• But they did not give up lists successful people who were told they would not succeed. [Thanks, Lifehack]
• Designing Sidekicks for Fashion Target Breast Cancer. A little wild for my taste, but a great idea and cause.
• 6 Lies about Creative Writing.
• 5 tips for giving feedback on creative work
• 101 reasons freelancers do it better. [Thanks, Freelance Folder]

When I created the Grammar Gotchas page a few years ago, I had hoped to creat a resource similar to the one at Innocent English. It didn’t work out, but sites like these fill the gap for us grammar geeks. Occasionally, I find a This Is Broken post that involves a language boo boo.

I’m all for recycling, but these classified ads aren’t worth it.

* Toilet Paper

* Tombstone

* Dentures

* Partially-eaten Turkey

Be sure to check out the other ads. Are they for real?

Non-Bush fans will appreciate the site’s capture of a TV caption, “Bush: One of the Worst Disasters to hit the U.S.” Here are more Bush bloopers and Bushisms.

Happy 12th birthday to my oldest!

* Sand Fantasy has amazing videos of an artist who uses nothing but hands and sandy to create changing pictures.

* Techdirt posts funny blurbs related to tech and has current news, rumors, book reviews, and white papers.

* Web Gallery of Art isn’t a fancy site and uses frames (ick), but it has over 10,000 pictures of artwork along with commentary. An art-lovers dream.

* Lemmings was one of the few games I played when I began life after college and it was hard to stop. They’re back! You can play them online, on PSP (thank goodness I don’t have one), and create an interactive wallpaper. [ Thanks to Adverblog for addicting me again ]

* Considering U.S. President’s Day is coming up on February 20, it seemed appropriate to point to the Presidential Pet Museum.

From the sponsor: Since the Academy Awards are coming soon, you can bet many entertainers are having Los Angeles cosmetic surgery. Here’s a Facial Plastic Surgery blog and its February 3 entry happens to mention the Oscars.

This entry is prompted by the recent flurry of emails requesting a link exchange. I don’t do link exchanges period. They’re meaningless. Well, except that it helps search engine optimization for both sites, they’re meaningless as content. People exchange them without thought to the quality of each other’s sites. So you’re wasting your Web page space and visitors’ time with links that most likely are not useful.

Furthermore, I think it affects the professionalism of a site. I hear some of you saying, “But, you have ads on your site!” Yes, I do and for obvious reasons. But I don’t accept just any ad. It can’t blink, move, pop up, or appear over content. I mainly use text ads and do my best to keep them out of your way without disappearing from your sight.

When I tested taking the ad outside of the content and putting it at the end of the entry, the clickthrus went down. Isn’t that awful? I was trying to be respectful of readers by putting the ad at the end of the article yet it becomes a “No good deed goes unpunished.”

I was going to create a separate site for things, products, people, and sites that I recommend. But as usual… it’s on the back burner as more important things come first.

First time I’ve seen a 404
requesting details such as the link you were looking for, what content was expected, and where the link came from. The drawback is the visitor may not take the time to fill it out, but I did and I am sure others do. I believe this is a win-win tool as it helps the site fix problem links and help other visitors who might arrive at the same link later (it could be fixed by then).

oops!

Acme

Crucified (might be offensive to some)

I love it when someone gets creative and mixes two things as If Bloggers Had Been Around Throughout History mixes history (pre-blogging days – The horror! The horror!) with blogging. Mena is a creative one! It’s like I have a big wall up between my thoughts and the part of my brain where the creativity lives. I’m a lefty, ain’t it supposed to be natural?

I found an email note I wrote in 2000 with a list of original 404s. Most of them didn’t exist anymore, but here are a couple that remained alive and creative:

Librarian – 404: whoa, have you ever met a librarian lookin’ like this??? Gives whole new meaning to Marian, the librarian

Redstroke.com – Error 404

santarelli – 404

Westerfield.net – 404

GPF Comics – 404

J T H Z – 404

Matt M. – 404

vox animus – 404

Burning Man – 404

jodi – 404

If you get RSS feeds on a mobile device, then you’ll want to get your Traffic Conditions Data data by modifying the feed. The instructions on the site clearly explain how to fix it. I substituted my zip code for the 14607 and I changed the 4 to a 5 for the level of magnification because Paul’s commute goes beyond 10 miles.

John updated his entry so you can create your own link by entering the information into the location, radius, and severity fields at the end of the entry. [ Link: the guy behind Call to Action ]

Has your dog filed its 1040-DOG, Individual Canine Income Tax Return?