Magic Jewball

So, as you all know, because I’ve said it a lot and you all have photographic memories, I have like 200 blogs and other sites on my feed reader. Recently, like within days of each other, every one of them seemed to have a post saying, “We have a Facebook page! Be a fan!” Because I’m smart, S-M-R-T, it began to dawn on me that this is some kind of newfangled trend. I’m just that observant! Now, as I’ve told the 101 people who have sent me e-mails about being their Facebook friend, I’m not on Facebook, as it entails giving up your identity and we all remember I hate this. Also all the poking and whatever. I was one of those people happy to graduate all schools I attended and never go back. But this is different! It’s a page for my page! Which is SO necessary. Websites should always be advertised by other websites, right? Right?

No, I have no idea what it’s for either. I don’t know anything about Facebook. I had to send five e-mails back and forth with tech support just to set it up. So basically, I didn’t know how to set it up, I don’t know if I did it right, I have no idea what it’s for, and I’m not really sure why I even spent the time.

Oh right, because every one else was doing it. I guess I am still in high school.

So if you’re one of those 101 people who wanted me to swell their friends list, why, just be a fan instead. Be the first! Two through one hundred are also fun.

The J-Ball Facebook Page

Gosh, it’s been a long time since I talked about my stats. It’s really time for “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” but I’ll probably get to that over the weekend because I’m actually planning/cooking a real dinner for Pious B tomorrow night. I have a new cookbook and a will to learn to cook versus what I usually do which is:

a. read directions
b. follow directions exactly
c. mix things together
d. stick in oven or on range

But luckily, Alice Waters has this new “simple foods” cookbook which I am hoping is for simple people, i.e. me, and thus will get me into a new mode where I:

a. read directions but
b. instinctively throw things together
c. taste until it’s what I like
d. heat with an actual technique

This year I have taken on French and running and I say, why can’t I be mediocre yet enthusiastic about this too? I can! Look out, Pi.

Anyway, I did have a topic here, yes. The stats. As I’ve noted before, I often find out something is going on in the world of tennis by how the searches are going in my stats. In case you couldn’t remember how obsessed I am with my stats, I received the following e-card today from my friend, Becky, who knows me all too well.

Indeed.

Today, as you can see at left, my stats were full of searches for pictures of Martina Hingis who isn’t usually even in my top 10, probably because no one is wondering if she’s Jewish. So I did my own search and it turns out she tested positive for cocaine and has decided to retire. Again. Well, I don’t know if the coke is a repeat but the retirement is. You can insert your own “she blew it” joke here. WTG, Martina! I knew I could count on you.

This could be the most disappointing sports month ever. David Nalbandian is playing Roger Federer in Paris today but I couldn’t even bring myself to update his page because I feel like I am cursed by the sports gods. I’m sure there’s a card for that somewhere.

ETA: Hey! Nalby won. Oh me of little faith. I suppose I should update the page.

Eric Clapton - Cocaine

Wherein I attempt to answer the questions of searchers who reach my site, never to return except as fodder for your amusement.

happy corporate people

They exist! I am one of them! Sometimes.

magic 9 ball yes no questions

I fear you are just one digit off.

al jourgensen guy

He’s that Ministry guy.

why does mardy fish spell his name with a d

Because that’s what his parents named him and he just didn’t feel inclined to rebel, I guess.

making wisdom teeth feel better

Don’t have a dentist yank them out, of this I am sure.

are you still learning french

Thanks for asking. It’s slow, I took up running instead.

famous people that wear diapers

Suri Cruise?

convert to judaism engaged to a catholic

Wacky! Is this a pitch for a sitcom pilot?

is khaki pants okay to wear at courtroom

If you’re the lawyer, no. If you’re a juror, sure. If you’re up on a charge of shoplifting from The Gap, I’d advise against it.

song you make me simply miserable

Oh I got songs like that out the wazoo. Have you heard The Cure?

locked myself out of the house

At least you have WiFi.

is it ok to travel with a half-full suitcase?

Sure, if you’re leaving room for souvenirs for me.

is it ok for 1st cousin to be in love and the family dont except?

Except what? I mean, I’m sure you crazy kids’ll do great!

what was the weather like yesterday?

What day did you ask this? Erm, if it was this summer then too hot. Or too rainy. Let’s just go with too humid.

candy sukkah

Wow, what a fun idea. That’ll show all you gingerbread house people!

where is david nalbandian

I wish there was a page devoted to that…

how many duane reades store were there in august of 2006

Let’s see, how many street corners are there in New York? I’d say twice that.

nude mini cooper

Well they’re all kind of nude, aren’t they? I mean, I’ve never seen a dressed one or anything.

news about famous people august 2007

They got drunk and high and did stupid things then they went to rehab. September news: same.

jewish conversion how do you know when you re ready to convert?

Are you sick of people loving you too much? Have a desire to be hated by people around the world? It might be that time.

red sox fans animals

It’s hard to know because all the punctuation gets stripped from my search stats, but is that “Red Sox fans’ animals” or “Red Sox fans: animals?” You know, in the interest of diplomacy I think I’ll just stop this answer right here.

are any famous people going to go to a store?

Why? Need Paris to pick you up some milk?

And from the Department of “there’s always someone swimming against the tide of search”:

Top 5 Searches of the Month
1. laurent delahousse
2. mardy fish jewish
3. food emporium lyrics
4. simpsons porn
5. paul banks drugs

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Better late than never! I know, you’ll be the judge of that. But here we are, the usual effort on my part to answer the questions of the world’s searchers who come to this site.

paul banks drugs

No! I’m shocked!

jew tv

Isn’t this unfair? Everyone seems to have their own channel but us. And they say we control the media!

really snappy answers to stupid questions

Um, this.

famous people who lost someone dear

It does seem terribly unjust but even the rich and famous cannot buy immortality for their relatives. So I would have to say, all of them.

lyrics to the food emporium theme

Someone built a store just for me
Food Emporium, Food Emporium
Prices to make you faint, we guarantee
Food Emporium, Food Emporium…

the godfather the five families

Let me see…. Corleone, Tattaglia, Barzini and…. Ragu? Prego? Newman’s Own?

cream puffs suck

Loser!

jew buy german mini cooper car

The Mini Cooper is British. Are you thinking of Volkswagen? See here.

locked out apartment how much locksmith charge

A lot, brother, a lot.

real stupid questions about americans

Wow, that’s a tough one. How come they only eat McDonald’s? Why are they all religious freaknuts? Do they enjoy being fat? Must they wear those stupid fanny packs while traveling? Did they really elect that guy?

my neighbors may have a prostitution ring

Mine too! Oh wait, that’s how you found me. That whole Google thing. Right. Carry on.

whole foods bakery department manager salary

I believe they pay them in scones and two-bite brownies.

becca save me

I’m trying!

skim latte in hebrew

Golly, I have no idea; they didn’t teach that in yeshiva. Can this wait till I go to Israel next month?

bar mitzvah good deed theme

That’s an excellent theme. Kudos or, as we say, mazal tov.

kevin youkilis star of david

No, silly, he’s a star of the Red Sox.

famous people who get into trouble with the law

Try here:
The Smoking Gun

reasons why you would love a person more

They could like cream puffs.

what kind of underwear does rafael nadal wear?

The kind that constantly have to be picked out of your ass.

nude women

I could not possibly be near the top of the list when you Google this. No freaking way.

conservadox mean

It means you’re somewhere between the Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism. I wrote a whole post about why I changed my sidebar description to that but it remains unpublished. It wasn’t funny enough. I have standards, I tell you!

ca plane pour moi translation

Wooo-ooo-oooo-ooo, you are the king of the Devon…. Yeah, I only know the English parts.

hebrew labriut

Bless you! No really, it’s what you say when someone sneezes. Although it actually means “to your health.” I mean we’re religious, but only idiots think your soul is coming out your nose, thus requiring the aid of the Lord.

make me pregnant magic

Erm, that’s not magic, my friend. I mean, it could be, I guess, depending on your experience.

federer jewish?

question stupid?

heinrich maneuver lyric meaning interpol

Did you not read the very first item on this list? No, of course you didn’t, I hadn’t written it yet. Anyway, Paul Banks is on drugs and none of his songs have any meaning at all. How are things on the West Coast…. of pretentious, meaningless lyrics.

And our “No one explained to me how Google works” award goes to:
grocery chain store-if there is any website like this plese show me

Top 5 searches after “is Famous Person X Jewish?”
1. oprah six years to live (damn you, Alex!)
2. interpol ticketmaster password
3. simpsons porn
4. jeremy blake
5. laurent delahousse

Sorry, only 30 seconds. No wonder you can’t figure out what it means.
Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver

It’s late Sunday night and you know what that means! Blog changes! Why? Because Sunday night is the night I do my blog back-up, in case Houston, TX where my server is gets hit by an atomic bomb or, you know, I hit a wrong button or something. They’re equally likely, people! Anyway, once I’m doing that I start to think about all the little plugin ideas I’ve been hoarding in my Google notebook from the 85 geek feeds I subscribe to. Inevitably, I will put a few into action. No one’s really reading on Sunday late night, they all have less bloggy things on their minds, so if I fuck up, only three people on the West Coast notice. Most of the tweaks you don’t see but this week’s are all visible and so, I’d like to show them to you. Let’s go clockwise, shall we? On the right, in the sidebar, you can see two fun new things to play with. The lesser fun thing is the print button, and it has a check-off list so that you can just print the posts you want on a plain white background without all the round boxes that so prettify my blog. It goes to pdf first and then prints. This is dedicated to Monkey Girl who once printed out pages upon pages so she could catch up. No more “what you see is what you get,” sister! I gave it its own box but I may move it to the footer. Although that’s getting crowded. More on that in a moment.

The next one is for all the people who hit refresh hour after hour and curse me for not providing new content. Now you can have a random blast from the past! In the Blogroll/Links area, there’s a new Meta section (I moved “Who’s Linking to Magic Jewball,” which takes you to Technorati’s list of just that, in there too since it’s also meta) and in it is a new link called “Random Post.” Go ahead! Try it! See where it takes you, it should be different each time. Commenting is turned off on old posts, however, so you’ll just have to keep those burning thoughts to yourself, alas.

In the footer is a new link to subscribe to my blog via e-mail. See, I tried to turn you all onto RSS and lots of people did go for it (thanks!) but many of my readers are not technologically proficient (love you guys!) and so you just check forlornly. Which is OK, but I worry about you and all the things you could be accomplishing, like curing cancer or looking at porn. So for you I’ve added this special button which you just click, a form comes up, you hand over your e-mail address, and each day that I have a new post you get an e-mail to let you know. I think I have it set up for 7-9am Eastern US time, but who the hell knows. Point is, you’ll know.

But I didn’t forget my RSS readers. You’ll notice a footer with some new options in each feed item. Some of you will remember my old blog on Blogger (perhaps the only time I’ve ever switched away from Google, but face it, Google, Blogger sucked back then). Anyway, back when I had an empty footer it had my old slogan in it. I’ve added that into my RSS feed for fun, plus an option to e-mail my post, should that float your boat. I already had a way to see how many comments there are on a post but now you can subscribe and be alerted when one gets added. They also had options available to add my posts to Digg or Reddit or del.icio.us but I don’t think I’m really that sort of blog, so if you want to do that, you’re on your own.

Lastly, some of my favorite folks, my commenters, have a new option to check-off a box that will e-mail them if anyone comments after them. I tried to sell you on Commentful but I’m going to go ahead and guess that no one is using it but me. So since you’re already giving an e-mail address to comment, why not be notified when someone else says, “ew, I hate what you said?” It could even be me! Although I’d say it more tastefully. Want to be notified? You have to leave a comment. Psych!

One of these days I will set up a page to thank all the designers of the brilliant items on my bloated plugin list as well as the guy who does the famfam icons which are all over my site. Famtastic!

So in summary, I continue to make my blog prettier and more fun, all the while establishing new ways to ensure you never actually come here.

Tears for Fears - Change