Not even a nibble for a blogger willing to take the Bestofme Symphony out on tour? Very well then, I'll resort to bribery. The first person to volunteer to host the Symphony will get 5 points. That's enough to put you smack dab in the middle of the Leader Board. Or for somebody already on the board to surge to the top. Point reward will decrease by one for each host after that until it gets to one point, where it will stay. Yes, that's right - you heard correctly. Every Symphony host will get at least one point. Hot damn!

There are other benefits to conducting the Symphony, though. First, the schedule of Symphonies will be in my sidebar with a link to the appropriate blogs. Second, when you actually host the Symphony you'll get massive amounts of traffic and probably pick up some new regular readers. Third, I'll name my next child after you.

Okay, so we're not having any more kids, but if we were I'd do that!

Conducting the Symphony is as painless as possible. The only requirements are:

• No censorship - If you have a problem with a post, posts, abuse of the Symphony, etc, just pass it to me for resolution.


• Post it on the scheduled Monday.


• Email me when you post it.

Pretty easy, eh? Some suggestions that have worked for me:

• For the honor spot (first link in the Symphony), find a post from a blog on your own blogroll. This is sweet for two reasons. First, it gets you looking back into the archives of blogs you already like - something that might not happen otherwise. Second, it gets great exposure for a blog that you like.


• For the closing entry (last link in the Symphony), find a post from your own blog's archives.


• Consider emailing the people who submitted entries when you've got the link for the newly posted Symphony. It helps get the word out that the Symphony is up and it gets links to the Symphony.


• Keep it simple. Yes, big is beautiful but simple is readable. You don't have to be as spartan as I am but I definitely recommend keeping it relatively clean and neat as opposed to colorful and complicated.

I'm planning on putting the Symphony on the road starting with the January 13 edition as I'll be hosting the Carnival of the Vanities that week and the two together might be a bit overwhelming. So who's up to the job? Just email me or post in the comments here if you are interested.

UPDATE: Bribery works! We've got 2 and a half volunteer conductors already. Sidebar schedule to come out some time today.

UPDATE 2: Sidebar schedule added and Leader Board updated. Who else wants some?

Posted by: Jim at 02:24 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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LeeAnn might have the tops for wacked out searches but my humble site attracts its own share of wierdness. Here's a couple from over the holiday weekend (Paris and Joe searches excluded because they bore me now):

cruise missile stops at red light
Is that why Bill couldn't bag Osama?

look my vagina
Where? I missed it. Come back!

boner hard-on peeing
This is actually a competitive sport in remote regions of Nepal.

boy in plastic pants
You're too late! I've destroyed the film evidence.

things women hate about men
This again? If I told you once, I've told you a dozen times, it's our inability to find anything that has been moved by our evil significant others who then tell us to look past our own noses before yelling out "Where the hell is my toothbrush"! Or something like that.

Posted by: Jim at 10:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"Play Again" functionality won't work at the moment as the script is within a post. Refresh if you want to see it again.

Posted by: Jim at 08:10 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 Don't worry about the error when trying to "Play again". That's just because the script is within a post.

Posted by: Jim at December 28, 2003 08:13 AM (fkewd)

2 Play what again? Do I need to break out my IE to see what's supposed to be in the empty space?

Posted by: Susie at December 28, 2003 09:37 AM (0+cMc)

3 yeah, I'm getting a big fat nuthin from both Mozilla and Opera and in IE it looks a little ... well how can I put this nicely ... tacky ? If I want to see the text of a site moving, fading and undulating before my very eyes I'll hit the Absinthe before I read it ;-)

Posted by: Rob at December 28, 2003 09:53 AM (3zn9b)

4 More software prejudiced against Mozilla!!! (saw it with IE)

Posted by: Susie at December 28, 2003 09:54 AM (0+cMc)

5 Hmmm... Less than sterling endorsement thus far. Where are all of my widget loving, IE using, readers?

Posted by: Jim at December 28, 2003 10:41 AM (fkewd)

6 I think it's coo'

Posted by: Jennifer at December 28, 2003 11:28 AM (68gxG)

7 Where are all of my widget loving, IE using, readers? Yo! I love it.

Posted by: ilyka at December 28, 2003 11:31 AM (Wf/A7)

8 flash?

Posted by: pylorns at December 28, 2003 12:00 PM (fD1hc)

9 I think we can safely count on a thumbs up from The Bartender and a thumb down from Pixy. Fairly close, but still slightly against. Anybody else have an opinion? Pylorns - Nope, no Flash here. It's all scripting. Smoothest transition I've ever seen out of script, that's why I liked it.

Posted by: Jim at December 28, 2003 12:42 PM (fkewd)

10 Pylorns, you're in the wrong part of town to be requesting flashes. You need to come down to my neck of the woods for that. Did NOT mean I was providing such, of course. But that old freak on the bus.....

Posted by: LeeAnn at December 28, 2003 12:55 PM (HxCeX)

11 LIKE IT!!!

Posted by: Mitzi at December 28, 2003 01:30 PM (OfYve)

12 I thinks it's cool... I've been trying to figure out where to that little thingy myself... Pixy will never see it because he uses the Mozilla Monster... since most of your readers use IE and the ones that don't like it use Mozilla and can't see it anyway, I would do it to see what it will look like. I'm interested to see how it will work.

Posted by: The Bartender at December 28, 2003 06:18 PM (Jj2gq)

13 Jim: In my skin, I think the body text is just a bit too small and the post text is unreadable at View:Smaller. When I crank up the text size, the tret in the sidebar gets too big. Just an FYI. Also I made a little bitty tweak in the site credits.

Posted by: The Bartender at December 28, 2003 09:21 PM (Jj2gq)

14 I like it!

Posted by: Sue at December 28, 2003 11:32 PM (PbT+r)

15 Methinks it's not for me after all. It's suitable for an announcement of some sort but not really for taglines. It's also pretty chunky size-wise.

Posted by: Jim at December 29, 2003 04:25 AM (fkewd)

16 I like it, but then again, I'm a geek. But I also have a question... If it's just script (and it is - I peeked under the covers) - why can't Mozilla and Opera deal with it? Or is it the style elements (that are changing) that they don't understand? Eventually, I will get my own site up. And for you 2% out there using Mozilla and Opera I have only one thing to say - I'm sorry if your cheesy browsers can't read my site.

Posted by: Clancy at December 29, 2003 11:04 AM (EGVPL)

17 I really don't know why Mozilla and Opera can't see it. Something about how they're processing (or not processing) the script, I assume. "Play Again" works now. Turns out the problem was a header declaration for target=main. Took that out and it functions correctly.

Posted by: Jim at December 29, 2003 01:42 PM (IOwam)

18 Sweet! (Got here from Venomous Kate's comments section, btw)

Posted by: Jon at December 30, 2003 11:00 AM (B9rRW)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Get those submissions in for the Bestofme Symphony! Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.

Traffic is pretty light due to the holiday and some DNS problems so the Symphony is looking a bit like an ensemble at the moment. That means I'll be even more grateful than usual for any submissions you send in.

Symphony Archives

Submission Address

Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info

Want to host a Bestofme Symphony?

Webloggers: How about some link love?

All y'all: Remember that you don't have to be the author of a post in order to submit it.

Thanks for your support!

Posted by: Jim at 11:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Starting January 13, the Bestofme Symphony will be going on tour. There will be a couple of requirements for the conductors:

• No censorship - If you receive spammish entries, flooding entries, entries that you find reprehensible, etceteras, check with me. The default is everything goes and the decision to stifle anything will be my burden.


• The first post of the Bestofme Symphony (the first chair?) should be a submission by you for a post in another weblog's archives.


• Post the Symphony on the scheduled date.

And that's it. Not too bad, is it? I suggest keeping it easy to read and navigate but however you want to format it, theme it, etceteras is totally up to you. During the week before your Symphony, all submissions sent to the regular submission address will be forwarded to the email address you specify. You may also email people, post, comment or otherwise make a pest of yourself to drum up support for your performance. When you've posted the Symphony you need to email me so I can send out notices to people on the reminder list. I also send an email to the people who've submitted posts that week and it would be nice if you did the same thing but it's not a requirement.

Anybody still interested? Comment here with the date you would like to conduct the Symphony. First come, first served. Reserved dates are the 26th (Jun 7) and 52nd (Dec 6) performances - anything else is fair game. Don't forget to include the email address that you want submissions forwarded to. If you're leary of posting that in the comments then send it to me via email.

Posted by: Jim at 07:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The first two designs from Robert at XSet are up and viewable. Please take a moment to check them over and comment on the looks:

Elegance (black/white)
Dreamy (blue/orange)

Also, still taking feedback on the design done by The Bartender:

Madfish Stylings

There'll be one more style by Robert coming up and eventually we'll have a nicely skinnable site for your viewing pleasure.

Posted by: Jim at 02:40 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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1 I like the color scheme of the dreamy and the graphics of the Elegance.

Posted by: pylorns at December 22, 2003 03:44 PM (AhTDr)

2 Ooh! Ooh! The blue orange one. I loved it loved it loved it. Pick that one. Please?

Posted by: Helen at December 22, 2003 03:54 PM (FpuBY)

3 Or better yet, you can be totally non-committal about it and just offer them up as "skins" and enable your users to determine which skin they want to see your site in. (By saving the SkinID value in a cookie)

Posted by: Clancy at December 22, 2003 04:23 PM (EGVPL)

4 I'm going to side with Helen. I expected to like the black-and-white better--I just normally love black-and-white--but the blue and orange, I don't know, it's just more "you." Or "your site." Or . . . I don't know. Anyway, pick that one.

Posted by: ilyka at December 22, 2003 04:32 PM (eragK)

5 oh, the blue and orange - I love it!!!!

Posted by: Beth at December 22, 2003 05:34 PM (Lx88s)

6 Very nice indeed! I like Elegance myself, but I'd go for a sans-serif font. (I'm planning to change Ambient Irony when I get some time.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at December 22, 2003 08:50 PM (kOqZ6)

7 I like the Elegance one the best, but the Dreamy is also spiffy. Try the styleswitcher here http://www.alistapart.com/articles/phpswitch/ easy to set up too.

Posted by: mog at December 23, 2003 03:03 PM (Dqis0)

8 not that you know me but i like the elegance one. a lot. but i agree that you should give people the choice with the style skinner thingamabob.

Posted by: jay at December 23, 2003 07:38 PM (vV+gc)

9 The blue and orange one is so inviting.

Posted by: LeeAnn at December 24, 2003 02:16 PM (HxCeX)

10 Very nice graphics on the Elegance site. I agree with Pixy regarding the sna serif font. I'll go look at the other one and leave a comment on that one in a sec.

Posted by: The Bartender at December 24, 2003 10:18 PM (pYkvz)

11 Nice graphics on this one too. I know everyone's a critic but here goes: the banner grahic should go across the width of the page, I still like to do the expanding/collapsing extended entry because I don't like being thrown to another page, I like the show comments script also for the same reason. Plus the comment windows always take too long to open and what if I just wanted to read and not comment? Of course those are not aethetic issues... more of a functionality issue. Nice job Mr Robert!!!

Posted by: The Bartender at December 24, 2003 10:25 PM (pYkvz)

12 Hey!!!! where's the beef? No cow pics on ether of those designs unless I'm completely blind. Actually, I'd like to make a couple of design changes on the page I did. I don't really like the three column layout much. Same basic things with some small tweeks in a ywo column layout. Let me know if you want to do that.

Posted by: The Bartender at December 24, 2003 10:28 PM (pYkvz)

13 I already know my bias...I really like the Elegance (BW) version. I was surprised to find I liked the blue/orange version a lot too though. Really, you wouldn't go wrong with any of 'em. And having the choice of all three as skins would be an embarassment of riches. Well done designers!

Posted by: Light & Dark at December 29, 2003 02:07 AM (Hrm9v)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Don't forget to send in your submissions for the Bestofme Symphony! Submissions received through midnight on Sunday (Eastern Standard Time) will be included in Monday's Symphony. Anything received after the cutoff will go into the following week's edition.

Symphony Archives

Submission Address

Submission Guidelines & Symphony Info

Webloggers: How about some link love?

All y'all: Remember that you don't have to be the author of a post in order to submit it.

Thanks for your support!

Posted by: Jim at 02:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As amazing as it may seem, searches on a certain nubile yet skanky, rich, braindead, amateur porn star have faded to the point where other search terms stay in my site logs. Yay! And that means I once again have the opportunity to assist people with the wierd ass things that they are looking for and not quite finding on my site.

sun bitches
I'll need more information for this one. The only thing I can determine for sure is that it involves the French in some fashion.

nemo burger
Sounds yummy, I know, but skinning a clown fish is annoyingly difficult. Try tuna or mahi-mahi.

"little people" dwarf etiquette
One hand on the shirt collar, one hand on the belt. And never toss them before they have secured their helmet.

the things I hate about men
What, am I psychic now? How am I supposed to know what you hate about men? I'll hazard a guess that number one is how we get together with our buddies and act "unilaterally", mademoiselle sun bitch.

Posted by: Jim at 11:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've mentioned a couple times about the new site look that The Bartender has done for The Snooze. Due to my time problems and then my tables messing things up y'all haven't been able to see it. Well, go take a look at it now. This is the preliminary design, looking for feedback. That page is a duplicate index so it has the very same article content as this one. Sidebar content is different since this one's been updated a few times in the past weeks and that one hasn't.

Let us know what you like, don't like, etc.

Posted by: Jim at 12:29 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Don't forget to submit posts for the second Bestofme Symphony, which will be posted this Monday. I'd greatly appreciate if bloggers would link to this info post to help spread the word.

And remember, any qualifying post may be submitted by any person so you do not need to have a weblog in order to participate.

Posted by: Jim at 11:00 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Notice something odd about this site the past couple of weeks? I mean besides it being FUBAR yesterday.

Yes? You in the back. What was that? Yes, quite correct. The content blows. I think there's been one lonely little SBD post in the past two weeks and that was a shorty. I haven't had a Carnival submission this month! What happened to the amusing content that got me a readership in the first place? There are several reasons and they all boil down to one thing. Time.

It's the Holiday season and that puts new demands on my time. We're in a very busy section of our release cycle at work and that puts some fantastic demands on my time and on my brain. The Bestofme Symphony is another thing that is taking up creative blogging time. We've got company now and will for the next week and a half. It's very cool having old friends and family up to visit but it is a disruption and time committment.

So what's going to happen to the Snooze? We shall persevere, that's what! Okay, so don't expect the fantastic SBD posts until close to the new year. That'll mark the end of the holiday season, crunch time in the release cycle, visitors, and Bestofme Symphony. Until then it's going to be mostly punditry and linking with the occasional humorous or interesting stuff thrown in by Dopple-G.

No, the Symphony won't be ending. I'm just planning on turning it loose like BigWig did with the Carnival. Once it's established and flowing smoothly I'll ask for hosts and it'll make the rounds. Hopefully at least a week before I host the Carnival itself! Both of those in the same week could be a recipe for disaster.

Posted by: Jim at 09:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Great and Powerful Pixy has worked his magic and Snooze Button Dreams is back in action. Thanks to everybody who helped figure out the problem and to Pixy for implementing the DNS fix.

Now, on with the show!

Posted by: Jim at 07:55 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Several people have commented that the site is fubar today. It was fubar last night but should be fine today. Here's what happened:

The Bartender designed a new look for the site. He was done quite a few days ago but due to my schedule and some stupidity (when I did get time to implement the new look I didn't have the files with me) I wasn't able to make the changes. I finally caught a couple of minutes yesterday around 2:00 my time to make the changes but my large table from the Bestofme Symphony was beating the hell out of the new template. Just as I was preparing to return to the original index and style I had to leave for home as my ride (Dopple-G) had to leave.

This left the site in a FUBAR state for about an hour and a half until I could get home and get the time to restore it. During the FUBAR time the new style sheet was apparently cached for some visitors and since I'm now reverted to the old style it is making the site look FUBAR PLUS.

If it looks like there's no formatting or style present on the site, try forcing a refresh by hitting F5 (Internet Explorer) or whatever the steps are for your browser. If the wrong style sheet is cached somewhere on your service (ISP, proxy, whatever) then Snooze Button Dreams is going to look ugly until they recache it.

MuNu also suffered an attack on our DNS servers last night so that could be playing a part in this hullabaloo. Pylorns is pulling up sonicwall.com when he tries to go to www.snoozebuttondreams.com. Others are probably similarly affected.

It's difficult for me to diagnose because everything is working perfectly from my seat. If you encounter wierdness please comment on it.

UPDATE:

The problem is all DNS. The $mtbloghost$ is www.snoozebuttondreams.com so every time that reference is used in scripts, generated pages and links, etc, it is fucked for people who can't resolve www.snoozebuttondreams.com.

By the way, here at home I can't resolve it either. Yay.

Anyway, I changed the script reference in the index file to reference snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu instead of $mtbloghost$ so at least the index page will be usable for people who get here via snoozebuttondreams.mu.nu.

Help me, Pixy, you lord of the DNS services. Help me please!

Posted by: Jim at 01:08 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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If anybody knows how to set cookies for multiple websites please comment over here.

Thanks.

Posted by: Jim at 05:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Not sure if you're trolling or just having a problem with the comments but I've gone ahead and banned you. If you were suffering from browser conniptions send me an email and I'll get you fixed up. If you were just jerking off on my weblog then fade quietly away please.

Posted by: Jim at 09:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Vote for Snooze Button Dreams in the Most Egregious Ommission category of the 2003 Weblog Awards.

Everyone who votes for me will be wildly successful in life and win their local lottery. And I'm not talking the lottery where they sacrifice you to the corn god either!

Posted by: Jim at 06:25 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Tonight at midnight EST is the deadline for inclusion in the very first Bestofme Symphony. Participation has been very good and the virgin performance is going to be great. Many thanks to all of the folks who spread the word and/or submitted entries.

If you miss the deadline, send in your submission anyway. It'll go in next week's Symphony.

Posted by: Jim at 03:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Coming Monday...a new site design from The Bartender at Madfish Willie's. It would be in place right now except I just discovered that I forgot to forward the files to myself at home so they're still on my PC at work. Feh.

And I'm still holding out for a face lift by Rob at Xset. If you haven't seen his site redesign you should go and check it out. Very sweet. Very clean. Hopefully he'll be caught up enough to play here soon. Then I'll have selectable skins just like the big boys. Woo hoo!

Posted by: Jim at 10:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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There's been some really good participation for the Bestofme Symphony. A nice round 20 submissions so far!

To recap, submitted posts need to be 2 months old or older and should be of gemstone quality. See this post for submission particulars. The submission address (bestofme@jpeacock.net) is functional so please use that when you send posts in. Mail sent to my regular contact address will still be processed but it's easier for me if you use the Bestofme address.

Deadline for submissions for the first edition of the Bestofme Symphony is midnight EST this Sunday (05:00 GMT Monday).

Thanks for the support and keep 'em coming in!

Posted by: Jim at 09:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I had lots of referrers in November and I'd like to give them all a big thank you for linking to my site. The top 10 are going into a new section of the sidebar. They are (in order of number of referrals):

Everyday Stranger
Electric Venom
Anger Management
Silflay Hraka
Rachel Lucas
Deadends CENSORED
The New Criterion
Wetwired
Yourish.com
Madfish Willie's

Posted by: Jim at 09:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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