My parents have the cutest dog ever. Bold assertion, but its the truth. The dog, Leo, has black fur so soft that girls can’t stop petting him — and he loves it. When he wakes in the morning he groans like an old man, rolls over and literally tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes while he awaits his tummy being rubbed. If he wants attention, he will come right up to you and put his head on your lap and stare with soul melting eyes until you give in to his demands. He prefers ice cubes from a scotch glass and will knock the glass to ask for some.

Imagine going through life with the ability to make everyone you see happy instantly, Leo posses this gift. The only thing that is not perfect about him is that he gets a little worried when people leave. He likes companionship so when my parents leave their house the dog will sometimes have a lot of nervous energy.

Recently, while my parents were out, he started to chew on a book they had purchased. When they got home, this is how they found the book: » Read the rest of the entry..

Congratulations go out to Stephanie and Kristi upon the successful relaunch of their online store, For Baby With Love. The store provides cloth diapers (reusable diapers), baby carriers, and other baby products from brands like fuzzi bunz, happy heinys, swaddlebees, and mama kangaroo.

For Baby With Love is based out of Southern Ontario but ships throughout the US and Canada.

Today I received an email from Darren Rowse of Problogger fame. Yesterday, I published ‘Move your bowels’ and other sage travel (writing) tips as part of the ProBlogger group writing project on lists. Over 300 people submitted their newly created list for the project with 6 random winners selected from all those who entered. Well, my piece on bowel movements and monkey’s was randomly selected; I am to recieve $100 gift certificate to Amazon care of Blake Schwendiman.

I’m not familiar with Blake’s blog; according to this post his website is a place to promote his first-ever fiction book, The Agency Delta which he is offering for download. Blake also codes some Google Modules as well as writing up pieces on movies, music and other pop culture. I’ve added his feed to my rss reader. All I can say to both Darren and Blake is Thanks! One good turn deserves another… I’m sure I’ll think of something.

In the meantime, anyone have any good suggestions for some book love? Its still summer and I will be visiting the beach till late September (thats the best time shhhhhh!).
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Update: The second email listed below, sent to the Courting Destiny blog, was actually sent by an identified THP employee and not (as I had initially believed) an anonymous member of the public (unlike the email I received). The text of this post has been changed to include this new information. There is still plenty of evidence to support my conclusion that THP was attempting to engage bloggers in a viral marketing campaign using emails from individuals that did not disclose the nature of their relationship to THP.

Marketing — I don’t know too much about it, but I’m learning. Having never actually read a marketing book or taken a course or even really googled the subject, I bet one of the key maxims of marketing is ‘know your audience.’ At MaxPower, I try to keep track of my audience.

This month (June), my audience has shifted. Somehow I have attracted the attention of a ‘predominantly leftist news and commentary outlet’ called the Huffington Post. I don’t really know too much about the post; a little wikipedia research leads me to believe its a blog run by a famous person. It makes money by selling advertisements and is apparently very popular with most of its stories written about politics, ‘big issues,’ and the like.

Anyway, someone (or someones) at The Huffington Post (THP) seems to have a keen interest in MaxPower. Recently, I wrote a post about how I believed THP was “astroturfing” (the use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement [source][wikipedia]) after I received an unsolicited anonymous email that asked me to promote THP’s newest marketing venture with an ad firm called JWT. I label it anonymous because this initial email did not disclose that the sender, an intern, worked at THP. It was only through a series of subsequent follow-up emails where it was disclosed that the intern sent, “a few emails to blogs he likes.” This final piece of information was revealed by THP partner and technology director, Jonah Perretti as sent via a contact form on MaxPower.

Here is where things get interesting: » Read the rest of the entry..

Executive Summary (with updates 23/06/06):

JWT (a marketing firm) and ‘The Huffington Post’ (a popular blog) have teamed up to market and promote a series of advertisments. On June 20th I received an email sugesting the readers of this blog would enjoy one of the JWT advertisements. On June 20th the YesButNoButYes blog received a very similar email suggesting that their readers would enjoy one of the JWT ads promoted at The Huffington Post. The marketing dept at the Huffington Post is run by a well known viral marketing pioneer. All emails came from the same IP. At the same time, comments on the JWT ads are limited to only the positive variety (with the approval rate estimated for some ads at about 3%). In the latest twist, a comment by Val over at the YesButNoButYes blog brags about how much more popular The Huffington Post when compared with YesButNoButYes. This comment originates from the same IP as all the emails sugesting we promote the JWT ads as well as the short reply to this story by Jonah Peretti. All this ads up to viral marketing Foie Gras.
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An update to some newsworthy items dealing with the issues covered recently on maxpower: plagiarism, poets, and spam. The spammers are now stealing your web identification (at least in regards to the blogging world), myspace plagiarism situational irony, and the poets attack again.
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I remember when I first saw this video. It was an epiphiy, it was as if I suddenly understood the nature of the universe and my place in it. Well, that thought passed, but I did mannage to hang on to the concept of the internet. If people could share video’s of monkeys freely over the internet…. think of the power! I know I’m not alone in this, for when I saw Austin Powers watching this movie, I could see he had the same thoughts. Damn Mike meyers took my ideas… bravo. Rant over. Enjoy!

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The monkey situation is still tense in New Delhi. Its all fine and dandy when they pick on the underprivileged. But when they show a total disregard for the law and pick on the lawyers… well then…. this means war:

The court gave city authorities one month to get rid of the monkeys, which have been harassing people at Tis Hazari — the largest law complex in Asia, with 162 courts. The order came after a petitioner complained the monkeys were attacking lawyers and their clients and snatching their food, the BBC reported.

Monkey catchers have been reluctant to sign on for the job because…

a [former] monkey catcher hired by the municipality was mauled during an operation and needed 72 stitches.

Yes what could possibly be added to this story? Perhaps that the expanding human footprint is reducing the natural habitat of the monkey. In effect, we are waging war on them. If their best retaliation is to steal lawyers lunches, then I wholeheartedly support our new monkey overlords.
[via]
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