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Tandaleo,
the Jungle Priestess, rides a zebra bareback and hunts
giant otters. She is blond, wears bicep bracelets
and a brown bullet-bra leotard, or at least I think
she does. I’ve never met her, only seen a picture.
You cannot expect a picture to fully capture the essence
of a person, especially if it looks like it’s been lifted
from a Revenge of the Amazon Woman comic book.
Trust
is tough on the internet. For example, one minute
you can be discussing the finer points of worm composting
with wriggles33—an investment banker from central Indiana
with a penchant for potworms—on the Worm Digest posting
board. You become suspicious of wriggles33 when
you start to notice aberrant “likes,” “y’alls” and an
informed reference to Charmed on the WB.
When pressed, wriggles33 admits to being Staci, the
treasurer of her 4H club and a twirler in her high school’s
marching band. Staci, Staci, what will they say
in your youth group? Don’t worry, though.
Your secret is safe with me!!! LOL, ROFLMAO ;)
I
mention Tandaleo, the Jungle Priestess, because she
was the first stranger to link her
website to mine.
Granted, prancyhorse.com was not featured as prominently
as the website on the history of butter or Conway Twitty’s
unofficial fan club, but I’ll take anything I can get
at this point. Building a global presence is difficult,
especially if you are banking on the marketability of
a dastardly, reactionary Lippizaner stallion with a
pink coat and salmon mane. You’ve got to appreciate
your allies, be they VPs of Sales for the Pacific Rim
or Tandaleo, the Jungle Priestess.
A
couple of weeks ago, I signed up for a free service
that tracks visitors to my website. It lets me
know how many people visit the website and were they
live. I learned that 8% of my audience is in the
U.K. My parents live in the U.K.; I surmise that
this is not a coincidence. Sadly, the web data
also indicates that I am 52% of my audience. On
the positive side, somebody in Costa Rica accessed prancyhorse.com,
unless the statistics service confused San Jose, Costa
Rica with San Jose, California.
----
It’s
been several days since I first joined forces with Tandeleo,
the Jungle Priestess. I decided to look her up
again, possibly to establish a rapport and cement our
partnership. Alas, our union was fleeting.
Prancyhorse.com no longer graces the pages of her website.
What’s more, it appears that my “Tandy, JP” was not
honest with her fans, seeing as how she’s changed her
name to “morbidly obese (& lovin' it!)” and looks
like the sumo wrestler Akibono, now in need of his own
bullet bra.
I
knew full well that I couldn’t expect a traditional
working relationship with Tandy, but why did she have
to trade in the zebra? Trust is tough on the internet.
Mr.
Lewis can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.
Copyright
Jeff Lewis, 2004 |
