Trivial Matters

I’m taking today to update Trivial Matters itself. I created a page for TNT, which I will be adding to once I get the fundraising page setup tomorrow (this weekend at the latest). I also updated the FAQ page with the last post, and updated the About the Author page to reflect some recent changes.

I’m still waiting for the new site layout to take effect here. I don’t know what Today.com’s schedule is for the final switch, but they have a beta theme up that people can switch to while they test things out. I decided to just wait for them to finish the beta and switch at the end. That way I only have to fix things once (hopefully) instead of every day.

I also added the RSS feed for Trivial Matters to my Facebook page. Right now, it shows the full post on Facebook, which doesn’t help my stats very much. The admins here are going to change that soon, and only the first few lines of text will show up on FB. In the meantime, it would be appreciated that if you are reading this on FB, please click over to the site so that I can keep track of how many views I’m getting.

It’s not just a money thing either. I’m constantly checking my stats after each post to see how many hits a post gets over time. Some of my posts get a mention on my Twitter feed, and I can see a spike in traffic from TinyURL or something related. If people start clicking over from FB, I can monitor similar effects when the RSS feed updates over there (it’s not a quick as I’d like).

The Meetup Email Lists post was a huge hit. It has had 79 hits so far (73 in the first 24 hours), not including hits from the main page (as many as 14 additional hits). The avergae daily visit count doubled overnight, bringing Trivial Matters into the top 350 on Today.com. My hope is that the traffic generated by my fundraising will help bring those numbers up even more. I’ve already pledged all of the money earned by this blog to TNT/LLS, and a sudden spike in visits could result in a payment bonus to that end.

So, the TNT stuff should be up this weekend. I’m still hammering out the details for the raffles. My plan as of now is to offer a different item each month (February - June) and add a bonus item if we surpass a set goal amount. For example, the first item could be an iPod with a iTunes gift card thrown in for going above a certain amount.

Wait. Pub Quizzing has an “etiquette” round?

Not quite. Rather, the entire pub quizzing experience requires some modicum of etiquette, and I think we should discuss that now.

What’s so hard? As long as you don’t shout out the answers, you should be fine… right?

You would think that, wouldn’t you. But pub quiz etiquette extends beyond courtesy to your fellow players. It also applies to how you treat your quizmaster.

Why would someone be rude to the quizmaster?

Many reasons, actually. They don’t like a particular answer. Perhaps they think they deserve more bonus points. Maybe they’re just jerk.

I don’t want to be mean to my quizmaster. What should I do?

The simple answer is to just be polite. Remember that it is just a game (even if you paid an entry fee). If you don’t like a given answer, wait until the round is over and ask your quizmaster about it. If they don’t agree with you, DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM!

Woah, easy there. No need to shout.

Sorry. Just wanted to get my point across. If they disagree with you, take it like a man (woman, whatever) and go back to your seat.

No harm done. So, what else can I do?

That’s about it. Just be polite to everyone, remember that it’s a game, and tip (the waitress, quizmaster, whomever deserves it).

Sunday I joined Facebook. Between the new job on campus and the fact that everyone else I seem to run into is on there, I figured it was time to give in.

And I must admit, this is *way* better than MySpace (not that I’m a social network aficionado by any means). The interface is cleaner, better organized, and has much more information avaialble at any given moment.

It isn’t perfect, however. I still find myself stumbling around for a few things, even after three days. The search feature could use some improvement in narrowing down my results, and a quick tutorial wouldn’t have hurt either.

But the crowning achievement has got to be the applications. I’ve heard about people being bombarded with application invites from their friends, but I’ve yet to experience that. So, for me, the application feature is just fine. I started playing Mafia Wars yesterday, and (as some could see from my status messages) I’ve had to pry myself away from it to do homework, sleep, and everything else in life.

Even as I write this, my character, Louie the Cyclops, is rebuilding his energy levels so that I can finish a few more jobs and get to level 8. I like the fact that the money rolls in regardless of whether I’m there or not, but it’d be nice to build energy and stamina just as quickly.

I’d also like to see the fights explained a bit more, especially the Hitlist jobs. I took on several with no idea about what the guy was packing, and lost them all. That being said, for a free game that I can play when I run out of Conceptis puzzles (which is happening faster and faster each week), Mafia Wars is the bomb.

Capice?

People! Yeah, you! Come over here. Let me show you something…

See this? This is a Meetup group. Yeah, I know Meetup is a great place to meet new people. But did you read the terms and conditions when you joined? No. Well, let me clue you in to something. When you join a group, you sign up automatically for an email list for that group. Anyone who is in the group can send a mass email to everyone else in the group.

What’s that you say? You don’t want to get emails from everyone in the group? I can understand that. So how do you think you should go about handling this?

As a matter of fact, I don’t think telling people to stop using the email service because your tiny mailbox is full is an appropriate response. What’s that? Yes, I do think complaining about it to everyone only serves to compounnd the problem.

What would I do? Thank you for asking. I’d scroll down to the bottom of the emails you are so hell bent on not receiving and click that link that says, “To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, click here.” And then I would either unsubscribe from the email list entirely, or elect to only recieve emails from the group’s coordinator.

Yes, that was easy to do (and maybe even fun). Yes, you can adjust these email settings for every one of your Meetup groups all on the same page. Yes, I do think the people who designed the Meetup site knew what they were doing after all.

No, I won’t help you sort through your email to see what is important. Get a GMail account.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a trilogy consisting of five books and a short story. It was written by the late Douglas Adams, and is one of my favorite books of all time.

I didn’t discover the books until I was into my late teens. A guy I worked for started quoting it and when I looked puzzled, he exclaimed that he couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it yet. So I picked up a copy and literally absorbed the entire work in about two days. I’ve tried to make it a habit to re-read it every year, but both of my copies have been in storage for 2008.

I was reminded of it today when we were asked to write down our favorite book in my first class. I wrote it down, not knowing that the professor would pick the same book. Now I’m determined to either buy a third copy to read again, or make it a priority once I get my stuff out of storage. We’ll see how the rest of my classes go and how much reading there is for next week.

Once I’ve gone over it again, I’ll post a more complete review. So much of the plots are jumbled up in my head (especially after watching the movie, which combined the first three books… and not very well either).