November 22, 2004

Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows

Keep your eye on this spot, as this post will continue to grow until such point as I fall asleep, or . . . Hmmmmm . . . Naw, the possibility of that pipe dream occurrin' is ever so highly remote, let's jes' stick with the point where I fall asleep. Actually, we mostly have to wait on the navel to conclude whatever 'portent thin' it is schemin' up and ain't yet ready to disclose. A plan to be hatched, which hopefully doesn't involve a hatchet.

6:55 PM If'n ya have already read all the scrumptious goodies I placed upon the electronic page throughout today, ya can always go over to Ozguru's and laugh your silly head off. God created . . . Still, there are those Commandments to think of, me thinks. I'll ask George 'bout it.

7:04 PM Between 4:30 PM and 5:30 PM, I reviewed the top 20 recently updated blogs on my primary blogroll and, for 80% of 'em, either linked a story or left a comment. I intended to make it 100% but found there were times when I jes' really had nothin' to add 'cause I had no interest in the subject of the post. Still, 80% seems like a pretty fair guide-line, doncha think? I really 'spect that we could all use a bit more linky-love, right now. As for my own blog readin' practices, I generally 'tempt to read down through the most recent 5 posts or to the next previously read one, whichever comes first. Regrettably, in accordance with my own beliefs in the Golden Rule, that leaves a wide loophole here on my own blog on those few occasions when I become afflicted, as I did today, with bloggorhea.*

7:35 PM I have previously inquired on this very issue, but, on such occasion, received only three responses, the majority of which wanted a continuation of publication in dialectic. However, in the ever ongoing effort to increase my readership, I am definitely willing to reintroduce this subject for commentary. What say ye? 1. Do you like it better like this, or 2. ain't it jes' a bit more interestin' if I continue doin' it like this?

8:07 PM I have previously discussed how much better I like StatCounter than SiteMeter. First off, as I am usin' both totally gratis, I only have the utmost respect for both operations for the grand service they provide for those of us who can so sorely afford and are too stupid to write whatever program, script, or gizmo it takes to do what it is that they do. Although a large factor, my like for the one over the other has a lot less to do with the difference in the number of visitors each seems to find each day than on other things. Jes' to give ya a clue 'bout the difference in visitation numbers, however, lemme advise ya that when I installed StatCounter on April 17 of this year, I started it with the exact same count I had on the SiteMeter on that date. It was between 35 and 40K, but I cannot find anywhere to reference the exact number. You can see that there is now a remarkable difference in the visitor count between the two on this date. However, as I said, that is not what I like best about StatCounter. It tells ya ever'thin'. I get lists of the search terms, as I have previously discussed, and there are some real perverts out there. Ya ought to see some o' the word strings I find in the list. Ya can guarantee if there is the word "lips" plugged into a search engine with any other possible word you could think of, it will likely give my site a high return. I love words and feel I have a fairly large vocabulary, though, not necessarily as large as some.* Anyway, I have a tendency to scatter various words here and there in my postin'. Well, here on Read My Lips, we got both your ever'day Monthly Archives and some really post-filled Category Archives. If ya drop by regularly, ya likely noticed that I can be quite prolific at times. Checkin' through these lists of search terms, I often see where someone has hit my site on the most disgustin' search terms. My jaw drops and slack-jawed I sit silently, wonderin' how in the heck did my site come up where that subject was concerned. I regularly jes' find that they had simply accessed one of my large archive pages where one of the terms was in one post and the other was in a completely unrelated post. Of course, my friends, what is really interestin' is that I also get a whole lot of information about the person who used such search terms to find my site. I 'specially like checkin out their country of origin, and am findin' that the French might not be the most decadent society on earth, though they are still showin' a fascination with decapitation. It actually proves a very large amount of information about ever' visitor. There is easy-to-access information on length of visit and the number of return visits. I checked on their upgrade package, and thought the subscription prices were fair, but my income is still a bit too unstable to take on another monthly bill, no matter how small. Besides, my visitation volume is not yet so large that I can't live with jes' seein' the stats of my last 100 visitors. My current daily visitation average is 231, but I check my stats, on average, more than twice a day. At the current rate, there jes' ain't too much that goes on with relation to this blog, visitor-wise that I ain't savvy-wise.

9:42 PM Now ain't this a thought that runs through my head several times a day?

11:08 PM Navel's plot came up empty. In other words, navel laid a big egg.*** End of report.

[Addendum: 11:24 PM Blame it on Eric:

orlando
Virginia Woolf: Orlando. You are a challenge, for
outer events, the outside world, the time etc.
play no importance to you. Your focus is in
writing, in gender issues, and inside your own
head. Self-analysis and exploration of yourself
as well as the outer world hold great
importance to you.


Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Gender issues? Egads! I surely hope not. I got problems, but I know what I got in my pants and that anyone's pants that I wanna get into ain't got in their pants what I got in mine, ~in my best Will Smith impression~ if ya know what I mean. But, then, ag'in, like most of these Quizilla thingies, there really were more questions posed than possible results. End of Addendum.]

*I jes' guessed that the linked post was the earliest use of the term, but it is jes' my best guess. Feel free to do further research if such floats your boat. I, however, did also find this post which 'splains how such possibly evolved to become the appropriate word to use.

**Lest ya get the 'pinion that I ain't good to my friends, I been tryin' to find the right way to link that one particular post for a couple of days now. ;)

***Ain't that part of the charm of this site? Nuthin' ever really makes a lot of sense, but that is the general intention on a very usual basis. This blog, like life, is an endless puzzle of unanswered questions.

Posted by Tiger at November 22, 2004 07:25 PM
Comments

I will have to look into StatCounter - based on your recommendation.

What I really want to know - how many people are reading via RSS feeders (which don't count as hits unless they click on the page). Some sites like mine include the whole post in the RSS feed so there are some uncounted readers out there :-(

Posted by: Ozguru at November 23, 2004 04:55 AM

OK. I have statcounter installed and I primed the Unique visitor count to match sitemeter (90970). Lets see how much they deviate...

Posted by: Ozguru at November 23, 2004 05:22 AM

I, too, wish there was a way to track the readers usin' aggregators.

Posted by: Tig at November 23, 2004 07:41 AM