this blog of mine

I’ve done a few tweaks to the site to make it more appealing to me and the bots that visit:

• simplified color scheme (header is now white), for a more spartan look that is all minimalist and such
• changed the logo from a cartoon image of me to a cartoonish image of me (I will change this periodically)
• changed the tag “bad design” to a category
• added Writing prompts as a category
• added Lists as a category (I need to add a bunch of posts to this; the criteria is that the post must be centered around a list, not simply include one
• done some experimentation with Font Awesome in titles and posts to add visual interest. For example, a book review could have a book icon that says, “Hey, this is probably a book review!” Like so:
• started tossing in more images to again make with the visual flair. You can never have too much flair, as we know.
• changed the titles to a cheerful green to make people happy for visiting
• continued to scrupulously avoid the use of emoji or emoticons

I’ll continue to make more tweaks in the new year. I’m also considering moving the site to a dedicated host that would allow me to spend less time on the plumbing and more time on writing inane posts.

On December 18, 2016, the number of people/bots/aliens that visited my site were: 0

I even posted a pretty winter picture that day. You could even use it as a nice wallpaper if you cropped it badly. Maybe just use it as is and add scrolling columns of “Damn snow” on both sides of it. The point is I had new content and no one came to look at it, not even by accident.

But that’s okay because the minor amusement value in pseudo-complaining about it more than makes up for the fact that over 7 billion people exist on this planet and on December 18th not one of them came by to have a look-see at this blog. And if one or more of them comes by today, they’ll see this post and maybe feel bad, which will provide further minor amusement value.

As I’ve noted already November 2016 has been a month of disappointments and general awfulness. This blog has been hit by inactivity on both ends–the author (me) has been flailing about and not writing and even the few souls who randomly arrive on the site completely checked out on November 25th as seen in the site stats below:

The gap you see means there were no visitors on that day. Not that this site has been hugely busy on other days, as the same chart shows. The taller bars represent 15-17 unique visitors. I tried calculating what percentage of the world’s population that is (currently over 7.46 billion and climbing) but let me just tell you: it’s a pretty small number.

I’ve also changed the header of the site to include an actual image of my mug (passed through a Prisma filter). Further changes are to come as I prepare for the bold, brash year to come that is 2017, the year when we all snap awake and laugh with relief when we all realize 2016 was just a crazy dream!

Also, I went to Metrotown today, not really considering that this is Black Friday weekend or whatever you want to call it. The usual madness of the mall was magnified about five times. I’d ask what was I thinking but I was clearly not thinking at all. But worming my way through the crowds before I decided escape was the only sane course of action did push me toward my daily step goal. See? Lemonade from lemons. I’m such a glass-half-full kinda guy.

The WordPress dashboard is surprisingly complete on my iPhone 6 but I can’t say that pecking out a post on the tiny onscreen keyboard is exactly fun.

Consider this then just another in my ongoing efforts to post to my blog on every conceivable type of device.

Next up: posting from a television!

When the jogging updates dried up in the second half of the month my general writing inspiration also withered away and so here I am well short of my post-a-day ratio on the final day of May. There’s a little under two hours left in the month as I write this and I could bang out ten lame haikus, one per post, in order to meet the goal of 31 posts for the month but that would be dirty cheating.

Instead, I will admit defeat and resolve to do better in June. On the plus side there is one fewer day in June than May, so that’s already aces, as the kids say.

Here’s a writing haiku I should probably print out poster-size and slap on the wall above my monitor and everywhere else:

Writing is easy
All you do is start writing
Remember, don’t stop

I’ve finally added a few more posts to the little “Posts I Like” thing over to the right (or at the bottom if you’re on a mobile device). These are posts that I find amusing/terrifying or somehow worth noting. Of note is the brief, tragic “Learning to Swim” saga.

Enjoy!

I’ve removed the ol’ tag cloud that I’ve had on the site for the past hundred years or so as tag clouds are becoming passe, like parachute pants and a stable global climate. Instead I’m using a widget that now groups the tags into a dropdown menu so you can easily (assuming you have a robust scroll wheel on your mouse or energetic finger for your mobile device) peruse all 463 of them.

My post-to-tag ratio is clearly out of whack as making random tags I’ll only ever use once (364 of 463) is almost as fun as making lists. And I love making lists so much people do indeed ask me, “Why don’t you marry them?”

Because I used the “l” word, here’s a list of my five most-used tags:

1. he’s got legs (97)
2. he’s got (tired) legs 91
3. Africa hot (67)
4. random stuff (67)
5. book reviews (63)

Summary: I like talking about my legs a lot (ie. jogging), I regularly complain about the heat (see above, re: stable global climate), I have a lot of thoughts just drift into my head, and finally, I review most of the books I read. Who knew?

I spent some time thinking–several long minutes–over what to write for the one-thousandth post of this blog.

Should it be something deeply profound and insightful? Haha, no. I’m not about to take the blog in some bold, new direction.

How about a list? I love lists. This was very tempting but collating a list about the blog, such as links to “the best my brain could come up with” posts felt too much like work and a random list didn’t seem worthy.

A haiku? They’re fun and simple. But lazy, really. Doesn’t this milestone deserve something that takes more than a few seconds to dash off? Probably not, but I can pretend it does.

After mulling these three ideas my several minutes of thinking was over and here I am.

I now present all three below. What tremendous blogging value I give to the several people accidentally stumbling across the site because I wrote “Zachary Quinto naked” into this post.

Something deeply profound and insightful

I don’t actually have anything for this but take a look at this Wikipedia article on the Observable Universe and try wrapping your mind about how big it is, how small we are and just what the heck is out past the part we can’t observe, anyway? I say space monsters.

[box title=”A list of the 10 most-used tags on this blog in a fancy box” box_color=”#329242″] 59 he’s got legs
57 random stuff
46 he’s got (tired) legs
40 Africa hot
33 random thoughts
32 stupid ankle
28 damn snow
27 National Novel Writing Month
27 book reviews
27 weather you like it or not[/box]

This list demonstrates several things, leading to a bonus list (but not in a fancy box):

• I’m obsessed with my legs, admittedly the sexiest part of my body.
• I’m also obsessed with randomness. What is the difference between random stuff and random thoughts? A good question.
• I complain about the weather. How trite and predictable. Expect more starting this summer.
• I’m determined to write novels in 30 days or less.
• I am at least semi-literate, having read and reviewed several books.
• I am not above puns or terrible wordplay.

A haiku about my blog

What to write each time
A never ending challenge
No naked Quinto

One of the plugins I use on this blog is Better WP Security. Among its features it records any bad login entries. These are people and/or bots trying to enter the admin area of the blog by trying out various username/password combos, hoping to get lucky so they can do all manner of nefarious deeds once allowed in.

As you might guess, the most common username used in these attempts is “admin” and it’s why basic security has you change it from “admin” to anything else (I’ve done this, in case any bots are reading).

Sometimes the username entered is more curious than “admin”. For example:

Bernardo1133

Did Bernardo get misdirected or confused? Did he think he was signing into his own blog? What are the other 1132 Bernardos up to, anyway?

BroderickCrook

Oh, I just bet you are a crook, Broderick! Nice try, buddy.

creolened

Clever bot. But not clever enough.

DebWordenrfai

This one may have been trying to login to World of Warcraft.

What’s sad is the number of legitimate visits to the site is usually in the range of less than 10 per day, meaning the blog on average is more than ten times as popular as a potential hacking target than as something to read. On the plus side that less-than-ten number is still more people than ever read my paper journal.