Since I’m Canadian, and an SEO, I thought it only appropriate to weigh in with a few additions to this funny article entitled “Why Canadians are the Best SEOs“. Here are a couple of examples to set the stage if you don’t feel like clicking through:

– “Canadians are disturbingly clean, a trait that helps when it comes to coding, authoring content and sending emails. Plus, a virtual work environment is more natural, as it creates very little refuse.”

– “Precision strikes in games like hockey and curling has given Canadians the uncanny, catlike reflexes necssary to identify links, keywords and crawl errors.”

… it continues in much the same predictible vein. Noticeably absent are eskimo, moose, poutine and Kraft Dinner references. But a solid effort none-the-less. And now, my bullets of addition:

– Canadians like to fight, and often pull their opponents’ shirt over their head to allow for easy pummeling. This is somewhat akin to an SEO pointing at page views as opposed to unique visitors during monthly reports to clients.

– It’s tough to manage client expectations in SEO due to the slow nature of measurable results. If you’re working with Canadian clients, build links in the fall and then allow rankings to gradually increase while you’re all in an hut ice fishing anyway.

– Search engines have a relevancy algorithm to ensure visitors will find the best products possible. Tim Hortons’ now has a clearly labeled menu at most drive-throughs.

– Link-baiting has become a major focus of SEO, namely including useful content on your site that attracts and encourages other webmasters to link to you. Canadians learn this strategy way back during childhood whilst trapping muskrats along the riverbank. Just substitute the word ‘useful’ for ‘tasty’.

– Canadians like to drink, usually prior to the fighting, which entails spending lots of money on a product (probably Labatts) that will leave them with nothing but a headache, a fat lip and remorse the next day. Again, very similar to most SEO shops.

After speaking so fondly of my industry of choice, you may be wondering – Dave, are you aware that there’s always work at the Post Office? Yes, I’m just kidding. Hiding from the sometimes awful truths of your workplace doesn’t do anyone any good. Unless you’re like a spy or something.

As I try to catch up on work (we’re running with a skeleton crew right now and I’m way behind), the TV is on and I caught a few minutes of the new Flavor of Love series. Because that’s what you do when you’re behind on work. The first winner, Hoopz, rewrote the book on classy last year when she admitted she only wanted to spend time Flav for the publicity. Now, when you look the word ‘classy’ up in the dictionary, you just see a photo of her butt. Which is actually fine with me. Anyway, Foofy-Foofy is back on the market and his mansion is once again full of sort-of-attractive mental patients.

The girl Flav christened “Sumthin” was gathered with the rest of the girls for one of his elimination ceremonies near the end of episode one. Apparently she misunderstood the use of the word ‘elimination’ and, well, shat. She dropped one on the marble foyer floor, bent over to pick it up and by the time the others started remarking on the smell she was half way up the stairs with the awful offal. I sat here in complete and utter awe like I’d just seen a ghost. Where do I go with this description now? Watch this ridiculous kook for yourself below:

I figured I’d throw that out there as I was recently on the receiving end of an errant poop. I’m not going to be coy and pretend I don’t still love decent reality television. And Flavor of Love is tha shiznit – sometimes literally.

Centuries from now, if an alien race discovers this photo after the humans have been wiped out by bird flu and American Idol, what do you think they will say? This is way better than the standard quotelet – so have at it:

“Dave panicked a little when he realized evolution was rendering his fellow gigantor neanderskulls extinct.”

“Always a fan of Mike Meyers, Dave was thrilled when he was asked to join the cast of ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer 2′”.

In the meantime, you can ooh, coo and aah over little Madison Annette Harkins who was born 2.5 weeks ago, making a huge splash on the Newport scene. It took her roughly 30 seconds to crank out some tapioca onto my shirt, which would have been good luck were she a bird. Seeing as how she’s a human, it’s probably a good day for me to buy a lottery ticket.

I’m sure I’ll tell her that story when she’s older, and I’m saving the shirt in a ziploc just to make it all the more awkward for her. Not really. She’s beautiful, Mom and Dad are overjoyed and there are many more pictures coming soon. Congratulations to Heather, Chris, Uncle Matt, Pappy Phil and the entire H-camp.

Otherwise, A zany weekend that I’ll piece together with photos when I get a moment to myself. Frank Black at the Beachcomber, Nausett naughtiness, Neo-nazis, crazy strippers, Newport Saturday night – I am brown, dehydrated and praying for death. But what a way to cap off the summer. The show Friday night was amazing and I am so glad we made the pilgrimage and met Madison, too!

When I think of Siamese cats, especially a pair of them, I think of the devious little jerks from Lady and the Tramp. But as a breed, they’re quite fun to own. A friend of a friend has just such a pair that she unfortunately has to unload. Taking on a pet is for life. If I got rid of my little orange bastard every time he did something to annoy me, I’d have dropped him off in a field back in 1998. But sometimes circumstances arise that force tough pet purging decisions. If you’re on the market for two cats, or live near dogs in love who keep eating all of your meatballs and have to be stopped, send me an email and I’ll hook you up with some good Siamese shit.

Friends and I tend to meet up at the Pushcart in the North End every Thursday night. My NE boozer of choice used to be the Different Drummer, way back when, but that building was sold 2 years ago and now resembles the Parthenon. It’s yuppie bait. This neighborhood is being snapped up and developed quicker than you can say ‘gentrification’ – but the compensation is enormous. These buildings are lottery tickets, hold-outs are cashing in and post-Big Dig Boston’s downtown is about to become an incredibly beautiful and therefore yuppified place to live. The neighborhood flips every century or so. Ira gave it up to Seamus, Seamus split when Anthony arrived and now Anthony is passing the torch to Biff and Bunny.

As the affluent yutes move in, and the demographic collides like a gas truck into a Girls Gone Wild tour bus – there are bound to be oil and water type problems in the 02113. Never was that more apparent to me than last year when I wrote about a community meeting I attended which was called due to excessive late noise by the aforementioned yutes. But there’s actually a lot of yute-on-yute crime, which doesn’t involve the natives, that’s just as disturbing.

I saw what was perhaps the worst, silliest, non-fight I’ve ever witnessed 10 minutes ago as I was walking back from the Pushcart (awesome pizza, by the way) on the corner of Prince and Salem. A tall skinny white kid with longish hair was screaming at another 20-something on the opposite end of the as equally skinny street. “Do you know where I live? Do you know where I live?” The abusee responded “Why are you flipping out on me man?” To which hockey hair replied “Do you know where I live?”

Maybe he was lost, in retrospect. But just in case – can I jump in here?

Jerktown? A Wu Tang Clan video your older brother let you watch when you were 10? OK I give up. Where do you live? Let me guess – Brooklyn? Fuck off. As I walked away from the ‘fight’ I chuckled, remembering my 20s in Canada where knock down, drag out slugfests would start in front of a Slush Puppy machine over the last squirt of blue raspberry syrup. And that was the gay bar. I swear I just went in to use the ATM.

People who don’t want to fight make a lot of noise in hopes of getting a post-bravado smile from a passing skunt. People who really will fight will just walk up and pop you with little to no ado about anything. And I love watching that two second moment of facial realization before head meets concrete when the two worlds collide. Especially when it isn’t my face.

This is a great place to live. Don’t drag this late night pseudo toughguy horseshit into it. If you’re going to call someone out, hit the mutherfucker. I’d gladly grab a Buffalo chicken calzone and stick around to watch. Otherwise, let us get some sleep you silly Laguna Beach watching bastards. You ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing.