxiety in people of the world. It used to be that to get a hold of someone you had to catch them on the phone or knock on their door. Now, we all know there are a myriad of ways to reach someone besides these archaic methods. The result is that we are always on the edge of our seat waiting for our many “machines” to “talk to (us).”How many machines do you talk to? In other words, how many ways does the news of the world and the group of people in your world talk to you through the machines? Need some examples? Here are some machines that talk to me daily and the ways they do it:
My blog: I write in my blog every day. Lately I have been posting multiple times because I post snippets as well as prose, such as this post. I post interesting stuff I run across on the web every day. Checking for responses through comments, trackbacks, or through traffic counts on Google Analytics is the way my “machine” of a blog “talks to me.”
Twitter: Though I’ve been on hiatus, I enjoy checking my machine called “Twitter” to see what the 19 people I “follow” have posted. I’ve also integrated this into the footer of my blog in the form of a constantly updating “postcard.” My Twitter machine talks to me multiple times daily.
My Gmail: I love this free email service. it is the best I have encountered thus far. Through the GTalk program, I recieve a pop-up alert from my Gmail machine whenever anyone emails me or comments on my blog. If I am online, my machine contacts me this way, I don’t even have to click anything.
My Work Email: I wish I didn’t check this at home. I guess I am a workaholic this way. I’m mulling over the concept of shutting this machine down when I am at home. So far there has not been anything that couldn’t wait until I am at work anyway. Home ought to be pure RnR.
My Google Reader: *sigh* This is a mammoth machine that talks to me throughout the day. I add RSS “feeds” to it of sites, news, and blogs I want to keep updated on. On a given day I get 4-500 updates and getting through them can be quite an ordeal. I keep this monster alive though because this is where I get most of my best ideas to write on and abreast of what my blogger friends are doing.
CoComments: This is a new machine I am trying out. My understanding is that it allows me to track all the comments I leave on blogs and interactive sites across the web. I like it so far, but it seems just as easy to subscribe to comments on most machines or subscribe to their comments RSS through Google reader. After a couple more weeks I will write my review of this machine.
My answering machine on my home phone: I screen most my calls. Throughout the day this machine gives me 0-3 messages tops. This is a tame machine.
Cell messages: These are also minor. 0-2 a week probably.
Letter Mail: My wife sorts this mostly. I get probably 2-3 messages a month.
TIVO: Every day or so, I look at the TV listings through Yahoo! TV and set my TIVO with the shows I want to record for the day or week. When I am at work or out in the world or even at home, I am often eager for my TIVO machine to talk to me with the shows I have recorded. “What’s on the box?” is a common phrase in our home. TIVO is a good machine that I enjoy hearing from.
News: I mostly get this on Google Reader, but reading the news of the day is a very good machine that I talk to in a variety of formats.
I hope you enjoyed this and maybe you saw yourself a little in my revelations above. We have become a society that lets its machines talk to it. Conversations with people seem secondary to the stuff we get from machines. Maybe I need more “irl” friends? I’m not sure, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea! But what will they think of all my machines? Have we grown too comfortable with all this technology? Can you add any questions or answers to this post? Talk to my machine and I will get back to yours ;)
I’ve heard Obama say a lot of things and yet, I still don’t feel like I know what he stands for. I get it that he would be the first black President, that to me is exciting. But what about policy? I keep hearing about universal healthcare. If healthcare becomes universal, will I get to keep the hundreds per month currently taken out of my paycheck for mine? Just a thought.
