Overlooked Posts of 2024

Introduction

Last year, I enjoyed an article in the New York Times about overlooked stories—those their editors felt didn’t reach as many readers as they should have. Following the Times’ lead, I blogged about overlooked albertnet posts. Did it make a mark? Well, of the twelve 2023 posts I spotlighted (one per month), two subsequently moved from last place to second place, and four moved all the way into first place (i.e., have now reached the  most pageviews of any posts that month). That strikes me as a pretty good response, so I’m going do this again. Below are the 2024 posts that I think deserved more attention from my readers (I’m looking at you, Mom). Like last year, I’ll explain why they deserve your attention.

January

I thought “New Year’s Resignation” was a catchy title since readers’ brains would automatically think “Resolution” when they hit the first syllable of that third word, and then be surprised. If my readers had any such reaction (which I now doubt), it evidently wasn’t enough to get them to click the link; this post has the fewest pageviews of any I ran last January. Perhaps “resignation” is just too negative a word … I’ve received advice that negative words turn people away and we should always use positive ones. But how, then, would we explain the success of the heavy metal band Megadeth?

I feel the Resignation post should have done better. I mean, don’t we all get sick of the swirl around New Year’s Resolutions, and thus shouldn’t readers welcome a suggestion like improving their capacity for resignation? Wouldn’t they be interested in how this behavior, which we’re all trained to feel bad about, can actually be a superpower? Well, to get that message they’d have to actually open the post, duh! I guess it really is all about window dressing. If I decide to do a post this month on the theme of New Year’s Resolutions, I’m going to call it “Make $150K working from home,” or maybe “Megadeth.”

February

The loss leader for February was “Virtual Reality Killer App!” Any reader expecting a well-researched, informative article on VR technology apparently doesn’t know me very well. The more a topic requires actual research, the less I do, and the higher I rev my BS engine. In other words, it should have been obvious that was a humor piece. Doesn’t everyone deserve a good laugh? I guess it’s possible you identified it as a humor piece but didn’t click through because you don’t think I’m funny. If that’s the case, why are you here at all? Shoo! Shoo!

What? You’re still here? You do think I’m funny? Well then click here right away! I won’t say more about that post because there’s a plot twist I’d hate to give away. So go read it now. And then came back here for the rest of this post. Or not. Whatever.

March

If you consider my lowest-performing March post, “The Power of Loafing,” in the context of my earlier “New Year’s Resignation” post, you might conclude I was (and/or am) burned out and just going through the motions of my life, running out the clock. And you’d be right. Er, wrong. Maybe both. Look, this was a useful post in challenging the so-called “grind culture” of “performative workaholism” while introducing a new buzz-phrase that’s sure to take the workplace by storm: “clip out.” Give it a read!

April

I haven’t seen much response to my April post “Can We Unplug Our Kids?” despite it being a serious commentary on an important societal problem. Oh, wait a second … I just realized this is the last sort of thing anyone wants to read, and that moreover reading is the last thing anyone wants to do. I should have posted a video of myself doing a silly dance, or better yet, a video of a really attractive woman doing a sexy dance. In other words I should have just forwarded something from TikTok, like everybody else.

But wouldn’t earnest parents be naturally drawn to this topic? And aren’t parents among the most earnest type of people alive? Maybe parents didn’t read this because they don’t see that I’ve earned the right to pontificate. Don’t they realize I’m a tall male so I automatically have the right? Well, anyway, I do think I’ve earned that right because I raised my kids in a highly unorthodox fashion and reported on the remarkable results. I should have titled this post “Raised By Nutjobs: the Sad Story of a Cell-Phone-Free Childhood!” Or maybe “TikTok Twerk Tease!” or “Megadeth.”

May

Once again, a useful-looking how-to advice post was largely ignored: “Five Home Remodeling Mistakes to Avoid.” Would-be readers may have seen that title and thought, “So what, I’m not contemplating a home remodel anyway,” or “What does this unheralded bookworm cyclist blogger know about remodels that the helpful folks at Home Depot couldn’t tell me?” or “OMG, after my disastrous remodel I can’t bear to think about that topic ever again.” Evidently they weren’t thinking, “Oh, this is obviously another purely BS humor piece along the lines of ‘COVID-19: Helping Teens Cope’ or ‘Plumbing Emergencies for Dummies.’ I’ll bet it’s a scream!”

This post takes five perfectly logical and reasonable rules of thumb and smashes them with a hammer. It is the perfect remedy for the dread that contemplating home improvement can generate. Here’s a teaser so you’ll understand what vein I was shooting up in:

Spring is in the air. Out in their driveways, your neighbors are beating on old Turkish rugs with broomsticks, maybe more enthusiastically than is really necessary. Birds are building nests in your trees, without asking. No matter where you look, spring cleaning and other restoration projects are underway. The warm breeze is whispering in your ear: “Time to start pulling your weight.” Or maybe that’s your spouse, and it’s proceeded from a whisper to plain speech to aggressive beseeching all the way up to a flat-out demand, which has become increasingly hard to ignore. So it’s time to bite the bullet and agree to a home remodel.

In summary, check this post out immediately!

June

I read an article yesterday about how a majority of the movies that Hollywood is working on this year are sequels, prequels, reboots, or remakes, because that’s the kind of crap that gets people into the theaters. The logic of this is not lost on me: I understand that people are lame and don’t like to gamble on new stuff. Thus, when a post does well, I often try to work my way around to a sequel. A post from 2009, “We Have a Winner,” has racked up about 1500 pageviews, and—get this—over 850 of them were in the last year alone. That’s not an albertnet blockbuster but it’s pretty solid. So in June I posted “We Have a Winner! – Part II” and it has done … very poorly.

This post concerns the winner of my second non-annual albertnet Amateur Product Review contest, and recaps the three consumer reviews I featured of various products, with one review each being a fake that I contrived. Then this post provides the correct answer and the winner’s brilliant commentary around how he came to his answer. Give it a read, it’s fun!

July

I am very disappointed with the performance of “What Are Men Extenders?” which concerns a term that (after harrowing Internet research) I traced etymologically to the movie “Barbie.” This post provides a very thorough definition of “men extender” and plumbs the fascinating topic of what products are the quintessential examples. This phrase is utterly useful, as is the examination of what it means to be a man—a man’s man, even—in our modern, enlightened times. This post is my finest on this theme since “The Sissy Syndrome” which I posted back in 2010, and which has been really popular. Read ‘em both!

August

Okay, the loss leader for August, “Ageing Focus – Make Balance a Habit!” is unabashedly earnest, helpful, useful, and understandably has been ignored. It’s really not very amusing and concerns the unpleasant reality of getting old and lame. I guess I could have titled it “Try This Weird Trick That Your Therapist Doesn’t Want You To Know About” or “Too Hot For TikTok!” but that would be a bait-and-switch. Look, there’s some helpful stuff in this post, okay? And if you want the punch line without having to read anything, just scroll down and watch a couple of the 20-second videos shot by my daughter. (In one of them you can hear her yawning, which is probably the highlight of the whole post.) Just do it. Do it for your future self, assuming you don’t want to be falling-and-you-can’t-get-up.

September

All of my posts did pretty well in September, but one had to be the loser, so I’ll draw your attention to “Major League Baseball FAQ – a Guide for Foreigners.” Given that a large percentage of albertnet viewers are overseas, I figured this would be popular (especially given the strong performance of “Super Bowl FAQ – A Guide for Foreigners”). But it hasn’t gone viral or anything (not really, not yet).

You should read it whether you’re foreign or not, whether you’re a baseball maven or a total newb. (My nephew, who played varsity baseball in college, says he learned a couple things.) It’s not because you need this knowledge, but because you need a laugh. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite.

Cuba has won more Olympic medals for baseball than any other country but they have never played in the World Series. How can MLB baseball call it the “World” Series?

Because America.

What is the seventh inning stretch?

This is when all the fans in the stadium stand together and stretch, since they’ve been sitting so long on those uncomfortable bleachers.

So it’s like yoga or Tai Chi?

No, just stretching out your arms a bit, and singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Is it always the same song, across the nation?

No, in Boston they sing “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond.

Why Boston? Why don’t they sing “Sweet Caroline” in North or South Carolina?

Nobody knows. That is to say, I don’t know.

October

It’s not often that the title of an albertnet post includes “Mea Culpa.” In case you’re not fluent in pig Latin, that roughly translates, “Just kill me.” I fell on my sword with this post (schadenfreude, anyone?) based on the myopia of my April loss-leader post, “Can We Unplug Our Kids?” My “Part II: Mea Culpa” post considers the social media conundrum afresh, letting parents somewhat off the hook and examining how the Internet industry is more to blame. I examine in particular how privilege and luck helped my family grapple with social media responsibly. Gosh, any time I tap into liberal guilt I ought to touch a nerve, right? With readers either commiserating or condemning me, possibly both? Well, not this time … people simply ignored it. Do you want to remedy that? Click here! (Note: reading the post will not actually help you save the world. But you might feel smug and/or indignant. Won’t that feel good?)

November

Frankly, November was a great month for albertnet. Its four posts have accumulated over 1,100 page views so far, and the count from those four is still climbing with well over 100 views in the last week. The least number of views is from “Bell’s Seasoning II – The Spawning” with only 180 views so far (38 in the past week). I already mentioned how sequels are supposed to be a slam-dunk, so what’s going on here? I even included “The Spawning” in the title, which strategy seems to have borne fruit in the past (e.g., “Tire Chains II – The Spawning,” “Keep Calm II – The Spawning”). And yet my Bell’s sequel hasn’t yet propelled me to international fame and stardom.

You should read it anyway, because it’s not just about a spice concoction that is the key to Thanksgiving, but also about a dogged blogger who is persistent beyond all reason. It’s almost like a cautionary tale, except there’s no moral (unless I missed it, in which case you could enjoy some first-rate dramatic irony). I know your next turkey dinner is over ten months away, but you should check this post out anyway.

December

Well, I posted only three times last month, and it’s probably not fair to pick on the most recent, lowest-performing post for December because it’s only been up for a week and a half. I’m talking about “A Mysterious Note” which is the strange, true story of a mysterious note, and includes as a bonus the even stranger, also true story of the time I terrorized a junkie during his heroin fix. At least, I think I terrorized him. I can only assume he experienced actual terror (since I’ve never tried heroin myself, obviously). Does any of this make you curious? Good, good. Click on through!

Here’s to 2025!

Thank you for visiting albertnet. I look forward to another year of writing about, well, anything that amuses me, and I hope you look forward to reading it.

Overlooked posts of 2023:

• Jan: Ask a Fitness Dweeb (now up to second most popular of the month)
• Feb: What We Should (and Will) Be Embarrassed By
• Mar: Schooling ChatGPT (also up to second)
• Apr: Errata
• May: More Tom Swifties
• Jun: Impromptu Commencement Address
• Jul: Gravel Riding in the Rockies
• Aug: If William Wordsworth Were Writing Today (now up to first place!)
• Sept: Jumbo-Visma & the Kuss Conundrum
• Oct: Epic Trans Alps Cycling Trip – Part VI (also now first)
• Nov: Undeterred - A Critique of a Book About Life Without Free Will (also now first)
• Dec: Cycling Smackdown – Small Cog Tale (also now first)

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Five Home Remodeling Mistakes to Avoid

Introduction

Spring is in the air. Out in their driveways, your neighbors are beating on old Turkish rugs with broomsticks, maybe more enthusiastically than is really necessary. Birds are building nests in your trees, without asking. No matter where you look, spring cleaning and other restoration projects are underway. The warm breeze is whispering in your ear: “Time to start pulling your weight.” Or maybe that’s your spouse, and it’s proceeded from a whisper to plain speech to aggressive beseeching all the way up to a flat-out demand, which has become increasingly hard to ignore. So it’s time to bite the bullet and agree to a home remodel. This experience can be anything from transformative to ruinous to existentially harrowing, like a Lars Von Trier movie. Here are five mistakes to avoid.

Mistake #1: create a budget

Too many earnest homeowners think the first step in planning their renovation is to figure out how much they can afford, and scale the project accordingly. This is pure folly. As all home improvement veterans know, every single task will run over budget, and every part of the structure that is touched will unveil previously hidden damage. For example, what you thought of as a simple case of catastrophic dry-rot will turn out to be an ongoing termite infestation, and a foundation you thought was only rotating will turn out to be twisted like a strand of fusilli. That seismic retrofit you paid $5K for, to have the foundation bolted, will turn out to be purely cosmetic, as the foundation is bolted to nothing—that is, to thin air in your crawl space. And as often as not, routine excavation will turn up a body, meaning the murder squad forensics team is going to turn the whole place upside down. Where remodels are concerned, the #1 rule is, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” Rule #2 is, “If you have to borrow money to pay for a remodel, you can’t even afford the home you have.”

Now, if you’re one of those data-driven people who simply must have hard numbers to work with, budget your entire nest egg for this, and what’s left over at the end will determine how long you’ll need to postpone your retirement. If you’re not prepared for that kind of commitment, you can opt for the “zone defense,” meaning you start with a single room to renovate and then if there’s any money left over, you can start to think about the next room, or at least the hallway.

Mistake #2: collaborate with your partner on the design

In some cases, a widowed or divorced homeowner will renovate his or her home, but usually these people are spending their money on fancy clothes, cool cars, and plastic surgery—as well they should. The truth is, most remodels are the work of a couple. And since this project will disrupt both of their lives for months or years, and define the space they’ll get old and die in, it can often seem like the two should work together on design decisions that will please both of them. But this is just a fantasy. It is the exceedingly rare couple that could agree on anything aesthetic or functional, and trying to find common ground is a sure way to bring on a protracted, acrimonious battle, threatening the marriage to the point that the house may end up being sold off instead of fixed up.

Where real-world remodels are concerned, one party or the other needs to call all the shots. Am I saying that one member of every couple should be a complete pushover? Not at all. I’m saying every good couple includes a person who is completely devoid of any opinion on matters of home design and décor. This person won’t mind foregoing all input and having blind faith that his or her spouse will make great decisions. In my own marriage, I have a verbal prenuptial agreement that my wife unilaterally makes all the choices, aesthetic and otherwise, about the home. I, in turn, get to store my racing bike in the home office.

Mistake #3: find alternate lodging during construction

Home remodels create an incredible amount of dust, noise, and other disruption, so it’s tempting to relocate your family to a hotel or Airbnb during construction. Bad idea. If your situation is typical, there’s about a 50% chance that your contractor will bail on your project halfway through, totally ghosting you and pocketing the hefty retainer you unwisely doled out. You need to do everything in your power to improve your odds of seeing your project through, and being onsite is part of that. As the saying goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”—and your contractor so close he can smell you. Breathing down his neck and threatening to micromanage his crew is the best way to motivate this person and his minions to get the work done, get their tools packed up, and get the hell out. (And if you’re worried about the health effects of inhaling all that dust, sawdust, and the welding fumes, consider that these people do asbestos abatement for a living, and they seem a hell of a lot healthier than you.)

Mistake #4: pay attention to ROI

Unlike many things we spend money on, fixing up our homes improves their value such that the project can seem to pay for itself. But this kind of thinking is a trap, and a sinister one. Real estate agents will tell you that all that matters, financially speaking, is location and square footage. This is true if you’re hoping to sell your home to a complete idiot, but hopefully you live in the kind of neighborhood that idiots can’t afford. The fact is, if you’re lucky, your home was designed by a professional who knew what he or she was doing and made the most effective use of the space available. And now you’re going to go tack some extra room onto the side of your house, like some kind of tumor, just to add square footage so your kids might inherit more money when you die, if some idiot buys the house? How does that serve you, exactly? The floor plan was right to begin with. Stop being greedy, and just resurface a couple floors, replace that grody tile, slap up a fresh coat of paint, and honor what your home is supposed to be: a living space, not an investment vehicle. In other words, forget about ROI.

Mistake #5: get all the necessary permits

A responsible homeowner doesn’t cut corners, and gets all the necessary permits when remodeling. Though this obviously makes all kinds of sense, it’s not enough to protect you from serious financial distress or even complete ruin—because permits don’t prevent cost overruns, they enable them. That’s where the proper approach to permitting can really save you. Just follow this rule of thumb: if you need to pull a permit to get something done, that shouldn’t be part of your remodel. For example, if you want to add a bedroom, that definitely requires a permit, whereas adding a bed to the existing room does not. (May I recommend a bunk bed in this instance?)

Obviously there are simple things you can do without a permit—such as painting, tiling, carpeting, installing new counter tops, and finally scrubbing that toilet—that will make your home much more livable without burying you financially. But did you know there are other, bigger improvements that still don’t require a permit? In Berkeley, as you can confirm here, you’re allowed to construct an oil derrick without a permit! Do your neighbors have one of those? Didn’t think so!

One mistake you shouldn’t avoid

You might have thought it redundant that I’ve listed “mistakes to avoid,” since “something to avoid” is baked into the very meaning of “mistake.” But we’re not robots, we’re people, and I’m going to actually recommend a mistake: dare to fall in love again. You loved this house once, with its avocado-colored appliances and its knob-and-tube wiring, its total lack of insulation and its single, overworked bathroom. How come those weren’t show-stoppers before? Didn’t you use to find it charming when you’d start the microwave oven and all the lights would flicker? Wasn’t it cozy staying in bed because it was too cold to venture out? Isn’t it possible that all this desire for so-called “improvement” is just a result of boredom? Haven’t you lived ten, twenty, or more years in your home without having an oil derrick out back?

Gosh, I made such a good case just now for leaving well enough alone, I might have convinced you this isn’t a mistake. Well, it is. Once your spouse starts lusting after home improvement, you’ve have to be crazy to stand in her way … but it just may be a lunatic she’s looking for. No, it isn’t. Damn, I’m really losing the thread here. Let’s just say at least you now know what the mistakes are. Make them or don’t—it’s none of my business.

Disclaimer

As you may have gathered, I’m not really qualified to dispense advice here. I did very little research for this post, and what I try to convey as sound practices are based mainly on my own knee-jerk reaction to a prospect that frightens me. Also, my neighbors have never beaten their rugs out in the driveway … I don’t know where I got that.

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