Where I share the only opinion that matters – mine.

It came. It went (?). It… underwhelmed.

And now, here we are, the morning after Penguin – some of us with our heads buzzing like we got hit by a sack of hammers (who even carries those around? Where did that analogy come from? Was there once a “getting hit with a sack of hammers” pandemic some place? Russia, maybe?) and some of us rubbing our temples in frustration at the terrible crap still occupying top rankings (which, of course, don’t matter – right?)

Many posts will be written for those impacted by Penguin – they will talk a lot about disavowing links, anchor text ratios, user experience and – of course – content marketing as the great and mighty saviour who will stoop to rescue you from the mire.

But what about those of us who got off scot-free or never had to worry in the first place?

This post is for you.

I know how you’re feeling. You rushed to Google the moment you heard the update was “done rolling out” (which remains to be seen, but Matt Cutts said so, so we might as well believe it for now) and Google your client’s most competitive phrases.

and……ZOUNDS! 

Nothing changed. In fact, the same tired old crap is still right where it used to be, sitting on a pretty little mountain of horse poopie, smirking in your face.

What’s a good, honest SEO/Inbound Marketer/Whatever to do?

1. Accept that no Google update is ever going to ride in and make all of your campaigns a success. That’s sort of your job. If you are sitting there, banking on a future algorithm update to knock all of your competition out of the way for you, you’re doing it wrong.
2. Learn that Google looks at factors in conjunction. If your competitor is doing some ugly stuff AND some legitimate stuff, then they’re probably sending enough quality signals to stay right where they are. Boo-hoo, life ain’t fair, the algo ain’t perfect and sometimes the bad guys win. Sometimes they win forever.
   
3. Come to grips with the fact that shock & awe is just as important to Google’s webspam team as legitimate updates are. Penguin doesn’t have to work perfectly, it just has to strike a bit of fear in the heart of enough people to scare them into preaching the gospel of “create great content” while they figure out how to make it better. Look how well that worked last time:
4. Plan not to take any tech with you this coming weekend – and stay the hell away from Twitter if you don’t want to be bombarded with every Tom, Dick & Harry spouting the same tired advice from last May.
5. Don’t do this. It’s only going to give you false hope. Like telling a kid that Santa exists or that Shiny the Goldfish is just going for a swim in the toilet bowl on his way to fish heaven (forever confusing children as to the true function of a toilet)
6. Avoid telling everyone how you weren’t affected by Penguin as though this has earned you some sort of do-gooder medal of ethics. Nobody cares.
7. If you’re invested in content marketing, stay invested in it. Duh. If you’re doing SEO for a business with a reputation to protect, don’t dick around. Things will change and evolve over time (you should be too).

   It still pays to be on Google’s good side. But do it with the understanding that big Papa Google still has a long way to go, and your precious SERP may not be all that high on their priority list.

In 2010, I wrote a book.

It was about my hilarious job working in an accounting department with a whole bunch of women who were straight out of Eastern Europe. It was actually sort of a book by accident.

The whole thing started out as notes posted on Myspace and Facebook – little notes to blow off steam and entertain my friends. People told me I should write a book, but I didn’t really know what to write about. So I just wrote more notes about Russian women who microwaved fish and kept their offices at sub-zero temperatures. 

In 2008, my friend Jeff compiled all of his favourites into a book format and gave it to me for my birthday. I was left without an excuse. I had already written a book. Over the next two years, I edited it, added to it and published it in hard copy. It looked like this: 

I like to believe it’s great toilet reading. To date, I’ve sold over 150 copies (which you can still buy) to rave reviews like:

“This made me laugh so hard I farted out my colon and had to go to the hospital!” – Crazy guy in hospital with unfortunate case of exploded colon

Take that however you want to, but maybe be careful while reading and wear a pair of pants you’re not totally in love with.

Get it free here (free when you Tweet/Share on Facebook)

If that completely fails and you’re frustrated or you’re just too cool to let a tweet about my book sully your social media account, then you can break my heart and just download it here instead (but think about sharing it – I’d love for more people to share in the freeness and laughter).

Disclaimer: Yes, there are (a few) typos in this. Yes, I overuse commas. Deal with it.

(Got a friend’s birthday coming up? Want to get out of the anniversary dog house? Need a new permanent bathroom reader? You can buy a hard copy by contacting me. We’ll work out a deal.)

King Richard

As a kid, my Opa Richard was larger than life. In my eyes he had this strange celebrity status; I mentally equated him with John F Kennedy. A strong, commanding figure with a thick head of hair that rivalled Elvis’ and a face that belonged in the black and white snapshots of history books.

He was the first relative to see me after I was born and the first to visit me at the hospital when I made an ill-fated attempt to swallow a nickel. As a child, he built my cousins and I a playhouse in his backyard. As an adult, he sold me my first home.

He lived just around the corner from my parent’s house and was an integral part of my life.

The Oddball

Opa had a lot of funny quirks. He hated the Queen and made a point to announce that he wouldn’t go visit her “if she was over in the next cul-de-sac”. He threatened to disown anyone in our family who listened to Mick Jagger, lamenting how “that idiot is paid to dance on a stage like a monkey”. He’d repeatedly go by himself to those photobooths in the mall and snap a string of wild-haired photos. When we asked him to, he grew out an enormous beard and looked almost exactly like Sadaam Hussein.

All of us cousins used to put on little shows for the adults – magic, drama, dance – and then pass around a metal, golden apple to collect our fee. We saved this for years, making grandiose plans as to how we’d spend it. We visited once to find the money completely gone. Opa had gone out and bought the most obnoxious boombox we’d ever seen with it, blasting German Volksmusic through the house at decibels we could hear from our place around the corner.

And he could surprise you. Our entire family was shocked to find him defying his firm Baptist roots, lured to the dance floor by my cousin Kayla for a spirited rendition of twist-n-shout. It wasn’t his kind of dance, but for an 80-something, he could really move.

The Storyteller

He loved to find a joke or story to tell and would recount it with a smirk and a gleam in his eye that gave away the punchline before he could say it.

When we were young, Opa used to tell us a story about his Dad, whom he lost when the soviets stormed their farm in Russia (the reason he would never cheer for Ovechkin). According to his legend, his Dad was once out in a field when a wolf came and attacked him. Without so much as a flinch, his Dad plunged his hand deep into the wolf, grabbed its tail and turned it inside out.

As a child, I firmly believed this was true. I believed Opa could do it too, if he tried.

I thought he was invincible.

When we were really little, he’d throw his hat into an open fire, wait for us to scream about it – then reach in and pull it out with his bare hands. We were amazed every time – who was this man who could feel no pain?

When he was 84 years old, he was still roofing sheds. On his own. I’ll never forget waking up one morning last year to the sound of scratching on my roof, going out my front door and seeing my octogenarian grandfather on a 20 foot ladder using a crowbar to clean my eaves trough. He was an unstoppable force.

But Opa was not always an easy man.

Having left Russia without his father to build a life here, Opa was fiercely critical of anything he perceived as a waste of money. He had an iron will and a way of doing things that you would question at your own peril.

My first-ever attempt at mowing a lawn was his. I nearly left in tears when he shouted down at me, asking if I was blind (I missed some rather obvious strips) and commandeering the lawnmower to do it himself. Years later, after spending hours mowing his lawn while he was away, he phoned me to tell me it was the best he’d ever seen. This felt like winning the lottery. His approval mean the world. His disappointment was crushing.

He was a handyman, but you couldn’t ask Opa how to do things. He assumed everyone should be able to figure it out, especially since he, a German immigrant with a “4th grade Russian education”, had no problem. His criticisms could be harsh whenever he felt like you were being too loose with funds or too lazy to do a job the “right way”.

We sometimes questioned if he was bipolar, as this pointed fury could unpredictably evaporate into an extraordinary kindness and demonstrations of love. After I bought my house, he locked himself away in my garage, insulated the entire thing and hung cabinets without me even asking him to.

He just knew I’d need them, and couldn’t build them myself.

A Hard-Earned Legacy

Some of you may be surprised that I am recounting some less than flattering things about this man I so deeply respected. But you need to understand – this was an integral part of who he was to his family – a sometimes cantankerous presence that was often a point of both humour and frustration.

He came with bristles, strong opinions and an invulnerable stubbornness, yes.

But when you turn the wolf inside out, you quickly find that his was a soul that would give anything for the safety and security of his family. There was a love there that didn’t always know how to express itself.

He was a builder. He laid our foundation. It was no coward’s work. He took immense pride in it – and in us. He was affirmed when he saw us succeed, needed to see us level headed and making wise decisions. And for every barb and thorn, there was a moment of gentleness and a wit that would come alive when he told a story or played a joke.

Near the end of his life, someone asked my Opa what I did for a living. He replied, with what I can only imagine was his characteristic smirk, “I have no idea, but I believe he’s doing well.”

The End of an Era

Yesterday, I stood by my Opa’s bedside as he finally lost his battle with lung cancer. It was surreal to hear the slow winding down of the oxygen machine, the pump rising and falling for the last time, the strange quiet as the birds who had somehow still been chirping at 10:00pm went suddenly quiet, as if on cue.

He was strong-willed until the end – a man who wanted to live on his own terms and die on his own terms. They had brought a hospital bed to his house. In one last hilarious act of defiance, he more or less refused to go near the thing. It was not what he wanted.

He breathed his last at home, in his own bed surrounded by his children. I was able to see off the man who was among the first to welcome me here. I choose to believe that after arriving in heaven, he shook hands with his Dad before giving God a hard time for how he’d laid all of the shingles.

Long Live the Patriarch

A few months ago, in an attempt to immortalize my Opa in some meaningful way I created this painting.

His legacy to his family is enormous. He used his personal success to help kick start others – especially his grandchildren. It hangs in the front entrance of my home – the home he helped make possible through his generosity. It will remind me of him every single time I open that door.

He may be gone, but the impact he’s had will spiral through generations.

Thanks for everything, Opa.
I’ll miss you.

Everyone’s favourite algorithm update is back and better than ever!

Matt Cutts sparked a frenzy in SEO spheres last week when he announced they were close to rolling out the sequel to last year’s infamous update that crushed dreams and gave spam it’s first real kick in the prunes. It made a devil out of anchor text and turned the SEO faithful from the darkness into the light of “content marketing” (read: guest post links)

Rumour has it that this next one’s a real doozy. If you’re honest, you might not have been playing as nice as your company blog insists.

Fear not!

In preparation for the massive reckoning about to befall you, I’ve prepared some template e-mails you can send to clients  that should get you completely off the hook! I’ve categorized them by the type of excuse you’d like to employ:

Negative SEO Attack

Dear client,

Would you believe it? While we were off doing pure, white hat SEO, some unscrupulous shysters came along and built thousands of directory links with the anchor text of all the terms we were going for! We didn’t catch it until now because we were so busy creating great content and building relationships, but rest assured, we will track down whoever’s responsible and make them pay for this. It’s just another reason the _______ niche has gotten so competitive lately.

“The last SEO guys you hired were total scam artists..”

…. as it would turn out, the SEO’s you hired back in ______ are completely to blame for your site being impacted by this update. While we’ve focused on unadulterated quality from day one, those last guys rode in on a dark horse, spammed your site to death with forum profile links and galloped off into the sunset with your money. We certainly had nothing to do with this (please don’t go back and read any of the reports we’ve sent you, they’re completely irrelevant now), but we look forward to being the helping hand that pulls you out of the enormous field of manure you’ve found yourself in. Thank God you switched when you did!

Blame the Intern

… while working on a completely separate internal project, our hapless intern accidentally used YOUR URL in a Xrumer blast instead of the intended website. We can assure you that this totally non-fictional intern has been terminated effective immediately as we work to clean up the mess he inadvertently caused. Please know that we’ve updated our training manual and hiring documents to add an extra emphasis to “attention to detail” so this never happens again.

The Bait N’ Switch

We regret to inform you that your site was heavily impacted by the most recent Penguin update. Visibility has been completely lost for all targeted phrases including your brand name; traffic has dropped by nearly 85%. The cause appears to have been the unnatural link profile accumulated on your behalf over the past several years. 

We also regret to inform you that WiseClick SEO has officially ceased operations and declared bankruptcy. We apologize for the inconvenience we’re sure this has caused you.

Fortunately, we’re excited to announce WiseClick Content Marketing, an exciting new venture entirely focused on the creation and curation  of awesome, share-worthy content! Our prices begin at…

The “Southern States” Approach

Client, now is the time to act! It appears that Google has been hacked by  capitalism-hating commie socialists, determined to destroy the American way of life, take away your guns and rob you of your constitutional liberties. The only way to thwart this great evil is to stand together and invest in this great nation through pay-per-click ads…

Take the Money & Run

…by the time you read this, “Bob Krandal the SEO” will be no more. Do not try to contact me. I’ve changed my name, sold off all of my possessions and travelled to a new sunset far away from here where I plan to frolic in the waves with shapely local women and drink Shirley Temples. I’m sorry for the way this played out. I still believe somewhere deep inside of me that I’m a good person, I never meant for it to end like this..

Get Angry

Listen, you bunch of half-wits! We mentioned the phrase “content marketing” like FIVE TIMES in our e-mails and reports to you. That you can’t understand a good thing when you read it isn’t our problem. Really, the only people you have to blame for this are yourselves. We wanted to do great work, but you just didn’t let us. Well, behold the fruits of your ignorance!

Fire Up The Smoke & Mirrors (Lie!)

Hi client!

Nothing is wrong and everything is great! See the below screenshot of your current rankings and traffic. Boy, you sure are dominating those search results – number one, same as always! Attached is your invoice.

Be Honest (Not Recommended)

Dear client,

Surprise! We’re dickheads!

The following is a paper I turned in for Metaphysics.
The title: “Hitler’s Mustache, And Other Problems That Upon Solving Will Do Nothing To Benefit Humanity Whatsoever”.
Yes, I handed it in with that title.
I got 95%. If you haven’t read Lewis’ paper, you don’t need to. I make everything pretty clear, as clear as time travel can be, I reckon.

—————

In his paper, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”, Lewis puts forward a proposition about the nature of personal and external time. Under his proposal, one could truthfully say of a time traveler who aspired to be a barber – “Even now, long ago, he is trimming the moustache of Hitler.” First, I will outline Lewis’ argument in more detail. I will then argue that Lewis is right in this statement and that claims of that nature can be truthfully made. Lastly, I will consider some complications and counter-arguments. Once I have finished, I will take a long shower and try to forget about the entire thing.

In his paper, Lewis distinguishes the difference between personal and external time. First, he importantly outlines his belief (which I will hold as a truth in order to progress) that time is linear, a single line and not a plane. External time is time as you or I know it – the passing of seconds, minutes, decades, millenniums. External time is divided by these measures and separates one distinct event from another. For example, ten years ago I was 11 years old, seconds ago you began reading that last sentence, and so forth. Personal time is a very different notion. Lewis addresses the issue of “personal time” this way: “instead of an operational definition, we need a functional definition of personal time: it is that which occupies a certain role in the pattern of events that comprise the time traveler’s life.”

Lewis admits that this is not really time – that the passing of various events in a familiar order (first infantile, than senile stages – hair grows, food digests, memories accumulate) do not constitute themselves “time”, but something close enough to it that we can “transplant our temporal vocabulary” to it. Each change that one experiences, however small, marks a new stage of their existence. This changing of stages constitutes personal “time”.

For example, imagine I transport a blooming flower through time. Regardless of where in time that flower is sent, it will go through the stages of seedling, sprout, stem, leaves, flower bud, and blooming. For the flower, personal time marches on independent of where in history that flower has found itself, whether on the mantle of the Marx brothers or in the window of King Solomon. It will continue to grow through these stages regardless of where in time I send it (assuming where I send it is sunny and not an environment conducive to plant growth, an obvious but unnecessary complication). This growth constitutes the continual transfer through stages of the plant that Lewis would call personal time.

Lewis goes further to suggest that we can assign locations in personal time to not only a potential time traveler’s stages, but the events that occur around the time traveler during that stage. For example, I could truthfully say when referring to the personal time of a time traveler that left three hours ago to meet with Hitler and groom his infamous moustache (the rumored source of all his evil) – “Even now, long ago, he may be trimming the moustache of Hitler himself!”

Here, I agree with Lewis. It is true that a “three-hours later” stage of the time traveler is in fact in the past tending to Hitler’s appearance. Assuming that his personal time and my own were once perfectly aligned in the present, I could give the traveler an invincible wristwatch (assume such a thing exists and is incapable of error) and wear a matching wristwatch on my own arm. Setting both wristwatches for three hours, the traveler departs. Three hours from now, my wristwatch will sound its alarm. Three hours in the personal time of the traveler, the watch will sound its alarm as well. The difference is merely our locations in external time.

To provide another, perhaps stronger example is to consider if the time traveler had eaten a slice of orange prior to his trip. After three hours of being in the past, it seems to follow that the orange within the time traveler would be three hours “more digested” than when the traveler left. In this, the stage of him that exists in the past is continuous from the one he left in the present. Three hours of time have passed for him despite the fact that decades have also passed in external time. Only in referring to his personal time am I correct in making the statement, “even now, long ago, he may be trimming the moustache of Hitler himself!”. With regards to external time, I am obviously in error. I cannot truthfully say that at the very moment I am speaking three hours later, Hitler is in fact having his moustache groomed.

Here is the paradox – the event is both happening now, for the time traveler, years ago – and not happening now, for me, in the present. When I make the claim that my time traveling friend might now be trimming Hitler’s moustache, it is important that I include the short phrase “Long ago”. Without it, my statement is false. Instead I must assert that at this moment, during another separate moment in history, an event is occurring. It is only in our personal times that these moments align for the time traveler and I. Because man clearly goes through “stages” as described by Lewis, I am inclined to agree with his position on personal time and truthful statements made in its regard.

However, there some admittedly peculiar and difficult complications when accepting Lewis’ personal time concept. For example, consider that instead of one time traveler, I had commissioned six to go and report on Hitler. Three hours ago, each climbed into their own time machine and traveled to a different stage of Hitler’s life. By virtue of what I have claimed to accept, I must now make some very bizarre statements. I can say (assuming three hours has passed), “Even now, long ago, Hitler is being born, making out with Eva Braun, giving the order to invade Poland, having his moustache trimmed, taking his first steps and giving a speech.” How can it possibly be true that all of these events are occurring, “even now”? At first consideration, it seems as though this statement turns a timeline on its head. It infers that all of history and the future are occurring in this moment, one single, cosmic “yelp”. Since Lewis has argued for a linear time format, this complication at first seems to challenge his proposed structure of time.

In response to this, I must emphasize that when making his original statement, Lewis referred only to personal time, not external time. For each of my six time travelers, they experience one of these varied events at three hours later in their personal time. In external time these events remain distinct and separate, divided by months and years. In personal time, however, each of my six travelers is experiencing these moments exactly three hours after setting out. This three hours has passed the same for I as it has for them, for at once all of our personal times were aligned. Consider the problem in the sense of geographic travel. I can send six men in six cars in six different directions over the course of three hours. I can say truthfully at the end of those three hours that each man is in a different place, and nothing about this seems contradictory. In my example, each traveler has simply traveled to a different “stage” or “place” in time, and this travel in and of itself does nothing to align the events in external time. What has been aligned is the moment at which these events are being experienced by the travelers, but not their actual occurrence. This begs the original paradox. These events are occurring “even now”, but also not occurring “now”. As stated earlier – the statement is only true if making reference to personal time, but blatantly false if referring to external time. I can find no support for an argument that both events can occur simultaneously in a linear time structure.

One might also take issue with the suggestion that “personal time” can stick to one like toilet paper on the high heel of an oblivious woman leaving the bathroom. That is to say, one may posit that the notion of “taking time with you” is flawed – that personal time is simply a product of external time and that the two are inseparable. They may imagine a world without external time and argue that in that world personal time would be incapable of passing. Thus, the personal time experienced three years in the past by a time traveler and three years presently by myself are not the same. I find this position difficult to argue in favor of. A supporter of this view would need to supply reason to believe that the stages of development one goes through are somehow disjointed or separated by the act of time travel into two distinct and incomparable entities. I would refer back to the argument made for the plant – independent of where in time it travels, there are necessary stages of its lifecycle it must go through in order. The same principles apply to a time traveler, and I cannot imagine any event that would be sufficient to create a disjuncture or “new” entity separate of its past. Perhaps I just lack imagination.

Other arguments against Lewis would need to challenge his perception of time as linear. I will not address these here. Given the rigid boundaries Lewis has created his world in the context of his writing, it is difficult to disagree with the statement that within these parameters, his assertions with regards to personal time hold true.

In conclusion, I have briefly outlined Lewis arguments regarding personal time and argued that given this outline statements such as “even now, long ago, he may be trimming the moustache of Hitler himself” can be true. I have stated that these statements are only true when referring to personal time, and not to external time. I have considered some potential objections to Lewis within the context he has created of linear time, and maintained that I do not feel they are valid enough to undermine Lewis arguments.

A few months ago, the SEO industry performed a David Blaine-grade magic trick. Penguin rolled out, the industry soiled it’s collective britches – and then POOF! – overnight, businesses that had once excelled in “SEO” now excelled in “Content Marketing”.

It’s everywhere. EVERYWHERE. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find an SEO agency (whether proudly wearing the label or hiding in the closet with it) who HASN’T blogged about the importance of content marketing and how it’s now the bees knees and the future of the entire internet. There’s just one problem: Phonies walk among us. You might even know a few. You might even be one without knowing it.

1. Did your company website have a section on content marketing prior to April, 2012?

2. If no, does it now?

3. Please check all of the following that apply to you: “When I began to offer content marketing to clients, my…”

• Team composition significantly changed
• Team structure significantly changed
• Internal processes significantly changed
• Approach to pitching clients significantly changed
• Pricing structure significantly changed
• I added a “content marketing” tab to my services section and went to town!

4. Yes or No: “My firm’s primary method of content marketing is mass guest post publishing”?

5. Yes or No: “I source the majority of the content for my clients from oDesk”

6. Yes or No: “We created our editorial calendar by going to Google Adwords, picking commonly searched keyword phrases and then coming up with blog topics about them (usually with a lot of top X lists because we heard people can digest those easily)”

7. Yes or No: “Before launching into the creation phase, we sit down and delve into a strategy that defines the voice, tone, key messages, themes

8. Yes or No: “The main reason we offer content marketing is because we have no idea how to get linked to now and byline links on blogs nobody reads are still scalable if you put them on blogs nobody cares about.”

9. Yes or No: “We could still do content marketing if every single blog fell off the face of the planet tomorrow afternoon” 11. Yes or No: “I can actually recite my client’s mission and vision statements.”

10. Are you a great big phony? (Ha, ha – just kidding. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be that transparent!)

Phew!

Let’s tally up the score:

If you’re selling content marketing now and didn’t before April of 2012 BUT your team’s composition/structure/processes/pricing structure didn’t change, your primary means of “content marketing” is pushing out mass guest blogs that you sourced from oDesk/Elancer/Mechanical Turk/Belarus, you build content calendars by shotgunning titles you think are clever into an excel spreadsheet based on search volume and don’t know what your client’s mission and vision statements are, give yourself negative infinity points.

Congrats, you’re a part of the problem!

But don’t worry. Secretly, most overnight content marketers are just like you.

A few years from now when we’ve run the phrase “content marketing” into the ground, we can all get together over drinks at a conference and talk about the next wave and wash our hands clean of the whole thing. Heck, we did it with SEO.

I don’t know how anyone who works in the tech space can avoid completely hating themselves these days.

Most of the blog posts I’ve seen lately are dedicated to announcing that I’m a miserable failure. Titles like, “Top 10 reasons you fail at ___________”, “Common Mistakes You’re Still Making (Somehow, you Idiot)”, “You Are Bad At Your Job and Here’s An Itemized List Of Reasons Why”

Now, I know the authors mean well – they want to help. And with an industry that changes every single day, it’s tough to stay on top of everything. Sure, you’re falling short – but we’re ALL falling short.

So I’ve decided to throw you a bone here. Instead of listing all the reasons you suck, I’ve decided to give you a few reasons you are doing great and everything will be okay. 

Let’s begin. For best results, hit “play” while you read this.

 You there!

You look great today. You managed to not fail at putting on clothes, climbing in your car/walking to public transit, getting out of that car/train/bus/private jet and looking presentable. You know what this means? You’ve managed to retain the skills you learned as a toddler. One arm per sleeve, one pant per leg… you are an absolute powerhouse of attractiveness and competence right now.

Straighten up that posture. You look so much better when you’re not Quasimodo-ing. Yeesh! Have you always been that tall? Such great bone structure. And that complexion! Living behind a keyboard has given you that sexy silky-smooth paleness people love the Twilight movies for.

Now, your job? It’s just a job. And you’re doing great at it. Oh, I know what the others told you: “You’re failing at twitter. You’re bad at outreach. You’re no good at proposals. You’re still making these basic SEO mistakes”

Well you know what?

They can shove it. Who are they to tell you that you’re no good? Just some goof with a blog. Sure, you’re not getting it all right – but who could? You’re only human. Your job is pretty confusing sometimes, and..

Holy cow! Wait a minute. Was that just you, a minute ago? Typing? Good lord, it sounded like a machine gun! You must be able to type like, what, 300 words per minute? Oh, don’t be modest. I’ll bet you could type out the entire War & Peace book set in less than 24 hours. Man, you’re pretty good at that.

But back to what I was saying.

Our jobs can be pretty confusing sometimes, things are changing really fast. And you can’t be good at everything, no matter how many inconsiderate, high-horse, “Neener-neener-neener” bloggers try to tell you that being great at everything is your job. It ain’t. 

Why, I’ll bet you’ve done some great things. I’m sure you’ve got at least a few happy clients, right? Well, those are some successes. You succeeded! Not everything you do is a rancid, steaming pile of crap. Take refuge in that knowledge.

Now, maybe you don’t have any satisfied clients. In fact, maybe you’ve blown it pretty bad. Maybe you got caught up in an algorithm update, or you dumped out some messy code, or you couldn’t quite get their new logo right.

Stop for a second: You’ve managed to make it this far through the day without pooping your pants, having a heart attack or being arrested for grand larceny. But you know what? Other people haven’t. Revel in that thought for a minute.

While other people are pooping their pants, snorting drugs and listening to Nickleback albums, you’re out there doin’ your best. You’re puttin’ in at least some kind of effort – it may not be your best effort, but by golly, you’re at least somewhat, sort-of, maybe trying.

Everything is going to be okay.

Even if you are a jobless Nickleback-listening cocaine addict, you’ve still got a chance to turn it all around.

Quick, check your pulse. Still alive? Thought so. You know what that means? You’ve got time to get better and try new things. You have more time to fail at the new things you try. But I’m guessing you’re going to succeed at a few of them.

Yup, you’re doing a whole lot of things right. So don’t listen to the haters.

You’re doing pretty swell.

If there’s any place in the world you don’t want to find yourself yelling at the top of your lungs, it’s a bathroom.

Last week I decided I’d take a day to work from home. I’d been clunking through a project with all the grace of a drunk orangutan and thought a change of scenery might help.

I was determined not to be distracted by clutter.

I woke up early, washed every single dish, dusted the windows, took out the garbage, wiped down the stove and whipped the crumbs off my tablecloth with all the enthusiasm of NASCAR flag girl. 

I had one last thing to clean: me.

As a man with an unfortunate hairline, my showers are fortunately short. Without having a mighty mane of styleable bliss to hold me back (not bitter, I swear), showering takes all of five minutes. When the grisly ordeal was over, I got to work. My keystrokes were furious and wild; my ideas roared like unending tides crashing against the shores of productivity.

And then I heard it.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Dripdripdripdripdripdripdripwshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

Groan. I slid back my chair and lumbered to the bathroom. I pressed the shower handle down – nothing. 

“Hmmf… probably just needs a reset” I thought, drawing from my infinite understanding of modern plumbing. I cranked the handle to the position for “torrential downpour”, then eased it back to zero. This time the faucet didn’t keep dripping. It poured.

At full blast.

I stared stupidly at the handle, doing the mental math. Faucet = off. Tub = on. That can’t be right. A logical improbability. A bathroom paradox: what is both on AND off AND running up your utilities bill?

oh crap… oh crap oh crap…OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH I CAN’T AFFORD THIS WHY WON’T YOU SHUT OFF YOU.. 

Now was not the time for inaction. This was my Alamo. I could fix this.

I just needed to get the handle off.

I tugged on the handle praying in vain that these things were built exactly like a twist-off beer cap. Nope. I recalled that there was a panel screwed into the wall behind the tub that housed (maybe)  a shut off lever (possibly) and decided that I try to remove it (NOW).

After repeatedly dropping the screwdriver and nearly sending myself to an early grave with a tumble on my sopping wet floor, I started to unscrew the panel. The screw spun.. spun.. kept spinning. I moved on to the next one. Same thing – spinning, but no release.

With all the finesse of a master carpenter, I jammed my screwdriver into the crack between the panel and the wall, chipping the paint. Oof, that’ll cost me. I heaved. Nothing but sickening cracking noises. My heart was pounding like a mariachi band on speed. All I was succeeding at was destroying more of my bathroom.

All the while, litres of ice-cold water continued to gush from the shower head, taunting me.

Out came the iPhone. My slippery thumbs managed to fumble out “hhw to foix a berpken fsucrt”. I needed an allan key. After briefly questioning where allan keys got their name, I sloshed my way back across the hall where my wrench set lay untouched as though waiting for this very moment.

I submerged myself below the shower’s frigid waters once more. The first allan key was too small. The second was too large. It was a horrible Goldilocks story. I found the one that fit, twisted out the bolt and pulled back the handle with a firm tug.

Turning the pin, the water began to pour out of the faucet instead of the shower head. Then both. Then hot. REALLY hot. Disfigured-in-a-horrible-bathroom-accident hot. But it couldn’t be stopped, like an NFL running back playing junior high football.

I was soaking. I was angry. I had unloaded a few choice sucker-punches directly into my mattress (surprisingly firm!)

Finally, a moment of clarity.

If no water comes into the house, no water can flood my tub. With the rumbling of my personal waterfall still pouring behind me, I  braved the musky furnace room, clamoured over a pile of empty paint cans and ended the madness with a few flicks of the wrist.

The relief was short-lived: the 45 minute ordeal had left me needing to use the toilet. Peeing, cooking, washing my hands (not in that order): these things would either need to be put on hold or done with the knowledge that every time I turned on my water I’d lose litres to the drain.

Warning: Analogy to follow

“I’ve never seen anything like it”, remarked my contractor, screwing the handle back into place on my repaired shower. “This little spring came off. That’s it, that’s all. A 30 second fix.” 

Something smaller than my pinky finger had sent my entire world spiralling into chaos. 

I think there’s a lesson here: Sometimes, all it takes to derail your grand, well-thought-out plans is a small oversight. Our security, our big ol’ lives tend to rest on a bunch of small things we take for granted.

An object lesson reminding us to appreciate (and mind) the little things – before you spring a leak.

Stop what you’re doing. Before you continue, I want you to drink a glass of water. Yes, I’m serious.

Waddle over to your nearest tap, cooler or (if you must) pre-packaged bottle of tap water and chug it down. It’s important for vague reasons I’ll explain by the time we’re through here.

Done?

Great. Wasn’t that refreshing?

Hydrated Readers: Get Introspective

Lately, I’ve been thinking. Thinking’s awfully dangerous if you do it for too long and sure enough I’ve begun to feel a growing tension between the place I am and the places I want to be.

That’s a problem.

Mostly because as a kid you have these wild and exciting visions of how your life is going to play out. You want to be an astronaut – a lawyer astronaut who saves orphans from burning buildings in their spare time. But if not that, you at very least want to be interesting.

Ask yourself right now – am I interesting? And be honest about it – that’s the hard part. Your fragile little ego is going to cry out “Of COURSE!” as soon as you ask the question, but let it simmer. Turn up the heat on it. Force it to bubble a little bit.

You might (uncomfortably) find that the answer isn’t all you wanted it to be.

Let’s Make This About Me (Because it’s my blog and I said so)

I decided I was going to be honest about it. The answer I came to after a few desperate moments staring into ceiling stucco wasn’t the one I wanted.

I used to do monthly challenges. I slept in my backyard through a Canadian winter, went vegetarian (despite every urge in my German history begging me not to), faced my fear of horses, finished a book, interviewed my grandparents, went for a walk every single day – and life was richer.

I used to tour in a band, used to spend late nights trying to write a piece for a full orchestra, used to organize nights called “friend swaps” where new people would connect, used to put on local shows.

“Used to” is one of the ugliest phrases in the English language.

Somewhere, I started failing simple mathematics. Simple mathematics like 0 + 0 = 0. What kind of new age hippy crap am I on about, you ask?

Zero-Sum Activities

Zero-sum activities are anything that you invest time, money or effort into that has absolutely no outcome on the betterment of your life. By the time you’re done you have nothing to show for it.

The obvious things that might spring to mind are things like watching television or mashing a controller. And it’s not that these things are inherently bad – if we want to get really nit-picky then we could argue that their “outcome” is entertainment.

Still, in a broader sense, they’ll never contribute to advancing your life – unless you plan to be a professional video gamer (I hear that pays out well in Korea).

But the less obvious zero-sum activities are more insipid. Things like worry. Worry is a zero-sum activity. You can worry yourself into an ulcer (I nearly did!) and at the end of all your worry you will be no closer to achieving anything.

Wishing is a zero-sum activity. Feeling sorry for yourself is a zero-sum activity. Carrying a grudge is a zero-sum activity. Being jealous is a zero sum activity.

Zero-sum activities are the types of things that nobody would ever write about in a book because they’re boring to read about. Why write them into your autobiography?

Do The Math, Einstein

If the bulk of my time – the most precious and finite resource I have – is invested in zero-sum activities, then my life will look like a zero-sum life. That’s how you get boring.

Moving past this is simple in theory: Reduce/eliminate as many zero-sum activities as you can. Replace them with positive outcome activities. Getting started on this can be hard, though. It’s tough to break patterns – poor eating patterns, lazy living patterns, emotional frenzy patterns. It’s much easier to come home and flick on the television or worry about trying something new because new things are scary.

But the good news is, you already started. You drank a glass of water. Your body is 80% water. You need that stuff. Good going, champ! You just did something great for yourself.

Now all you need to do is keep it going.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: Welcome to the first-ever edition of “Judged by Its Cover”, a round up of the week’s worst in album cover art! Every Tuesday, a brand new load of albums get unceremoniously dumped onto Rdio for eager audiophiles to peruse.

While most people might only get as far as the first few rows of familiar albums , I routinely scroll all the way to the very end – music’s seedy depths where travellers should come armed with a sense of humour and an extremely short memory.

As any good adventurer knows, the mustiest, crap-smelling caves are usually where the real treasures are  hidden. Without further adieu, here’s this week’s selections:

#5: Un Mariachi En Altos De Chavón by Ana Gabriel

Arriba, muchachos! Somewhere a Mexican angel is missing it’s sombrero. The gratuitous lens flare really knocks this one out of the park. Up until now I’d never come across a hat I needed sunglasses to look at; this thing’s got more under-glow than a 18 year old’s Integra. Without any clear light source, the sombrero assaults your eyeballs with more reflective glitter than a Ke$ha music video. 

Come to think of it, maybe the hat IS the light source, casting its magnificent aura haphazardly in all directions. The rose inconspicuously chillin’ in the physics-defying shade was also a nice touch. 

How It Sounds: Your mom’s taco Tuesday, now with three times the rolled “R’s”.

#4: Te lo do’ io il Brasil (Cantabrasil) – Various Artists

 Lord have mercy – where’s the nearest eyewash station? This is what I imagine taking a peek into the bride of Frankenstein’s change room would be like. I swear somebody handed me this picture on the streets of Vegas ten years ago.

This one’s got it all – the nostalgia of grainy photography, a surprising amount of nudity and a font ripped straight from the pages of an 80′s colouring book. You’ve got to give this woman credit though, she’s more creative with a scarf than most people are with an entire set of clothing.

How it Sounds: This album pulls the ultimate bait n’ switch on you – despite the racy cover, it kicks off with an endearing duet between what I’m assuming is a 10 year old boy and his Dad. I wish I could tell you more, but I completely lost interest after that.

#3: Mobb Funk by Reese Loc

Look out kids, it’s REESE LOC and he’s here to teach you all the proper way to take a dump!

Good ol’ Reese must’ve taught that to the artist, because some how he forced out this gargantuan pile of crap. With fonts pulled straight from the Microsoft Word ’97 and a scene sewn together from 3 separate photographs, this is a veritable collage of suck. Granted, it’s a well-loved rap aesthetic for rappers to “get low” in front of their “whips”. I can only assume Reese isn’t exactly making paper, because the muscle car behind him is somehow faker than he is. I would’ve loved to be in the room during the brainstorming session for this one:

“Yo Reese, let’s snap a cover shot of you crouchin’ all hood-like in front of your car!”

“Dude, I drive a Ford Fusion.”

“Ain’t no thang tho – we’ll photoshop ya’ll a new ride.”

“Aw yeah! And make sure you chrome it up, too!”

“Homie, we gon’ have that lens flare ON LOCK!”

The result: an MS Paint version of Pimp My Ride. The Willy-Wonka-esque chrome lettering on the bottom is the cherry sitting atop this enormous steamer.

Parental Advisory: Looking at this album will make your kids bad at art.

How it Sounds: Pretty funkin’ awful, though I got a laugh when Reece tried to rhyme “mandatory” with “temporary”. Ahhhh, literature. Judging by the line up of featured guests, this Reese guy knows a lot of Ron’s and at least two Mac’s. Heck, he’s not even the only “Reece” on the album. I can only assume “Do-Shitty” was the instruction given to the (I’m using the title loosely) cover artist.

#2: Urlaub auf da Wiesn (Isarrider) by Roland Hefter 

Roland Hefter, you are one creepy dude.

This is the kind of album cover that makes you revisit your lunch. I’m not sure what the worst part is – the Giligan’s Island cap, the deliberate attention brought to his “Single-Socke”, the pedo-stare or the pubic hair sneakily peeking out from his hands.

Nope, definitely that last part.

How it Sounds: Sorry, you just don’t hit “play” on an album like this.

#1 Absolute Unbreakable by Amrit Bains

Holy pole-vaulting priest, this is HARD AS BALLS!  Whether it’s his callous disregard for grammar or the searing hot wall of flames behind him, Amrit Bains proves he means business with the most intimidating artwork I’ve seen since Conan the Barbarian.

What’s scarier than three overweight triplets dressed like twin rambo’s and a retired Indiana Jones posing in front of a hyper-realistic inferno? Trick question sucker, the answer is NOTHING.

I especially like his body language in the centre frame – “That’s not a knife! This is a knife!”

How it Sounds: The best way to appreciate this is to just watch it for yourself.

This is a song about how a cigar-smoking man tries to kill “Dr. Amrit Bains” (no idea what he got his doctorate for – but we can safely assume  it wasn’t dance). He wants him dead for being “noisy, rude, arrogant – and in plain words, a pain in the ass” – them’s fightin’ words! He sends off a feeble old man and a few of his friends from the senior’s home to deal with Amrit by stabbing him in the heart, spewing raspberry syrup everywhere and totally ruining his nice bedsheets.

Amrit’s response, of course, was to tear the knife out immediately (watch in amazement as it transforms into a microphone! SPECIAL EFFECTS!), throw on some fatigues and compose this bumpin’ club jam before slaughtering them all.

And that’ll do it for this week – thanks for reading!