Sephy’s Platzish

For those expecting jokes about toilet functions, look elsewhere.

Everyone else, I must recommend that you listen to today’s installment of the Mr. Brown Show. I’ve been listening for a few months now and just about every one of their podcasts leave me laughing.

However, I’m not sure if the Super Nice Toilet II would go over too well here.

I guess a move like this was inevitable. In this area there are, essentially, two major Home Improvement retailers - one is a nation-wide, publicly traded company and the other is a regional chain, mostly in the upper Midwest and is still privately owned.

For the most part, the large national chain is the one that is second choice to go to, and with good reason - they don’t give terribly good service. Most of the time, the employees will tell you how to get to something, or they won’t know where to find something, or they’ll just ignore you. Also, the prices are, on average, higher (an example of this is closet rod - the national chain sold it for $1.17 per linear foot and the regional chain was 25¢ cheaper and they cut it to length for you).

Another good reason for shopping at the regional chain is that they have a wider variety of products. They have just about everything to build a house - from the foundation to the roof. You can even get appliances, including coin-operated washing machines and the latest in appliance technology. Recently, they’ve added mattresses to their stock. You can also get decorations for every holiday and get a garden going.

They also make seemingly constant changes to the store - a couple of years ago they added a large balcony to stores, but they’re employee-only. This year, they’re completely changing the layout of the store with more open shelving, and a new product line: groceries. So now, you can head to the shop - pick up some stuff you need - Duct Tape, a gallon of paint, a new hammer, some power tools, milk, popcorn, chips and snacks, macaroni and cheese, some DVDs and even current books (31% discounts apply to bestsellers).

One thing that isn’t new to their stocks is this item - the pushmower.

While I posted about how Web 2.0 is supposed to work, I honestly don’t get it - other than the idea is that you’re interacting with a lot of people at a time, but there is something that doesn’t click.

Just as an example, I clicked on a link - I didn’t check where it went, and if I had known that it was going to some random person’s myspace account, I wouldn’t have clicked on it (and even though I linked to it, I wouldn’t recommend clicking on it either; it took a long time for the page to get loaded, and even then it hadn’t finished; also the site is built with a background image that doesn’t move and that really sucks resources.

So, anyway, my point is that - how can I click on some random person’s Myspace account and have this message come up to me (from the example I linked to)

milford is in your extended network

There are a couple of obvious problems here -

First, I’ve never heard of this person and randomly clicked on a link that led me there.

Secondly, and this is the one that really gets me, how can you have an “extended network” if you don’t even have an account, and never want one? And what, exactly is this extended network; is that to imply that there is a “standard” network and an “inner” network too?

And lastly, if this person “milford” ever happened to stop by here, how many of your 260 purported friends have you ever actually talked to? And I don’t mean as text on a screen - I mean actually talking on the phone or on Skype or even (dare I say it?) met face-to-face.

Though, just for a waste of time, I searched for my old school on there - you can’t filter lists down by age (that takes you to the main homepage) and I would venture to guess that a lot of the people who claimed to be alumni of the place never heard of the town.

One of the blogs that I’ve put into my Google Reader is Google Operating System. It’s not an official Google Blog, but it is a blog that highlights many of the things that Google influences, including how the web has changed.

Today, this item was posted, which was a link to a video made by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. It’s a great primer in what Web 2.0 is, and how it is really changing things. I think the most interesting aspect is looking at how Yahoo was back in 1996, a basic page built on simple HTML - i.e.

<HTML>

<HEAD><TITLE>Yahoo!</TITLE></HEAD> et cetera

To the code for the CNN Top Stories RSS Feed, in full XML. Do watch this, it’s less than 5 minutes, and the music is pretty good to listen to -

Well, you might not know the melody unless you’re from my area and are a football fan, but here we go -

The Bears still suck
The Bears still suck
They really really really really really really suck
Yes, the Bears still suck!

Repeat a few times

As just about everybody who isn’t in Chicago expected, the Colts defeated the Bears to win Super Bowl XLI, an event that was seen live in well over a hundred countries (including some countries where there were upwards of three different versions of the same game airing concurrently - Aussies, I’m looking at y’all ;)). For a few minutes in the first half, it didn’t look too good for those of us cheering for the Colts to do it, but sure enough, they pulled it out and took control.

However, nowadays, the game is almost a sideshow compared to all the other entertainment you see during the game - in particular the commercials. This year’s halftime performance by Prince seemed a touch off, but maybe that’s just me; I think two of the most memorable ones came in the early ’90s - the first was the 1991 Super Bowl where there was no halftime broadcast because of an ABC News brief on the Gulf War. The other was either just before or just after that one - where you had to get Coke products to get some 3D glasses to watch the halftime festivities. Ah well, we can’t have much fun anymore thanks to the last time it was on CBS, with the nipple that nobody would have noticed if not for Tivo..

So, the commercials. The most lauded one was the ad for Nationwide Insurance featuring Kevin Federline first rapping and then boxing fries -

Personally, one of my favorite commercials was the NFL’s “Super Ad” - an ad pitched by a fan in Buffalo about what happens to fans at the end of the season - you know, washing the body paint and having to say goodbye. Of course, for some players, it’s harder; honestly, that’s the best part since they pick on our own “can’t say goodbye” player Favre, who, unlike was projected in December, will be coming back for another go in ‘07. Here it is -

If you want to see just about every ad that aired you can see them on YouTube