( 11:05 PM )
Traffic report
As editor of this fine webzine, I’d like to use this space to welcome many of our new readers.
I’m thrilled you decided to stop by and look around. If you see something you like, please ask about it. Everything is negotiable. If one of our writers is annoying you, please let the management know and we’ll have them taken out back and beaten…
In the meantime, I am curious as to the recent flood of traffic to our site.
You see, we pay big money to have all of our traffic analyzed and interpreted and broken down into tiny categories and sub-categories, to show us exactly what our readers are interested in and what their reading patterns are. All in an effort to make your next browsing experience that much better. But, for some strange reason, 2walls.com has been receiving an extraordinary amount of traffic over the past week, and our traffic reporting software isn’t explaining where it’s coming from.
It appears this new burst of readers is not coming from other sites on the web, rather they are coming directly to 2walls.com by manually typing our address into their browsers. Which means they are hearing about 2walls.com from an outside media source such as TV or print.
We have also recently started a sticker campaign, which is another possible theory for the large amount of recent traffic.
If you are a new reader to 2walls.com, and can shed some light on this curious phenomenon, or perhaps just tell me where you heard about us, I would greatly appreciate an email. Thanks for reading!
( 9:54 AM )
When the lights when out
Where was I when the lights went out? The worse place possible. Sitting at my desk in my office. It was horrible. One minute I’m pounding away at my computer keyboard, working on some moronic graphics presentation for some anal-retentive junior business associate who has set some unrealistic deadline for his undecipherable, handwritten mess – the next minute I’m staring at a blank screen in an eerily dark and quiet office. (You don’t realize how noisy office equipment is, until there’s a power failure.) My first reaction was, “damn! I hope I saved that document recently.” My next was to call the IT department as soon as the power was restored to see it they could recovery the document from one of the backup servers. When fifteen minutes went by, I realized I was going to have to call my client (who was in New York) and fess up to my “backup uncertainty” regarding his document. When he answered his cell phone I said, “Hey Dan, how’s it going?” – just to be friendly before my bad news. “Not so good,” he said. “Our building just had a power outage.” I paused for a second, thinking maybe he was in my building in Stamford. “What? Where are you?” I asked. “New York,” he said. “Wait a minute, we lost power too,” I said. At the same time, we both said, “Uh-oh.”
I’m really disappointed in myself for my unpreparedness during this blackout. For years, I use to pride myself in my MacGuiver/Boy Scout/paranoid-like preparedness. I use to always carry a backpack full of useless devices, such as mini-flashlight, screwdriver kit, leatherman multi-function tool, extra batteries (for the flashlight), first aid kit (band aids), New York City map (even if I wasn’t in NYC), emergency $50 bill tucked away in my wallet somewhere. Even when I made the yuppie switch to a briefcase, I would carry most of these items. Always ready for any kind of emergency (i.e., trapped in an elevator, trapped in a subway or train, trapped in the midtown tunnel, squeaky wheel on an office chair, paper cut, anything). But as the years went by, and as my commuting involved lengthier walks carrying my briefcase, I slowly started to unload these items and write them off as unnecessary to my daily operations. After all, I’d been carrying those items for more then ten years and had never really needed them. (Except for the time someone lost a diamond from their ring and I was the only one with a penlight to help look under the desk for it.)
So, here we are – the Blackout of 2003 – and my office is plunged in darkness (well, not too dark – it was only 4:30pm and we have windows) and I am not prepared. To make matters more disappointing, someone needs to use the bathroom and the emergency lighting isn’t functioning in the restrooms. “Does anyone have a flashlight?” comes the call. I half-heartedly search my bag and desk for the flashlight I know is sitting in the junk drawer in my kitchen at home. Some geek in IT comes to the rescue with a bagful of MacGuiver tools, including a flashlight (with dead batteries, but he’s got extras). Geek-boy is the hero today. Everyone gets to use his flashlight to find their way around the bathroom. Including me.
( 3:49 PM )
Music Snobbery Test
I’m getting some great responses regarding the Music Snobbery Test (posted on Friday). Some in the form of bulletin board responses on other sites, others directly through the response form. The funny thing is, I’m getting some scathing “fuck you, your test sucks” responses from people who scored middle-of-the-road (obviously thinking they were music snobs) and “dude, that test rocks” from people who scored in the upper digits, giving them “music snob wannabee” status or higher.
The bottom line is, everybody wants to be a music snob – even though “music snob” is not very open-minded.
Even though the test was create in fun, and is not backed or supported by any mathematical or scientifically-proven snobbery equation, I think it may be proving exactly what it set out to prove (and poke fun at). Music snobs. Music snobs are so snobbish, that they get offended when they find out they aren’t as big a snob as they thought they were.
Couple of quotes:
1. “How can this be a true test when there isn’t even an indie band anywhere on the test?”
Answer: Typical snob wannabee question. Music snobs can only flex their snobbish muscles when they can talk about bands no ones ever heard of. It gives them a free pass to say anything they want about the band, because no one can dispute them. By the way, there are three indie artists on this test.
2. “Audioslave is soooo mainstream. How can they rank a 3 on the snob scale?”
Answer: Audioslave is a hybrid of two very snobbish bands (at one point in their careers). And part of the whole “audioslave” hype is “dude, Chris Cornell is fronting the guys from Rage.” Very snobbish.
3. “What does the capital of New York have to do with anything?”
Answer: Nothing. Just trying to weed out the dopes from the snobs.
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