Glee and Muppets

Saturday night, me and the lady are heading back from a late matinee showing of The Muppets. The film was pretty darn hilarious, taking me by surprise. Taking me even more by surprise was the fact that I didn't enjoy Jason Segel's performance. He was not able to interact with the muppets in a realistic way, and seemed to be aware that he was talking to a hand the whole time. I think these movies call for much more cartoony performances.

Anyway, while strolling down Lower George's Street, quoting the funnies and having the lols, we stumbled upon a simple poster for The Glee Experience. "Why the hell not?" said the little voice in my head.

The show was fun, energetic and a good chance to watch Glee without actually having to watch Glee. There is no way I can commit hours of my life to a teenage soap opera about jocks and geeks and all that farce, but the songs themselves I have enjoyed, and seeing them performed by such talented kids was great fun. Check them out around Dublin over the next couple of months - it's well worth your €15. Ticketmaster is currently showing no dates, but they have some booked in that they plugged at the show, so I would watch this space.

Super Mario 64 DS

I am a winner - I got Mario for Valentine's Day! :D

This game is great. Nintendo have made several changes from the original on N64 (which I never got a chance to complete as a child) including playing as Yoshi from the beginning and some new stars to collect. Only had a change to nab 19 of these fuckers so far, so will shed more light on my progress later, perhaps.



Most of all, I love that I'm still using my DS Lite after all these years. I think the 3DS is the crappest idea Nintendo have ever come up with, and I appreciate that it's priced reasonably low. As a company, I'm sure there is a fair amount of panic going on with the rising popularity of smartphones, and consumers downloading games for their smartphone. Companies have started making fortunes making games that sell for as little as £0.79. On my iPad right now, I'm playing Kingdom Rush - an absolutely wicked tower defence game. It was less that a pound. Not even £1! A bus ride costs more.

I predict that Nintendo can't keep up this farcical strategy of handheld gimmicks for too much longer. The days of the Game Boy have surely started to fade away already. And with their new WiiU project looking equally daft, their presence in the home looks... unpredictable. I'm looking out for the new console, but I'm nervous. I will miss Link, Mario and the rest of the Smash Bros, but might have to let them go if it means buying all that hardware - when my phone and tablet do so much gaming for so much less.

Will Piracy Kill The Music Industry?

My girlfriend wrote a great little piece for tha-one.com called Will Piracy Kill The Music Industry.

I love this debate, and I really wish I had time to investigate it closely and recover the data on this. It's interesting how the Internet affects industries in this way, and the media industry is one of those fighting back hardest. Stacey talks about how the Internet interrupts the workflow for the middle man, and offers power to come straight from artists. Alex Day is her example of this, and his attempted Christmas number one in 2011, where he climbed all the way to number 4 - the first to get so far without a record label.

Training Week

I've had load of training this week, and it was all meant to be stuff I already knew. It has been enlightening, and cleared up so many gaps in my knowledge. I love these moments where you realise that as much as you think you know about something, there are so many better ways to go about it. Well I have already been told - "Don't stop learning." Far too early to be stopping right now.

New AdWords Help Center

This is the latest I have ever been in the office, and it's a quiet place.

I've decided that while I consider the tuna and sweetcorn sandwich next to me, I'd better make today's contribution to this blog. Today I've picked out nothing to share with the world, so thought I'd pull together something simple.

Did you know: Most of the problems you might be experiencing with AdWords (or anything else for that matter), chances are someone else has run into it and has posted something about it on the internet. Honestly, the amount of knowledge hidden somewhere in the webosphere is incredibly close to 100% of all human knowledge. Most of the time, the trick is just knowing where to look, or where to ask.

The AdWords Help Center was just revamped. It now has more easily accessible pages, more explanation of complex problems and navigation is more streamlined. And if not here, there are also frequent posts on Google blogs. Here is a list of challenging questions that really can't be explained in a clearer way:

Linking Analytics to your AdWords account
Segmenting your data, to show specifically what you are looking for
Just about everything on Quality Score
Remarketing: How to do it for beginners and advanced

Just waiting to go home... train is coming in 26 minutes! :D

In my spare free minutes at the end of the business day, I tapped in some Google Maps directions to local DART stations following my trip to see Star Wars 3D tomorrow night. I'm going to have a decision to make - either run and hope I make the last train, or preemptively concede defeat and wait for the bus, a much longer trip home.

Either way though, Star Wars eh? Fucking excited.

Travis' Lucozade thing

I keep losing this great little video. Wakes me right up first thing in the morning! Expect more Travis Barker posts...

Get to draw some pie charts tonight

I have had such a long day. That stuff about this being a popular sick day - I can see why. First Monday of Feb sucks. I've got enough work to last me all week and I didn't get as much as I wanted to done today. I'll be planning a holiday tonight, and doing my money stuff, which I forgot about over the weekend.

I like to take a good half hour tallying the week's spend into a personal budget file to keep track of how much is going out and where. PocketMoney is a dream iPad app for this. I've used this and the iPhone version, both of which can be kept in sync. Managing my money on a tablet keeps it to hand, simple to use and understand. This program, or at least personal finance apps similar to it, are platform sellers as much as social networking, ebook readers and photo apps are. It crushes desktop money management.

I am spending some time today getting more into AdWords for Video. As a campaigner for the death of traditional TV, this is of particular interest to me. I really believe that if we can get media companies to host their programming online in a simple, TV-on-demand format, as well as get users to subscribe to channels and stop watching shit, mass media television, we can all have a better experience with ads and TV content in general. On the internet, TV has the potential to tailor to more niche interests at demand, and advertisers should have more targeting options, reserving their budgets for the audience that relates closest with them.

National Sickie Day!

Today is national sickie day! Hoorah!

Congratulations if you made it in. I have to admit that I felt it this morning; that urge to stay in bed and start planning my holiday was powerful. I made it in however, and we're working hard up here. Besides, with the flu season attacking, I'd hate to ruin my karma for sick days ahead of the time I might need it most.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone (Jhameel mix)

Just another example of Jhameel's amazing creativity:

Travis Barker Remix Slaughterhouse "The One"

This is going to get me through this last hour.

Just got the ball rolling on trying to organise a recruitment event at Lancaster University for Google. Any interest from undergrads of all disciplines is always taken favorably - get in touch with either myself at stupidpoems@gmail.com, contact your careers person at uni, or look up the info yourself on the Google Student site for all the information on what opportunities are available and how to apply for them.