Well, this is what happens when it's 2:43 AM. When you're me, at least. You're sitting at the computer almost a week after graduating high school and you've got nothing to do. Sure, it's late, but why go to sleep? Why not start using this very simple, hardly usable vBulletin-integrated blog hack just for the heck of it.

So you start surfing the net, reading some search engine optimization articles for your website and eventually navigate your way to resource-zone.com, a community of DMOZ.org editors and webmasters. For those who don't know of DMOZ.org, it's a nonprofit human-edited directory of websites. Sounds neat, eh? Not really. Not when the world's most influential search engine, Google, uses this directory as a criterion when ranking search results.

DMOZ.org is widely viewed a "failed" attempt to bring a human touch to the online world. Webmasters submit their website for review and editors ostensibly sort through submissions and publish those with worthwhile content.

The problem?

There aren't enough people for the people-managed directory. There are literally millions of sites out there and DMOZ is swamped with submissions. Sites sit in line for literally years. Some categories don't have editors. Some do. Of course, there's no notification system and webmasters never know if they've been published, rejected, are still sitting somewhere in line or [even worse] are sitting somewhere in line of a category without an editor.

No, you can't contact staff. They don't respond. You can't resubmit your site. You'll get kicked from your spot and moved to the end, once again. So, the last resort is (or shall I say was?) to slide on over to resource-zone.com and kindly ask the community of editors where you stand.

Back to my original frustration. I submitted GreenHybrid.com for publication in August 2004 and finally in the beginning of 2005 inquired about my status. "Still in line," they told me. "Come back in 6 months." Well, tonight I skip on over to Resource Zone (a virtual skip, of course) and find out that they've frozen all site status requests. No more. That's the end.

Wonderful, right? I'm doomed. You're doomed. We're all doomed. Just what I needed as I'm moving up the ranks in Google searches and am looking to dominate the "hybrid cars" keyphrase search. Just what I needed.

So, that's the topic of today's little rant, my friends. Of course, you can't reply because this makeshift blog system doesn't have a comment system! But I'll always let you send me an email because I'm just a nice guy like that. Thanks for letting me vent my frustration with you. It's been fun.

 

What's so exciting about summer, anyway? I feel like a bum. I haven't really started working out again like I told myself I would and I'm spending way too many hours on the computer. I'm moving to Houston in August so I have little motivation to go out with friends; I'll rarely see them again. And since this site is my job, no motivation to get another part-time job, either. I almost wish I had one so I could be social and meet more people! Too many faces I'll never see again now that high school is over Gee, no fun...

I spent an hour or two trying to edit some of that tricky vBulletin code and debugging. Extremely frustrating stuff. I was just about screaming and was honestly contemplating the end of my developing days. It's just too stressful and eats up time like there's no tomorrow. All the more reason to complete GreenHybrid with all the features one can dream up and then sit back and enjoy life. I'm too much of a perfectionist and too nice of a guy; people ask me for new features and I usually see about implementing them.

Okay, not such an interesting post. My real motivation? I wanted to see what the template looked like between each entry so I could edit it

 

So Liz just told me the funniest situation and I can't stop laughing. Thanks for the entertainment in an otherwise boring day! A true friend.

 

Interesting night. JP and Tony are off to Europe tomorrow, so the gang (JP, Tony, Liz H, Liz F, Steph, Matt & myself) went to Chili's for dinner. At 10PM. Yes, I know. Pretty late for dinner. Then we headed to Stephanie's, where Liz H decided to plan "our wedding." I didn't even realize we were engaged. I have a feeling it's going to be expensive...

Ah, and after a message to the editor (I'm guessing), the site was suddenly listed in the directory on May 30. It's definitely with an outdated site name and description, but I'll take what I can get

 

It's extremely important that I mention right now that Stephanie is extremely important.

 

Hey, waddayaknow. The death of my blog! Sorry, folks. I doubted I'd really keep this up and I was right. Now, get out and have the time of your life away from the computer!