Hang in here with me. Even if you don’t give a rat’s behind about late night television, the lessons here will be applicable to your life in general and your business, if you have one. So, hang in there…

As I write this, it appears that Jay Leno will be returning to The Tonight Show. This is not yet confirmed, but it strongly appears to be the case. While the situation remains “fluid”, the lessons here will (probably) still be applicable even if things ultimately don’t pan out this way.

While some continue to paint this as a Jay vs. Conan deal, with people online organizing as “Team Leno” or “Team Conan” and so on, that’s not really the case. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this all stems from NBC’s lack of leadership. So, that Jay vs. Conan stuff is largely juvenile.

The first thing I want to address is whether “The Jay Leno Show” at 10:00 was a mistake. Not that anyone cares about my opinion, but this is my blog so I’m free to share my opinion, but in my opinion it was something worth trying. This may seem to conflict with my post about NBC executives needing to make a tough decision and to an extent that may be true but, to another extent, it’s somewhat of a different animal.

A variety show is something that’s not really been done steadily on TV for years, and I don’t believe it’s a format that audiences do not want to see again. Some have made the argument that perhaps “The Jay Leno Show” would have done better if it had been on fewer nights per week. I think that’s a fair argument. As I said, it’s not something that’s been done steadily on TV for years, and it may be that people just aren’t ready to watch such a thing five days a week.

It reminds me of shows like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and “Deal or No Deal”. At first, they ran once a week. Then, they became popular and then the networks tried to squeeze every ounce of audience out of them by packing them in their schedules. And people got bored quickly and ratings went down.

Too much of a good thing can become tiresome.

Maybe “The Jay Leno Show” had a similar reception.

Again, for those that think this is a Jay vs. Conan thing, remember that NBC didn’t treat either one of them fairly. I think that Jay had something like a two-year guarantee, and public statements from NBC indicated they were going to try out the show for at least a year. I don’t know what type of guarantees Conan may have had, but I would think they would have been along the same lines.

Conan had seven months as host of The Tonight Show, while Jay Leno only had four months for “The Jay Leno Show.” So, really, neither one of them were given a chance.

Some people feel that Jay should have been the one to go and they should have kept Conan. The argument has been made that low ratings for “The Jay Leno Show” hurt Conan’s ratings. But, it’s important to bear in mind that Conan’s ratings were already in a downward spiral before “The Jay Leno Show” went on the air. So, that argument falls apart. Maybe Conan could have done better with a higher rated show at 10:00, but would it have been enough? If his ratings were already down before “The Jay Leno Show”, why expect anything to change significantly?

Plus, it’s not like Jay Leno had highly popular shows funneling crowds to him either.

I already made my points on why NBC might choose Leno over Conan the other day. The bottom line is that it’s a business decision.

Some people seem to have difficulty grasping that. Here’s the thing: The world does not owe you a living. You have to earn it. Some people still think they are entitled to certain things just because they show up. That’s not true. Things have to be earned. Even then, there are only so many slots available, so not everyone is going to get what they want.

The world also does not owe you a talk show. It certainly doesn’t owe you a certain talk show to be aired on national TV at a certain hour.

Things have to be earned. It’s not like school where you pass the fifth grade and get to go on to the sixth grade. You don’t host one talk show for a while and get to “graduate” to another.

That’s not the way the world works.

Sure, life is unfair and hard and not everyone can get what they want.

Deal with it.

So, the first lesson to be learned is that the world doesn’t owe you a living. You have to contribute. You have to do something in exchange for something. You have to earn the things you want in life. They’re not just there for the taking. They don’t hand out late night talk show hosting gigs like they hand out Nobel Peace Prizes.

The second lesson is that if you want something, go for it. Jay Leno made no secret that he would have preferred to stay on at 11:35. He made statements that he would be willing to return if asked.

The initial plan was that Jay would be moved to 11:35 and Conan O’Brien would be moved to 12:05. Earlier this week, Conan released a letter that essentially stated his refusal to do that.

Apparently, that was his undoing. When you don’t listen to your boss, your job is not so stable as it once was. Apparently, by releasing that letter, which his people advised him not to, he, as I understand it, effectively breached his contract, which meant that NBC would need a new host for The Tonight Show.

And, since Jay had done well there in the past and was open to going back, NBC made him a deal.

Had Jay been quiet and not stated his desire, things could have turned out differently. Sometimes, you don’t get what you want out of life if you don’t tell anyone what you want. That also means that you have to decide for yourself what you want. Jay knew what he wanted and did not keep it a secret.

There’s also another lesson to be learned in this. You have to invest in what you want. Sometimes, you invest with time. Sometimes with money. Sometimes with hard work. A lot of times it’s all three of those.

There has been some criticism of Jay that he still does standup routines out in Vegas. Some critics–the pro-Conan group–think he should just stick to that. But, keep in mind what kind of passion that shows for what he does. Some people just clock in, clock out, five days a week, then take the weekend off.

Jay, on the other hand, is constantly honing his craft. He gets out there in front of regular people on a consistent basis and performs in front of them.

Contrast that with others that stick within the relative isolation of Hollywood.

With that constant contact with regular people, with the type of people that would watch him at home on weeknights, is it any wonder that he was able to retain the top spot in late night for an astounding 15 years? Plus, a lot of that time, it was by a wide margin.

So, while critics may criticize him for not being edgy (which too often means “mean-spirited”), he knows what people want. He knows what works.

As such, he was a safe bet for NBC. He’s the consummate performer, always honing and practicing his craft.

Think of any popular person. They all have their fans and critics. A lot of times, they are polarizing figures. But, they know what they want and they go for it.

So, go for what you want out of life, but remember that there’s no guarantee you will get it.

Continuing on the vein of investing in what you want, that applies to other things as well, even something so minor as your favorite television program.

For example, yesterday I saw a comment on an article about the late night TV show situation. One of the “I’m with CoCo” fans (those are the Conan supporters) said something like this: I don’t watch Conan now, but I’ll watch him if he moves to FOX just to stick it to NBC. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the essence of his comment.

And, from bouncing around different parts of the online world, that’s not a single incident. It certainly appears that a lot of Conan’s “fans” haven’t actually been watching The Tonight Show since he’s been on. But, they talk big talk about how they’ll watch him if he goes to FOX.

Here’s the thing: If they had been watching, and if they were as numerous as they make themselves to be, Conan might still be hosting The Tonight Show. If Conan had been getting better numbers than what he had been, if he had been more competitive against Letterman and Nightline, NBC might very well have bought out Jay’s contract, wished him well, and kept Conan at The Tonight Show.

Actions speak louder than words. Really. The chorus of voices clamoring for NBC to keep Conan don’t really mesh with what his ratings have been. If they were such big fans, if they wanted Conan to keep his job, they should have been watching his show.

But they weren’t. So, it’s easy for the network executives to brush off the chorus of the “I’m with CoCo” crowd. Because they weren’t watching. They weren’t invested in the show. They just heard that Conan was being given the boot, and they rose up.

Too little, too late.

As I mentioned, they talk the big talk. They’ll boycott NBC. They’ll watch Conan at FOX to stick it to NBC and so on.

But, here’s the thing. They weren’t watching Conan before. Whatever kept them from watching Conan at NBC will likely be the same thing that will keep them from watching Conan at FOX. Sure, at first, they may tune in. But, after a while, whatever it was in their lives that kept them from watching before will take precedence once again.

TV is not the most important thing in most people’s lives. If their kids need to be put to bed, if they need to change diapers, if they have to pack lunches, vacuum, finish a presentation, etc., that’s going to take precedence over watching TV at a certain hour.

Who’s hosting what show isn’t as important as paying the bills or whatnot.

Now, for those that have been watching, maybe they have a little more room to complain, but they haven’t been watching in as large a numbers as watched Jay. So, it’s business and, to an extent, it’s democratic. And here ratings democracy and business has dictated Jay be the host of The Tonight Show again.

But, if you don’t watch your “favorite” program, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on when it goes away. You didn’t invest in it, so why should NBC?

Another thing that’s interesting is how the “creative community” was upset about Jay being on five nights a week at ten, instead of there being scripted shows. That was putting people out of work and all that jazz.

To me, that’s a bit of a childish argument. Again, no one is guaranteed a living. No one is guaranteed their own comedy series or their own drama. On top of that, if you’re going to complain about “The Jay Leno Show” being on five hours a week, how about complaining about all the other unscripted shows that get aired? How many hours do those occupy? Count ‘em up: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, America’s Funniest Videos, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Biggest Loser, The Amazing Race, and Survivor. And some of those shows regularly run for two hours rather than just one. And that doesn’t count news magazine programs, like Dateline, 60 Minutes and 20/20, none of which are comedies or dramas.

On top of that, Saturday nights used to have original programming but now it seems to just be used for reruns of other shows and not new episodes of anything.

So, complaining about “The Jay Leno Show” being on five nights a week seemed to be more like sour grapes than a legitimate gripe. Plus, with all the shows now on cable that weren’t there before, there’s a whole lot less room for complaining.

But, these days, it seems a sense of entitlement runs through everything.

So, lessons learned? Pursue your passion and jump in full-force. Realize that the world does not owe you a living and go out there and earn it.

And, the big lesson of the week? Think of the tragedy in Haiti. There’s the big lesson. There’s no power there. Communications are down. Who knows how many are dead. They need aid, and it’s not easy getting it there. People know people in Haiti, whether friends or relatives, and have no one of getting in touch and don’t know if their friends and relatives are alive or dead. Many Haitians are staying outdoors, either because their homes are gone or they don’t feel safe inside because of the aftershocks. We have a customer in Haiti. He was beaten up in the riots a couple years ago, and survived that. (He was left for dead, I think.) He’s survived the hurricanes and such. We have no idea how he fared this time.

Most of you reading this are probably doing so in the comfort of your own home. You have a roof over your head. You have power. Running water.

Who hosts what at 11:35 p.m. isn’t really the most important thing in your life.

Here’s a problem with our justice system: Cat Gets Called for Jury Duty. We can’t even find people for jury duty anymore…

Anyway, so last night I wrote a whopping 376 words in a story that I haven’t written anything for since 2004.

376 words of suck.

Not that it matters. Probably, like the other one, no one will want to read this one either.

Maybe I should just throw in the towel on this writing thing. Maybe I can get a job running NBC. Doesn’t seem like you need any qualifications there. The more you screw up, the more you get promoted, it would seem.

Which brings us back to the current Late Night TV Wars–that oh-so-exciting battle where multi-millionaires battle over what channel button people will have to push to watch them when they settle down in bed at night. Meanwhile, millions of people in Haiti would just like to have a bed. And a roof.

By comparison, which network, if any, “Coco” winds up calling home hardly seems important.

Kind of like my 376 words of suck.

Yesterday, I charted out my view of the current late night TV battles.

It was something some of you apparently didn’t understand.

Here’s the thing… in text this time… If you read newspapers, magazines, media outlets online, comments online and so forth, one would think that David Letterman and Conan O’Brien are comedic geniuses that everyone is watching.

This is not a recent development by any stretch. Long before Conan had The Tonight Show, there was plenty of talk about how Letterman was oh-so-brilliant and funny and the next best thing to seeing your best friend hit by a cream pie.

The ratings said otherwise. Plenty more people watched Jay Leno.

The thing is that what people say and what people do are often entirely different things. On top of that, not everyone who does things also write about them. For example, there are over 300 million people in the United States. According to eMarketer.com, there were 28 million bloggers in 2009. That’s projected to increase to over 30 million this year.

That means that only around 10% of people across the country blog.

You might think that that is a good representative sample, but it’s not. According to Technorati, almost 70% are male and 60% are between the ages of 18-44. While, among the population as a whole, about 50% are male and about 37% of the population is between the ages of 18-44.

So, the blogosphere is certainly not necessarily reflective of what we might call the “real world.”

The bottom line here is that you cannot go by what people say online.

Even though people are labeling “The Jay Leno Show” as a failure, it’s important to note that it did achieve the ratings that NBC projected. NBC needed at least a 1.5 rating to earn a profit and “The Jay Leno Show” was getting 1.6. Plus, at about 5 million viewers a night, that’s a rather large audience.

I think it’s probably also a safe bet that a lot of people that say Conan is funnier are not actually watching his show. They may say they watch, but they’re probably watching clips online, not on TV.

Remember, O’Brien’s audience skews younger. And that younger crowd tends to be online more than they watch TV.

And, perhaps the numbers bare that out. The audience for The Tonight Show has declined 55% since Conan took over. And, for those whining that he hasn’t had enough time to build his audience in seven months, keep in mind that these are the same people whining that “The Jay Leno Show” is a failure, even though Jay hasn’t even had four months to build his audience. (Tomorrow will be the show’s four month anniversary.)

Then, there are those that blame Jay Leno’s low ratings for Conan’s low ratings. I don’t think the “funnel” theory is necessarily applicable. You know how easy it is to change a channel? You press a freakin’ button. Are the mass of Americans too lazy to push a button? I don’t think we’ve quite sunk to those levels yet. Believe me, I’ve seen even older people flip the channel as if their very life depended upon it if some program came on that they didn’t like.

So, to blame Jay for people not watching Conan? I don’t buy it. When Jay was getting 4.75 million viewers as host of The Tonight Show, Conan was getting 1 million. Evidently, 3.75 million people didn’t have much of a problem changing the channel to not watch Conan, so why would it be so hard to believe that people couldn’t change the channel to watch Conan?

With Conan’s audience skewing younger, it may just be that his viewers aren’t watching him on TV. And, to that extent, it doesn’t matter what time he comes on.

At any rate, TV viewership in general is declining. And younger viewers are more apt to get their entertainment elsewhere, such as online. No doubt, if something’s funny, it’ll be blogged about or tweeted, and then they can watch the clip and not have to sit through an entire show to enjoy the few gems. People have short attention spans these days.

So, while some think that giving Conan more time may allow him to build his audience, there’s a good chance that he’s already maxed out his audience. He may never have the following that Leno has, who never had the following that Carson had.

It’s the nature of the way things have changed. For a time, there were essentially only three main channels. Then, cable expanded the options where people had more choices. The growth of the Internet further changed the landscape.

As such, TV viewership has been in decline. Every so often, there may be a burp, where something grabs people’s attention and they tune in, but the overall trend is decline.

On the one hand, networks need to begin to better embrace the change. For the short-term, Leno is probably a safer bet. For the long-term, it’s anyone’s guess. Is it Conan? Or, will someone else come along? Bear in mind that the short-term could be 5-10 years. Leno’s 59 now. He could stick around until he’s 64 or 69, depending on his health and ratings. Larry King is 76 and still going, so 69 is certainly not a stretch.

And, in 5-10 years, Conan will be 5-10 years older, and so will his audience. So, in that 5-10 years, might someone else be a better fit for a younger audience? Jimmy Fallon is 11 years younger than Conan, so will he be ready in 5-10 years? Maybe it will be someone else.

At any rate, from this perspective, it makes sense why NBC would want to move Leno back to late night and either push Conan back or kick him aside. It’s also interesting to note that Jimmy Fallon is doing better in Conan’s old time slot than Conan did.

But, if you look online, people try to frame this as a Leno vs. Conan battle. But, it’s not either of their faults. Naturally, both would like to host The Tonight Show and/or have the coveted 11:35 time slot. But, the whole problem is NBC. As I mentioned the other day, the whole problem is NBC’s lack of leadership.

Humor is subjective, and a lot of the online support centers around who thinks who is funny. But, it doesn’t matter who thinks what. Subjective feelings don’t pay the bills. Advertisers don’t place their ads based on who they think is funnier. What matters is the ratings. And, from that perspective, Leno is the safe bet.

And, in 5-10 years, who knows if late night TV will even matter anymore. With more and more on-demand programming, with more and more use of DVRs, and with more and more video content available online, in a few years, your TV could be nothing more than a glorified web browser. You watch what you want, when you want.

And, then there won’t be issues of who is on when.

Because it won’t matter.

And, today, for a lot of younger people, it already doesn’t matter. 11:35? 12:05? It doesn’t matter if the bulk of your audience is just going to be watching clips later on Hulu or YouTube.

But, today, for the older people and even for a good number of younger people, it does still matter. And those are the people that tuned in to see Leno at 11:35.

There’s no way of knowing what the TV landscape will look like in 5-10 years. In the broadcast world, there’s only now. And, now they have the choice between a safe bet and what could be viewed as an unknown commodity.

If you were a floundering company failing because of bad decisions and having gambled on big risks, which choice would you make?

The other day, also known as this past Saturday, I posted a little bit about the current late night tv wars.

Well, in reading various articles on the web, following different news stories, and reading comments on articles and tweets on Twitter, I have found what appears to be a big disconnect between what people say and what people do.

Either that, or certain groups skew heavily online while others have little presence online.

In any event, there is a big discrepancy between what people think and what really is.

That is that more people seem to say things than do things.

Or, rather more people are vocal about things than others, and the more vocal people tend to favor one position over the other.

However, what is said is often in conflict with what the ratings show. So, I decided to put together this handy little chart to illustrate what is said versus what is reality. To do this, I took the actual viewing ratings as the “watch” portion of the graph and my estimation of quantity of opinions as the “say” portion. As such, this is not a scientific chart of any kind, but I think it is a pretty good representation of the way things are.

Enjoy!

If I were to believe my spam, I should be able to make a couple thousand dollars a day doing next to nothing (except buying their program). Since I get a bunch of these frequently from different spammers, I must be missing out on a daily income measuring into the tens of thousands.

That’s right. Right now, I should be earning $10,000 to $20,000 or more each and every day doing next to nothing.

I especially love the spams that don’t appear as though any one proofread them. Moments ago, I received one that said I could make $200 - $1000 or more every day! The very next line read that I could make $3,000 a week! And then you get paid every two weeks.

You do the math…

The message started with “I” thought you might be interested and ended with “we” got your eMail from…

Best of all, there’s apparently no work involved. Wow. Must be a job in politics…

So, most of the day is over and I’ve had no idea for a blog post. Thus, I went to see what photos I had taken so far this month. Upon discovering that I hadn’t yet uploaded any images from my camera to the computer this year and not feeling like doing so, I opted instead to see if I had taken any pictures last year, ideally January 10th of last year.

Lo and behold, I took a single photo that day, that of my grandmother’s waffle maker, which is a curious coincidence since, just yesterday, I mentioned waffles. On top of that, JD was hungry for waffles and putting up something vintage will annoy Michelle, so it’s a win-win all the way around.

Plus, I decided to make the photo into a work of art á la Speedy’s post today. I had decided that prior to hunting down a photo, so I had to continue with the plan upon selecting the photo.

At any rate, you see here my grandmother’s vintage waffle maker. Now, this is something I also blogged about last year during Retro Week, in my Waffle Iron post, so no need to elaborate here.

Oh, why the price tag? Well, my grandmother lives out of state and there was a sale before the house was sold. The sale ran before we got there, so my aunt had priced the waffle maker at 50¢. Fortunately, no one bought it and we got to bring it home. Though plenty of other people got some really good deals…

I just wish I had gotten the old blender… And a certain pair of lamps, and the Pick Up Sticks game…

Where shall we start… Well, how about with the fourth-rate network, NBC…

You see, way back when, NBC gave Jay Leno The Tonight Show and David Letterman, then host of Late Night got mad and went to CBS. Then, Letterman fell into a #2 slot behind Leno.

It was apparently this type of situation NBC wanted to avoid, so they gave Leno the boot and gave then-host of Late Night, Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show.

Mission accomplished. They successfully avoided that situation, as their now-current Tonight Show host is getting regularly trounced in the ratings by their network rivals.

Instead of being decisive and picking one or the other (Leno or O’Brien), NBC decided to tried to straddle the fence by selecting an option that would allow them to keep both, which has turned into a big mess.

But, instead of decisiveness, NBC chose waffling. Sometimes leadership requires tough decisions. If they believed that Conan O’Brien was going to be the best host for their late night lineup in the long-term, they should have (a) tried to keep him happy at Late Night until Leno decided to retire or (b) accepted that Leno might go to a different network and accept whatever ratings consequences there may have been.

If they had gone with option A, the only one that may have been unhappy (at least in the short term) was O’Brien. If they chose option B, Leno might have been upset for a while, but then picked himself up and gone to another network and probably carved out a late night niche for himself again. That, of course, could have made NBC unhappy in the short term but, if they thought O’Brien was a good long-term bet, that would have been something they would just have had to accept and deal with.

Instead, they went with a third option, designed to keep everyone happy, except perhaps for Leno, who may have been only moderately happy or disappointed. But, now that the strategy is not working out–as many suggested early on that it would not–there ain’t no one happy. Leno’s not happy at 10 o’clock, network affiliates aren’t happy that there isn’t a bigger draw at ten to funnel people to the local news, and now O’Brien’s not happy that he’s on the verge of being kicked back a half an hour to bring Leno back to 11:35.

So, while decisive leadership would have made someone unhappy, the poor, indecisive leadership NBC has demonstrated has created much more unhappiness.

There is a lesson to be learned here. You can’t always keep everyone happy. Sometimes when you try to do so, you may end up with situations where the end result is many more unhappy people than a decisive decision may have created.

And, with that lesson in leadership out of the way, let’s tackle some memes that have been sitting around for ages…

Here is one from January 1, 2009: Fabulous Awards and Addictions. Thanks, Awake!

So, I need to list 5 additions and pass this along to 5 fabulous bloggers. So, here we go.

1. I plead the 5th.
2. I plead the 5th.
3. I plead the 5th.
4. I plead the 5th.
5. I plead the 5th.

There. That was easy. Now, considering I have about five readers, if you read this blog and have a blog of your own, I think you’re fabulous. Claim your prize!

This next one is a New Year’s Meme… from back in January 1st of 2008. This was from Nine a.k.a. SF Girl. Mine was to list seven weird things about me and tag seven people. As I said, I have five readers, so, if you’re reading this, you’re tagged. Congratulations!

I have done this in spurts. In fact, I already listed 3 of them. Here is #1, #2 and #3. So, I need to do four more…

I thought I was tagged by Bobby for the Quirk meme, where you have to list six quirks about yourself. Upon re-reading it, I wasn’t tagged. Yay! Got out of that one! And, in gratitude, I give him yet another quirk link so he can get search engine placement for that “highly coveted” keyword.

For this next one, we’ll take a wayback ride back to November of 2007. That’s when Lewis Empire tagged me on this “Yeah, but what do I want?” meme.

In it, you need to list 10 things you want to do, 10 things you want to be, and 10 things you want to have. You can see why I kept putting this off. But, now it’s kind of easy. You see, I would like to make ten million dollars. Yes, I have specific plans for that money. So, the ten things I want to do is to make a million dollars. Do that ten times, and I have my $10 million. I would also like to be a millionaire, ten times. All at once, though, not consecutively because that would mean that I just kept a million dollars for ten years or something, not that I had a million dollars ten times over. Finally, I would like to have a million dollars, ten times over. See? This one was pretty easy. Don’t know why it took me so long.

Maybe it was because back then my goal was only $300,000 and now it’s $10 million. Dreams change, you know?

Finally, from August 1st of 2008, comes the “I’m Brillante” award from Teeni. Thanks!

Now, I need to pass that award on to some deserving bloggers. Again, I only have five readers and (I think) most of them have blogs. So, if you’re reading this and you have a blog, I think you are brillante! So, go and claim your award and don’t say I never gave you anything.

So, there we go! I have now successfully, albeit cheatingly, cleared out all my memes. Yay! No more memes to do! That’s one less file taking up space on my hard drive.

So, lessons learned today? Well, decisive leadership is good. Waffling bad, unless you’re making waffles and you have maple syrup available. Or butter. Or blueberry syrup. Powdered sugar would work too. Strawberry syrup. Oooh, raspberry syrup! Maybe just an old-fashioned syrup. But, I digress. The other thing is not to be afraid to break the rules. Sometimes, if you stick to the rules, your To Do list might just grow and grow and you end up putting things off for years. But, by cheating, you can scratch some things off that list and move forward.

Yes, sometimes cheating can lead to progress. Just don’t tell your kids that.

I imagine that, at some point in your life, someone yelled at you. It’s probably a rare person who has not had someone yell at them at some point in their life.

Maybe it was a parent. Maybe it was an upset lover or a friend. Maybe it was a wacky guy on the street trying to guilt you into giving him your bicycle.

Maybe you’ve had someone shout at you too. Shouting is basically the same as yelling; they are synonyms after all. You might yell to get someone’s attention; you might shout to get someone’s attention.

The connotation of the words may vary. Generally, both are rather neutral words. You might shout at someone because you’re mad at them. You might shout at someone because you’re trying to get their attention across a room. Shouting or yelling is more a matter of raising your voice, and not descriptive of the reason you are raising your voice. Still, some may view yelling as negative and shouting as more neutral, as in you yell when you’re upset and shout to get attention. Or vice versa.

It is the negative connotation of the word that I will be discussing here. The idea that yelling or shouting is negative, rude, angry, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, you’ve probably experienced shouting or yelling in a negative way when you were on the receiving end of someone’s temper tantrum. It’s generally not a pleasant experience. It can be downright bad.

In the online world, writing in ALL CAPS is considered shouting, or yelling. IT IS ONE WAY OF GETTING SOMEONE’S ATTENTION AND GETTING YOUR WORDS TO STAND OUT IN A CROWD. It’s hard not to notice.

Used occasionally, it’s no big deal. And, when used intentionally, you’re accomplishing your mission.

On the flip side, some people don’t realize this little social rule online. Some write in ALL CAPS as a matter of course. Maybe they don’t know how to turn off the CAPS LOCK on their computer. Maybe they think it’s normal. Who knows?

The problem with the excessive use of ALL CAPS is that it can be difficult to read. The letters blend together much more than with lower case letters. Of course, the Romans didn’t have lower case letters, nor did they have punctuation as we do, but that’s another story. Over the centuries, we’ve learned that lower case letter forms can be easier to read in sequence than ALL CAPS. We’ve come to use ALL CAPS to highlight information, not to convey all information.

Similarly, we continue to develop new typefaces to improve readability. Having a language and basic letter forms is just the beginning of communication. Continually refining letter forms and layout is a part of continually improving communication. Just like how the language itself changes, typography too changes, all in an effort to make things easier to read, to understand, to better convey the information we wish to pass along.

As such, we have reached that stage where the use of ALL CAPS is for a specific purpose and not general use. For example, when did you last read a magazine article or a novel that was set up in ALL CAPS?

We have reached that point where ALL CAPS in a textual form is considered SHOUTING or YELLING.

However, that usage can still be considered neutral. Are they SHOUTING at us out of anger, or are they SHOUTING to get our attention? In and of itself, the use of ALL CAPS is neutral. It is the content that will determine how it is being used. The use of ALL CAPS may have gotten our attention, but we still have to read it to determine in what manner it is being used. Is it being used to express anger at you as in, YOU STUPID IDIOT, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT TO ME! Or, is it just being used to grab your attention, as in, BUY TODAY FOR HUGE SAVINGS! Or, is it just being used by mistake or ignorance?

The reason I bring this up is that, from time to time online, you will encounter people that actually take offense to the use of ALL CAPS. Their complaint isn’t that what you wrote is hard to read, which it can be especially for those with vision problems, but that it was written in ALL CAPS. The content notwithstanding, this apparently offends them.

So, we’ve actually reached the point where people are offended not by what you said but by what it looks like. How overly sensitive are these people? What next, will people be offended if you use the wrong typeface? “You have deeply offended me, my family and an entire generation of my fellow countrymen by composing your message in Times New Roman! Curse you!”

I’ve had people yell and shout at me. I’ve had people send me messages in ALL CAPS. There’s quite a big difference between the two, even if the message in ALL CAPS was meant in anger. If you’re equating the two—good grief!

Maybe some people spend way too much time online or texting or whatnot if they are going to take offense at letter forms.

They had to be dressed in their little sweaters and they didn’t actually get to go outside, but, yes, they do love snow.

Pictures maybe later.

And who posts about something cute that should have a picture, without actually showing a picture? Well, that would be me, of course.

In other news, I am getting close to relaunching another site of mine, which should help deter Michelle from dipping her toes into my niches again.

Plus, I think I may have some help from some of my Twitter friends. So, we’ll see. It does look cool, though. I worked out the design issues I was having and finally got it looking respectable. As it was, it was lacking something. But, the last change really kicked things up a notch or two or more.

Anyway, lots of nice snow here today. Shoveled the driveway earlier. It’s already recovered with the fluffy white stuff.

The whole country appears to be in a cold snap. You’ll notice that Al Gore has been in hiding lately… Probably hidden away at an undisclosed location.

Because I don’t know where mine is.

So, instead, you get this cheap knock-off.

You see, I should write something useful. Something that will keep you coming back for more.

Why do you come here anyway? Sure, I used to post some useful stuff, but now it’s mostly drivel. On top of that, Google knocked me down to a PR2 from a PR3, which has really put a damper on my potential earnings. No one cares about a PR2 blog.

And, yes, I can blame Google, because I have allowed the quality to go down since I was kicked down to a PR2. You know, you work harder and harder, and they just keep kicking you down, then kick you some more while you are down.

If it’s not the politicians, it’s Google. Sometimes, it’s both.

Now, then, the gurus tell you that you must have content. Fresh content. The search engines love fresh content.

And, sometimes it doesn’t even have to be good.

I mean, just look at some of the top sites in the search engine results. Sometimes, you see ones that are barely comprehensible English, probably because the person who wrote it didn’t speak English.

Of course, the dirty little secret is that a lot of websites are just rewritten content found elsewhere. Sometimes, that content is legitimately obtained. It may be PLR. Then, they “spin” it to create something that’s the same but different enough to be considered unique.

That’s why you might see a lot of sites saying the same thing but in different ways with few of them making sense.

And occasionally they will throw in a random phrase just to throw the search engines off and fool them into thinking it’s unique content. So, you might be reading an article on how to make radish soup, and suddenly come across a line like this:

A bird seeks dawn at the rise of the ocean bush.

Yeah, makes no sense. But, the search engine sees it and says, “Wow! I’ve never seen anything like this before!” Thus, it’s unique.

Sometimes, though, people are too lazy to rewrite stuff. So, they’ll just post PLR exactly as they got it. This explains why, sometimes, you’ll look up something on Google and find a dozen different sites but each of them has the exact same article by different authors.

Of course, sometimes they didn’t source their content through PLR. They just stole an article from someone else and slapped their name on it. Some unscrupulous people will take articles people have written and sell them as PLR. Then, the original author gets ripped off and the people who paid for the PLR, expecting they could use it as they wished, will be in for a nasty surprise when the original author sends them a nasty letter demanding they take down his article.

On top of that, some people will spin not legitimate PLR but articles others have written. They’ll just go to an article site, download a bunch of articles, run them through an article spinner, and claim them as theirs.

It can be a real mess out there.

But, at least you know I write my own stuff. After all, who would steal something like this post?

Probably no one, unless, of course, I throw in some juicy keywords. Zhu zhu pets, lambskin napkins, Rolex watches, who shot JR?, why are my fingers turning blue?, who let the dogs out?, how often should a person bathe?, should I shower after lunch?, kid puppy underwear doll, how to grow organic cucumbers, wish-wash be-gosh, hi-ho silver, ALF, Captain Kirk lunch box, how to tie your shoes, puppet master, ruby ring, ring around the collar, Sprite goes with everything, edible underwear, latex rubber gloves, fine jewelry, silversmith, paint bucket, wedding favors, the joke’s on you, if you’re reading this somewhere other than dcrblogs.com then this is a stolen article, whiplash attorney, washer-dryer combo unit, furniture for pets, cherry dining room table, naked moles, women with football jerseys, men with shorts, shoes for the hip-hop crowd, blue man groupies, discount yo-yo, aquarium supplies for less, pinstripe suits, tack bat hat rack, super deal, low price, one of a kind savings, bet on black, bet on red, bet on purple Fred, and don’t look back at the crocodile tears. There, that ought to do it.

So, anyway, you can see this is 100% original content. No one else would put this kind of stuff up with their name on it.