I have to share this one…

I just sent the following search query through Google: “dodge dealership 01844”

I am looking for a dealer with a service department to ask them about the problems we are having with the air conditioner in our mini-van.  The first hit was for a dealership on Pelham street in Methuen.  Good, okay.  I can call them.  The second hit was for a place that did not prominently display their address.  At least it wasn’t displayed in such a way that I could see it right off the bat.  There were different sections of the page that included text like, “Searching for a great used car near Methuen, MA 01844?” and “your premier choice to service your new Dodge if you live near Methuen, MA.”  No address though.

I clicked the link for their service department.  That’s when I noticed the address in the page header.  Was it close to home for me?

Nope.

Unless you consider Houston, TX to be close to Methuen, MA.

Urgh.

You know, what is the point of that?  So your page is dynamic enough to pull my query into the body text and use it to calculate my location.  Nice.  Congrats on a sweet piece of coding.  I’m impressed.  However, what’s the point?  Is traffic to your site more important to you than traffic to your dealership?  Because that’s how it looks to me.  Nice, you pulled in a hit from 1,884 miles away.  That does not mean I am going to journey half way across the continent to have you look at my wonky A/C.

Right?  I mean… Right?

Urgh. 

Things sure do get busy during baseball/softball season.

Tonight there is a softball game, a karate class, a need to get brownies for a Friday school birthday party, a need to clean the rest of the damn house prior to a Saturday birthday sleep over party, a need to get the damn air conditioner in the van looked at, and are the tires low again?  There is also a Sunday on-call and lots and lots of weekend games and practices.  The craziness is full on outa control and I like it!  I also have to put new strings on one of the guitars and finish more of those damn unfinished songs.

We’re only a couple of weeks removed from the last vacation, but we’re only a little more than a month away from the next one.  I need that next vacation.  I need it.  As much I as need it though, my beautiful wife needs it even more.  As busy as I am, she’s 10 times busier.  We’re dashing around so crazy like I’m surprised our sneakers haven’t caught fire.

Oh yeah, and the Red Sox winning streak is over.  Crud.

My step son walked and stole second. He went to third on a ground out and then scored on a double.

When he stole second he went in standing and his foot slid across the bag. We might need to get some cleats.

He’s out there cheering his team on and heckling the other team (swing batter batter swing!).

I’ve never seen him this into anything. It’s awesome to watch. He’s so engaged. It’s beautiful.

There is nothing going on in my skull today except for the echoing of crickets chirping.

The Kings won last night.  Good.  The Red Sox won last night.  Good.  The Devils lost game one but have a chance to even the series tonight.

Jen is working like mad.  There is a kids party at our house over the weekend that involves a sleep over (gasp!) and I have cleaning to do.  One of the kids has a baseball/softball practice tonight but I’m not sure which.  They both have something tomorrow, and at least one has something on Friday.  I’m on call all day on Sunday.

There is a ton going on in Robbie’s life these days, but there is nothing but the big empty between my ears right now.  I’ve got a ton of work on my plate here at the office and I am cranking through it all, but it’s taking time.

Back to it then!

Go Kings
Go Red Sox
Go Devils
Go Kings

Just goofing around with Hipstamatic.
The Kings game using my two favorite lens/film combos…

The Red Sox have won four in a row and currently lead the Mariners 1-0 after three innings. Josh Beckett is pitching well.

Remember when the Red Sox were wicked awesome though? I saw a post on Flickr from the Library of Congress in the Commons section of Duffy Lewis yesterday. I gave a search and found this pic that I just kinda like.

It is the 1912 Boston Red Sox taken on October 4, 1912 during the first ever World Series.

See the little girl in the back row? To her right is Tris Speaker. To her left is Smokey Joe Wood.

The 2012 Red Sox could sure use a couple of players like that, huh? How do you think those guys would handle things like free agency and multi-million dollar contracts?

I don’t get the spamming mentality.  I got a comment on yesterday’s NHL predictions post that tries to trick the reader into visiting a site for industrial injury claims.

Huh?

What is it about this completely stupid site that would make some one think that it is a good place to target people who have been injured in an industrial accident and are looking to sue?  Is it the pictures of my cat?  Are they thinking that anyone who watches that much hockey and baseball must have something wrong with him that is worth suing over?  Is it that picture of deer poop that I posted a few months ago?  I don’t get it.

It certainly isn’t the traffic that makes me a target for posting spam.  I get maybe four regular visitors who aren’t either a) me, or b) Google bots.  If I get five hits in a day that aren’t Google web crawlers I throw myself a party.  I put those posts into the Rob’s blog hall of fame (which currently consists of three posts, one is my first Spicket Riverwalk post, another is our visit to Yorks Animal Kingdom, and the third is the one where I posted a copy of the Bruins vs Flyers don’t-date-a-Flyers-fan-even-if-she-shaves-her-moustache advertisement without permission (sorry).  Oh, and my artwork inspired by the term, “asshat” also gets occasional hits.  Other than those posts, no one ever looks at any of this crap, and rightfully so… it’s crap!  It’s the drivel of a blathering idiot, that’s the whole point!  If I didn’t blather here I’d do it in the real world and people would think I’m even more retarded then they already do!

And this site is deemed, by some poorly developed algorithm, to be worthy of the posting of spam?

I really don’t get it.  What’s weirder, is that I got the email telling me that a comment had been posted (I don’t get a lot of those) and the email included the comment text and the user name of the commenter (Anonymous) yet when I looked at the actual post to see the actual comment… there was no comment.  So my stupid page is worthy of spamming, but not worthy of spamming for more than a few minutes.

I really, really don’t get it.

On a related note, did you see that recent US Post Office commercial that sells their excellent bulk mail plan?  I think it was something like, you give us a stack of flyers and a zip code and we’ll get it to everyone in said zip code.

There are laws against email spam.  Why aren’t there laws against snail mail spam?  Just wondering.