This is not an article on Navajo Code Talkers from the Hopi Reservation outside Gallup, New Mexico or Flagstaff, Arizona. This is about computer code. It is not a link to the Nicholas Cage movie site either, sorry.
I have a friend in western PA., his name is John, he programs these suckers for a living, he is a tech-no-savy individual, warm, personable, intelligent without a doubt. I didn’t know him in grade school or anything like that, but I suspect his science project was always done on time and turned in for the grade by the appointed hour. Myself I am still out on the Jungle Jim, swingin’ on the Monkey Bars and wondering where it is that they get the stuff for the insides of Volley Balls.
Tech-no-Savy I am not, but I have been trained and indoctrinated into the “toilet seat thing” but that is another post altogether, some other time. Like I said, Tech-no I am not — I am just barely remote qualified at best. For years, when my VCR blinked right after it was installed, 12:00am-12:00am, I thought it was the Japanese Programmers signaling me the anniversary date of the death of Hirohito or something.
I am that thick.
Last week, I asked my friend John how it is that you “link up something to something” figuring he would know how to do this. John is my barometer on WordPress.com because unfortunately I have the only known Beta version of computer Bermuda Triangle web-pages on the net. No matter what it is that I enter, it has a strong possibility of being sucked into this enormous black hole and sent to computer-information-oblivion.
My computer problems are not special or unique, mine just defy logic, and cannot be figured out by myself, the government or John for that matter. I dutifully enter the date, move the cursor to save, click, and whoosh! … No more data, it disappears.
So I ask John, “How do you do this, make a link from one thing to another?” And he replies: The link address for each of your entries looks something like this: (it has been condensed for space limitations) After typing some 69 words and characters you get the code.
Which would be: <ahref=”http://ldsrr91.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/dont-get-ugly-grandpa/” title=”Don’t get ugly Grandpa!” target=”_blank”><b>Don’t get ugly Grandpa!</b></a>
One of the old schools of thought suggests that “if you are really good at something, you can take the very complex, and make it appear simple.” Roy Clark and Vince Gill would be great examples of this. Both of them actually make guitar pickin’ look simple, but in reality, it is far from it. Truly talented individuals.
Must be some of that in play here. John is so used to doing this stuff it is second nature to him, whereas an Old Okie Nose Picker like myself, it appears to be Nuclear Science or something. As I am a natural blond, it takes me awhile to grasp ahold of things, (I have not been able to make a pitcher of Orange Juice in years, because the can says “Concentrate” on the label) I am the definitive missing link in my family gene pool. All I wanted was a link.
What I basically need is a button John, yeah a button would work just fine.
Just this week I read where a guy in Denver, who seemed awfully fond of SPAM was convicted and sentenced to 21 months in a federal prison for the distribution of same. Nice. It should have been 72 months. He was convicted of sending out hundred’s of thousands of SPAM messages on V1@agra perhaps you might have received one. What they should have given him was ONE DAY for each message that would have been to me poetic justice.
Okay, quick quiz. What do recycling, farmers markets and “The Wire” have in common? If you’ve ever read Stuff White People Like, the satirical blog that has clocked over 20 million hits since its January debut, you’d have your answer.
Random House Publishing just handed the site’s author a reported $350,000 book deal and that might explain the proliferation of knockoff sites by minorities poking fun at their own. Now we have a Stuff Educated Black People Like (#8 business cards), Stuff Asian People like (#46 cutting in line), Stuff Jewish Young Adults like (#4 Ultimate Frisbee), the sites, of course, are a joke. Most people prefer neo-soul.
The reality is, Random House paid him some serious bucks and that is enticing, inviting, worth going for.
Now that is not chump change, that is some serious “muny.” Three hundred fifty large has a nice ring to it. Ka-Ching! I am now working on my own sites and going after the much coveted million-zillion hit meter. I am going to work on them this week.
Stuff people love about divorce.
How to stuff romance into your already busy life.
Stuff to entice your kids to graduate from High School (new car, condo in Cancun, home theater)
How to deal with being passed over for a promotion, and stuff.
What to do about your new boss and how he will change stuff.
Pending mergers, layoffs, outsourcing and stuff
What it is like to never retire and work for minimum wage at McDonalds till you die stuff.
And my own personal favorite …. “Where the hell did I put MY Stuff?”
Tomorrow morning, fresh and early, I am loading up in my old Star Spangled Banner Red coloured Pick ‘em Up Truck, with a picture of Paula Abdul hanging from the mirror, and the backseat full of hastily copied thumb-drives, old manuscripts and heading to Dallas to find me a book publisher. (May have to pawn Grandpa’s pocket watch for gas money, but by Gawd, I am going!) I have a virtual gold mine right here, if it doesn’t trash itself and implode inwards by say Tuesday.
I want me some of that cash money.
000
