It's a cruel online world out there

I've had a roller coaster couple of days in the blogosphere. First, the nice and newly famous host of Suburban Kamikaze linked to my blog and even posted Barguments on her virtual bookshelf. (Do we still say "virtual" or does that sound lame?)

Then Sam Sessa, who must be eliminated so I can take his job, wrote about Barguments on his nightlife blog at the Baltimore Sun, where he recounts all the fun bars he has visited and asks for hints on where to go next. Lots of great comments on that post-- including this bargument suggested by "Andrew"

What's the best cure for hiccups?

Among the suggestions: spoonful of peanut butter, pinching your nose and chugging a glass of water while someone holds your nose, and a lemon with bitters.

But my favorite came from the very first posting, by "Drew." He wrote:

The best discussion I ever had was: What would
be the best name for a bar?
(My personal favorite is 'The Stumble Inn')

That's good stuff.

But then came the Barguments debut on Puntabulous.com, this great blog that hosts bargument-like debates and fixates on television. I had Simon & Schuster send the host, Craig, a book, and he posted a nice mention this morning. (I think he's all of 22 and gets more hits per day than most of my stories at the Miami Herald.)

Anyway, Craig can post something about his alarm clock or Godzilla on Valentine's Day and get 35 comments in a few hours (note the reptile with a heart above, which I stole from Puntabulous). But the Barguments post only received 11 comments, and I think I secretly provided three of them. And the Barguments Blog barely got any clicks from the site, despite Puntabulous receiving nearly 900 visits THAT DAY.

Oh well, at least the Baltimore bar flies seem to like me...

My college buddy Drew works for a major, world-famous and incredibly troubled investment house on Wall Street. Lots of anxiety about jobs over there. That explains why today Drew submitted 16 barguments to barguments.com.

But hey, others can worry about billions in write-downs. Who else would take the time to wonder whether Shaquille O'Neal or Ray Lewis would be a better member of a rugby team? Thank you, Drew.

Celebrity mash-ups (see how current I am!-- wait, did I use "mash-up" correctly? Better send out a Facebook message to see-- wait, there I go again...) always make for great barguments, though they quickly become dated. Something tells me the Bargument in the book about the American Choppers guys won't be helping sales a year from now on the remainder tables.

All of which makes this Drewgument so brilliant:

Would you partake in a 30-minute orgy with any A-List celebrity of your choice, knowing a video of your complete performance would be leaked to millions on the internet?

Barguments goes to Bawmer

Sam Sessa, who the Baltimore Sun pays to go to bars, wrote about Barguments in his nightlife blog. He's planning on posing some barguments from the book this week, and then have his readers bargue it out in the comments section. His first pick: Which are more fun: Friday nights or Saturday nights.

I say Friday, because it's so nice to be at your desk at the start of an hour and then on a barstool at the end of the hour. It certainly makes the beer taste better.

In honor of this honor, I posted the same bargument on barguments.com.

Visit Sam's blog, Midnight Sun, and post your answer. Extra points if you write it with a Baltimore accent.

Barguments goes upscale

Here's Hector, perhaps Barguments' No. 1 fan, starting some buzz for the book at the pooldeck of the very fancy Sonesta hotel in Coconut Grove. How fancy? They didn't even have Miller Lite. Don't be spooked by the hazy blob in the top of the photo. It's an unexplained phenomenon.

This is Danet Linares, local Miami real estate mover and shaker, enjoying Barguments at frequent Barguments stop, Flannigan's.

The Barguments.com Leaderboard

Barguments.com has begun attracting some submissions of new barguments from longtime barguments fans (read: my friends).

Meanwhile, the site seems to be getting OK traffic-- some of the barguments have 30 votes, and the site only allows one vote per IP address. That means there shouldn't be too many duplicate votes, unless you're voting at home and at work (which is encouraged).

It seems like a good time to analyze how these new barguments are doing. I've found it's hard to tell which barguments will be hits, and which will be guillotines.

[Guillotine is the term I use for barguments where everyone picks the same option. It was born late one night at Flannigans when a friend of mine, Tadd, thought he had a golden bargument: If you're in a guillotine, would you want to face up or face down? We couldn't think of many people who would pick face up. I believe Tadd was face down fairly quickly after that night ended.]

Have we had any hits yet from the Barguments.com submitters?

YES! Mike V. of Easton, MD (really, my cousin, Michael Valliant; read his blog about his insane jogging addiction) came up with one that has garned 26 votes and has remained almost tied since appearing on the site. The bargument: Pick the superior guitar legend between Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Hendrix has the edge now, but expect that to change soon. And I thought classic rock died off in the early 90s...

Now, to balance that out with a couple guillotines....

Prolific submitter Drew H. of NYC (an old college buddy and long-time fixater on all things odd) has given us a couple that haven't exactly divided the room. Drew came up with one I thought was gold: would you rather get a check for $500 or $1,000 worth of loose pennies? Everyone picked the pennies.

Not me-- how could you even receive 100,000 pennies? How could you cash them in? Wouldn't there be a fee involved? Would the spread be worth it?

Then again, I've produced quite a few guillotines. How many slices of pizza make a meal? Almost everyone picked three. Shouldn't have put that one in the book.

Another Drew-gument: would you rather jog a mile on a hot day in jeans and a sweater, or on a sub-freezing day in shorts and a T-shirt? Everyone picked the cold day. I was surprised. Can you even survive wearing shorts in 15 degrees? I know I can't run fast enough to stand that cold, but I live in Miami.

Today Drew sent me an email headlined "I plan to prove my worthiness..." with a bargument I think will be a hit:

Would you take steroids for a year if you thought your current salary would triple?

A tempting choice. A kooky dilemma. Personal risk for material gain. Many of the elements of BARGUMENTS GOLD!

I remember sitting in a student lounge at the University of Richmond in the early 1990s, reading a one-paragraph Newsweek item about how the Internet was expected to become much more popular with the coming introduction of an interface that made it easier to see graphics and images online. It was called the "World Wide Web."

I can't recall where that fell on the cyberspace evolution timeline. I'm pretty sure the word "cyberspace'' was still common. Now it sounds dated. Remember the "Information Superhighway?" We should have known that wasn't long for this world: even "superhighway" sounded like something you'd hear in the 50s. "Did you hear they're building a highway with FOUR lanes?! It's a SUPER-highway."

But I seem to have missed a major online development. When did we stop having to use "www" when typing in web addresses? I sort of noticed that only stodgy newspapers still include "www" when writing about websites. And most of us have dropped "www" from our vocabulary - it's amazon.com and godaddy.com, etc. But am I the only one still typing it in to my browser window?

Maybe I'm wrong, but the no-www rule seems to apply to every web address I try -- including (of course) barguments.com and barguments.blogspot.com.

It's sort of a shocking development -- as if, you one day realized you don't have to dial "1" anymore when calling long-distance. (Long distance, adj., a phrase used in the parlance of "land line" telephones, in which users are charged more for placing phone calls to areas outside their immediate location. The phrase lost meaning with the advent of celluar communication.)

Not to obsess, but the Barguments page on Facebook has dropped from 26 fans to 25 fans. Who is this person that decided they're no longer a fan of a book that has not yet been released? Most of the fans who signed up are people I know, so I've been scrolling through the roster to see who's missing.

My Malaysians all seem to be accounted for. (Barguments had a surge of popularity among Malaysians one week.) Suspicion now falls on Miami Herald people -- I can't remember who had signed up before.

Was it you? Just go back and become a fan again. No questions asked.