Ladies and gentleman, as my contribution to the new movement to encourage comments from blog readers, I present...


Brought to you courtesy of St Claire's Safety Sign Builder.

Real and made-up statistics

For every 100 internet users, only 1 is producing content. Bloggers fit into the producer category.

According to a Problogger serious statistic,
For every 400 visitors to a blog, only 1 person leaves a comment.

Why comment?

Blog content is avidly consumed, day after day, for free, by fans and casual visitors alike. You wouldn't think twice about paying for a magazine, so why not at least tip someone who entertains you for a few minutes, especially if you call by every day?

I am not making a case for tipping cash, or micro-payments, I am talking comments. Most bloggers will say that the best reward for writing a post is not mountains of money, but a comment - good bad or indifferent. A comment is a sign that there is life out there, a sign that we are not writing into a vacuum. A comment is worth a lot to a writer, it spurs them on and feeds the quality of the content for fans.

I think we all deserve to die if we can't schedule a couple of comments into our surfing schedule!

Conclusion

To all you good people, if you are one of the 99 visitors out of a hundred who doesn't want the hassle of writing their own blog, at least write a comment or two - good, bad or indifferent - on your favorite blogs. A comment is free and takes about 60 seconds in its shortest form, a small price to pay to keep blogs alive and real. Remember, if you don't comment more, you could die a slow horrible death...

PS Bloggers, feel free to use the 115 wide mini version. (Right click and Save image.)

Comment contest

I have totted up the comments from around the site and Hari is this week's most prolific commenter on the Pisstakers. I will be forwarding his name to RT, the Comment Mesiter / Comment contest leader who raised this issue in the first place. Comments mean prizes!

And just to throw in another comment happy card, MyBlogLog Sunday 33 is tomorrow. It is my way of commenting on 10 blogs!

As a teenage schoolboy, I was told Nobody likes a smart ass. I was crushed by that teacher's remark, and it instantly changed me, profoundly. The extrovert in me was crushed. I kept my thoughts to myself and sat in a darkened corner, sucking my thumb. That was til I realised he had spoken out of turn, and the next day I went back to school, cocky as ever.

Smart ass construction worker

In my 20's, I was interacting with a builder mate at work, and he quoted that immortal Nobody likes a smart ass phrase, directed at me. I had just got him out of trouble with a suitable remark, so I was a bit taken aback at the slander, and I told him that he was displaying all the marks of a classic ass, himself.

As he swayed and cursed me out at the top of a high scaffold, drunk again, it crossed my mind that he also wasn't so smart either - he'd been married 3 times, twice to the same person.) I decided it was the last time I'd ever cover for him, to get him out of trouble with the boss.

That night I felt bad about my "bad" unforgiving unchristian attitude. Luckily I didn't chastise myself too much because next morning I had the displeasure of watching him fighting fisticuffs on site with another idiot - our heroine addict boss!

Wall St smart asses

The Wall Street Fighter is a smart guy who isn't an ass and has a very entertaining website. The same cannot be said for so many other "entertainers" on Wall St where smug opinionated folks abound.

Balding pin-striped analysts always have a quick line for the media, but rarely own up to their mistaken hypotheses, hiding behind volatility and unexpected news. Well, yeah! And they come across as particularly smart ass-ish when they remind folks of the one good call they made amongst 10 disasters that lost everyone their shirt.

The Garmin fiasco

This story is a case in point of Wall St smart asses gone mad. A couple of weeks ago, the experts were proclaiming that the greatest GPS company on earth didn't know what it was doing with its map suppliers. Interesting concept! Like, Macdonalds aren't sure where their next truckload of beef is coming from? Of course the experts' opinions drove the GRMN company stock from $120 down to $82, saying , "I told you so. Garmin execs are idiots."

Then this morning, the Garmin idiot management team announced a successful conclusion to their map supply situation with a really smart solution. Not only have they secured maps for years, but in the process of negotiations, they have set one of their main competitors back about 2 years. The analysts must have been scratching their asses nervously as they watched the stock shoot up to $104 over breakfast this morning.

Many smart asses are currently re-writing their theses. Or to be more accurate, they are re-arranging the faeces they call analyses.

Disclaimer

I realise that by writing in such a way, I am probably the worst offender in the land of smart ass-dom. I do however, wear an asbestos suit and have a double layer of grease applied to my thick skin. Therefore, services on this site will never be interrupted by a case of remorse.

Who is the biggest smart ass you ever came across?

The heat is off with my dental issues. In 20 seconds flat the dentist decided there was nothing wrong with my teeth. 10 seconds later he put the heat back on though, when he said I probably needed to go see a psychiatrist!

He claimed my tooth ache was related to stress, and a few weeks of subliminal stress-relief grinding was the source of my gip! Perhaps if he hadn't charged me $1200 on the last visit, I wouldn't be so freaked out? Is this the first case of being dentally insane?

Recommended treatment, a gigglegram

I decided to go through a few backlinks and treat my oral dementia with a larf or two.

I am always on the look out for a funny quote myself, and these guys are on the look out for quote-collecting smart asses like me.

Hari is a bloke far smarter than me, and he has penned a clever cartoon. New toon - Bushy and Mushy It is all very political, and he is to be congratulated. As a country bumkin, I don't understand how anybody could find anything funny about the behavior of those 2 political leaders - but he did.

I Accuse Your Parents! will make you smile, if you have any parents.

I was shocked to find out that I am not the only Ed striving to be amusing. I was even more shocked to learn that, unlike me, he has achieved his goal.

There is a giggle or two in this funny cartoons directory. Not as funny as Hari's, you understand.

I was tickled to see an article I did on David Hasselhof listed in the first page of search results on Answer.com. It snuck in among a bunch of pretty funny posts on David Hasselhoff's wife.

Last Minute Lyn has a new blog and decorated it with a Pisstakers widget. I hope it attracts rather than drives her readers away.

So that was my dose of medicine after being diagnosed psychologically damaged by a dental bill. Hope it made your day a little bit more bearable. I am now off to insert my Hannibal lector chin strap mask.

I'm off to the dentist again, and I have a feeling there will be a "heated" discussion when he announces the need for more work. The problem is, he did a load of work, gave me a regime to follow and a prognosis that all would be well for years to come. 3 weeks later I have a tooth ache to die for.

With no insurance, it is at times like this that a trip back to a European dentist would work out the cheaper option! But as I have things to do, time is of the essence, so I will need to negotiate something with him. Perhaps he could do a cash job, or I could anaesthetise myself with a bottle of whisky? This video gave me some ideas.

After reminiscing about a recent trip to wonderful Washington state, I recalled a bizarre news report we saw on TV. A couple of youths were being hunted for robberies carried out at espresso kiosks. How low do people have to go to avoid working for their drugs?



Those cute rinky-dinky coffee huts charging $2 a cup must be such rich pickings compared to a gas station - not; and it must be a real macho challenge, pointing a gun at a young woman working alone at night. Losers.

It got me mulling over the state of play in the world of petty crime.

What is next in the downward spiral of petty crime?

What does the desperate chicken-shit druggie who is unwilling to use violence have in store for us next in their petty crime streak?

Perhaps they will target clowns carrying helium-filled balloons at fun fairs. A quick snatch-and-run before selling them off for 10 cents each to toddlers who don't ask too many questions?

Maybe they will resort to a new brand of car crime. Apparently you steal the garage door opener from a parked-up car, follow the car back to its home, and take your time breaking in at night, and stealing stuff in the comfort of a garage. (I hope they don't try that with us, on two counts. The chances of Mrs Ed finding the spare garage door opener to let me in and park up are zero. And even if we did get the car in the garage, that door is so noisy on its tracks, it will wake the dead!)

Plenty of cars are also stolen from garages, but maybe desperadoes will start emulating the robbers who stole a garage and left the Rolls Royce inside! I cannot find the link but I will never forget that story from years ago.

More less petty crime

I already mentioned a killing a while back over something as petty as an ice-cream round. A young girl was shot while her mother was driving the van, scouting out her route in the wrong neighborhood. It was a radical outcome to a petty matter.

Years ago there was a spate of violence in Scotland over another petty matter - the Hot Dog Van wars. Rival factions would over-turn and set fire to each others' vans, thankfully at night when no one was in them. A couple of people actually died, though, such was the desire to stop rivals from serving soggy buns full of processed pig and burnt onions at the roadside.

Not so petty crimes

Crime involving dope heads and one-man band espresso kiosks, ice cream vans and hot dog wagons is one thing, but it is petty relative to bank robberies. You have to be seriously organised and dangerous to go through with a major hold up, if only because the repercussions of being caught are so big.

Not every armed bank robber is as committed to their crime as they should be. Like the idiot who turned up to rob a bank in Croatia, only to find it was closed. The staff, who were finishing up for the day, watched him in awe as he tried the door a couple of times, couldn't get in and went home. I don't suppose he bragged about that to his mates, especially as he was filmed with a gun in his hand while "breaking in" and is wanted for attempted armed robbery. If he had a brain he would dangerous.

(Just for the record, I never went that bank robbing route, because my face is allergic to nylon stockings and I couldn't afford silk.)

So what is the pettiest or most stupid / failed crime you ever heard of or experienced?

With a name like Uncanny broadcasting Brain, it seems appropriate to see an uncanny resemblance to a brain on this broadcaster's logo. (btw don't try to manipulate him, he's too brainy for that.)

Money-Making Mike is dabbling in celebrity gossip and doing OK, thanks very much. He dabbles in news videos at Voxant too, and is also doing OK, thanks very much. Midas Mike is the man.

After handing over several deserving Golden Cocks of Excellence awards, as you do, Lord Likely dusted himself down and proceeded to be framed and hanged. Life just isn't fair.

Getting dumped on Saturday night ain't so bad, if you know Wolfbernz. Every Saturday, his mighty Blog Dumps team will show you a good time and show your blog off to the world too. Party on, people.

Polliwog's Pond is out in the wild these days. And full of passion. Not many book and film reviews catch my eye, but Polli pulls it off with a tale of Alaskan bravado. Ribbit ribbit.

Debbie asked me to comment on the Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse Fresnel feud. After much deliberation, as long as they don't stand in front of the lighthouse, they should fire the cannon at each other.

Somehow the Japanese cannot see that over-fishing and cruelty to intelligent and ecologically important dolphins and whales is so un-21st century. A pity dolphins can't stick hooks in fishermen.

Kdub has symptoms of a disease - a disease to please everyone. Personally, I say let 'em all down and the consequences be damned. (Actually, that is what I say in my head, but in reality...)

$25000 for a dessert! Now you are talking. But being a practical chocaholic, I would rather have 3000 very generous portions of Death by Chocolate. Does that sound wrong?

Forget ethanol from subsidised corn or sugar, we need to tap into the potential of inedible algae. It would be easier to stop driving but that is an insoluble part of the conservation equation.

A quick mention of a killer comment from Linda. In response to a post I did on Chinese porn, she wrote,

Chinese porn, eh? Does one order that by the numbers? And do you get an eggroll??

Keep 'em coming.

There is some irony in the fact that a writer extraordinaire like Stephen Colbert cannot appear on TV these days because his writers are on strike. Isn't that like a corn-for-ethanol farmer dying of starvation?

Anyway, in this video from my VodPod collection, Sean Penn gets it in the neck from Colbert for speaking out against the president of the USA, even before the country went to war in Iraq. I think it is pure jealousy on Colbert's part - Penn, working out what millions couldn't, and without any help from a back-up staff either. Penn is an extraordinary actor, destined for great things in politics, if he is ever allowed to get a word in edgeways in a debate.

(Unless you like crackly applause, I found it was best to start then stop the video straight away, and let it load fully before playing it.)

MyBlogLog Sunday 32 hits the ground groggy. Cold nights are supposed to be cozy, but not here on the East coast. It is bloody freezing in this attic room, and my portable heating unit, Mrs Ed, is away, and I didn't sleep a wink. Luckily the sun streaming through the window heated my bones and I was able to nod off for a bit, so I am not totally out of it.

Enough of disrupted sleep patterns and nights without warm wives. As usual, the 10 bloggers in the screenshot will get a mini review, a relatively juicy PR4 backlink, plus a link to your MyBlogLog community... and for grins, I will stumble any posts from any bloggers (featured or not) who leave a link to their own favorite post of the week. What more do you want?!

There are murmurings about a neat new twist in the MyBlogLog Sunday feature, but as yet, plans are so secret, I would have to kill myself if I revealed more. So stay tuned.

MyBlogLog Sunday info links

Be back later. And this video review from Breaking News will shed some light on what goes on, if you haven't called by before.