Another Tough Election Choice (and Poll #13)

Like many of you out there, I've spent several hours every day over the past few months poring over polls and analyzing charts and watching numbers and reading analysis and watching 24-hour news coverage of the elections. I'd guess it's an addiction, but I won't be sure until I read about it on a reputable political analysis site. I'll just obsessively refresh fivethirtyeight.com to see if baseball stat genius Nate Silver has done any number-crunching analysis on election poll-watching addiction for people in the Northeast ages 25-32.

He hasn't.

Still hasn't.

So that's where most of my time drifts away these days. What may be the most exciting election I'll ever watch is just five days away from being OVER. Just FIVE days away from having a new government after 8 awful years of the worst fear-mongering, ignorant, impotent, belligerent, incompetent Executive branch of my lifetime.

FAILURE.

Of course when I looked at the two candidates this time around, one thing really stood out:

Notice anything four-stringed about this candidate?

So we have Hawaiian Barack Obama, who probably loves the uke, vs. this angry fellow:


My friends, YEEEAARRRRRRGH!!

I suspect my decision will match most of the readers at Ukulala, at least based on the "scientific" data from this Ukulala poll a few months ago:


John "McStupid" (who said I was juvenile? I'll bite you!) comes in at a whopping 4%.

More people prefer 1992's premiere chartman (Perot) AND/OR electing an inanimate order of McDonald's French Fries president than that agitated uke-smashing Bushonomics-loving old man.

Whatever your choice, vote Tuesday, November 4th as early as you can!

Poll #12: Hello Musicians!

Remember a long time ago when I first released the results of poll #1 and found out most Ukulala visitors were a bunch of drunks? Well, the results of poll #12 are now in!

...so what happened to polls #2 through #11...? See, I was going to do them in order, but then I had a bunch of problems with poll #2. Poll #2, as described here, was supposed to be a song that was based on the poll results. Unfortunately, it isn't entirely trivial to post mp3s on blogger. I would have to sign up for third-party web hosting and include a link, and find a compatible [player, and it just became a hassle that I decided to deal with later.

But I didn't want to release the poll results out of order, so I just didn't do write-ups on any of them. Now I think I'll just try to bang them out in whatever order I feel like, but I will get to them all! In that spirit, the most recent poll was:

Have you ever recorded your own music?

A: Yes, plenty of times. (54%)
B: Yes, once or twice. (31%)
C: No... not yet. (8%)
D: No, I just love to listen. (8%)

Wow! 85% of Ukulala visitors have recorded their own music, and half of those who haven't are planning on it someday.

That's awesome.

I'd love to hear what you have recorded........ PLEASE post links to your music in the comments, or email me at askukulala@yahoo.com.

If you'd like me to, I'll let you know what I think--in a very honest and possibly cruel and brutal fashion!

Poll #1: Buncha Alcoholics

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've added a weekly poll to get a better feel for who it is that stumble across this site and stay long enough to click a radio button.

So the results of the first poll are in, and it ain't pretty:

What's your favorite thing to do on a Friday night?
Get drunk and party!: 53%
Get drunk and watch TV: 23%
Drink and go to sleep early: 15%
I'm homeless: 7%

This data suggests that a whopping 93% of ukulala visitors list "drinking" as part of their favorite things to do on a Friday night. I'm not one to judge, but that might not be a sign of sobriety. At least the majority (53%) like to party while they're drunk.

38% of all ukulala visitors favorite thing to do on a friday night is to drink and go to sleep early or watch TV. That's not a healthy lifestyle.

Perhaps even more worrisome is that 7% of the people who end up on ukulala are homeless. That is really very sad. I'm sorry. I have no idea how you're getting internet access, but homeless people: if you are reading this, you are in the wrong place. Nothing here will help you--I recommend you find a local concerned community organization, or a shelter to help you through this difficult time.

Poll #1 Analysis: Basically, the results of the first poll suggest ukulala visitors up to this point might just be a room of people at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting logging on to pass the time before their next drink.


The next poll ("What's your FAVORITE instrument?" over on the right or wayyyy at the bottom in IE) will help me determine the musical tastes of this mysterious room full of recovering and current homeless alcoholics.

Since we're (and I say "we" because ukulala is Paz and Flora) learning how to make music as an exercise, we will also make a small song based on the poll results. The song will be instrumental, with each instrument used in the proportion it appears in the final results of the poll. It will be a bit more complicated than that because the ukulele will be throughout the song by default, and the last option ("I hate ukuleles") will remove the ukulele by that percentage from the song.

i.e. if the final poll this week says 95% tambourine and 5% drums, the song will be 100% ukulele with 95% tambourine and just a tiny 5% drums. Does that make sense? No? Well, sober up and read it again.


Still no? Whatever, that's how it's gonna work.

ALSO: I've got some good questions so far from the Ask Ukulala Anything box over on the left (and several bad ones which I will answer now: no, I don't have any booze i can send you), so I'm getting ready to post another set of answers. If you want your question in this volume, now's the time to ask it.

Now with weekly poll! (and a cowboy on a ukulele)

In an effort to get to know the people who stumble across ukulala after misspelling 'ukulele' in their google search (the ukulala "base", as I call them), I am adding a weekly poll question to the site.

It's over on the right for most people, way at the bottom if your browser is IE (why? I have no idea).

The use of non-scientific polls with tiny tiny sample sizes will let me make broad sweeping generalizations of who you are. Also, the more I know the more I can cater my posts perfectly to YOU (...Henry!).

And I've made it easier to ask a question in the Ask Ukulala Anything box (only the question field is required now), because my super-sophisticated web-based traffic tracker says several people tried to ask a question and failed because they didn't fill in all the required fields. And that's a waste.

In the last post I promised this post would be about ukuleles, so just as a little history lesson, here's a classic historical shot of the early days of the ukulele:




Can you tell why they called this the "Wild West" period in ukulele evolution?

It's cause of the tuning pegs. Before they were regulated by federal law in 1907, they could be any shape. Those were truly different days.