Watch it, people! Yahoo! is trying to slip a fast one past all of us. If you pay the $299 to be reviewed for the Yahoo directory and actually get in, the $299 is now a recurring annual fee! Is it worth it to pay $299 each year when you can submit for less (or free) to other search engines and directories?

Also, in reading the fine print in Yahoo's contract, if you wish to submit an adult-related site, the fee is $600!!!! So that's how they are making money on adult sites.

An update on Euroseek. The site's forums now state that they are simply moving to new servers. We will see.

Search engines everywhere are sliding into oblivion! Excite's search engine has been bought by InfoSpace. InfoSpace is planning to power Excite with Dogpile (a meta search engine), which in turn gets its results from Overture (formerly GoTo), a PPC engine. Excite=Overture.

WebCrawler, one of the oldest search engines on the Web, may not make it in Excite's transition. Stay tuned.

Euroseek is said to be shutting down, while Anzwers (Australia and New Zealand) is now powered by Google.

Yahoo! is now showing sponsored listings from Overture.

There are a lot of these "FREE" web site submission services out on the web. Beware of most of them! I am currently researching for an article and have found that their claims are outrageous! "We will submit your site to 4,000 search engines!" Yeah, right. Many of these "search engines" are dead, gone, or are so specific as to be useless. Many search engines have specific rules that are ignored, i.e. only country specific web sites (Ghana, Malaysia, Ethiopia, UK), or it site is not a search engine at all.

Report cards came out this week at my daughter's elementary school. Here are her thoughts in a poem:

GRADES
by Louise Williams

Why must we get grades?
Grades I fear most of all.
How will I do, will I fail?
If I do, what will my parents do?
Will I be ounished?
Will I not get dessert?
How will my stomach feel?
Will I be sick, dizzy, or tired?
What will happen if I do good?
A good dessert? Will we eat out?
I must just not fail!

Louise is in 5th grade, and is an excellent student with high marks. Why is it that all the good students worry so much about their grades? She doesn't even get letter grades at this level.

Well, I've been out of it with strep throat for the past week. It's kinda hard to write with a fever.

I've just discovered that the create your own cereal site, MyCereal is down for reconstruction. I guess someone found a few pits in their prunes? On the other hand, OpenTable is still running full blast. OpenTable.com allows you to make reservations at restaurants in specific cities from your computer. What'll they think up next?

If you are planning to go out on the town with a group of friends, I suggest you check out IOU. This "system" allows you to keep track of shared expenses. I hope you have a wireless PDA!

Why is it that all the worst drivers hang out at the local DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles)? I have never seen such lousy parking and driving (except on the freeways).

Speaking of which, someone asked me the other day if I was worried about being offed by a terrorist attack. I said, no, that I was more worried about being run into by an idiot on their cell phone. I saw a driver a few months ago that absolutely horrified me. He was on the freeway, going over 70 mph, talking on his cell phone. As I watched, he took off his glasses with his other hand and started waving them around. Hopefully, he had a third hand on the steering wheel!!!

Another fool was sitting in traffic, punching something into his Palm Pilot. Hello, anyone ever heard of paying attention to the road??

The pumpkins (plural) got carved, and there were plenty of little goblins and ghouls at the door. Even some older kids with no costumes showed up. My last trick-or treater was a young man dressed as a swashbuckler. A great home sewed costume.

I couldn't believe the grinch that Bill O'Reilly interviewed on his show (The O'Reilly Factor) that night. A columnist from the St. Louis Dispatch argued that we should cancel Halloween because of the 911 attack.
One, Halloween is not a national holiday, it is a traditional one. And two, the very idea of cancelling Halloween is giving in to the terror tactics! I hope that columnist gets a lump of coal from Santa!

It's almost Halloween, and I still haven't carved my pumpkin! Maybe I'll get to it tonight.

I met a web designer online yesterday, and it turns out that he is 15!! Take a look at his site (I'm working on the meta tags and typos): BrianStudio

While I prefer to work for money, I will do work for barter. Brian and one other person are trading me graphics for help.

I discovered several new sites this weekend:

TrafficMagic

Publishing in a Box

and a great way of getting free advertising out to the web in general (using ezines):

EZine ADventure

Some small (but fun) search engines:

SPLAT!

GoHip

And, just for All Hallow's Eve:

The Political Graveyard

Boy howdy! Where did the last 3 days go?

Apple computers built up their latest device as something so absolutely cool that no one could be without one! Surprise! The device cannot be used unless you have a Macintosh computer as well. Sorry, Apple, but I'll use my $400 for a digital camera instead!

According to an article from MSNBC, AltaVista hasn't updated their search engine listings since JULY!!! This does not speak well of a struggling search engine.

More dead and dying magazines: Brill's Content (along with Contentville.com), and Lingua Franca. AOLTimeWarner is trying to quietly sell some of its more niche-oriented mags.

Yeah, yeah, I know that it is late. But I have been arguing on an underwater archaeology discussion list that I run with a treasure hunter who claims to be an archaeologist.

I am also trying to write a review of Clive Cussler's latest novel, VALHALLA RISING. It is a very complicated story with many twists and turns, and lots of paranoia. I'll post the link to the review here when it goes up on the website.

One interesting consequence of the current anthrax scare and the US Mail - I predict that e-mail will undergo quite a revival of use. Another point is that why did the US Mail take so long to reach both NBC and the US Senate from New Jersey? The toxic letters were mailed Sept. 18th, but didn't reach their destination until mid-October?

Here are some fun sites:

What Should I put on the Fence?: A Londoner's way of thumbing his nose at authority. Great photos, funny site.

Sock Monkeys playing Sports

Listen Honey: Telling people about their rude, offensive behavior.

Whoops! I forgot something. My daughter, Louise says "Hi!"

Ever notice how pets like to sit directly under you so that they could get run over by the chair? One of my cats has this tendency, and I have nearly stomped her several times today.

Why is it that I can find jobs for others but not one for myself?

Travel Web sites:

Maporama: Maps for U.S. and European cities

Travelocity: Excellent all-around travel site. Can check airfares, rent a car, and get a hotel room here. Membership is free.

Rent a car Abroad: Need a car in Paris? Go to this site.

Discount Hotel Reservations: Fast online reservations for 80 cities in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Europe.

A bit of poetry for your weekend (written by me):

As I wandered, weak and weary
Through the search_engines dreary
Would I find my subject query?
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

For those similarly lost, here are a few excellent sites to start with (other than the major search engines):
LibrarySpot (Excellent site for reference information.)
Dictionary.com (Great site for dictionary and Thesarus lookups.)

Fun sites:

Blow up some of that steam and rage! NuketheHamptons.com is an excellent site and wonderful Flash movie. It allows you to interact and take out the Hamptons, an area of New York state that the very wealthy live in.
NuketheHamptons

Popcap has free Java games that you can run on your browser. Be careful, Diamond Mine is very addictive.
PopCap

PrizeGames is also a great game site. PrizeGames

Ever wondered how McDonalds gets their french fries so brown? (They add sugar!) Take a look at Copykat.com where you can find receipes on how many popular foods are cooked.
Copykat

Fark
Carthedral
Hooked on Promos

OK, I've decided to jump headlong into the blog world. This blog will be about weird web sites I have encountered, job sites, and general rants and raves about life.

To start things off: I am a reference librarian by training, and a Search Engine optimizer by choice. In my view, libraries are at a dead end, unless they are supplemented by technology and Internet-trained librarians.

Some interesting web sites:

http://www.fark.com (silly news items)

The Carthedral (a modified 1971 Cadillac)
http://www.carthedral.com

Hooked on Promos
http://www.hookedonpromos.com