The secret to blogging

I sometimes get letters from young people soliciting advice on how to make it in this blog game. In response, I always say three things: Nobody cares about your fantasy football team or how drunk you were over the weekend (unless you happen to be Lindsay Lohan); try to write something interesting that isn't being said elsewhere and, finally, whenever you can't think of anything interesting just post a mildly racist and slightly out-of-context file-shared video from a goofy Japanese game show.

Here we have a series of middle-aged men wearing karate uniforms attempting to eat small marshmallows hung by strings as they are restrained by a Spanish Inquisition-like facial torture device. The men whoop and holler like a bunch of samurais about to launch a samurai attack, and the studio audience laughs uncontrollably. The video is quite long and is basically this same sinister scene repeated with each contestants. Which makes the on-going consistency of the enthusiasm behind the whooping and hollering and laughter that much more impressive and unexplainable.

The unintended consequences of marketing the NBA in foreign countries and other displays of rank perversion

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, practically none of my traffic comes from search engines any more. Which means, when I do get a search, I tend to try to figure out why, so maybe I can crack the matrix and capture more hits.

Increasingly, this activity has left me feeling unclean. If you are wondering why, check out my last two searches:
Darko Milicic, it happens, is very large and tends to respond violently and irrationally to perceived slights. Which is why I would like to take this oppurtunity to remind my readers that this blog is actually the last place you would want to go to find pictures of a naked Darko. And I have no intention of making it so -- increased traffic from Greece be damned.

As for the second one . . . That's really on the Daily Show. I know they like to keep things loose over there. And I know the rumor is black males would be the ones with the good sex simulating rhythm. But 15 year olds? For shame.

JSB gets a visitor from the awesome future

There was once a time when the search engine gods smiled upon The JSB, and hundreds of unwitting readers were sent this direction daily. That time has come and gone.

It's not like I don't get any search engine traffic at all. But I certainly never get anything normal, like "Lindsay Lohan naked" or "George Bush chimp." In fact, these days, you pretty much have to have an interest in erotically appealing furniture or a penectomy (or both) for the algorithms to deposit you at The JSB.

Or you can be from the future. The future in which evolution has done away with those annoying bodily functions, and has made the human body self-cleaning. A future called Columbia, Missouri.

Search engine queries are a window into humanity

While I appreciate the traffic search engines bring to this space, I do feel bad that my blog rarely addresses what searchers were actually seeking when they inquisitively clicked through. That in mind, and because it is a slow news day, I've extracted from my visitor log the most interesting and ridiculous search queries of the afternoon, which I will address below:






It is hard to believe how many variations of this question I get every time I check. So yes, Torrington, once and for all, old people are bad at driving. Very bad. On related note, fat people do not excel at ballet.






If you find yourself making such a desperate electronic query, it probably means the powder cocaine has been hopelessly lost. Either that or it was stolen by the sketchy friend of a friend who ended up in your apartment, talking your ear off, until 9 AM last Friday. I commend Riverhead for being the type who can, in theory, keep powder cocaine in reserve, but recommend next time it be stowed in a safe secure place -- like a sock drawer.





You will never learn drug etiquette by sitting in a chair in front of your computer. I'll tell you that much, young person from Houston, Texas. So get out of the house. Do drugs. Do drugs with different people from different backgrounds. Link up with Riverhead. It will seep in.





The length the Italian people will go to keep their birth rate down continues to astound.





This one baffled me. So fascinated was I, that I Googled "root of lohan" myself, and found that I am the only person in the history of the Internet to have published those three words in that order. By publishing them again, I believe I've secured this awesome legacy forever.



North Liberty isn't the first Google searcher routed to JSB to allege Henry Kissinger's legendary career was aided by taking the performance enhancing drug HGH. Click the shrunken log entry above, and it will enlarge to reveal the widely held suspicion that Kissinger's plenipotentiary aplomb and textbook realpolitik were results of more than just good Ashkenazi genes and a Harvard-sharpened brain.

As Paris returns to prison, JSB ponders infinity

I think it's safe to say the three queens of pop culture are Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Since I often cover pop culture on this space, I end up spending a lot time writing about the slutty triumvirate. I don't mind writing about Lindsay -- in fact I find her fascinating. I'm more neutral on Britney. As for Paris, every time I type her name I die a little bit inside.

Maybe that's because Lindsay is a legitimately talented actress, and Britney was a perfectly passable pop singer, while Paris has no discernible talent and, in my opinion, isn't particularly attractive, sexy or less than completely evil.

Anyway, in times like these, you have to write about Paris because she is where it's at. My favorite message board post to any Paris story that is prominently positioned on a mainstream media website is "why are you writing about Paris Hilton WHEN THERE IS A WAR IN IRAQ!!!"

This comment has always made laugh because, due to the virtually unlimited bandwidth of the Internet, it is possible to cover all sorts of stories at once. So scroll down and get your Iraq war fix, dolt.

That's not even why it's funny anymore. I think it's safe to say, by any legitimate measure of significance, Paris Hilton is now more important then the Iraq war or the presidential campaign or global warming or anything else the shrill message board ombudsmen whine for more coverage of.

Answer this: Can any of those "important" stories simultaneously shut down the news cycle and make a complete mockery of our criminal justice system -- all the while screaming for their mother like a spoiled five year old deprived of pie? I think not.

Paris is big. Bigger than the geographical Paris. Probably bigger than France. Maybe bigger than Japan. So big it hurts my head to think about it. The same way it hurts when I ponder the universe.

So I've given up. I now just accept Paris for what she is. Something I will never understand. Something that looms above and about us all. And, ultimately, something that gives me comfort.

*Yup, that's the grainy photo currently on the front page of every newspaper website in the world.

** Speaking of that photo, it turns out it was taken by Nick Ut -- the same guy who took the super famous Pulitzer Prize winning naked running napalmed Vietnamese girl photo, almost 35 years ago to the day. As a witness to history, the dude's like Forrest Gump!

Kissinger doping !?!?

One of the great things about being a famous blogger with an excellent Google page ranking is, through the recordable searches that bring traffic to your blog, you can get out in front of all the best rumors and gossip floating around the interweb. How about this doozy involving a former Secretary of State and the current performance enhancing substance of choice among Hollywood glitterati and major league ball players:






This really brings the whole Sino–American anti-Soviet alliance of 1972 into question. But they will never be able to take away his Noble Peace Prize. Or his access to power . . .

Google loses Viacom, me

Google had hopes that being the enormous, innovative new kid on the block would encourage the established media entities to submit to mutually beneficial friendships. If Viacom's one billion dollar lawsuit against Google subsidiary Youtube is any indication, Google might have to earn its friends the hard expensive way.

There was one, albeit small, media company Google had hook, line and sinker without speaking to a lawyer or spending a dime: Me.

My love affair with Google started about three weeks ago when I noticed The JSB's daily traffic had almost doubled. While I would like to think this was because of fascinating writing and word of mouth, when I looked into it I discovered I was getting an unusually large amount of traffic from search engines -- particularly Google.

For example, according to Google, I was suddenly the number one website in the whole entire universe for those looking for information on "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery." As I was for "Beyonce Knowles dies."

I was getting all sorts of new Google inquires in that off-beat vein. I just remember those two because they were so odd -- considering I never posted specifically on either subject -- and, in the case of Beyonce, thoroughly incorrect.

Google also cast me as the world-wide authority on any variation upon "how to smuggle marijuana onto an airplane." This was clearly triggered by a couple of posts I did on Quarterback Michael Vick's dimwitted attempt to do just that.

I know Google is always fiddling with its search algorithms, and I have noticed peeks and valleys in search engine traffic in the past. But this sudden page rank ascension shattered its way out of the normal ebb-and-flow. It was a delightful, ego-boosting mystery.

Then, last Thursday, it disappeared as quickly as it came. I'm no longer on the first page of "Kenny Loggins plastic surgery," and nowhere at all on "Beyonce Knowles dies."

As a result, my traffic dipped precipitously, and I have became depressed about what was not so long ago a comfortable reality.

So how about that Google? Figure out ways to usurp all the media content ever created and then sell ads on the side of the screen . . . what a business plan! Who came up with it? Tony Soprano?

Joementum revisted

I was going over some of my old posts and I came across one I wrote in August about Joe Lieberman, right before he lost his own party's primary for the Senate seat he had held for three terms to Ned Lamont. (Remember that poor sap?)

In light of recent reports that Lieberman, who still prevailed with ease in the general election, is considering switching parties -- which would swing the Senate back into Republican control -- I couldn't help but link the old post because so far it has been quite prescient.

I'll try not to be this lazy and self-referential in the future. It shouldn't be hard. Usually it suits me to keep the wacky predictions I made well buried.

Follow the link for pure unadulterated battle tested wisdom.

JSB 2.0

I've been redesigning the site all weekend and have finally settled on this. I think it's easier to read, and you get to appreciate my clever tagging in its full glory. If anything doesn't seem right or isn't working please leave a note in the comment section so I can try to fix it.

Death watch: That Russian music download site

Since I started this blog the most common question I get from my readers is "how do I become a death watcher like you?"

It's really quite simple: To be a death watcher all you have to do is identify an appropriately famous person who is old or ailing and be on the look out for articles that suggests his or her ultimate demise.

For example, today I noticed that Fidel Castro -- who has been in the death watch cross hairs for some time -- did not attend his own 80th birthday party because he is ill.

Now that's textbook death watching, and anyone can do it.

What I should add is, despite its ease, death watching is not for everyone. It is exhilarating at first, but you soon realize your success as a death watcher is dependent on a flip indifference towards human life. It is a realization that sneaks up on you, because why should you have feelings for famous people you don't know at all?

They call that a slippery slope, and soon enough you stop caring about the people around you, and eventually you stop caring about showering or changing your clothes.

That's where I was as of yesterday. Today it is a whole different story as something has entered the death watch cross hairs that has made me feel again.

I have been downloading music from a certain Russian website for a year now. The music costs about a tenth of the price it would cost through American download services such as itunes. While there have always been questions about the Russian service's legality, there is a pretty compelling argument that it is quite legal when downloading to the United States.

Because of this, the American government has been putting pressure on the Russian government to use their legal system to eliminate this "pirate" website. It appears that the US government, dangling the carrot of World Trade Organization admission, has finally succeeded and Russia has agreed to take the site down.

And thus begins the most harrowing death watch I've ever been involved in. I frantically emptied my account's balance last night, but the site remains up today. Should I put in more money and get more music at low prices I'll never see again, knowing that money and the site could disappear at any moment?

Usually I would believe there would be months, or even years, of lawyering before the site goes dark. But with President Putin's recent showcase of a new, painful way to deal with dissent, I could see a scenario where the site's proprietors come to the conclusion it is in their best interest to go down without a fight and allow Russia to enter the WTO.

So I'll be checking constantly, with bated breath, for stories on the demise of this certain Russian music download site. With each new piece of information providing a jolt to my once dormant humanity.

Week 10 wrap

If it wasn't enough with the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, the John Madden's Football cover curse and the Campbell Soup pitchmen jinx (as well as no guaranteed contracts and greatly reduced life-expectancies) NFLers now have a brand new jinx to worry about.

The jsb jinx. Whenever I have featured an individual player in my Tuesday wrap up post, they have faltered badly. It started in week one when I complimented the wiles of journeyman Brad Johnson. I don't think anyone would disagree that Brad Johnson is now terrible and has been since about week two.

In separate posts I was able to curse two of the stars of the '06 draft, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. The league caught up with them right after I predicted they would each remain ahead of the curve. Vince Young, you can find my email on this site and I will shoot you back my postal address.

But the coup de grace came few weeks ago when I successfully took out Tom Brady -- previously believed to be unflappable.

The jinx doesn't just work on individual players. Ever since I argued kickers needed a pay raise, all they've done is get their kicks blocked in pressure situations and been on the wrong end of slow-developing ten point swings.

The only player I've wrote about who hasn't deteriorated is Brett Favre. Of course I recommended he should hang it up. Now he is back to his Hall-of-Fame form.

This week, I'd like to sing the praises of some of my favorite players in the NFC who don't happen to wear green on Sundays:

Eli Manning: Proof the QB rating system is meaningless. Uber-cool under pressure, Eli doesn't have to spend all week preparing like his wonkish older brother does. Eli doesn't even have to look at his receivers when he throws the ball! When all is said and done, he will go down as the greatest Manning.

Tony Romo: He's like a cross between Don Meredith, Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman -- and he's dating Jessica Simpson. But what really amazes me is the bond the career back-up from The University of Eastern Illinois has developed with the mercurial T.O. It seems like they have been playing together forever, and have the kind of chemistry that will get them through the bad times.

Brain Urlacher: In the prime of his career American legend Babe Ruth lost most of a year to a "stomach ache" that many speculated he caught during his famous late night activities. Yet Brain Urlacher can do whatever and whoever he wants and he never gets sick. Urlacher: Like the Babe -- only better.

Shaun Alexander/Matt Hasselback: I'd be worried if my all-pro quarterback and MVP running back went down to injuries. Unless I was a Seahawk fan that is. With help from God and the healing powers of the damp Pacific Northwest, Alexander and Hasselback should be back on the field in no time.

Steve Smith: Whenever he launches off the line of scrimmage I think to myself: That man has the best hamstrings in all of professional sports.

Michael Vick: . . . he's really fast?

Picks -- I'm pretty close to going opposite day with my picks too: 7 - 9 for the week, 56-68-4 for the year. There is something truly counter intuitive going on this year with NFL handicapping -- it has a lot to do with good teams rarely covering the spread. According to Bill Simmons, "it's a financial catastrophe. It's a gambling quagmire." He explains his lousy picks (and mine) here.

How Britney Spears can, improbably, raise my IQ

Maybe it was the change in format, or the reports the Britney sex tape would make Paris's sex tape look "like a Disney film" but, in this morning's post, a distracted panel of judges carelessly overlooked the best part of the whole potentially sordid affair.

According to a source who has seen the tape:

"They (Spears and Federline) were in the honeymoon stages of their relationship and did nothing all day but have sex and play chess."

So now we know what goes on during the downtime of their four hour sexual marathon: Chess.

This could be a spectacular development for me. Flatteringly, people think I would be good at chess. Over the years, I've declined many a chess challenge -- always confidently, but not so confidently as to ruffle any feathers.

Because if I was ever forced to play chess my secret would be revealed: Anyone can beat me at chess. I mean anyone in the world. So could most higher primates. So could an abacus.

I'm OK with this because I believe chess, played at the less than grand master level, is about 98 percent concentration and 2 percent intelligence. Since even thinking about chess makes my foot shake violently, I concede lousy concentration and try not to worry about it.

Yet, as long as people associate chess with big Russian brains defending man's honor against hard charging IA-infused computers, my perceived intelligence remains in peril.

But if the image of America's white trash queen and her former king playing a post-coital game are burned into the retina of the world-- as it surely would be -- suddenly the sheen of chess-as-an-arbitrator-of-intellect doesn't shine so brightly.

If only we could convince a bunch of vacuous celebrities to take up poker. Wait a minute . . .

JSB is the straw that broke the camel's back

Apple ditches their all-too hateable Mac guy.

JSB touts mastery of the oil market

About a month ago I assured an anxious nation gas would be at two dollars a gallon sometime in October, as the price of light sweet crude oil would fall to 57 dollars a barrel. At the time of my guarantee gas was going for $2.75 in our nation's capital and oil was trading at about 65 dollars on the world wide market.

Since September 12th the price for a gallon of gas has steadily fallen to $2.15 in stations adjacent to the DC border and oil hit 57 dollars a barrel last week. It is currently trading in the 58 dollar range.

Today I've decided to declare prognosticatory victory for two reason: First, OPEC is meeting on Thursday to see if they still have any control over the market they once had cornered. I'm not sure how this is going to play. It could be they are able to tack a few dollars back on or, maybe, if they to fail to convince the increasingly powerful traders the price should go up, it could have the effect of accelerating its depression.

Second, and more importantly, I've already received multiple complaints about the abominations that were last week's football picks. I don't want the picks -- which should never, ever be used for actual cash wager -- to undermine my overall credibility. Especially when that credibility was based on so little to begin with.

So I would like to remind my readers that any occasional motorist who followed the plan of incremental gas purchase I laid out in my September 12 post should have saved about six dollars so far.

I know I have.

JSB games the commodity market

Mark my words: Gas will drop to 2 dollars a gallon by the middle of October, as the price of light sweet crude falls to 57 dollars a barrel.

I know, today the Drudge Report screamed GAS PRICES FALL TO 2.05 IN IOWA! But I mean 2 bucks in the less-Iowa regions of the country where gas is currently around 2.75 a gallon and people are less likely to whine about having nothing to do on a Friday night.

There are three reasons for this drop off:

1. There is election in November. If the price of gas isn't (secretly) the biggest issue in the election it is close to it. The House of Saud still holds considerable sway over OPEC. And the House of Saud and W. are buddies. Don't call it a conspiracy, but you can call it quid pro quo -- the kind where you get to hold hands.

2. Energy consuming behemoth America survived a hot summer without any energy supply problem to speak of, despite a partial closing of the Alaska pipeline in August. Not many would have predicted that coming in.

3. The recent mega-find in the Gulf of Mexico -- projected to increase US oil reserves by 50 percent -- won't hit the market for years, but it underlines the theory that the earth is far from running out of oil. And, as long as the price per barrel doesn't dip back to 15 dollars, some enterprising mega-cooperation will be there to find and harvest the black gold and turn it into a quick trip to the mall.

If anyone thinks I would make such a bold predication without putting my money where my mouth is, I will now squash that affront forever:

On Friday I needed gas. The price was at $ 2.83 a gallon -- down almost 50 cents since last time I gassed up.

Instead of letting out a yelp of joy and filling up, I calmly pumped 2 gallons. This will last me about two weeks. By then I expect gas to be at about $ 2.40.

If I fill my tank at $2.40 I will have saved about five bucks. But I won't. I will wait another 2 weeks. The price of gas will dip to 2 dollars.

Then I will fill my tank with a total savings of close to ten dollars.

So it's pretty clear; either you're with me or you will pay the consequences. With real money.

*Jeez, oil just dropped another 1.85 today. I didn't even see that. Maybe not such a bold prediction anymore.

JSB comment policy

On Friday it was revealed Lee Siegel, a long-time staple at the New Republic, has been using a "sockpuppet" to anonymously attack his critics on the comment section of the blog he kept for the magazine.

Not content to simply rebut those who attacked him first, Siegel's sockpuppet also made self-aggrandizing comments. For example the sockpuppet once e-claimed his master "is brave, brilliant and wittier than (Jon) Stewart will ever be," and added, "take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep."

It is important to remember that Lee Siegel and his sockpuppet are middle aged adults who have enjoyed previous professional success.

When Siegel's ruse was exposed, he tried to play it off as a "prank." But New Republic Editor-in-Chief Franklin Foer wasn't buying that explanation, and suspended the senior editor Siegel indefinitely.

Like The New Republic, we at jsb take our comment section very seriously. While I might beg, cajole or even bribe friends and relatives to post comments, I exert no editorial control over these comments.

So if you comment on jsb, rest assured you will not be attacked by JT posing under some deceptive handle. Also, with each comment, you will get a little chit that can be used on judgment day against minor transgressions such as white lies, theft and cruelty to bugs, reptiles, amphibians and smaller mammals.

But if there is ever another attack on air-conditioning -- the greatest invention in the history of Western civilization -- like there was this morning, the comment will be deleted. If the anti-air conditioning comments continue after this removal, I will not hesitate to shut down jsb's comment section altogether. Especially if these attacks take place during the summer months.

I sincerley hope it will not come to this.

JSB comes to the aid of a lost high school senior

You can tell a lot about a person by what they "google." And it isn't always going to be pretty. That is why when AOL made hundreds of thousands of their customers search engine inquiries available on-line there was a public outcry and executives were forced to resign.

By the same token, you can learn a lot about a blog by the search engine queries that bring it traffic. This is unfortunate because most of the searches that bring people to jsb involve I-don't-want-know-why combinations of key words such as Justin Timberlake and gasoline, or Lindsey Lohan and testosterone. It is very embarrassing, and my only consolation is whoever devised the search would be even more embarrassed if they knew someone else could see that they did.

Well today I received a delightful respite from my typical search engine shame. Someone was directed to jsb because they wanted information on literary giant James Joyce's classic novel "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man."

In fact if you look at the specific search jsb is all over the top of the google results for it.

This all stems from a post I wrote on 6/6/06 about the devil and hell, which included a passage from the famously hard to comprehend book.

Even though I never actually read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, for the reason I just mentioned, the search still made me feel all high-school-AP-Englishy.

Which is a infinitely better than the parade of head-scratching, sleazy alternatives I am usually subjected to.

On a brief hiatus

I'll be avoiding the ghost of JonBenet but braving long airport security lines. Should be back on Tuesday. Check out the archives if you haven't already. And, if you like jsb, please tell a friend.

Because I like to keep the "others" coming back

I am proud to be among the 24 percent of bloggers who don't blog to document their experiences and share them with others . (99 percent of the time.)

What kind of soccer player is Jeremy Keif?

Over the last 24 hours, four different search engine inquiries involving a soccer player named "Jeremy Keif" (who may or may not perform "tricks") have directed the inquirer to this blog. The searches have come from such diverse location as South Dakota and England.

My attempts to gather information on Jeremy Keif have so far been thwarted. Every time I try, I also find this blog is the most promising source for information on Jeremy Keif, the trickster soccer player. Of course this blog knows nothing of Jeremy Keif, or what kind of soccer tricks he might perform.

I keep trying, but it is a never-ending circle.

I realize this post will just encourage more Jeremy Keif inquires be directed towards jsb. Assuming there is a Jeremy Keif, who plays soccer and might do tricks, and this is not just some kind of one-in-a-trillion cosmic coincidence.

But it will also increase the likelihood that someone who reads this is able to tell me who this Jeremy Keif is and what kind of soccer-related tricks he performs. If he does perform tricks.