completed a marathon.

enough said.

went to pf changs for lunch today to begin the carb loading (fried rice - yum). my fortune cookie read:

failure is the mother of success

crap. well, there’s always next time.

jimmy eat world’s albums are hands down the best running music on my mp3 player. this is a good one not only because of the tempo of the song, but come on, lyrics about pain? perfect. plan to switch to this one at the point during the race when i wish i had a bottle of tylenol on hand.

jimmy eat world: pain
I don’t feel the way I’ve ever felt.
I know.
Gonna smile and not get worried.
I try but it shows.

Anyone can make what I have built.
And better now
Anyone can find the same white pills.
It takes my pain away.

It’s a lie. A kiss with opened eyes.
And she’s not breathing back.
Anything but bother me.
(It takes my pain away)
Never mind these are hurried times.
Oh oh oh
I can’t let it bother me.

I never thought I’d walk away from you.
I did.
But it’s a false sense of accomplishment.
Every time I quit

Anyone can see my every flaw.
It isn’t hard.
Anyone can say they’re above this all.
It takes my pain away.

It’s a lie. A kiss with opened eyes.
And she’s not breathing back.
Anything but bother me.
(It takes my pain away)
Never mind these are hurried times.
Oh oh oh
I can’t let it bother me.

I can’t let it bother me.

It takes my pain away.

in honor of the presidential debate being at my alma mater* tonight, i thought i’d weigh in on the candidates in the only way i know how. a super geeky way. this is my five minute audit of how search friendly each candidates’ site is.

*for the record, not a bit of the education required to write this blog post came from BU.

	Obama	McCain
Homepage Title	Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need	JohnMcCain.com - McCain-Palin 2008
keywords	president, senator, illinois, chicago, barack, barck, barek, obama, 2008, 08, presidential, president, campaign, election	John McCain, McCain, mccain for president, John S. McCain, McCain 2008, president, presidential, 2008, campaign, election, straight talk, straight talk express, politics, political, john mccain, john mccain for president, senator john mccain, sen. john mccain, cindy mccain, john mcain, john mckaine, john maccane, jon mccain, john maccaine, john mccaine, mccain 2008, johnmccain.com, senator mccain, mccain 2000, mccain campaign, mccain hq, exploremccain.com, explore mccain, mccain exploratory committee, mccain exploratory
Meta Description	Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign	John McCain 2008 - The Official Website of John McCain’s 2008 Campaign for President
Detailed Listing	Yes	No
Paid Ads	Yes	Yes
Inlinks	10,400	8,820
clean code	mostly	not so much
Analytics	Google	HBX/WebSideStory
Page Rank	8	8

homepage title: this is important. the page title is weighted heavily and is what shows up on the search engine results page (serp) when someone performs a query. i think this one is a tie. obama does a good job of encouraging user click through (”the change we need”) but no one is searching for those terms so its a bit of a catch 22. mccain gets straight to the point. its simple, but is a little short for my tastes, so there’s a bit of wasted space. and neither use my favorite page title divider, the | pipe.

meta keywords: not a highly weighted feature, but is a good spot for misspellings. should be no more than 7-12 keywords per page. obama wins. mccain’s keywords make it look like he’s trying to rank on lycos circa 1998.

meta description: this also shows up on the serp when someone performs a query so has to be written with both search engines and users in mind. they are both decent. a tie.

detailed serp listing: based on a variety of factors, your site may get fancy pants results when googled. barack wins, very nice:

paid ads: they’ve both got ‘em. mccain is using a vanity url (mccainpalinvictory2008.com) and i don’t like it one bit. i mean, is that an official site? i think its confusing. obama is directing people to barackobama.com - good move. obama’s ads are showing up in the spot where ads that perform well show up, mccain’s are consistently not, which is a red flag, since i’m searching for “john mccain”. how are those ads not performing well? i blame the vanity url.

and finally, it looks like obama is definitely experimenting with different ad copy and possibly dynamic keyword insertion. mccain - not so much. give me a call, buddy, i’ll hook you up. oh yeah, sources indicate mccain is outspending obama on paid search ads by as much as 5x.

inlinks: incoming links are important. they tell search engines that other people (besides you) think your site is important. this is a close one, but obama squeaks by with about 2k more.

clean code: search engines like clean code, and the easier it is for them to find the real content of the page, the better. mccain needs to use some off page style sheets and javascript. the code looks yucky and is diluting the content on the page. obama is better in this department but still has an on page style sheet that could be removed and sourced from somewhere else.

analytics: i like google analytics and hbx. however, if i had donated my money to either campaign, they damn well better be using google. but it does look like mccain is using custom variables and some other more advanced filtering features, so at least they aren’t paying for it and not fully utilizing it.

page rank: its not that important really, but they both get an 8. tie game.

other: when you sign up for an account at obama’s website, its called “MyBO”. really? really, people? my BO? negative points awarded.

for the record, obama gets more searches, in general: stats

overall, obama wins.

i’m less than a week out from the marathon. i definitely have not trained as much as i should have, and a recent foot injury/shoe malfunction has made things slow the past couple of weeks. i’m hesitantly optimistic, and am 100% ok with quitting or dropping out at any point if necessary. after all, its not like this is the last marathon ever and i’ll never have another chance. if i can’t do it, fine.

however, i did 8 miles today, easy as pie, so that was a nice confidence booster. many times, my mp3 player is the only thing that keeps me going during a run, so i figured i’d count down my marathon must have tunes this week.

first, gnarls barkly: crazy. yeah, yeah, its a stupid pop song, and i typically hate stupid pop songs. but once you hit the double digits in a training run, you kind of feel like you are crazy, so when this song pops up at a time like that, its easy to relate to.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you’re out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Probably

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that’s my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you’re in control

Well, I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to Lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it’s no coincidence I’ve come
And I can die when I’m done

Maybe I’m crazy
Maybe you’re crazy
Maybe we’re crazy
Possibly

ok, easy to relate to except the “die when i’m done” business. none of that.

i was lucky enough to score a desk with a view. i can see the aon center, grant park, and the prudential buildings. every now and then its nice to take a quick break and people watch from the 15th floor. today, i was actually not even staring out the window when from the corner of my eye, i saw someone running in the prudential building pavilion below. i watched as they ran across the pavilion, and jumped down the flight of stairs. this did not end well, as they ended up not landing on their feet and rolling around a bit at the bottom. a few people turned around and looked. then this person got up, joined his accomplice who was awaiting him at the bottom of the stairs, and left. i am still watching, in hopes that they are filming an episode of jackass outside my window, but this seems to be an isolated incident.

now i can’t stop staring at the street below…i’m afraid hilarity will ensue and i will miss it.

the site: stairs on either side of fountain (the person isn’t actually in the photo)