Vegetable Rentals!

Google has an amazing set of tools for tracking web traffic, and I spend quite a bit of time picking through this data trying to fine-tune our site to improve search performance. One of the cool features Google provides is a list of which search terms people are using to find your site.

I've spent most of the morning browsing the latest results, and something is now bothering me. I know that people are in general incredibly poor typists, and spelling is something of a lost art, but it's amazing to me how well Google is able to compensate for that. It's almost unbelievable that if you're looking for "extoic renal cars" or "los vegas luxshury vechilles" you'd get any results at all, let alone end up at the Eminence Luxury Services website.

That said, I've now of course helped improve the performance of those particular search terms by using them as links in this post, which once again is a fairly long-winded introduction to my actual point: what's really bothering me is that Eminence doesn't appear anywhere in a search for "exotic vegetable rentals". Well my friends, that ends now! I'm not going to rest until we have the #1 result for those looking to rent exotic vegetables in Las Vegas, so prepare yourself for the silliness that's headed your way. You've been warned!

Oh and by the way, this is the link to click if you're looking for Las Vegas Exotic Car Rentals.

Polyglot Middle Ground?

I've lived Nevada for nearly six years now, and was in California for ten before that. One of the things you notice here in the southwest is that most products are printed in both English and Spanish. I used to do a lot of work in Canada, and up there everything is printed in both English and French.

I found myself pondering recently whether there's some middle ground--Oregon, perhaps?--where everything is printed in all three languages. Or perhaps there's a dead-zone where everything is just in English?

Yes, I think about odd things sometimes, and apparently have a wee bit too much free time. Luckily I'm busy enough--and not (yet!) so far gone--that I haven't been planning a scouting trip through Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon to take samples. Well, at least not "planning" beyond spending a few minutes looking at a map....

Crap, apparently I am (yet!) so far gone.

Charming The Third Time?

I just tried several attempts at making a combined joke about me posting multiple items with blatant links to the best Vegas Ferrari rental company, repeatedly poking fun at our competitors' websites, that this'd be the third such post in a row, and that by now it might be more charming than lame. Unfortunately my joke writing skills are clearly more than lame at the moment, so I've got nothing. Please feel free to combine those thoughts and fill in the blanks as best you can.

Speaking of poking fun at our competitors: I was looking at one of their websites and thought their "detailed" writeup of one vehicle was a little...odd. Things got off on a bad foot right from the first sentence: "Combining luxury and versatility together...." As opposed to combining them apart?

It struck me as such an odd phrase that I had to Google it, and lo and behold almost 20 websites have the exact same text. The blatant "borrowing" of content from other companies (or from Car & Driver, etc.) is something I've noticed over and over again in this industry, and all I can say is: for shame!

I'm very happy to say that on the website of my Las Vegas exotic rental business there is only one page where a bit of the text has been borrowed from someone else. I'm particularly proud of the fact that, whether your looking to rent a Ferrari or had in mind a Vegas lamborghini rental, the text you'll read describing said vehicle is 100% original. Just one more way we're putting the "unique" back in "unique and exclusive vehicles"!

More Free Publicity!

An occasional reader of this blog--clearly not familiar with how things work around here--wrote me this morning to complain that I'd managed to stuff half a dozen links to my own company's website (still offering the best Las Vegas exotic rentals!) into my last post. Well, duh! As long as I'm venting about whatever pebble is currently chafing my navel and poking fun at my competitors, I may as well also get a little free publicity out of it too, right?

But to allay the concerns of this morning's correspondant, I promise that I absolutely shall not include another half-dozen links for Vegas exotic rental cars into this post. Or any other post this week for that matter! So please, go ahead and get every penny's worth reading pleasure from this blog, now with significantly not-half-a-dozen links to Eminence Luxury Services. And if it should so happen that you find yourself wanting to rent a ferrari in Vegas, please don't come complaining to me if you can't find a simple link to click. I'd be more than happy to tell you all about Las Vegas Lamborghini rental but...not here. Nyah.

Lame OCD

I haven't posted anything here recently because I've been incredibly busy at work (which, in case I've not mentioned it, is the best place to rent an exotic car in Las Vegas). When you're busy at work, I find, nothing "interesting" happens outside of work either, leading to a complete dearth of interestingness. Except...!

One of the things I do every day is monitor Eminence's performance on the various search engines, particularly that oddly named little search monkey we call "Google". We of course advertise on Google--it's a staggering percentage of our monthly ad budget--as do all of our competitors. When I search for "ferrari rental vegas" or "rent a lamborghini in las vegas", I'm playing close attention not only to where Eminence pops up but also to what's coming up for our competitors. As it happens, someone else in town is running this fantastic ad:

Exotic & Luxury Car Rental in Vegas
Rent Ferraris, Lamo, Porsche & more

I realize that I may be a little OCD, and that one of the symptoms thereof is the hour I spend every day doing Google searches. Another is likely that I notice things other people don't, such as typos and the like. All of which I'm fine with, leaving me wondering only...how many people are actually looking to rent a "lamo". I find that I already have enough lamos in my life, and I certainly don't need to pay for an extra one.

But it doesn't stop there! If you find this particular ad--I'm of course not going to give you an easy link for my competitor, but I found them by searching for "rent exotic car las vegas"--and click through to their site, you'll see that they have a Mercedes S550 for rent. We have the exact same model in our luxury rental fleet, but unlike theirs ours is never available with a "chaffered" driver (is there some sort of cream you can get for that?). Nor do we ever advise people that, "For the ultimate luxury car rental, look no future." The S550 is a fantastically nice car, but I think not quite so nice that once you've driven it you have no future....

Soda Killer

Yes, well....

It's Saturday evening. I finally had a chance to poke at my computer at home and, more to the point, the keyboard mentioned in my previous post. After several reboots, dusting, polishing, waxing, and not a small amount of percussive maintenance...the keyboard is good and dead. Perhaps it's just been lobotomized--most of the keys on the right side work, most of those on the left don't--but whatever the exact diagnosis, it appears to be terminal.

I'm really at a loss for words as to how three drops of Diet Pepsi can cause so much damage to a keyboard. It's almost enough to make me contemplate what it's doing to my insides. Luckily I'm fairly confident that I don't have any keys in my tummy (well, there's that one that I accidentally swallowed years ago, but that's another story....). I'd been thinking today of writing up a little rant about Adobe, in which I was planning on drawing a contrast with Microsoft (in this comparison MS was going to be the company that people gripe about more than is warranted). If I decide to write that post it'll be full of nerd-fu and'll therefore be hosted over at The Geek's Garage, but don't get your hopes up as I'm now having serious second thoughts.

While I still believe that MS makes much better software than they generally get credit for, I've begun to realize that their hardware is inadequately Diet Pepsi-proof, a factor I believe should be a major consideration in any purchase. Perhaps one of the current Presidential candidates can suggest legislation that addresses this issue--a warning label of some kind, or a rating system--but given the speed of politics (and politicians) I suspect that I'll have ruined several more keyboards before the government manages to step in and stop the madness.

In the meantime, the latest and greatest keyboard has officially gone to keyboard heaven and its carcass has been relegated to the keyboard graveyard. May it rest in peace along with its martyred brethren of yore.

In memoriam:

Lucky Number 13!

My last post was my thirteenth. I'm not sure whether that's at all significant or if it's just that today's shaping up to be a gem, but here's a fascinating little tale.

As has been mentioned before in the pages of this august tome, I have an affinity for Diet Pepsi. I also, though I've used computers for many, many years and should really know better, often eat and--more to the point--drink while working on the computer. About once a month the beverage gremlins visit me and I put my soda can down improperly, bump it, etc., causing it to slosh.

Since approximately the dawn of time I've used a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, which is possibly the best keyboard ever made. About three years ago I had a beverage sloshing incident, and although only a scant few drops touched the keyboard they apparently hit the critical spot. I took all of the keycaps off and thoroughly cleaned everything I could, but to this day there's clearly something stuck. Attempts to use that keyboard continue to result in text that l$2ook.#_fs t&&&hi@!~ks.

For two long years I struggled with more modern, "upgraded" versions of the MS Natural: the Natural Elite, the Natural MultiMedia, etc. All featured inferior key placements, in particular an unusable arrangement of insert/delete/home/end.

(As an aside, and possibly a topic for later discussion: also since the dawn of time I have used either Brief itself, or more recently SlickEdit in Brief emulation mode--both of which make extensive and fantastic use of the insert/delete/home/end keys--for all of my code-editing needs. This is by far the best way to edit code, end of story. I can accept that some people like emacs; all of you I'll allow to live. To those of you who insist on editing code in Visual Studio: you're absolutely insane and should be put out of your misery at the earliest possible opportunity. And to the two people I know who use vi and/or vi emulation...words cannot even express my contempt for your very existence.)

Roughly a year ago I was at the point where I was looking at refurbished MS Naturals on eBay when I discovered that Microsoft had released a new flagship keyboard--the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000--with all of the keys back in the correct place. I quickly rushed out and bought one, and have been using it ever since.

Until today that is. Shortly after finishing my previous, lucky 13th post I had another beverage sloshing incident. Once again only three molecules of Diet Pepsi touched the keyboard, but it immediately started producing results exactly like my late, beloved MS Natural. No amount of pounding, shaking, poking, or spraying with compressed air managed to fix it. I'm crossing my fingers that it'll come back to life in a day or two, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

I don't know whether this was some kind of rebellion from this morning's overuse, if MS keyboards have some fiendishly clever anti-Pepsi self destruct mechanism, or if the 13th post was actually somehow significant. Regardless, I'm typing this from a MS Comfort Curve 2000, and my fingers are in hell...with the rest of me surely soon to follow.

Yeah, okay, not so fascinating a tale after all. That's what blogs are for though, right...?!