Sephy’s Platzish

I’m thinking a new cellphone battery, but I can deal with charging my phone regularly; anyway - I have a car charger, and one that plugs into the wall as well. But how can I buy stuff?

I got a call on said cellphone today, when I was at, of all the places in the world, the grocery store. It was the staffing company I talked about on Tuesday letting me know how it all shook out with regards to the job I had applied to just last Saturday.

I got the job, and I start on Monday!

Admittedly, this has to be one of the best days I’ve had in a long time - after waiting all day for them to call me back, I was starting to get a little concerned, but I then went along with my day, and right there in the cereal aisle, across from the oatmeal and pancake mixes, I heard the familiar ringtone (which is just the sound of a phone ringing - no fancy schmancy polyphonic tones for me, thanks!) and looking at the number on the display, I knew who it was.

I answered, and it was who I had been expecting to hear from all day today.

I think this is one of those moments to have a discussion about things that are useful to have around - such as someone who has a pen and  conveniently placed post-it notepad available for you. Yeah, I wound up taking notes on the job on a piece of post-it note, right in the section where the Quaker rice chips are sold.

When I got off of the phone, I think anyone in the store around me might have thought I had just gotten a root organized or something cos I had this really huge smile on my face, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t hovering a couple of inches off of the ground.

It’s been a long time, but it will definitely be nice to work to make some money.

Every week, there’s a note in my This was the week that was posts - an update on the US Blogs community on Bumpzee - in fact, if it wasn’t for the US Blogs community, there probably wouldn’t be a This was the week that was post if it were not for the community. However, there has been something amiss with the site for quite a while now, and I am wondering if anyone even notices the site’s errors anymore?

First off, you may have noticed that I’ve dropped their widget from my sidebar. The simple reason is that it has been loading very slowly for months now. In addition to that, for the longest time (around the time they took off the site stats part of the widget “to improve performance” ostensibly, but it didn’t), the widget had been showing me as a visitor to my own blog - something that neither Mybloglog or BlogCatalog do or have ever done. However, where things really start to go wrong is at the main site.

For the longest time now, the site loads excruciatingly slow - even when doing simple things like going to the home page. Sometimes I can let it go for a long time with it loading nothing more than maybe the top navigation bar. Other times the site dies completely - I’ve gone to the home page many times only to be faced with a completely blank screen, only the basic elements showing up - no list of recent posts in the site, no list of recent visitors, etc. As I said on Monday, it’s not even funny anymore. In fact, here is what the site looks like when this happens. Note that not 5 minutes before this, I was logged in and everything worked okay.

Leadership - or a lack thereof

So, that begs a question - what are the owners of the site doing to solve these problems? Well, and I hate to have to be the one to say it, but it has to be said, it appears they’re doing nothing. The last time that the Bumpzee blog was updated was October 15th - over 4 months ago. The last time that Bumpzee was mentioned on the owner of the site’s blog? September 27th. In fact, if you take a look, the last time he logged into the site was in January.

As anyone will tell you, it’s poor form to simply disappear without leaving a note, but in this case notes are being left constantly. Just look at his site - new posts every other day or so. The only problem is that none of them even mention Bumpzee, except for in a comment on a post, but even then he doesn’t acknowledge the site, just the other part of the text in the comment. Recently, I was exchanging messages with one of the members who was having issues with changing the address of a blog they owned, and I was asked if the owner was still in charge. Honestly, I don’t know.

Where to from here?

One thing that I don’t want to advocate, as it would be an extreme action, would be to abandon the site completely. I think that it still has a lot of potential, especially with the community function the site has. Applied properly, it is a trump card that could make Bumpzee become competitive with both MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog, and even have the ability to overtake one or both of the sites. However, when you have leadership which gives the appearance of not caring about the state of the site, that is where you begin to run into trouble.

I know and understand the fact that people get busy and might not have the time to dedicate to projects anymore, but there comes a time when you have to make a decision - either say that yep, there are problems, but we’re going to take some time and get them sorted out, or you can say just to “keep on keeping on” and continue to fend with the problems of the site and ignore them. Of course, there are more drastic options (change of ownership, quitting), but surely a site that has been around for over a year deserves to keep up the great work it’s started.

Another issue to address

There is one other major issue that needs to be addressed, but this is something that is common to all community sites - the quality of blogs in the site. Really, a site doesn’t have to be a blog (for example, I’ve seen sites on Squidoo submitted for approval to the US blogs community - while they have RSS feeds, as far as I can tell, they’re not blogs) to join the site or to join a community. As the owner of the US blogs community, I am fairly strict when it comes to blogs that I accept. For example, if a site is loaded with affiliate links, or if it doesn’t appear to be a blog, I’ll reject it.

Of course, if someone who isn’t in the US submits their blog, I reject the submission - it’s fairly straightforward to spot them, though - they usually submit to every community out there. Unfortunately, I think I’ve been snookered by one person who claimed to be in the US, but as far as I can tell, they’re not.

I also don’t appreciate content scrapers - if I look through your blog, and I find that it is filled with articles which I find readily on other sites in a search - you get rejected. It’s not that hard to come up with fresh content on your own, but I guess for some it’s just too much to handle, so they have to copy and paste everything.

What do you think?

I’m curious to hear your opinions of the goings on at Bumpzee - is it time to abandon ship, or is it worthwhile to stick it out for the long haul. Personally, I think it’s worth sticking out, but over time (and I think this is something reflected in their Alexa rankings, with a continual downward trend ever since November), the site will slowly fade. I know that I don’t get as many applications to the US blogs group as I had in the past, some of that is lack of advertising, but a lot of that is due to the site not being as dependable as it was.

In any case, the fact that the site seems to take a lax attitude towards fixing problems that have been going on for a while certainly counts in the negative column on their side…

It’s less than a year until the date when all the TV stations are required by federal law to switch off their old analog signals and start broadcasting in digital only. Of course, the push is on for everyone to get an HDTV, but the reality is that while it would be awesome to get one to take advantage of the full signals given off by these digital channels, you only need to get a DVD recorder - they have digital tuners, which can pick up HDTV signals, but not broadcast them in full HD.

However, if you do want to buy yourself a new HDTV set with, say, the $600 you’re getting from the government, or from your tax refund from this year, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First - when shopping around, make sure that your set has two coaxial inputs - one for cable and one for antenna. That way, you can pick up the cable channels you’re already getting on your analog TVs (and which you will still receive after the air stations go dark). Also, you might be able to pick up extra channels from your cable company’s digital packages, and sometimes even get the on demand programming, depending on how your cable system’s set up. Of course, the other coaxial input is for your antenna that you have (admit it!) on your roof, even though you haven’t used it for nearly 15 years ever since cable was installed…not that I’m guilty of that.

Not at all.

The cool thing about the antenna input is the fact that you will get extra channels than you would get if you got your HDTV via cable or satellite.  Let’s take an example of the stations in this area.

First up is channel 4 - 4.1 is the main TV signal, in mixed format between widescreen HD and 4:3 Standard TV, 4.2 is a digital-only weather channel, NBC’s Weather Plus (people in the city will jump up and exclaim that it’s on cable, but it ain’t here!)

Next is channel 6 - they only have 6.1, the Fox signal, comprised of HD programming, 4:3 programs, and some widescreen programs

Channel 10 is where digital comes alive, literally. This is the great thing of having two PBS stations in the market run by the same broadcaster. Channel 10’s digital signal has 7 separate subchannels - none of which are on cable - 10.1 - MPTV World, featuring rebroadcasts of PBS and local programming, 10.2 - V me, PBS’ Spanish language channel, 10.3 - MPTV Kids, featuring all children’s programming, 10.4 - Create, a channel which airs overnights on 36, but this is the 24-hour feed of cooking, craft and other awesome PBS shows, 10.5-7 - MPTV Extra; weather and traffic video, with different audio tracks - classical music, weather radio, and world radio network, which rebroadcasts national broadcasters from around the world.

Channel 12 has just one digital channel, featuring ABC’s HD feed, with the lovely added bonus of a constant 12 logo on the screen, because we wouldn’t know we were watching channel 12 without that logo on there in addition to the ABC logo…

Channel 18 also only has one signal, featuring the CW’s HD programming.

Channel 24 used to have a second digital subchannel featuring The Tube music network, but from what I have heard, they suspended that channel.

Channel 30 has a digital channel, but nothing in HD. I think the less said about their programming the better…

Channel 36’s digital feed (the other PBS station in town) is dedicated completely to delivering HD programs. It’s a 24-hour HD channel, commercial free.

The next channel worth mentioning (aside from some random religious channels and a shopping channel) is 55 - the Pax network (now called ion, which stands for infomercials on now). They have 4 digital channels, none in HD - 55.1 - ion Main feed, 55.2 Qubo children’s programming, 55.3 Ion Life and 55.4 Worship.

Channel 58 is an interesting channel - during this time of year, they actually drop the HD feed because of the running of the NCAA tournament - which takes up 58.1-58.4 (and the same channels on cable 581-584). During the rest of the year, 58.1 is the main CBS feed, 58.2 is the rebroadcast of channel 41, an independent. It has been rumored that they will be adding a classic TV network to their lineup in the next couple of months, but nothing firm has been mentioned.

Oh, by the way, those are just the Milwaukee channels. Who says that we can’t get the Madison channels as well? If the weather’s right, Chicago isn’t out of the question. Nevertheless, all the choices offered by FREE HDTV are probably better than what you get on the digital packages on cable (though satellite is a different question).

Now, if only we could get something like the UK has with their Freeview program, encompassing a ton of free TV, along with a ton of digital radio. Ah well, I guess beggars can’t be choosers. We get our TV truly for free, the UK has the licence to deal with…

So, today I went in for what could be considered a routine interview with a staffing company in the area. It’s not one of the more well-known ones, but I have to say that they have good choices when it comes to food in the area.

Yeah, can you tell it was around lunchtime? I wound up getting pure junk - donut holes bought from a convenience store…all because I had a gift card to that particular chain. In the immediate area, there are a couple of Chinese restaurants, take-and-bake just about anything, Italian, custard and even (a rarity for this area) an Indian restaurant in the area.

But, I digress.

I left home about 12.20 for the 1.30 appointment, and I think that I took longer to figure out a place to park than I took to actually get there - and I didn’t even follow one of the routes I “knew” - I took the one that was suggested to me by Google Maps (who now have street view for my area - one of the local stations ran one of those “oh my god, pictures of streets are on the intarwebs; let’s run for cover!” stories…how many of them love satellite images - my thought is that anyone can go and drive through a neighborhood and get the same view as you get on street view - it’s useful to know if there is a light at an intersection, for example).

Anyway, I sit down and fill out the paperwork - the usual stuff; tax forms, employment history, skills, etc., and then wait for a couple of minutes while my consultant is working on something real quick, and we go into one of the closed offices to do the interview.

As far as I can tell, there’s a good possibility that I could be working within a week or two. I’ve had this feeling ever since getting the callback so quickly after submitting my resume to them that it would be a good thing. Now all I have to do is wait for them to call me back and let me know if I will fit in to the job. It think I will.

If you’re curious, the job entails doing some fundraising calling for a charity; it’s not cold-calling, and there’s no pressure sales - if someone says no, you thank them and move on. Plus, it’s all scripted from what I hear.

I think I’m actually excited about this - and somewhat looking forward to being able to earn more money than I have been over the last few months.

Right, so this week’s over, and we are approaching the end of winter. 40°F predicted for Sunday!

Posts I liked -

• Digging into the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s archives, we find a couple of cool articles. First, from the era of prohibition, a bit of (even 83 years later) unsurprising news - Milwaukee is all wet. Yeah, anyone surprised? Didn’t think so.
• One of my favourite bridges out there is the Stone Arch bridge in Minneapolis. This year marks the 125th anniversary of its opening. Check out the article that originally appeared in the Daily Minnesota Tribune. Fortunately, thanks to the internet, we can pass up the society happenings and court records.
• It’s not a blog post per se, but I love the guy’s pure Chicago accent. It’s too bad they only had 2 guarantees - cos if they had only one more they’d have tree guarantees dis munt. Yeah, I’ve experienced the Chicago accent.
• I’m a comic strip junkie, and have quite a bit of Garfield books and even paraphernalia. But what happens when you take him out of the equation? Elizabeth points us to a site that features just that.
• It’s been a while since I’ve featured something from Craig Harper, but his recent vacation shed some light on some awesome people - big blokes in skirts. I think it’s something in the water of the South Pacific that makes everyone from down there awesome.
• Here’s a hamburger recipe that sounds quite delectable - a bean and turkey burger, with some Mexican influence. Theoretically, you could change some of the ingredients and even make it into a vegetarian burger…
• Have an old laptop sitting around? Why not find some projects for it to take on. Lifehacker have the details on that.
• Lastly, if you only watch one ad this week (fat chance, but you never know), make it be this one from Victoria’s TAC, featuring those who have been affected by speeders around the state. It’s a very well-done spot, definitely meant to get the message out there. Don’t speed.

New blogs this week in the US Blogs community at BumpZEE -

None at this time - once again the site is down…it’s not even funny anymore.

Keywords -

• watch mythbusters monster jam - An interesting concept, if I say so myself. Maybe there is a myth that says if you’re driving a monster truck, you don’t flip? I think one Monster Jam ep would negate that.
• looking for a yahoo chat room - Apparently, they don’t exist anymore, but I think if you try using trillian version 3.0, you might have some luck. I know the scammers loved some of those rooms…along with a lot of sleazy people.
• free on line file manager to post images from - I would not trust any online software to access my whole file system. However, if you are looking for something to upload photos to Flickr from, there is the Flickr Uploadr, along with an extension that you can publish your photos from windows xp.
• hired killer scambait - I’m assuming you’re looking for Don Fabiano Jutolio Chichi. Isn’t everyone? I haven’t heard from him in a while. Betcha his email ain’t working anymore.
• booze proxy server import - Trying to get your vodka by proxy? You’d be better off finding a buddy to drink with…
• censorship is good or not - No. Not ever.
• krista voda sex - She’s already busy enough, but I think I could spare a few moments hours for that. She could too.

This week around the blog, I showed you how to get started on securing your Firefox experience by using NoScript. It is a bit confusing at the start, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. Also, my laptop came back to life. Fortunately, I did get one of the things off of it that I wanted to get off of it (if you’re wondering, it was some music that I had downloaded but hadn’t transferred over). If I can get it running somewhat stably, I might just install one of those small Linux distros on it.

On Tuesday, I went out and voted. It was a big ballot - one election to vote in. The next one (in April) will have a few more seats. Then, we don’t vote again until September or October (if there are more than 2 candidates for some seats) and then definitely in November to elect the new President.

Coming up, I’m in a bit of a ranting mood. I think it’s got something to do with this weather. One of the things I’ve mentioned already, but the other is one of those let’s shed some light on what happened types of discussions.

One last thing - vale Ashley Cooper, who passed away as the result of injuries sustained in an incident during the Fujitsu V8 Development series race at the Adelaide street course over the weekend.

‘Til next week y’all!