The Bullshit Stalker

The Bullshit Stalker Recognizes Steven Humour

By admin on Sep. 8, 2008.

You can’t wade through the bullshit like I do and keep your head on straight without taking a break now and then.  Steven Humour (Humor for all my American readers) provides my daily dose of funny.  I can count on this guy to have a daily post that will make me laugh and realize, “We may be fucked as a species, so we might as well laugh about it.”

He has a quick hitting, and sometimes dark sense of humor that I can really relate to.  Most of his content is from other places, but he seems to dig out some of the best stuff on the net.  So, save yourself some time and hit his site for your daily laugh out loud moment.  You won’t be sorry!

The Bullshit Stalker Recognizes… The Natural State Hawg

By admin on Aug. 22, 2008.

This continues our series of recognizing blogs and websites we like because they make us laugh or think or better yet, both.  Our last recommendation featured The Bobo Files.  This one is a little closer to home.

Yes, today we recognize our fellow Arkansas blogger, The Natural State Hawg.  This blog is just one month old, but we’re hooked already.

We do have a few pieces of bullshit to point out:

1. His blog is on blogspot rather than his own domain.  But if you’re going to do that, do it well.  He took the time to create a header and other graphics that tie his site out nicely.
2. He gets wrapped up in every meme that comes around.  We probably shouldn’t complain since he has tagged us twice (much appreciated).  We don’t do memes for about the same reason we don’t do Wordless Wednesdays.
3. He writes about things we don’t care about.  But for some damn reason, we do when he’s done.  Rat terriers?  Crap, now I want one of those perky little bastards.

And I think that is the point.  The Natural State Hawg is the essence of a personal weblog.  He writes about the things that matter to him.  He does it in a style that drags you in.  He sticks with you through his blog comments.

He’s an educated, southern gentleman, a family man, and just a bit quirky.  You probably know someone like that.  Whether you do, or whether you don’t, you should check Ethan out.

P.S. Ethan, I don’t really have any anger issues, so no head explosions in the works.  Cheers!

The Bullshit Stalker Recognizes… The Bobo Files

By admin on Aug. 4, 2008.

This is the first in what will likely be a regular series. Every few weeks, I will be recognizing a blog that I really like. These unsolicited acts of good will are intended to show that I haven’t complete gone to the dark side. I see good in the world, although it tends to be other jaded bloggers. But I digress…

I’d like to call your attention to The Bobo Files. He dresses like a clown. However, a few minutes into the blog and you’ll realize he is far from that.

The design of the site is just magnificent. A really cool logo gives way to a very neat site. Despite the dark background, he manages to use colored fonts that aren’t hard on the eyes (this is no small feat). He does have a few more ads and widgets that I care for, but they’re done well enough and site loading speed is acceptable.

This guy can write circles around me. And he’s a clown!

He doesn’t pull any punches, calling it like he sees it. It warms the heart of this bullshit stalker to know that there are kindred spirits out there. He is holding true to what blogging is all about, digging, prodding, asking the questions the conventional media never dares. He’s brilliant at it!

I know clowns scare some people. But this clown should only scare those who lean left. He’s more than a match for any of the best liberal bloggers I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t read his blog yet, I’d encourage you to. I’m pretty sure you’ll become a regular there.

My hats off to The Bobo Files!

The Amazon Hosting Model Is Killing The Internet

By admin on Aug. 1, 2008.

Several startups that I’m using, Twitter and Entrecard use the Amazon S3 Web Services for data hosting.  They do this for the pay as you go model and superior service for for those techie things.  But as more and more start ups leverage this environment, they become less distributed (as the Internet should be) and when it goes down, they all go down.  For early adopters, or those who are just unlucky to use several that are on this platform, it is bullshit.

Twice in the past mont Amazon has gone down.  Now, it is one thing when an Internet store goes down.  We go somewhere else to buy that book or we change our mind and go to the library instead.  But when it takes down several services that we use and rely on, then we have an issue.

I can hear some of you now.  Maybe you should just step away from the computer and get on with things when these services come back up.  You are clearly missing the point and not understanding the cost of these things.  Entrecard was down for more than 8 hours.  All of my advertising that I’d paid for (with credits that have value) were lost for 1/3 of the period.  I also missed receiving traffic from that source for that period.   Now as the timing goes, I lost very little.  But it could have been much worse.  That is my flag that the risk is emence.  The more companies that leverage hosting like this, the more dangerous it is when those services go down.

The Internet is a critical part of the world’s infrastructure.  Billions of dollars of business are conducted there daily.  When something threatens that resource, we should all be calling bullshit!

Wordless Wednesday Is Bullshit!

By admin on Jul. 7, 2008.

As a blogger, I spend a bit of time conversing with other bloggers, visiting their sites, commenting where needed, etc.  I do this to learn a bit about the craft.  See, I know my writing is for crap.  But it is an outlet and it keeps me from just pummeling someone for doing or saying something stupid.  Little steam here, little steam there… all better!

I’m seeing more and more of “wordless” or “one word” blog posts.  What the hell is that?

It seems like a ploy to show a blog entry when the blogger couldn’t be bothered.  Why not just post, “I’m taking a day off folks.  See ya tomorrow?”

At least post a link to a picture.  Or links to other blogs you’ve enjoyed.  Or just skip it.  Wordless blogs are bullshit!

Sorry, But Sometimes Twitter Is Bullshit!

By admin on Jun. 27, 2008.

Twitter won’t find a bigger fan than me. I use it daily. It is my goto Internet application for answers. In many ways, I think it could be a Google killer. I won’t bore you with the theory I have, nor will I argue the issue with you. Primarily because of this:

For Twitter to make it, it has to become dependable. Google is dependable, Yahoo is dependable, Microsoft is dependable (I can hear the groans, but yes, they are).

I am not a whale, nor am I heavy. Okay, so I might be a bit heavy from a physical perspective, but not from an online perspective. And neither is Scoble. Not in a real sense.

So, yes, Twitter outages are Bullshit! Fix the technical issues guys. You have a brilliant tool, and you have adequate financing. Make it what it should be. What it is striving to be. Enough of the bullshit.