My SEO Level is Over 9000

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It all started with my 99 character SEO seminar, in which I challenged the bloated world of search engine optimization (SEO) with just a few simple rules which had always worked for me:

(1) Write compelling content. (2) Use descriptive headlines. (3) Link judiciously. (4) Get linked.

Josh (whom some of you may know better as “cortex” from MetaFilter) took mock-umbrage at my pretenses to expertise, and responded that my advice would cause “your website’s face to explode” — his claim to authority being an SEO level of “over 9000” (a satirical Dragonball-Z reference popularly used in imageboard circles). Sure enough, within hours his Flickr photo and weblog entry were at the top of Google for the term — though of course, no one else had ever before said that his SEO levels were over 9000 till now.

So I’m taking my own SEO advice and making the term more relevant by writing compelling content about the issue, with a relevant headline and a sprinkling of informative links. There’s also an associated video (really just a mildly tweaked rehash of the original “Over 9000” clip, with a description that of course links back to this entry). If I’m right, this should rocket to the top of Google in a day or so, showing cortex who his SEO daddy is.

DC Snowstorm, March 2009

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Some scenes from last week’s snowstorm, a parting shot from a DC winter that was almost completely snowless till its very final week. As I walked through the snow to work, I was especially torn up by the homeless man huddled in a corner of the Columbus Memorial, half-buried in drifts of snow. Hopefully the DC Hypothermia Van picked him up as it regularly does all the other homeless in the area in weather like this.

Apartment Window Amy in Snow Flagpole Base Eagles Helicopter and Bench Little Snowperson on Washington Harbour Pier

Capitol Manhole Cover in Snow

Homeless Man in Snow

The pièce de résistance of my morning snow-walk was this 360+° panorama from the middle of the National Mall: Capitol to Washington Monument and back, with a few extra bonus degrees providing an extra Capitol at far right.

Snowy National Mall 360° Panorama

The 500px wide version is, of course, tiny since the photo is so wide, so you have to see the full size image to get the full scope.

Icy Grant Memorial

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I’m cheating a bit here and showing photos from the last winter storm DC got, back in January. Pictures of the current Northeaster are on their way.

Breakfast as Expression of Duality

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Breakfast as Expression of Duality

Saturday mornings are happy breakfast mornings, when we wake up late and make eggs. Here is an example of a happy Saturday morning breakfast arranged into something like art: a halved slice of toast, a half-slice of salami, and half of an omelette du fromage.

I Once Was Lost

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This was originally a response to the Metatalk thread on J.D. Frazer’s “User-Friendly” plagiarism, but I figured it was worth sharing here too.

Well, while we’re at it:

I tried to pass off Amazing Grace as my own original melody in a sixth grade music composition assignment. I didn’t even know at the time that Amazing Grace was a widespread classic; I’d just heard Scotty playing it on his bagpipe at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and figured our music teacher probably didn’t watch Star Trek so he wouldn’t know some obscure sci-fi musical interlude.

When the old man played the submitted melodies in front of class on his upright piano, he paused a bit at mine while playing, but didn’t say anything.

I got a C.

Encounters Among Twits

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A sort-of-funny thing happened with Twitter last week. I was at the Ballston Common Noodles and Co., having a bowl of pesto cavatelli and leaching wifi from the nearby Panera while waiting to pick up Amy at a class she was teaching; when I thought, I wonder if anyone around here is on Twitter?

I did a quick search for Ballston and found this post by rosscott of chuckle-worthy comic The System, to which I subscribe. The DC webcomics meetup was going on right downstairs from me. Should I go meet up with them? I don’t do webcomics myself; I just read a few. Would I be greeted as a sincere fan of the craft, or as creepy interloping electronic local-stalker? I headed down the escalator to go and find out, and ran into the whole meetup crew as they were coming up.

The reception was positive; Ross appeared quite thrilled to meet a reader in real life. We talked a bit about webcomics and got a photo, but then I had to leave as it was time to pick up my wife.

So hey, where there’s internet, Twitter can work as an effective spontaneous meetup catalyst. Maybe it wasn’t quite meeting Shaquille O’Neal at a diner, but how many webcomic authors from my feeds have I met so far? The answer is now one.

Caturday!

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We haven’t had any cat photos for a while, so here’s a few. Got these cat-and-Amy photos last week with a new camera, a Canon Powershot SD770 to replace the SD1100. More on why I needed a new camera so soon in an upcoming entry.

Duck and Ice

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Duck Leaving Icy Trail

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Above, a duck leaves an icy trail in the Potomac River by Washington Harbour during the first real snow of the winter on January 27th. After about 1-2 inches of snow, we then had a lovely little ice storm the next day which turned the city into something very like a skating rink, which made the walk to work quite fun.

Scenes From the 2009 Inauguration of President Obama

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Amy and I were joined by jclements on the morning of January 20th. Despite living near the Capitol, entering the open expanse of the National Mall from there would have meant squeezing through an impossibly crowded bottleneck between the borders of the inaugural parade route and the ticketed standing areas. Instead we walked as far west as 19th St NW before we found a way onto the Mall that had not been choked off by masses of humanity. The city was, of course, a mess, and every street corner had turned into a mini-bazaar of electoral and inaugural memorabilia.

From 19th St NW we managed to head down Virginia Ave NW right up to the Washington Monument, where we stood near the Monument’s base, within sight of three jumbotrons. It was cold, but worth the walking and shivering to be shoulder to shoulder with fellow Americans to see history, even if from a crowded, far-off hill, through speakers and jumbotron screens. Then we went to Georgetown and had burgers.

More photos here, along with the days leading up to the event — including a sighting of Sir Ian McKellen at the Reynolds Center during a MetaFilter meetup.

Christmas 2008 and New Year 2009 Holiday Travel Roundup

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Holiday in Transit: Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains from brownpau on Vimeo.

I should really write my travel logs on the fly so I get them out of the way faster, rather than taking weeks to finish like this. I’ve had to backdate my latest entries to avoid the archived embarassment of having my travel entries for two weeks stretch between two months. Also, I need a better naming convention for my New Year trips because “Christmas 2008 and New Year 2009” is just way too long.

In a nutshell:

Travel log entries

Photosets: