If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…
By Brian | November 11, 2009
Today is quite a significant milestone in the extremely insignificant world of I Should Be Sleeping. This is my 1,000th blog post. In honor of this prestigious, yet highly inconspicuous occasion, I present you with some fun facts about my little corner of the web:
- My first post was on May 8, 2005 and was entitled Hello World. Those who studied the ancient art of C Programming with Kernighan and Ritchie will understand. Everyone else will recognize it as a friendly greeting.
- It took me 1,648 days to write 1,000 posts, or roughly two posts every three days. That’s not a bad pace to keep up over a period of four and a half years, if I do say so myself.
- My posts have encompassed eighteen different categories, ranging from Politics (20%) to Technology (18%) to Sports (8%). A full 30% of my posts have been about Random Events or Weird News Stories. All of this strikes me as very representative of the things I think about, which I guess makes sense after all this time.
- I’ve received 1,677 comments, or roughly two comments for every three posts. Since I joined Facebook in late May of this year, though, my comment rate has jumped roughly 50%.
- I only have detailed stats going back to January, 2007. Since that time, though, more than 54,000 visitors have graced these pages, taking in almost 82,000 pages. Extrapolating across the life of the blog, it is very likely that I’ve received upwards of 85,000 visitors and have served upwards of 130,000 pages.
- My post popular post in that time have been my Review of a January, 2006 Billy Joel Concert at Madison Square Garden which has garnered over 6,200 visits and sixty-six comments. Also insanely popular was my reprinting of Premiere Magazine’s Twenty Most Overrated Movies of All Time, which has been seen more than 5,500 times (almost 2,000 of them on the same day – August 28, 2008 – when someone tagged it on stumbleupon.com).
If I’m being brutally honest about my progress, I’d say I’m reasonably pleased with what this blog has become – a place to record my thoughts, an opportunity to learn a bit about running a modern web site, and a chance to watch the web grow from a static medium to a dynamic medium to a socially networked medium. I’ve made some legitimate friends here, and have made the acquaintance of a few interesting, if not notable, people (a few of whom have sent me free stuff!).
That said, I’d love to see the site “go viral,” and become a place where dozens of people I don’t know discuss the topics I throw out there, but I haven’t found the time nor the secret, magical ingredient to make that happen so far. After 4.5 years and 1,000 posts, I think it’s safe to say it will probably never happen. Then again, you can’t win if you don’t play.
So, to sum up, I thank you all for being a somewhat-willing part of this. If you’re still reading at this point, you are likely one of the 5-10 loyal readers who have provided more than half of the traffic described above. A special thank you to you guys as well.
Here’s to another 1,000 interesting things to say!
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 4 Comments »
One Last Thing: The Parade…
By Brian | November 7, 2009
OK, one last post about the Yankees winning the World Series and then I’ll stop. I promise. But today was the famous “Parade Down the Canyon of Heroes” in New York, and thanks to the annual New Jersey Teacher’s Convention, my kids did not have school today. So as it turned out, I was the one who played hooky, and we all went and saw a parade. An extra special, heartfelt thanks to the very generous people on the corner of Broadway & John Street who, right before the parade started, decided to allow my kids (and my wife and I) to move right up to the front of the crowd – allowing them (and my camera) fantastic views of the proceedings.
The picture slideshow is here, or in the “Featured Photos” section at the top of my left navigation menu.
Enjoy the pics and, once again, congratulations to the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees!!!
Categories: Family Matters, New York, New York, Sports Talk | 3 Comments »
The Phanatic Gives In
By Brian | November 6, 2009
After all, even a Phanatic can only take so much…
A little Photoshop inspiration for my Yankee fan friends!
Categories: New York, New York, Sports Talk | 2 Comments »
The 2009 World Champion New York Yankees
By Brian | November 5, 2009
GAME OVER.
WORLD SERIES OVER.
YANKEES WIN.
THE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E YANKEES WIN!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for an unbelievable, unforgettable season, fellas! Congrats to the champs!
NOW – ONTO THE PARADE!!!!!
Categories: New York, New York, Sports Talk | Comments Off on The 2009 World Champion New York Yankees
How was Halloween?
By Brian | November 1, 2009
Very successful, thank you:
My kids went as inventory management consultants. Can’tcha tell?
Before sorting all the candy by type, they reported in with a total of 301 pieces. Little did they know, this doesn’t count the candy that my wife and I ate after they went to bed last night. The picture above also reflects the four of us “picking” at it today. I give the whole stash a couple of weeks…
Categories: Family Matters | 6 Comments »
Happy Halloween!
By Brian | October 30, 2009
You know your kids are getting older when their friends start pulling their Halloween costumes straight out of the headlines:
And no, that’s not my son.
(Hat tip: Lisa Rafal)
Categories: Family Matters, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on Happy Halloween!
The City That Never Sleeps…
By Brian | October 28, 2009
If I don’t miss my guess, Philadelphia has prepared for the World Series by placing a small, plastic statue of William Penn on top of the Comcast building. Here’s what New York did:
LET’S GO YANKEES!!
Categories: New York, New York, Sports Talk | Comments Off on The City That Never Sleeps…
Arnold Flips the Legislature the Bird
By Brian | October 28, 2009
Fifty governors, but only Schwarzenegger can pull this off:
Seems like a pretty innocuous veto, until you read down the left-hand column of letters, that is. ;-)
(I had to scale the image down to make it fit on the blog. Click on the image itself (or click here to see a clearer version of the note).
Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | 4 Comments »
Robo-Warrior Draft
By Brian | October 24, 2009
My phone just rang. It was a gentleman from the Democratic National Committee. He said that President Obama needs me to fight for Jon Corzine because Jon Corzine is fighting for New Jersey.
Very strange – I would think President Obama would have people that could do that for him. You know – without having to call me and all. Maybe he should nominate a Fight for Jon Corzine Czar? Besides, I’m too busy to fight for Jon Corzine today. I mean, at a minimum, I need to stay home and field all these calls!
I hope there isn’t a Fight for Jon Corzine draft. But just in case there is, I think I better find out who, exactly, is fighting against Jon Corzine. I mean, maybe it’s someone we really don’t have to worry about. Like the Boston Red Sox…
Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »
Wall Street Journal – Charging for Free Content?
By Brian | October 19, 2009
Remember when the Wall Street Journal’s online content was free? And then they decided to start charging for it? And then it was free again? But sometimes it’s not?
As it turns out, the Wall Street Journal has implemented a rather unique, some may even say bizarre, online access policy. If you go to their website and click on an article, you have to login with a paid subscription. But if you Google a particular topic and the same article comes back as a search result, you can click through and read the entire article for free. So, in other words, you can’t read the entire Wall Street Journal on their website without paying for it, but if you were curious enough to enquire about everything in it, they will gladly share their content with you for free.
Perhaps an example would be useful. Follow along in a separate browser instance if you like:
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings, Tech Talk | Comments Off on Wall Street Journal – Charging for Free Content?