My friend Nikki sent me a threatening text message the other day, demanding that I send her some good songs that she can jog to. She said she wanted the songs quickly. I believe the exact word she used was “STAT!!” (She’s a medical professional)
Of course, I’m more than happy to oblige.
Here’s a bunch of weirdy shit for you, Nikki. Please don’t play this around Liam and Campbell.
Posted in Music, sports on April 21st, 2011 by Andrew
I’m confused. In this new Lil Wayne video, is our hero wearing both a Red Sox hat and a big NY Yankees chain? If so, what does that mean? Is one of them ironic? Or when you live in New Orleans, do you have enough distance to sincerely appreciate the value of both teams?
I’m not a big fan of this song. It’s too big and obnoxious for my tastes. But every time Rick Ross tells me he has a chopper in the car, I think it’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard.
Last month, the New York Times published a fantastic story about the way JC Penney figured out how to get great placement in Google search results. Around the holidays, if you typed a generic product into Google — like “dresses” or “bedding” or “area rugs” — the first result would inevitably be JC Penney. Which — theoretically — increased chances that you would buy these products from JC Penney instead of one of its competitors.
This was also true for some specific brand names, too. If you typed “Samsonite Luggage” into Google, your first result would have also been JC Penney, which sells that product.
The store accomplished this by basically gaming the system. It didn’t do anything illegal, just something that Google and other self-appointed web police look down on. It either created or hired a bunch of meaningless, empty web sites and posted links on them that pointed back to JC Penney’s site. This made JC Penney seem very popular on the web, and thus it achieved higher page rankings.
I looked into this topic for a radio show I was working on, and while I interviewed potential guests, I couldn’t help getting frustrated that no one would give credence to my devil’s advocacy. “But what did JC Penney do wrong?” I kept asking search experts. “How is it different than naming your pluming company ‘AAA Plumbing’ just to get listed first in the phone book?” None of the experts answered that adequately, but they all insisted Google was right to punish JC Penney for its “black hat” actions.
This all happened last month. Today, I was listening to an old episode of public radio’s On The Media, and the hosts were reading listeners’ letters. One listener wrote in to comment on the JC Penney story. I wanted to kiss my iPod when host Bob Garfield read it. I’m posting the audio and a transcript below.
On the Media: Listener Letter: JC Penney
On our interview last week about how JCPenney gamed Google to achieve better search results, Ted Bunn of Richmond, Virginia writes, quote: “I’m baffled by your use of the words ‘sinister’ and especially ‘illicit,’ to characterize JCPenney’s search optimization strategy. Nothing in your report suggests that anything the company did was illegal. You can bet that all of JCPenney’s competitors do their best at search engine optimization. They’d be negligent in their obligation to their shareholders if they didn’t.
As far as I can tell from your report, JCPenney’s only crime was to be better at it. If Google wants to remain preeminent in the search business, its obligation is to plug holes in its algorithm. No one else is obligated to refrain from walking through any holes they find.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Trust me, I tried.
I am not going to sit here and tell you that I’ve never daydreamed about being one of the Hardy Boys. I don’t mind admitting it because I know you do it sometimes, too. We all do.
The reason I bring it up now, though, is because our time has come. We have an honest to God crime to solve. Someone has stolen the Mayor’s wife’s bike, and if that’s not a job for the Hardy Boys, then I’m not a 34 year old white guy suffering from arrested development.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn tweeted this moments ago:
Concerned citizens immediately tweeted their condolences, and one ambitious cybervigilante offered to step in. “Do you have a description/photo? We’ll get it out to the blogs : )”.
The mayor responds with a photo:
We’ve got a mystery on our hands, folks. You call Chet Morton. I’ll pull The Sleuth out of the boathouse and get her warmed up. We’re going to make dad so proud.
PS — The mayor seems truly upset. Save the bike, save the marriage?
Posted in movies, Music on January 23rd, 2011 by Andrew
As Hurricane Katrina made its way to the gulf coast, a Six Flags near New Orlean’s 9th Ward closed its gates and hunkered down for the storm. It never reopened. Now it’s a sprawling bone yard of roller coasters and vandalism.
Photographer Teddy Smith made this short documentary about it.
The band The Generationals remixed Teddy Smith’s work for their new video “Victim of Trap.” It’s a really good song. You should watch this video, too:
Posted in Podcast, radio on January 10th, 2011 by Andrew
Revolt of the Worms - Photo by Ben McLeod
A long time ago, my girlfriend bought me a CD filled with hundreds of old radio shows from the 1940s. One of the best stories was about a selfish, mean-spirited, overly-ambitious scientist who tried to create the biggest rose the world had ever seen. But instead of creating huge flowers, his experiments yielded giant worms. Giant, man-eating worms.
Radio producer Arch Oboler wrote the story, and it aired on his popular “Lights Out” program on October 13, 1942.
Back in 2003, I sucked the story into my computer, chopped it up, and added other people’s music. Then I played the remix for all my friends until they started making excuses not to hang out with me anymore. Now it’s your turn. Enjoy.
Apparently I wrote this story when I was a kid. Apparently the Challenger explosion had an impact on my early work as a writer.
My mom found this and scanned it and sent it to me. I’ve asked her to send more.
The name of this troll is J.H.L. (standing for Jerry, Harry and Larry.) He is the kind of troll that wouldn’t like to hurt anybody. He crawls to get around and moo-o-oos like a sick cow. The only food it eats is rabbits tails and feet.
One day J.H.L. got sick of the planet L.O.I. (meaning Land of Idiots), so he slithered to his capsule and took off. He crashed on the planet Earth. He liked Earth ways, but people were mean to him. They took him to court and pressed charges. He did not want a war so he made an announcement. He said if they fixed his ship, he would leave. So NASA did and the next night he took off. When the people watched it made a flash and blew up. Some say NASA did it on purpose, and cleaning people for NASA said they heard ghostly moo-os, but who knows.
![mixtape [2011-03-27]](http://radiofreewalsh.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/COVER2-300x300.jpg "mixtape [2011-03-27]")
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