Paging An Editor: An Article About Champagne Vinegar?

I think the point of this New York Times article is that Champagne vinegar is good. But that point only shows up in the last two paragraphs: The rest is a stretched analogy about the flip side of Champagne's connotations of luxury. So what is the point of this article, anyway?

No. Really. No Ads.

I got an email today asking something about placing content on OWF. I gave my standard response — I don't take ads on OWF. The author wrote back. Clearly I misread her intent: I thought she wanted to take out ads.

The text links I referred to in my previous email will not consume any advertisement space (header/footer/side bar) on your web pages and are to be placed within the existing content of your web pages.

Each of these paragraphs will be custom-written to go nicely with the rest of your webpage and will add unique content to your webpage. These paragraphs will contain natural text links only and will not affect your page ranking with Google.

I will write keeping the content, quality and audience of your website in view. After reviewing your website thoroughly, I'll write the paragraphs' content accordingly.

Would an ad by any other name still smell … ? If I say no ads, I mean it. It doesn't matter how they look.

Heroes Fans Fan Service?

On my way home, I listened to the most recent episode of The 10th Wonder, a podcast about Heroes. The hosts announced that they'd be taking a break for the next few weeks, in contrast to last season's hiatus, where they kept the podcast going as "a service to the fans."

My inner schoolboy ("inner?" you're thinking) emerged, and I giggled. Three guys giving fan service? I'll pass, no matter what my friends might think of me. Call me when French Maid TV does it.

Oh, right. I guess FMTV is almost all fan service.

Gmail Ads

I was amused by the current juxtaposition of context-sensitive ads appearing alongside my gmail pane:

Retaining Walls
Genesis Stoneworks Freeee! in home estimates Call 800-287-5400

Random Number Generation
Stanford finance risk mgmt courses. Learn new ideas & proven techniques

Official Gaiam Yoga Store
Official source for Gaiam yoga mats yoga kits, props & accessories.

SOHAKSC

Today's Slylock Fox, shown near the bottom of this Comics Curmudgeon post, asks readers — children, in theory — to rearrange the letters in six words to spell the names of items in the picture.

Go ahead, try to figure out what SOHAKSC spells. You can probably guess the word based on how English structures these things, but do you know what it means? Can you find it in the picture? How many kids do you know who could nail this one?

Quote Of The Day: Mass Effect's Story

From Wired’s review of Mass Effect, a game that has garnered a lot of praise for its sweeping story: “Mass Effect doesn't have the Star Wars license, so they've created their own universe of aliens and mysteries, and as far as I'm concerned George Lucas can take his midichlorians and shove them up his Gungan.”

Posts Are Not Blogs

I realize that easy-to-use blogging software has given lots of folks access to this technology, and that there will be an inevitable sloppiness about terminology, but I share with Grant Barrett a pet peeve about the use of the word “blog” when the person really means “post.”

I just received a press release about the fact that Traci Des Jardins is now a guest blogger at the Epicurious blog. I noticed that Des Jardins made the post/blog mistake when I saw her post on the site — prior to receiving the press release — but thought little of it: I assume she’s not a techie. But the PR person repeated the mistake in an email sent to, I assume, lots of bloggers.

She wrote: “You can read her first blog which posted yesterday about easing the holiday pain (see link and blog pasted below).”

With a touch of that “big dose of personality” that Amanda once mentioned, I wrote back.

If I may, let me point out that Traci Des Jardins did not write her first blog yesterday: She wrote her first post on a blog. As a non-techie, she can be forgiven the mistake, but if you, the PR person, are sending this note out to bloggers, it sounds odd to make "blog" and "post" synonymous. A blog contains posts; they are not the same.

I also noted that I don’t link to celebrity bloggers until they’ve proven that they’ll keep writing and not peter out. She wrote back to assure me that Des Jardins would be posting in the future.

She closed that second note with, “Hope you will be enjoying her blogs.”