PDD Shop Talk Posts

Monthly Grovel: Time to tip your servers

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It takes a lot of geek hours to keep this website going strong. So once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support.

Mayor Larson knows a perfect Duluth day when she sees one

Minneapolis Southwest Journal: “Klobuchar launches 2020 campaign from Boom Island

A parade of local Democratic officials emphasized that grit as they took turns at the podium in the lead-up Klobuchar’s speech. That included a trio of Minnesota mayors: Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, Johnathan Judd of Moorhead and Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, who described the weather conditions — temperatures in the teens under falling snow — as “a perfect Duluth day.”

Also, from WDIO-TV Eyewitness News: “Klobuchar appears on Good Morning America

One of the supporters who spoke at the announcement was Emily Larson, mayor of Duluth. “We call this a perfect Duluth Day! Or spring, or summer,” Larson joked with the large crowd.

Monthly Grovel: PDD Calendar holds out its hand again

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An important message from Perfect Duluth Day’s Redundant Department of Redundancy:

It takes a lot of geek hours to keep this website going strong. So once a month we set our dignity aside and remind readers how much we appreciate their financial support.

Duluth’s Best Website

In 2011 Perfect Duluth Day chose as its official slogan “Duluth’s Duluthiest Website.” It was a statement we felt pretty confident making. Maybe other Duluth websites are better, but certainly none are Duluthier.

But this week we’ve been wondering if PDD truly is Duluth’s best website. This line of thinking was prompted by the Duluth Reader weekly newspaper conducting a poll and ultimately publishing in its Jan. 31 “Best of the Northland” issue that PDD won the title of “Best Local Website.”

Ten Years of Perfect Duluth Day on WordPress

Hunkered down at PDD World Headquarters, problem solving the switch to WordPress in 2009: Cory Fechner, Scott Lunt, Paul Lundgren and Barrett Chase.

Ten years ago — Jan. 30, 2009 — Perfect Duluth Day made the big leap to the WordPress publishing platform. Specifically, the upgrade was from Movable Type version 3.2 to WordPress version 2.8. These days PDD is on WordPress version 4.9.9. But enough nerdspeak.

Monthly Grovel: PDD Calendar accepting donations

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Happy 2019, Perfect Duluth Day readers! It’s been almost ten years since PDD began selling sidebar advertising to support the development of the content you read here, and it’s been more than seven years since the PDD Calendar was launched. Over those spans of time, two things have become abundantly clear: 1) There is a strong demand for the content on PDD. 2) Advertising revenue doesn’t come close to paying for the human resources necessary to produce it.

So back in September we quietly put a donation bar on the page where event organizers submit PDD Calendar listings. Bits of funding began trickling in … $5 here, $30 there … and it’s been a big help. Now we’re reaching out to readers.

PDD Job Opening: Sell square boxes for fun and profit

Two seasoned professionals are about to leave the Perfect Duluth Day Media Empire. Brianna Hall-Nelson is moving to Denver to further her education; Brian Timm is giving up his PDD side-hustle to focus more on his work as a kitchen and bath designer.

That means Duluth’s Duluthiest website is looking for a new person to join its crew selling the advertisements that so handsomely stack on the right column of pages on this website (or in between the content if you are looking at PDD on a smartphone).

Click here to read the full job description and find out how to apply.

Brianna has been with PDD for three years, and Brian for eight. We’ll miss having them on the precipice of our tabernacle, tickling our 50 and sharing in other inside jokes that make no sense outside the PDD siblinghood. And we look forward to meeting the newbie and developing a whole new “slanguage.”

“Where in Duluth?” PDD 15th Anniversary Challenge Recap

 

Here’s a storymap that sums up the “Where in Duluth?” PDD 15th Anniversary Challenge and the winners.

PDD Job Opening: Assistant to the Calendar Editor

How does Perfect Duluth Day publish 800 events per month in its online events calendar? Through the hard work of Tony Bennett, Jessica Morgan and the occasional intern, that’s how. Sadly, Jessica will be leaving Duluth soon, and if someone new isn’t quickly found to help Tony he’ll collapse on his laptop and weep uncontrollably.

So here’s another rare opportunity to get inside the PDD media empire and earn slightly above minimum wage with no benefits while working in pajamas. Read the full job description on the PDD employment page.

Happy 14th birthday to us

Today marks 14 years since Barrett Chase and Scott Lunt launched Perfect Duluth Day. Celebrate with us tonight at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake from 5 to 7 p.m. There will be live music by Woodblind and free coleslaw.

Pressroom Podcast: PDD on the DNT


Click the lil’ triangle above to hear a 37-minute podcast about Perfect Duluth Day on the eve of its 14th anniversary.

Duluth News Tribune Pressroom Podcast hosts Christa Lawler and Brady Slater talk with PDD grand poobah Paul Lundgren, food and drink reporter Lissa Maki, and PDD co-founder Barrett Chase (who left PDD in 2015 to become a web editor at the DNT).

Perfect Duluth Day’s 14th birthday party is Thursday, June 29, from 5-7 p.m. at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. Free coleslaw while supplies last!

Answer eleven questions, potentially win $100

PDDMarketingWeaselEvery two years or so, the Perfect Duluth Day Marketing Weasel crawls out from behind his desk and demands a survey be conducted. The purpose is to gather information to aid in the selling of little square advertisements to fund the operation of this website. In order to make this infiltration of PDD’s blog content space seem tolerable, the survey is kept to a simple one-page, eleven-question, completely optional task with a $100 prize drawing when the survey period ends.

The survey is now complete; thanks to those who participated.

If you are offended about even being asked, we understand. All we can do is meekly apologize and point out PDD’s content is always offered completely free to readers. We don’t run pop-up ads, we don’t scramble our pages like ugly jigsaw puzzles with cheesy animations and auto-playing videos. We just run a few modest little promotional squares for businesses that are almost entirely local and reputable. (There is one ad dished out by Google Adsense that we roll our eyes at from time to time, but that’s as bad as it gets.)

PDD Herzog Zone

If you’ve followed Perfect Duluth Day for any length of time you know one of the more prolific commenters is “Helmut Flaag,” who for a five-year stretch went under the handle “Herzog.” I’m often curious about whether people enjoy his contributions or find them annoying.

Personally, and as one of the moderators of PDD, I have mixed feelings. I often find Helmut/Herzog’s remarks to be well crafted and amusing, but they occasionally consist of a flurry of antagonistic threadjacks about how lumbersexuals are destroying rock and roll with their old-time banjo music.

So it’s time to start a thread specifically dedicated to our mysterious opinionated friend.

PDD Holiday Socks

pdd-reindeer-socks

We’re going to try something, offering some PDD Holiday swag for you to sport at your holiday gatherings. You can pre-order some Warhol-ish funky socks with the PDD smokin’ reindeer on them.

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If 20 or more people order them, the order goes through, and everyone receives socks in about 4 weeks. If less than 20 people order, they don’t get made. So spread the news, we’ve only got 7 days.

Click here to order:
bakdrop.com/products/perfectduluthday

You are not a robot

pdd-recaptchaPerfect Duluth Day blog administrators have noticed an increase recently in the number of users changing their passwords, and we’ve also had a few people write to us indicating their login process is being thwarted with the phrase: “Error: You have entered an incorrect reCAPTCHA value.”

So heads up if you are having trouble logging in: As annoying as it is, you have to remember to check the box that reads “I am not a robot.”

This extra step was implemented a month or so ago to keep out the robots that create accounts on PDD, log in, and attempt to post spam. Until we create good robots to kill the evil robots, the reCAPTCHA box will be necessary. You don’t have to enter any words or pass any picture box test in most cases, unless maybe you log in from a place you don’t usually log in. But you must check the box.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!