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.

What Are “Men Extenders”?

Introduction

Have you ever come across the term “men extenders”? Perhaps? But maybe you can’t recall where? Well, I don’t recommend googling it. For research purposes I had to do this, but at least I used an Incognito browser window. The results were not pretty. It took me a while to turn up the origin of the non-penile sense of the phrase, but I am finally equipped (no pun intended) to tell you where it came from. Following that I’ll launch into a full exegesis, as is my wont.

The origin of “men extenders”

Outside the realm of the saddest cosmetic surgery known to man, the term “men extenders” appears nowhere on the Internet except pages deep into the Quotes section of the IMDB entry for “Barbie.” Here is the reference:

This movie is a perfectly fitting place to kick off this new (and highly useful) term, because as we all know from being kids, Barbieland’s denizens are replete with accessories. (Here’s an old joke from my brother: “Hey, have you heard about the new Divorce Barbie? She comes with half of Ken’s stuff!”) Of course, most of the accessories are hairbrushes and pink dream houses and pink convertibles, etc.—i.e. her stuff—and whenever one of my daughters got a new Ken doll the first thing she’d do was rip all his clothing off, exposing his greatest lack (which is an interesting counterpoint to the non-Ken context of “men extenders).”

I can’t remember exactly what got me thinking about men extenders, but I know it came from a dialogue I had with my wife, where she posed a question along the lines of, “What are the quintessential men extenders?” It turns out to be a fascinating realm of exploration.

But first, some housekeeping

Look, I’m going to get into some ideas here involving what’s manly, and what a man ought to be able to do, and what it would actually mean to extend a man’s, well, manliness. (And no, that’s not a euphemism for his member—enough with that already!) Naturally there has been a lot of evolution, perhaps even revolution, lately about what it means to be a man and what ought to be expected of us. So I should state right up front that I’m not going to be so progressive as to ignore the past, or try to make this all about a new male paradigm, much less delve into the realm of non-binary. This post is about the traditional sex roles that, looking across the landscape of mankind, continue to be predominant: roles that even the most modern man—and woman—are still saddled with.

Yes, modern man is more civilized than he used to be, particularly in progressive countries (of which, say, Afghanistan would not be an example). We men have learned to dress better, scratch our groins less publicly, be a bit less dense about equality, and may more willingly share the boardroom with women, to a greater or lesser degree. But this doesn’t change, in my mind, the fact that we men have certain impulses—unconscious biases might be the better term—that we either quell or indulge, depending on our personalities, our position on the cultural spectrum, and the situation. What I’m getting at is, when our intellect, education, and breeding cause us to modify and refine our behavior, what is the knee-jerk behavior that’s being subdued?

My past and present have enabled me to come at the thing from both directions: the base primitive male and the educated, enlightened, housetrained modern man. Consider the following photo:

Look at the dazed look in my eyes. I was not just the kind of dad who bottle-fed his baby once in a while so he could get brownie points for having done so at all. For complicated reasons, I bottle-fed one of my babies a great deal, in lieu of sleep. And I changed a lot of diapers. How many? Well, if I were to say in the presence of my wife, “I reckon I changed about half of A—’s diapers,” she wouldn’t burst out laughing. (I actually tried this. She said, “Probably more like 40%,” and didn’t even roll her eyes.) On top of that, I am such a modern man, I am able to keep track of a non-cisgender person’s preferred pronouns when they have changed. (This surely seems like no big deal to Gen Z, but believe me, it’s not easy for my generation and I assure you, we are trying.)

And yet, evolved as I am, I am a person who over the course of his childhood was in a number of fistfights, and rather than looking back on those episodes in shame, I recall them wistfully—fondly, even. And although my now fully formed neocortex would prevent me from ever resorting to actual combat anymore, I still like to have an excuse to duke it out (metaphorically speaking) with some rando when I’m cycling (see here, here, and/or here). Many a woman would call this “macho bullshit,” and maybe it is, but I’m gonna own it … it’s my macho bullshit and I’m not giving it up (even though I did a huge load of dishes earlier).

For more on the topic of male impulses that won’t go away, click here. On the other hand, if you are so highly evolved that the last few paragraphs have triggered you, maybe it’s time to stop and go read something else instead.

So what are the quintessential men extenders?

As you saw earlier, the men extenders example given in “Barbie” is the horse. Certainly this makes sense; in an archetypal way, a man on horseback is utterly masculine … just think of the Marlboro Man. Of course, nobody rides horses anymore, and a modern man who can afford a horse and the land, stables, etc. required for one is probably more like a polo player than a cowboy … not exactly macho. It’s only because “Barbie” itself is so archetypal that this notion works in the movie.

So what about a motorcycle? Consider the Bon Jovi song “Wanted Dead or Alive” and its central lyric, “I’m a cowboy/On a steel horse I ride.” Frankly, I think this song kind of killed any chance of a motorcycle extending anyone’s manhood. The video, showing well-groomed pretty-faced rock stars playing in a stadium full of star-struck teenage girls, makes them come off as pretty much the opposite of an actual cowboy.

A truck? Now we’re getting somewhere. A big manly truck … built Ford tough, etc. I certainly see a lot of pickup trucks when I’m out biking, and it’s not uncommon for one to accelerate mightily as it passes me, as if to demonstrate something. If I’m riding with a pal when this happens, I’ll generally remark, “Wow … did you hear  the size of that guy’s testicles?” And more often than not, the dickhead who uses his pickup in that antisocial way is a well-upholstered middle-aged white guy and his truck is immaculate and probably never leaves the asphalt. In contrast to that, the smaller pickups that pass me, which invariably give me plenty of room, are usually more run-down, and are full of gardening tools (shovels, mowers, etc.) and driven by workmen, usually Chicano ones, like the guys who, in a few short hours, dug a deep trench in my backyard to install a French drain, while I watched from the kitchen window while doing dishes, feeling deeply inferior as a man.

Does this mean a big, expensive truck can’t be a men extender? Why, no. It’s just that a pristine Range Rover with leather seats exemplifies only wealth, not manliness, so there has to be more going on. Take, for example, my friend B— who drove a bunch of us to the Deschutes River recently to go inner tubing, and hauled everything in the back of his big pickup. Nothing about his payload that day was particularly impressive, but he mentioned that a pal gave him the truck because it was so old and beaten down it was getting hard to keep running. B— gladly accepted it because he has a lot of fun making little repairs to keep it on the road. And that is fundamental: the know-how that goes with the physical object. Bonus points for lashing a canoe to the roof and knowing all the right knots so it doesn’t slide off and maim somebody.

The more I ponder it, the more utility seems absolutely central to men extension. This is why, in fact, a beard or a tattoo or an ear gauge cannot be a men extender: because these decorations don’t do anything; anybody can choose to have one. It’s a sartorial thing done to you then you just parade it around, as frivolously as a fancy woman of old showing off with a big feathered hat.

Is know-how itself a men extender?

Not all know-how is a men extender; it has to be paired with the right object. For example, men who are really good with tech stuff, while they can earn legendary amounts of money, will always be considered a bit nerdy, and seeing these tech titans in action isn’t very impressive. “Look at how his fingers fly over that keyboard!” moaned no enraptured woman ever. And the C-suite types? Knowing how to properly tie a silk necktie isn’t a men-extending behavior, and the hoodies of the Mark Zuckerberg set are frankly childish. What about men who are just really good communicators? Tony Robbins might be worth $600 million, but he’s never going to star in an action movie or get a grill named after him. His tools—a ballroom and a microphone—aren’t the kind the guy next door would secretly covet. How about a telescope and a masterful knowledge of astronomy? Naw. No layman could ever appreciate whatever it is these oddballs see in the night sky. I myself got to see Halley’s Comet through a powerful telescope at an actual observatory, and it was pretty much the most boring thing ever.

I guess I’m not exactly unearthing the pure essence of men extenders here, but it’s like so many things: you know it when you see it.

The men extender I wish I had…

I myself cannot mourn not owning a beater pickup truck, or a canoe, or the earth-turning tools that (combined with laborer-grade sinews) might enable me to dig a giant trench in no time flat. Based on the gentrification of my neighborhood (which somehow transitioned from the Prius Belt to the Tesla Belt while I wasn’t looking), I don’t think my neighbors would appreciate a dilapidated F150 dripping oil on our street. Meanwhile, I don’t generally do much boating (in fact, when my wife and I have tried to canoe together, we just went in circles). And if I were a career gardener who needed a work truck, I probably wouldn’t earn enough money to live in Albany, and my kids needed good schools a lot more than they needed a manly dad. (In fact, having now left the nest, they scarcely need me at all anymore, which is fine I guess—I mean, it’s according to plan.)

But what I do long for, if I could just get my act together as a man, is a barbecue grill … and the know-how to use it. I mean, yeah, I could buy one of these giant gas grills that’s basically a stove you use outdoors, but I’m thinking more of something more traditional, like the classic Weber. Or, better yet, a giant commercial-type grill with the big ring you crank on to raise and lower that big blackened mechanism—a spit, is it?—that’s suspended by chains. You know, like you could roast a whole damn pig on (if you knew how). Because the fact is, I love barbecues, I love grilled meat, I love the smell of flaming lighter-fluid-soaked briquettes even if they’re deadly. And of course I’d love to extend my manhood … but even all these things put together aren’t enough to motivate me to actually buy a grill and learn how to use it. After all, I’m middle-aged, and already eat a dangerous amount of cheese, and had better look out for my health. Moreover, knowing I’d be buying this grill just to extend my masculinity … that seems somehow kind of wrong, kind of sad, kind of … well, emasculating, if that makes any sense.

My own favorite men extender

My wife assumed that to the extent I have any men extension, it would have to do with my racing bike, and my mountain bike, and the athleticism I’m able to pair with them. Honestly, I don’t think bicycles get the job done. Yes, I can ride them pretty effectively, but there’s really nobody around to see this except other cyclists, and at least on this side of the Atlantic the sport has never had the respect it deserves. Above all, a cyclist only propels himself along, and this doesn’t do anybody else any good. A fisherman with his own boat, especially like one of the guys in The Perfect Storm who braved horrific weather to haul swordfish out of the ocean, is very manly, as is a soldier, but some guy pedaling a bike faster than some other guys? Big deal.

My own favorite men extender is my toolbox, because it’s full of a lot of very cool bicycle-related tools that I actually know how to use, and which keep my family’s entire fleet going. Ditto my workbench and my smattering of household tools (drill, hacksaw, wood saw, etc.). Also ditto the tools I carry mountain biking paired with my ability to fix a student-athlete’s bike when it breaks down on the trail. Some of these bike-related tools are weird enough that the layman wouldn’t have any idea what they do. Others, like my wheel truing stand, have an obvious purpose but the layman wouldn’t know where to start. (Truing a wheel, by adjusting the tension on each spoke, is a real art and most DIY types could only cause harm with such tools.)

And what’s my absolute favorite tool? That’s a tough one, but I guess I’d have to say my Dremel rotory tool. It’s kind of like a drill, but you can put various different cutting bits on it, the coolest being a disc-shaped blade that will pretty much cut through anything. Sparks fly everywhere, which looks cool. The first time I encountered this phenomenon—though with some even cooler tool in my dad’s machine shop—I  asked him, “What are all those orange sparks?” He said they were tiny bits of molten metal. “Won’t they burn you?” I asked. He said by the time they hit you they’ve cooled off enough. So I think being brushed by a shower of sparks is actually kind of pleasant. (Of course I wear safety goggles—I’m not an idiot.)

Recently I bought a bike from a pal, and it came with a U-lock, hanging from the top tube, that alas lacked a key (thanks to my pal’s typically clueless teenager). I think I got a bit of a discount based on the hassle of that lock. But I had it off within minutes using the Dremel.

I used my Dremel again the other day, cutting a metal plate out of a giant cooking pot it’d gotten stuck in, and I mentioned to my wife, probably not for the first time, “The Dremel blade spins at ten times the speed of a drill.” Without grabbing my biceps, my wife did not say, “Get over here, you big hunk.” In fact, I don’t even thing she was listening. And that’s perhaps the most interesting thing about men extenders: I don’t think women even notice them. Women just aren’t tuned into that stuff.

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