Rantings of Stu

Okay, so first they decide that only one in five Americans can find their home country on a map… now this. What is the world coming to when our most reliable source of incredibly important information, the sacred pollster, can’t get information right?

I recently read an article on MSN about where the world’s healthiest men live. So get this. America ranks #5 for healthiest men. In case you’re an American (and therefore have zero knowledge of geography) there are about 200 countries in the world. At least, that’s what that Internet thing told me. Like I would know that on my own? Dude, I’m an American.

Anyway, not to beat a live horse with a dead stick (yeah, you know what I’m saying), but the media has spent the last several years convincing me that us Americans are a bunch of fat mofos who are all on the verge of dying from stroke and heart attack (at the same time!) if we can’t control our fat selves and stop gorging ourselves on potato sticks fried in lard.

Just yesterday I saw a guy on the news magazine 20/20 collapse under his own weight, crushing himself into a miniature black hole. The camera crew was able to send a signal just before getting sucked into it and being crushed themselves. Man, what won’t the media risk their lives for in order to educate us stupid Americans? Made me shed a tear.

Sorry, but it’s going to take a little more than some crazed poll to reverse the media’s brainwashing and convince me that we’re anything but a bunch of unhealthy fat slobs in America. Until there is a Subway on every street corner in America, we may as well forget about our future… and the futures of our children, and their children, and our children’s grandchildren. In fact, we can forget about the futures of our descendants 500 years into the future. There’s no future for those in the future… or for their future futures!

Just imagine some alien race invading the Earth from space. The super fit Australians beat the crap out of the aliens. After discovering the aliens are high in protein and anti-oxidants (because, you know, such an advanced race would be super smart and therefore incredibly healthy), the Aussies throw ‘em on the barbie and eat ‘em for lunch. But in America, we’re so damn fat that when we gather together to fight, we collapse the earth below us and fall to the earth’s core and get cooked. The aliens then eat us for lunch! The good news is they’ll get fat eating us fat Americans and all die from stroke and heart attack (at the same time, one for each heart).

The poll went on to decree that the happiest men in the world live in… get this, Mexico. Umm, yeah. That explains why they keep risking their lives to get into America? Maybe there is some weird Mexican myth regarding the honor of becoming a huge fatso. And hey, since America sets the bar for fatsos, America is the place to be to gain one’s honor.

However, there was some good news. The U.S. ranked at the top for fewest smokers. With just 19% of the population lighting up, we killed in this category… er, didn’t kill that is. South Africa, China, and the Ukraine break the 50% mark if you can believe it. Speaking of Ukraine, they ranked as the unhealthiest men in the world at #20. Uh… wait a minute. The Internet told me there were about 200 nations. What gives?

But it wasn’t all bad for Ukrainian men. They also ranked #4 for happiness. Too bad they don’t border America like Mexico where the happiest men in the world live. Sneaking across the American border just gives a man that tingling feeling if you know what I mean. And I’m not talking sex. That award goes to the U.K. (?!?) and Poland. America? Nowhere to be seen. We’re too freakin’ fat to have sex.

So listen up Canadians. If you want to be happier, stop crossing the border legally and try sneaking in. It’ll change your life! Just watch out because once you’re here, you’ll be instantly attacked by lard-fried potato sticks and your ying-yang will never get used again (except to take an occasional pee).

Okay, so the entire blogosphere has already talked about it. Since I was busy playing some stupid Utah SEO game, I got screwed and am coming late to the game.

Eighteen year old Miss Teen South Carolina made a complete fool of herself Friday evening as she attempted to explain why 1 in 5 people in the U.S. are unable to locate America on a map.

The sad part is I actually had the opportunity to see this happen live, but I only watched about 25 seconds of the Miss Teen USA Pageant Friday. Once I realized that most of the teens seemed to be rejects for the Miss USA Pageant, well, I figured it would suck. That and I think pageants are just boring. But mostly because if I show any interest… well, my friend put it this way, “I’d be interested, but I’d get arrested.”

Now although her answer seemed to be a bumbling mess that made absolutely no sense – to the average idiot that is – I understood her just fine. I don’t know what’s wrong with the rest of the world. Miss Teen SC is just so much smarter than your average numb skull that the world had a hard time interpreting the words of such a highly intelligent person. So I am here to defend her honor.

The question was, “Recent polls have shown 1 in 5 of Americans can’t locate America on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Now personally, I have a few questions regarding the question. Such as who gave the poll, and who was polled? Martians? I can see the poll question now: “Do you think Americans can find America on a map?” Since Martians can’t read English, it was pretty tough for them. Maybe they polled the mental health unit at the local hospital. Who knows, but the results of that poll seem awful fishy to me.

Or perhaps they hired one of those telephone survey places.

“Good evening, Sir. We’re conducting a survey to see how many Americans can locate America on a map. Can you Sir?”

“No hablo ingles.”

“No, you can’t? Okay, thank you for participating Sir.”

But setting the idiocy of the poll itself aside, Miss Teen SC referred to Americans as “U.S. Americans.” Well, my Canadian and Mexican friends are glad about that. I mean, hey, they’re Americans too, right? So it was good of Miss Teen SC to clarify which Americans she was talking about. Us U.S. Americans are easily confused, so she wanted to make sure nobody thought she was talking about the much smarter and better educated people of Mexico.

Miss Teen SC goes on to say, “…some… people out there in our nation that don’t have maps, and I believe that our education, like such, as in South Africa and Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should… our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future… for our children’s future.”

Okay. It seems quite clear to me that she is concerned for the children in Iraq and South Africa (um… and the Asian countries) because, in case you haven’t heard, only 1 in 100,000 people in those nations can locate America on a map (according to a recent poll, given by me to a bunch of homeless people, at gunpoint, wherein the “correct” answer awarded them with a fresh bologna sandwich). And come on now! There’s no reason at all why the entire world shouldn’t be able to locate America on a map. I mean, WE’RE FREAKIN’ AMERICA! You better find us on a map or we’ll bomb the hell outta you!

Well, maybe not with the current leadership (bunch of pussies in Congress!) But if I were in charge, you better believe you would know where America is on a map, or it’s KABLOOEY for you!

And clearly, giving the citizens of South Africa, Iraq (and, umm… the Asian countries) the knowledge required to locate America on a map will build up our future… our children’s future. DUH! Either you get it, or you’re a retard or something.

So here’s to you Miss Teen South Carolina, the world’s most misunderstood and underrated woman. Sure you’re incredibly good looking and have a smoking hot body, but we love you for your mind. Good thing too, because without that incredible mind of yours, you never would have made it to the top five. We look forward to seeing you in the Miss America pageant next year!

But, for those of you who don’t buy my defense, take a look at the following video which shows both her original answer as well as her “corrected” (ie: dumbed down for the simple-minded) answer. For all the dimwits that would prefer a practiced response designed for the masses:

Miss Teen South Carolina defends dumb blonds everywhere

Enjoy!

Well, I’ve decided to surrender in the Utah SEO game.

As of today, I managed to rank #42 on Google, which isn’t too shabby I guess, but not at all competitive. In the next week or so I imagine I’ll move up a few more spots, then gradually begin to fall off the radar.

But starting end of day today, the jig is up and I’ll go back to my normal rantings… which I know you’ve missed oh-so-much! And believe me, I’ve got plenty to rant about!

As you may remember, I’m vying for search engine ranking on Utah SEO. In my ongoing effort, here is another Utah SEO article. I wrote this for work, and am republishing it here, changed just enough to optimize for my term, as well as prevent duplicate content.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is nearly as much an art as it is a science. The complexities of SEO require the services of experts in order to keep up. However, there are several things that can be done to give your website a quick SEO boost and potentially improve your search engine rankings.

Have I mentioned that I live in Utah? Because I do. Great place to be doing SEO work because one of the finest SEO companies is headquartered right here in Orem, Utah.

In order for me to steal away ranking for Utah SEO, there are two things that I can do relatively easily and quickly:

• Create content about Utah SEO
• Increase my link popularity

Both of these items are vital and very important parts of Utah SEO. Doing just these two things virtually guarantees a boost in search engine rankings.

Creating content

This is mostly done by writing articles that focus on Utah SEO, the key phrase I’m trying to optimize for. This is why the sudden departure from my crazy life to writing articles about said subject.

Some additional SEO tactics I could implement as I write these articles is linking out to authoritative sites (sites with a high Google Page Rank), increasing usability by linking to other related pages on your site, and making sure all your code is W3C compliant and that there are no broken links.

Utah SEO

In other words, SEO in Utah. Be sure to include your chosen keywords and phrases in the webpage title, headlines (as I’ve done here), and throughout the document. Bolding your keywords helps as well.

Increasing link popularity

Link popularity is a score based on the number of inbound links to your site. Though most types of inbound links count toward your link popularity score, certain types of links carry more weight than others.

The best kind of links are one-way links which carry the most importance, while two-way (you link to me and I’ll link to you) links are given relatively low importance.

Bad links are incoming links from a page the search engines consider to be a “link farm” (a page with a very high number of outgoing links). This can, in fact, hurt your ranking.

Additionally, a one way link from a site considered to be an “authority” on Utah SEO is given a bit more weight than a link from a less authoritative site. However, quantity of links is still more important than who they come from.

So how do you get people to link to you? Well, the best way is still to have great content that is worth linking to. If you have good content, other sites will naturally want to link to you without you even asking.

However, since you’ve written all those great articles (from following the advice in the previous section) offering redistribution rights on those articles is a great way to increase inbound links. The key is to require that anybody who reprints your article include all links that you’ve inserted, and always be sure to include a link back to your website in the article’s signature.

For more quick tips, check out my article, Quick & Dirty Utah SEO Tips.

In Part I of this article series, we discussed the SEO advantages of using keywords in your headlines. It’s one of the easiest and quickest methods to land a few extra points with the search engines. In Part II, we’ll reveal a couple more quick and easy methods of getting friendly with the search engines.

Bold or italicize keywords throughout a page

Bolding or italicizing Utah SEO throughout a webpage will increase the relevance a search engine gives that keyword phrase. The preferred method of bolding keywords is with STRONG tags, while italicizing should be done with EM (which is short for “emphasis”) tags:

• <strong> … </strong>
• <em> … </em>

Optimize for less popular keywords and phrases

Getting top ranking for the key phrase “SEO” can be tough because it’s a very popular term with a lot of competition. It can be done, but would require a lot of time and effort. And since this article is about speed and simplicity, we won’t discuss what would go into a campaign to get ranked for such a popular term.

For quicker and easier ranking, go after more specific, less competitive key phrases. For example, instead of “SEO” try combining the term with brand names, designs, material used, manufacturing process, and so forth:

• Brand name: SEO in Utah – A Pretty Great State for SEO
• Design: Swirly-Cool SEO in Utah
• Material used: Utah SEO by Stu’s Brain
• Manufacturing process: Utah SEO via Stu’s Keyboard

You get the idea. While you won’t get as much traffic as a similar rank for a more popular phrase, you will get ranked much easier and faster. The traffic you get will also be more highly targeted and more likely to convert into a sale.

Keep the code clean

Search engines are interested in useful content on your webpages, not your sweet JavaScript or CSS skills, even if you did graduate from the University of Utah, one of the coolest schools in Utah. You can clean things up a bit by linking to script and CSS files from a separate location rather than including it in the same file as the rest of the webpage.

Clean code also makes it much easier for the search engines to scan your page and figure out what it’s all about.

The tactics that we’ve discussed in these articles can be very easily and quickly implemented into just about any website. Keep in mind, however, that you don’t want to get carried away by cramming a page full of keyword-stuffed headlines, bolding and italicizing half your page, or overusing a particular key phrase so much that nothing on your webpage makes sense.

Search engines are savvy enough to spot such meager attempts to get ranked, and most will penalize you for doing so. Thus, my conundrum: will the search engines see through my desperate attempt to land a free lunch by ranking for Utah SEO?

Also, don’t forget who you’re target market is… people. Stuffing a webpage full of keywords might help you get ranked higher (at least temporarily), but if a visitor can’t make sense of it, they’ll just leave your website anyway and your efforts will have been wasted.

So remember to keep it clean, keep it simple, and you’ll be happy with the results. And if you happen to be in the mood to help my cause, stick a Utah SEO link on your website for me

In the continuing Utah SEO saga, here is another article I wrote for work, and have reprinted here.

Utah SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a complex science. In my case, it’s a dirty science.

A vital part of any Internet marketer’s repertoire, properly managed SEO can get you listed at the top of every major search engine for the keywords of your choosing. For some keywords, being listed at the top can mean a difference of millions of dollars in revenue.

Doing SEO in Utah for my blog doesn’t make me any money, but it might get me a free lunch!

On the other hand, bad SEO can result in low rankings or even get you banned from the search engines. Getting blacklisted is enough to put some companies, or my attempt at Utah SEO, completely out of business.

Not everybody has the skills necessary to implement proper SEO. It means staying on top of things; getting to know industry insiders and constant vigilant testing of the search engines as you watch for changes in ranking algorithms.

Lucky for me, I’ve studied under Jose Nuñez, Utah’s best, most knowledgeable SEO wizard. No, I’m not nearly as smart as him, but I think I learned enough to steal Utah SEO away from Bryan.

Even for somebody that has the skills, running a business may take up all their time. So what is a busy business owner to do? The best solution is to hire somebody to do the work for you. While individual consultants charge a premium, you can often get similar results for a much lower cost from Internet marketing firms such as OrangeSoda.

In the meantime, here are some quick, yet clean, SEO techniques that you can implement immediately to improve your Utah search engine rankings.

Use keywords in headlines

Search engines figure that if something is in a headline, it must be important. Sub-headlines are also considered important, but to a lesser degree.

A headline is recognized as such with the following HTML headline tags:

• <h1> … </h1>
• <h2> … </h2>
• <h3> … </h3>

Headline tags go all the way down to level six (H6) with H1 being the largest headline, and thus receiving the highest importance. If you want to optimize a page for the term “Utah SEO”, then you should have that term between H1 tags.

If using a term in a sub-headline (H2, H3, and lower), then including those same keywords in a bulleted list immediately after will help give those keywords the same level of importance as keywords in a main (H1) headline. Here’s an example:

Utah SEO

• By using Utah SEO in a sub-headline followed by bullets, it should increase the relevance for that term.
• On the other hand, using Utah SEO too much could make the search engines suspicious, and then I’m really screwed.

In Part II of this article, we’ll discuss more easy Utah SEO strategies.

I’ll take a break from chasing after “Utah SEO” to give props to one James E. Faust.

For those that haven’t heard, President James E. Faust, veteran of the Army Air Corps (precursor to the Air Force) during World War II, died just after midnight early this morning. We have lost a good man.

Hearing the news reminded me, some of these guys are getting up there in the years. President Hinckley is just a few years from becoming a centenarian, and Monson, who many thought was a sure bet to someday become President when he became an Apostle at the age of 37, is now 80 years old. Although, if his appearance is any indication, he’ll end up living another 30 years!

Packer, in line to be President after Monson, is 85 and not likely to make it. I have to admit, I’d love to see Packer as President. He seems like an old-school kind of feller. He just might be what we need to put us all in our place. Heck, I know I could use a good puttin’ in my place.

But as healthy as Hinckley is (I’d love to see him hit the big one double-o), we just might have to call a 21 year old fresh RM to ensure that somebody makes President before hitting 80 years of age.

That’s a joke of course. Whatever the age, I’m sure future presidents will serve the church in fine manner.

Here’s to James E. Faust, fine servant of mankind and the Lord.

So here’s the story regarding Utah SEO. I work for a company in Utah that does Internet marketing, one specialty being search engine optimization, typically referred to as SEO.

Well, one of our SEO specialists, Bryan, got his blog ranked #1 on Google for the term “Utah SEO”.

Next thing you know, our SEO head honcho, Alex, is blogging about how some Utah marketing firm is going to steal the term away from him. So I ask the question, “What do I get if I’m the one that steals it away?” To which Alex responds that Bryan will buy me lunch. Bryan denies that he has agreed to these terms. To that I say, “It’s too late Bryan!” Free lunch, here I come!

So for the next few days, I’ll be writing articles about Utah SEO in attempt to get my free lunch. Enjoy the upcoming SEO articles my friends!

So my father sent me a link to an article by one David Wong titled Inside the Monkeysphere. As I read the first few lines, I thought to myself, “This guy is a left-wing nut case!” But as I read further I began to wonder if he was, in fact, a right-wing nut case. After awhile, I came to realize that he, like most people in the world, was just a moderate.

David Wong has a talent for telling stories about the world, somewhat like Dilios… only different. I especially like his writing because it reminds me of, well, me… and a few other highly sarcastic persons I know.

Furthermore, his writing is freakin’ funny! Here are a few links of my favorite David Wong writings (note: He has an affinity for using language some might find offensive. Be warned!):

Inside the Monkeysphere – Basic study of human society. Anybody who has studied society to any level already knows this stuff, but David explains it so well, and it’s funny!

The God Fuse – I’d venture to say 90% of everybody will agree with this. The other 10% are retarded or something.

Seven Reasons the 20th Century is Making You Miserable – Makes sense… I guess. It’s still funny.

Was 9/11 an Inside Job? – At first you think he’s going to tell both sides of the story, but then he doesn’t. I almost didn’t read Part II, but I’m glad I did. It’s hilarious!

Enjoy!

Every once in a while, as I am channel surfing, I’ll accidently see a few seconds of Dr. Phil as my clicker gets stuck. Oh no, I would never intentionally watch more than point-two-five seconds of that show! But on those rare occasions that my clicker quits working temporarily, I might see some young couple on there in their mid-twenties who are engaged. And, of course, the all-knowing Dr. Phil berates them for being so stupid as to believe that they know anything about life and love, and think for a second that their marriage will be anything but a tremendous disaster.

Recently, I read this story written by a woman who married at the age of *gasp* 24. She laments about missing out on the single life at such a young age, and how their marriage was saved because they decided to wait seven years before having a child, and how she and her husband “grew up together.”

I am left to wonder, what makes getting married in your mid-twenties such a horrible thing? And then, does having children at a young age destroy a marriage (that was supposedly doomed to failure anyway, because only fools marry before they are 35)?

Well, I hate to tell you Dr. Phil (along with all your “expert” colleagues), but I happen to know boatloads of people that “married young”, even had children at “such a young age”, and yet they are getting along just fine.

Let me start with myself. I was barely 22 when I married, and my wife 20. We had our first child that same year. My wife was barely 21 and I was still 22. I’ll admit, it was hard, but we toughed it out. We had our second child four years later (at the ages of 25 and 26), and our third just a year and a half after that, two days after my 28th birthday.

We were dirt poor. Our honeymoon consisted of a room at the local Howard Johnson. Even then, it was only because of the generosity of my wife’s aunt that we even got that. Originally, our planned honeymoon was planned to take place in my parent’s basement, where we lived for the first few years of our marriage. For our 10-year anniversary, I finally settled things as I took my wife to Vegas for a second honeymoon.

If you were to ask either myself or my wife, we both have no regrets in getting married “early.” Frankly, looking back, I would have done it even earlier given the opportunity.

Being that I grew up in Utah, I am surrounded by people who got married “too early”, and yet are still together 10, 20, 60 years later. I had a high school teacher (who also happened to be a neighbor of mine) that married at 18, his wife just 14. They had a child, then another two years later (20 and 16 years of age respectively). They went on to have 11 more children. They are still together today, no regrets, some 40 years later.

Friends that I grew up with married at an even younger age than I. Several more married at roughly the same age, many more at 23 years old. Of them all that I have stayed in contact with, none have separated or divorced. All remain happily married.

Perhaps in Utah, we just simply take our commitments more seriously, and are more willing to work to make a happy home. Either that, or we are just better judges of our future mates. Yes, sometimes I see people getting married young that probably shouldn’t be. But “being young” in and of itself is no judge of whether a marriage will last.

Or maybe I simply live in a different world than everybody else. A world where I believe true love conquers all. Or perhaps it’s the idea us crazy Mormons have of marrying for eternity. Maybe we just take our decision to marry a little more seriously. That and that fact that unlike the 24-year old woman that wrote the story mentioned earlier, we don’t create lists of people we’d like to have sex with then chase after them, party with all sorts of promiscuous types, and “take advantage” of our youthful college years. We save ourselves for our eternal spouses and commit ourselves to them when we find them.

Yeah, that’s us, nothing but a bunch of crazy Mormons. Just one more reason not to vote for a Mormon for president: a strong marriage combined with an utter lack of promiscuity. After all, how can a man with strong morals and high ethical standards possibly lead a nation?!