Stats - so, only if you're interested in such things

For a long time now, I've been getting the stats from the two Orble blogs that I write on (less and less, as it happens, but then there's a lot going on that stops me from writing blog posts each and every day at the moment).

Surprisingly, in spite of the fact that I'm not writing very much on these posts, the two blogs still seem to be getting read regularly.  Not sure who's all catching up on them, but someone amongst the millions of blog readers in the world must be.

But the interesting thing is that it's almost always the same two or three blog posts that appear at the top of the lists.   On the blog called WorkReport.net there are two posts that vie with each other to appear first time and again.   One of these is a piece I wrote when I was in the middle of my pre-prostate operation time, a time I don't look fondly back on except that it provided me with a good deal of material to write about.    The other is an oddball post that I only wrote because I was getting paid to include a link in it.  It relates to the Titanic Museum in Branson.  This has been one of the most popular posts I've ever written, which no doubt speaks of the ongoing enthusiasm people have for the Titanic disaster.   Curious.

On the other blog, Webitz.net, one particular post has been in the top spot a great deal since it was written.  This is one on what I called the 'Geocities revival.'

Geocities, for those who don't remember, was an enormous site that allowed people to create their own websites on the geocities portal, way back in the dark ages of the Internet.  The site I had was the first website I'd ever put together.  It wasn't exactly WYSIWYG but it was close enough.

At some point in the geocities history, Yahoo took over the whole caboodle, presumably thinking either they were going to make lots of money out of it, or that it was better to put your rival in a corner and beat him to a pulp in due course.  They put him in a corner all right, and then threw him out of the ring completely by closing down geocities, to the horror of thousands of people who'd put hundreds of hours of work into their particular space.   The problem was that if you didn't act quickly enough, all your work would be gone for good - according to Yahoo.  And of course, thousands of people (including myself) didn't act quickly enough - or didn't know what to do to save their material, especially if there was a lot of it.

The result was that suddenly thousands of virtual documents and photographs and so on vanished.  However, the amazing thing about the Internet is that it's not quite so easy to get rid of stuff as all that.   Various groups formed to collect all the data and put it back on line in a different format.

At the time I wrote the blog post, one of these was ASCII by Jason Scott.  This is still functioning, I think, though the most recent update seems to be 2010.  Jason has a lot of other things on his plate.   Another group, OOCities also worked on keeping the geocities material.  I mentioned them too, but like ASCII, they seemed to have moved onto other things, and their geocities material is only partial.

This wasn't good news for those of us who seemed to have missed out.  In particular I was very saddened because two or three short stories that had actually been published elsewhere had gone AWOL in the process.

And then along came reocities.  I explain about them here, in another post, called From geocities to reocities.   Reocities seems to have managed to rescue practically everything that was on geocities.  At least that's the impression I've got.  They certainly rescued my old site (which now looks very cluttery by comparison with more recent webpages), and these days, when you click on the link, it comes up very quickly, compared to the sluggish pace you endured when it was first revived.  

Thank goodness for their perseverance (it must have been an enormous task).

The Write Advertising

Ever thought about what you might put on a pen if you had the chance to do it for free? You know the sort of thing I mean: advertising pens, the kind that get given away by firms in the hope that you’ll remember them every time you do some writing. Remember them instead of the competition, who’s also given you a free pen.
But if you were given a 1000 pens that you could your own individual message on, what might you say? Jesus Loves Me? Mike Crowl Blogs Way Too Much? Everyone Deserves a Sabbatical?
I’m sure you can come up with some other ideas – let me know…it’s some time since anyone commented on anything in here! (boo hoo)
Looking through my HitTail results, it’s possible you could use one of the following enigmatic phrases: How Tall is Denzil Washington? Branson, Music Capital of the World. I’m an In-Law. The Endless Itching of Athletes’ Foot.
Just while I’m on the subject of HitTail search results, here’s one that’s really off-the-wall, and a little scary: All sort of home kitchen crowl insect.
When will people learn that Crowl isn’t the spelling of Crawl?

Music Capitol!!

I’ve never really heard anything of Branson Missouri, but it turns out to be the Live Music Capitol (their spelling) of the World (their claim). If you want entertainment of the musical kind (light entertainment, that is) this is the place to go. But what appealed to me when I checked out the site for planning your holiday there, was the show advertising the Acrobats of China. When you click on their name on the Branson list, it takes you to the New Shanghai Circus site, where there’s a rather rough-looking video offering selected acts from the circus. The most wonderful and hilarious is one that features two Chinese dragons. Inside these are two acrobats who make these dragons (or are they dogs? I’m not sure) race around, roll, leap on and off a table, and eventually cross a couple of wires. It’s the co-ordination that’s so fabulous: how do they leap up onto things when it requires the person in front to move fractionally ahead of the one behind? It’s an extraordinary thing to see, even though the video looks like it’s been shot from the audience with a hand-held camera! Still it must be legit, since it’s on the circus’ site.
There's a great long list of Branson performers, including one crew called Baldknobbers. Hmm. Baldknobbers? Reminds me of a text my daughter sent us today about a shop called Knobs and Knockers: she thought we might like the name...