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When I first met the Monster, he was only 23 and enjoyed reminding me that I was pushing 30. Old-timer and Grandpa were terms oft-used to describe me, and there were many jokes based around Depends. Well the big galoot turns 26 today, and I take extreme pleasure in welcoming him to the second half of his fleeting twenties.

Happy birthday big guy. You test my nerves at times but you’re a good friend. I’d offer to buy you a drink, but you’re probably already sucking down a bottle of Petron in an IHOP somewhere. We’ll meet up tonight for a few quiet ones, and I’ll do my best to keep you out of the clutches of the Salem police. But I’m not making any promises.

I am lucky enough to work in an office that walks a fine line between the formal and the informal. We have all the trappings of a strict corporate environment – dress code, office hours, vacation policy, bonus structure, etc. What we lack, thankfully, is a designated network administrator who spends all of their time filtering this and blocking that… Effectively ruining everyone’s extremely inappropriate workday fun.

I’m obviously kidding. The internet is a hostile Petri dish of wormies and crickets – perhaps even more bacterially volatile than Courtney Love’s last pap smear. We need vigilant network admins in larger environments – it’s just that here we’re all tech-savvy enough to know what sort of online activity is safe, and what’s tantamount to shooting your PC with a 12 gauge. I was also recently able to determine, through hours of research – once and for all, that Virtual Valerie is not a real person.

Still, there’s nothing quite like firing up Outlook on a Tuesday morning to unwittingly download photos of a lovely young woman who holds the record for the most consecutively employed marital aids. Honey – where do you go from here? Might I suggest a medicine ball or a SCUD missle?

I’m starting a new blog (as much as I am growing to hate that term) for work which I want Google to find – so I’m linking to it here. You know the drill by now. Within a few months it will become a wealth of search engine marketing and search engine optimization information. So if you care, stay tuned.

Back to the word ‘blog’ and its origins. The term stems from a mish-mash of the words “web” and “log” which when used together was how folks referred to online journals, once upon a time. Google’s Blogger (which I use here – but will soon replace) has made it so easy to have your own ‘blog’ that I’m seriously waiting for my grandmother to send me her URL. I’d guess that www.dontbecheeky.com would probably be her first choice. Or maybe something along the lines of www.getthosedamnsquirrelsoutofthebirdfeeder.net. Regardless, I am in mourning for the medium. Johnny and Janey Everyman are doing to the blog what the white man did to Jazz and hip-hop. Speaking of which, have you heard Kenny G’s new version of Straight Outta Compton?

The following text is a letter my friend Steve penned to the Boston Globe this morning. I had thought of mentioning something similar here on the blog last week, but this speaks volumes and I’m glad that I waited. It is really horrifying (there’s just no other word for it) to think that most major media outlets are downplaying what is happening in Iraq right now because it hurts their agendas and conflicts with their leanings. Have a read:

“I’m utterly disappointed with your coverage of the Iraqi elections. I arrived yesterday, to my adopted home town, fresh from a business trip that afforded me the opportunity to see how Europe, Central and Eastern Asia report upon these crucial Iraqi elections. I rushed down the steps of our triple-decker in South Boston, keen to hear how the elections had played out.

While your headline declares “Iraqis flock to polls” your accompanying editorial misses the point – by about a half century (since the last free elections). Your affront continues, like a toothless pup, at the ankles of the birth of a nation’s independence. Your partisan journalism is found to fail the international fabric of Boston.

You may want to take a note from your column on the Gilette merger, “… as Boston, which once called itself the Hub of the Universe, now finds itself playing second fiddle to cities such as Cincinnati, Charlotte, N.C., and Toronto. I believe your once great news source, is now solidly Bush league, restrained by overt political blindness.”

I couldn’t find the editorial Steve is referring to, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where it’s likely coming from. “Yeah, free elections and Democracy are great and everything, but Bush-bad-lied-Haliburton-no WMD-drunk daughters”. The article was also summarily buried in favor of a story about illegal Guantanamo tribunals and has now dropped somewhere below the piece about whether or not Johnny Damon should cut his hair before his book tour is over. I wish I was kidding. Regardless of what you believe, whom you support or where you stand on issues of the day remember – always consider the source.

I finished another website last night for my friend, Angelo Rizza. He’s an excellent hair stylist and colorist who works in Boston and New York City. When he’s working in Boston he can be found at Avanti Salon on Newbury Street. So, if you’re in need of an excellent Boston hair stylist, visit the site and give him a ring.

OK, now you’re asking yourself “Dave, did you fall and hit your head this morning? Where the hell are the hooker jokes?” the answer is “yes” actually. But that has nothing to do with why I’ve just sung the praises of Angelo for an entire paragraph. Or suffocated a hooker.

Here’s the way search engine algorithms are playing it these days: they give incredible relevance to your ranking based on incoming links to your site, and the keywords contained in those links. So, if I build a website for a Boston hair stylist, and I want it to be well ranked for that keyword phrase, I link to it from external sites using those very same words within the hyperlink. You dig? You still reading?

So now Google, which spiders my site daily, will follow the link, find the new site and then add it to it’s index. Some people pay me a lot of money for advice like that (or my company, I should say – I still can’t afford good snow boots). So if you wake up in a sweat tonight, wondering why you obsess over reading my site everyday – now you have an excellent way to justify it. Free SEO advice/dead hooker jokes always keep asses in seats.

Working from home on Monday was cool. I did enjoy getting to stay up a little later carousing after the Patriots victory Sunday night. And I grew up in Ottawa so this hardly phases me – but fer feck’s sake, Old Man Winter – Give us a chance to dig out at least. In the last three days I’ve ruined 2 pairs of dress shoes. I got a phone call at work from my hysterical 78-year-old neighbor pleading with me to carry her trash to the end of the street. I assume that the alarm going off in my office building right now means snow evacuation and my now having to walk all the way home after just arriving. But let’s get back to North End ‘Snow Rules’ for a second.

1. If you shovel someone’s sidewalk, staircase or entry way, you get to remind them of that fact every time you see them until at least the first snowfall of the following winter.
2. Thinking about moving one of those planters blocking the sidewalk on almost every main street to shovel/plow snow? Think again.
3. If you put your trash out before nightfall, your name will be mud (this actually applies all year round).
4. If you live on a lane, and it’s snowed in, you have to carry all your trash to neutral main street areas.

Stay warm, kids. It’s far from over.

By now I’m sure you’ve all heard about the wonders of Google’s free service: G-Mail… You get a gigabyte of storage, a 10 MB transfer limit, user-friendly filing abilities and a whole lot more. The downside is, you need to get an invite from someone who already uses it to be part of the silly fun-fun.

I feel like one of those shock-jocks or something but: for a limited time, not valid in New Jersey, Poughkeepsie or Idaho, employees of Pye In The Face and their relatives are not eligible to win (bell rings, whistle blows, prostitute screams for her life) – I have 10 G-Mail accounts to give away. First come, first serve. E-mail or IM me.

With people finder websites you can find people online including finding friends and old classmates that you just can’t seem to get ahold of anymore. You can also find criminal records on just about any person on most people search websites.

Kids – switch to Nextel immediately. Can’t stress that enough. More importantly, when did Boston turn into Hoth? The heat is off in my living room, and I’m about to slice open a tauntaun and crawl inside in order to keep watching the Patriots game in relative comfort. Will a TV fit inside one of those crazy ice-hopping creatures? I’ll let you know.

And more more importantly, thanks for all the laughs, Johnny.

Some people who blog in Boston do little else but bitch about the T. I have refrained thus far, as I only ride the detestable subway when it gets cold outside. But baby – it’s cold outside. So as it happens, I have a gripping tale of lust, agony and deceit to share with you from this morning’s commute. Translation: strange smells, mental illness and filth. Or ‘business as usual’ as most regular riders would agree.

Look – and I shouldn’t have to come out and say this – please don’t break wind on the T. Unless you have a syndrome of some kind or a severe digestive dilemma – there’s just no excuse for it. No one has ever had to bust ass so badly that they can’t hold it for a few stops. When I walked onto the train at Haymarket this morning, the warm, slimy gust of methane that greeted my sinuses made me feel like I was stepping into a cattle car for a 3 day ride to a gulag somewhere. It smelt like a goddamn pig farm – who are you people? Here’s an idea, save a cork from your next vino purchase and plug yourself up anytime you need to leave the house. Oh, and my new Nextel makes a loud fart sound whenever someone texts me. In that context, it’s perfectly acceptable.

After I found a spot leaning against the wall, a small man with a beard and glasses loudly slapped the wall beside where he was sitting, got up and rushed of the train just as the doors closed. Maybe that’s some kind of OCD, maybe he was high-fiving the car due to an impressive travel time or maybe it was even a little fresh with him. I really can’t say. But I will say this – find him and lock him up immediately. To my left was a scrawny, herion addicted looking chap with a Great Gatsby hat, beard and so many earrings that I felt a sudden need to inventory my tackle box when I get home tonight. He was drawing a floorplan in a small notebook and when the train stopped at Park Street, he started cursing and waving his hand up and down. Then he turned to the horrified woman beside him, smiled and asked to get past her. Needless to say, she obliged. Then he stepped off the train and broke back into his cussin’ and blindin’ as he walked along the side of it. I have to assume that the floorplan was actually a few ideas on how to feng shui his padded cell when his day pass expires at 4 p.m. today.

Then, before we could pull out of Park Street, the T driver got up suddenly, came out from behind her curtain like the Wizard of Oz, looked at the car full of people, said something unintelligible and then walked off – only to be replaced by 2 MBTA cops. They surveyed the crowd, talked to a few people and stayed on board until the hysterical driver returned 3 or 4 minutes later. Did she think she’d spotted a suspected terrorist in her rear view? Can you guess why the cops didn’t stop to talk to me? I was a little insulted as I like to think I look rather ominous when wearing my Triple Fat Goose jacket and Trailer Park Boys toque. Please be gentle and don’t ruin that for me. It’s all I have.