Wednesday, February 01, 2006
“On a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair … ”
My fave, posted to the Usenet by Thomas Dzubin of Vancouver, British Columbia: “There was this fireworks factory just three blocks from the Hotel California … and it blew up! Big tragedy. One of the workers was named Wurn Snell and he was from the town of Colitas in Greece. One of the workers who escaped the explosion talked to another guy … I think it was probably Don Henley … and Don asked what the guy saw. The worker said, ‘Wurn Snell of Colitas … rising up through the air.’”
The Straight Dope: In the song “Hotel California,” what does “colitas” mean?
And here, I thought the song “Hotel California” was about … oh wait … I already covered that.
AdSenseless
I've been doing the Google AdSense thing now for ten months, even since they requested to be here, and in those ten months, I don't think I've made enough to get a Venti® White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino® Blended Coffee from Starbucks (not that I like coffee mind you).
Now, perhaps that's because the ads are (or were) “below the fold” and therefore not seen. Or perhaps it's because most people read this site via the RSS feed so it matters not where the ads are.
But I'm guessing that by moving the ads up (as you can see), I might see an increase in ad revenue, but I'm not going to hold my breath on this. Also, by moving the ads up, my Obligatory AdSense Snarks are more visible and as far as I can tell, making snarky remarks about AdSense is okay (but telling people to click on the ads is not okay).
I'm also planning on making a change in that space in the next few days as I finish (okay okay, start) a feature that will hopefully have a much better return on investment than this silly Google AdSense.
The Color of Television
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
–William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
I saw that it made the Top 100 Best First Lines from Novels (link via Jason Kottke) and it struck me that today's kids will get a vastly different feel from that opening line than I did when reading the book as a kid.
Why?
Because the color of television, tuned to a dead channel, has changed in the past twenty-two years. Twenty-two years, the color of television, tuned to a dead channel was:
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
–William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
And the color of television, tuned to a dead channel, these days:
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
–William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
I don't think Mr. Gibson envisioned a bright blue sky for the opening of his book.
![[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]](https://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/2023/1023.t.jpg "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades")