Dude, Yeah, Oddmann, He's Cuil

Thanks for the kick in the pants, Marty. I've been pretty swamped but I can always make time for a quick post. And yes "can always" means "on occasion".

You may have heard by now that a new search engine was released into the wild on Monday. Cuil (pronounced "cool" and old Irish word for knowledge) boasts that it has indexed 3 times as many pages as Google.

Here is a quick writeup on Cuil by the always awesome tech review site, Read/Write Web. And here are some quick thoughts on the threat to Google (and yes "threat" means "mild annoyance") by the periodically posting blogger, roller:

• The slick, Web 2.0 style interface is refreshing - much better than the UIs Google creates (that includes iGoogle, Gmail, Docs & Spreadsheets, etc.). Cuil's interface for returning search results takes a little bit to get used to, but they are keenly aware that presentation is a large piece of a site's success.

• Websites with "alternatively spelled" names generally annoy me; I can't figure out why you want to challenge people to find your site.

• Will people ever say "Just Google it and..."? Did we ever think Google would become a verb back when it launched in '00?

• The company Cuil was founded by a couple - a professor from Stanford and a former Google employee - who happened to be an architect of Google's search engine. My wife and I are planning on starting our own search engine called wyld. It will have 5000 times as many pictures of our kids as Google.
  

• To search for news on Cuil, I used Google.

• The latter picture is someone who drips cool, so I had to include it.

I'd like to end this post with a request. Please give Cuil a try and tell us if you would consider using it as an alternative to Google, and why you would or wouldn't. Thanks!

BackInBev

Aw, crap.

Well, when you're a public company, you answer to your shareholders. BUD was getting quite a premium on their price, and rejecting the offer again probably would have lead to a long, drawn out drama that gets hostile and just annoys everyone.

I'd like to say I'll never drink a Bud or Busch again but that would be a stupid thing to say. I can say I'll never drink a Bud Light again because I don't ever drink Bud Light. That's how pissed I am.

In all seriousness it's a sad day for St. Louis. For you Chicago folks, it would be like if the White Sox bought the Cubs. No one wins, right? But in all seriousness, it would be like if Big League Chew bought Wrigley. Who wants to fish for those sticks of gum in those big pouches, right? But in all seriousness...

You know the worst thing about this? For a Belgian-Brazilian company, InBev has got to be the most boring name ever. You can't be like "Yo dude, can I get an InBev Light?" I mean this is the KING OF BEERS we're talking about. The King doesn't get bought. The King sends his big eagle out on the streets to drop huge letter A's on people if they drink InBev Light. You best stay inside with that crap.

Damn. I'm thirsty.

Megabloggin'

This is crazy. I'm on a Megabus from Boston to New York and it has wi-fi. Can you believe it? I'm not sure how the signal keeps up with the driver doing 75, but here I am typing with autosave.

It only took me 32 years 11 months and 8 days to get to New York City. Been to London twice. Boston a bunch. LA, San Diego, Tiajuana, Dublin, Seattle, San Francisco, Cleveland, Miami, St. Thomas, just to name a few. I've been to Cooperstown, NY, but not to the big city. I plan on taking the Lenny Briscoe walking tour the moment I get there.

No real reason for bypassing the Big Apple for this long. I didn't have friends flock there after college. I had more go to Charlotte, NC (been there too). Sure I despise all their Sports teams, but I'm the same way with St. Louis and I love to go back there. For whatever reason, I just never went. Until now.

I am only in town for three days and limited in capital, so I won't be able to see a ton of New York. But I hope to see enough to gauge whether this could be a place I could live in the future. You know, since I'm back in college getting wicked smart. I do have a feeling though that the moment a server says $7 for a Miller Lite, I'll be calling my connections in Des Moines.

So what better excuse to blog than my trip to the big apple. Stay tuned in the next couple days, yes, I said days to hear how Coovo is kickin' it in the city that never sleeps.

Where in the World is Tajikistan?

Test your knowledge of Middle East geography with this slick game. After you do it once, go back a week later and try again, then a month later.

I've tried to check out the site for tests of other areas, but this is the only one I've found. Definitely a cool way to learn the locations of some of the countries you've heard of but were a little fuzzy on the location ("You know... it's like... kind of by Egypt and like... Pakistan")