There are a few people who are seemingly paying way too much attention to this site and my activities online (or lack thereof) as of late. For the life of me, I don’t know why…and I don’t know why people pay attention to a blog that hasn’t been posted to in over 3 months. But hey…whoever said it had to make sense, right?

So, for those of you who want to know, this will be the official “update” post. I don’t know when I’ll be willing and able to post again…so this will once again be the last post in a while.

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I wasn’t going to post anything at all about this, and this is not an “I’m back” post…I’m just doing this to provide a simple update and debunk a rumor that’s starting to cut into the time that I don’t have much of these days. So don’t expect a rash of posts…they’re not coming, although I may or may not do an additional post tomorrow explaining some things about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.

Apparently a rumor has been started or someone has gotten the idea that I work for Google. The sub-Arctic-temperature-IQ members of Digital Pointless, among others, have somehow gotten this bizarre and moronic idea that I have joined the ranks of big G.

I was prepared to ignore this, as it represents yet another example of how most online marketers lack even the most basic of reading and comprehension skills, until I started getting emails to various email accounts along these lines:

Dear Mr. Adam,

I am Zahir Shah, SEO Karachi. I am understanding that you are a Googler, so I wish to ask you how to rank top in searches for the various keywords and phrase. Plz tell me all parts of Google algorithm.

Sincerely,

Zahir Shah
Cell Num +92 307 2333907
Email: seo-zahir@hotmail.com

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I recently purchased the Canon Powershot A520 camera from Staples. I wanted a digital camera that could provide me with half-decent pictures that I could use for this blog and other purposes, and it was a clearance item, so I figured what the heck?

Since yesterday was such a nice day, I decided to go out with the girlfriend and try to find some interesting things to take pictures of with it. Our plan was to walk to Christie Pits from the Factory Direct at College and Spadina and take some pictures for the blog (I’ll have some nice photography in future posts.)

Along the way, we passed by a rather unusual scene. It was one of those scenes where most of us would think, “I wish I had a camera to take a picture of this!” Fortunately for me…I did have a camera! So I did take a picture!

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After having observed the borderline hysteria taking place over at Matt Cutts’ “How to Report Paid Links” blog post, I have created a new word that I hope will be added to the English lexicon at some point: SERP2+Phobia (or, for those of you who like to spell words out in full, SERPtwoplusphobia).

What is SERP2+Phobia?

SERP2+Phobia is the fear of losing one’s Page 1 ranking on any of the major search engines for a given keyword or phrase, often coupled with Allgonophobia, the fear that all traffic to a site will disappear because a major traffic source has disappeared.

How Can I Diagnose SERP2+Phobia?

The symptoms of SERP2+Phobia are many and varied, but I’ll list off some of the more common ones:

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One of the problems with having a TV directly in front of your desk with a clear line of sight is that every so often, I have the temptation to pick up my remote and start flipping around aimlessly. At about 11:15 on Sunday evening, I found myself doing just that. I stopped at the A&E channel just as Criss Angel: Mindfreak ended. Since it was 11:30 at night, since I’m a fan of Criss Angel in general, and since I’ve never been one to read a TV guide or use Channel 5 to see what’s on, I thought to myself, “Adam, just leave it here for a few minutes and maybe they’ll do another Mindfreak episode.”

I was wrong. However, I discovered what I believe to be the greatest threat to any criminal attempting to “do business” in the United States.

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That’s right, kids! You heard it here first: religion and SEO are connected! I didn’t know this until just a few minutes ago, but thanks to the wonders of forum private message spam, I can now become a Demi God or Creator! A user named “Vasity” on Webmaster-Talk has decided to tell me about a wonderful new site that he’s a “member” of.

I would like some people to check out this cool new webmaster forum I have been to www.bgod.net it is a brand new community tell me what you think of it I am just a new member myself there

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As many of you know, I’m a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays and of baseball in general. It’s my favourite sport to watch on TV (although a knee problem caused by a freak accident on a stolen base and my own general inability lead to me not playing anymore), and there’s nothing better than spending a Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching a good 2-1 or 4-2 ballgame to me.

The problem I have as of late is the number of fans looking for a souvenir, that sit in the front row of a section, and that try to interfere with a baseball in play to get it. I’m not talking about a case where a ball goes into the stands and a fielder might have a play on it (so this isn’t related to the Steven Bartman incident; as far as I’m concerned, Moises Alou never would have caught that ball anyway.) I’m talking about balls that are fairly hit down the line and roll into a corner; some braindead idiot will inevitably lean over the wall, reach down onto the field of play, and pick up the baseball. I have seen two such incidents in the past few days, and in at least one case it may have directly impacted the outcome of a baseball game.

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Please forgive me in advance for what will likely come across as a rant, but this is an issue that I strongly feel needs to be dealt with in the correct manner.

Over the last few weeks, a pair of incidents involving comments that could be taken as offensive have made their way into the mainstream. I will recap the incidents for those of you who haven’t heard of either or both of these stories.

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For those of you who haven’t seen Parts 1 and 2 of this story, please visit the two links below:

Part 1: A Job Opportunity I Never Applied For
Part 2: The Resume (try to find the references that clearly indicate that it’s a fake.)

Now that you’re up to speed, our girl Lisa from over at Yesup.com is just dying to interview me for a wonderful career with their search engine, despite sending her the resume that I did in Part 2.

From: “Lisa” <lisa@yesup.com>
Sent: April 10, 2007 12:20 PM
To: [my email]
Subject: RE: Job Opportunity

Hi Adam,

Thanks for emailing us your resume. We are quite impressed with your experience.

Since I don’t have your contact number, I am writing you to let you know that we are open for the salary for the position. It depends on the experience of the candidate. The salary structure we are offering is base pay plus the commission. So there is an opportunity to achieve high earnings.

We would like to have a meeting with you. Would you please let me know your convenient time for the meeting?

If you have any question, please feel free to contact me at 905-763-9735.

Best regards,

Lisa

I can understand why she’s impressed. After all, just look at all the stuff I did! I’ve been everywhere, man.

But alas, I don’t feel that I’d be suited for this incredible career opportunity. Naturally, I told her so as diplomatically as possible.

Dear Lisa,

At this point, I am no longer amused by any of this, so I feel it should come to an end right now with some explanations:

1) I am fully aware, and have been the whole time, of my “selection” for this particular position was based on nothing more than spam harvesting bots acquiring this particular email address from the websites on which it is publicly displayed. Under normal circumstances, this email address is a throwaway address/UCE dump and the only reason I checked it in the first place was to get rid of any spam emails that may have accumulated. I do not use it for any professional purposes, and no one who has a legitimate interest in contacting me via email would ever contact me this way.

2) If you’re impressed with my “experience”, how clueless are you? I could take that resume and hand it to 10 barely literate chimpanzees, and 9 of them would recognize that it was a false resume designed to weed out the perennially stupid. The 10th chimp would take his copy of the resume, walk into your office, pick lint off his head, hand in the resume, and wait until Monday when he’d be able to start working for Yesup.

3) What kind of company harvests emails online and spams people, anyway? Have you not heard of Workopolis? Monster? Any of the other hundreds of ways to post a job offer legitimately and find suitable candidates? Or are you looking for people that are even dumber than you are? In any event, no one worth their salt would ever hire someone this way.

You’re looking for someone stupid enough to work for you and never realize how lost Yesup is, and you’ll probably find that person. I’m not it though. Never bother me in any form again. Do not call, email, or contact me in any form or I will be in contact with both the OPP and the ICP with regard to harassment.

Have a wonderful day.

Adam Senour

I hope others appreciate my sacrifice in giving up a wonderful career chance so that another may have it. If anyone wants the job, feel free to contact Lisa, and then buy a clue as soon as you get your first paycheque (which with these lying bastards will probably be about a quarter to never).

Note: for those of you who might have missed Part 1 of this story, this is the original post outlining the spam that I received from some company that’s “hiring” (apparently they haven’t heard of job boards or classifieds).

With all that said, I’ve prepared a resume full of my accomplishments as decided by both myself and a couple of you who contributed via ICQ/MSN (although you guys could have posted in here to encourage open dialogue. Bastards.)

This post is dedicated to Dave Hawley, who offers a whole bunch of Excel tips and tricks for newcomers and experts alike. AussieAussieAussie, Dave!

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