Catching up on HitTail after a spell

It's quite a while since I checked out HitTail's results for this blog - I used to do it regularly (partly for something to write about), but I notice that they've got results going back to March this year which I've never looked at.

That's okay, we'll sort that in due course.

Meantime, I also checked the search words that people have used that bring them to my site.   Amazingly athlete's hand continues to do well - it's at the top.   One little post from I don't when - and a joke post at that - and this is the result.   Crazy.

The second in line is a bit of a newbie to me: googleads.g.doubleclick.net.  I looked at that and wondered what the heck it was, since it seems an odd thing for someone to enter in Google's search box.   Anyway, doing exactly that, I find that it comes up with an explanation from Google's help desk itself.   I began to read the explanation, got bogged down a couple of sentences in, and let my brain say, Pooh, don't get that - too difficult to understand without concentration. 

Another curiosity keeps coming up on the list - it's currently third in line: Zirka circus.   The post I did on this in 2010, has obviously drawn some people over and over.  Zirka circus is a NZ-based group, with mostly an Asian cast.   Some very good stuff in it too.

Surprise, surprise, my own name comes up fourth on the list.   Wow, I must look for myself an awful lot, or else there are a lot of other Mike Crowl's out there doing the same thing.   (One was a headmaster at a high school in the States who got himself into strife, being accused of harrassing his staff.  He resigned, and I haven't caught up with what happened subsequently.)   In Google.co.nz, by the way, this blog comes up first if you enter Mike Crowl as a search term.

Zirka Circus review gets fifth place, and The Great Divorce notes sixth.   This latter search term has been one of the tops for a long time, although you won't ever find any 'notes' on C S Lewis' The Great Divorce on my blog.   It's just the fact that the blog title has 'notes' in it that makes the difference!

Nintendo jewellery and Brent Stavig make seventh and eighth - again two items that have earned pride of place on this blog for their regular appearances (mostly because I keep writing about them because they keep turning up on HitTail - it's a bit of a Catch 22).

James Berardinelli and Frederick Buechner marriage are the last two in the top ten.   I haven't mentioned Berardinelli for a long time: he's the film reviewer who has hundreds of reviews on imdb.com - not ibdm.com as I first typed: they have a site too, and it's also about movies.  Cunning!

People must look for the quote on marriage by Buechner and find it on my site.   Guess it's a helpful thing to use at your wedding...

The hundreds of other search terms that make it onto my list are often repeats of the above ones in some form or other, and all the old favourites are still there.   Before I go I just need to mention some of the 'keywords' that have sent people to the blog; some quite intriguing ones...top heavy body builder, armwrestling my wife, [like that one] skinny ties versus normal ties, where to buy cigars in Dunedin, drugs corner cut off of credit card [what?].

It has to be said that if you went looking for any of these in an Encyclopedia it's doubtful you'd find them.   Good old Google!

Hidden in the recesses of time

Thinking not very deeply about diamond stud earrings, and other such flashy items (like nintendo jewellery) and reflecting a little on a letter to the editor that appeared in today's Otago Daily Times about Prince William's gift of his mother's engagement ring to his wife-to-be.   The writer was irate that William was giving Kate a second-hand ring.   Surely that's a very recycling thing to do, apart from any sentimental associations? 

My wife received a secondhand ring too, when we got engaged.   We weren't particularly well off at that stage, and it seemed reasonable enough.   One of my daughters subsequently dropped it down a hole in the stairwell wall and that's the last we've seen of it.  (I have no idea what my daughter was doing playing with it.)

I didn't give my wife-to-be my mother's engagement ring because I'm not even sure if my mother had one.  She was married in wartime, and I suspect engagement rings were regarded as a bit of an extravagance.   Apart from that my mother was still alive when I got married, so if she did have an engagement ring, she may not have been keen to part with it.

On the other hand, my grandmother's ring is something I do have - my English grandmother, that is.  (Again, I don't know if my New Zealand grandmother even had an engagement ring - she had nine children in due course, which probably would account for any lack of rings in the house.)   My English grandmother's ring could easily be recycled too: it looks exactly like a curtain ring.  It's perfectly round and thin as can be.    How it came to be in my possession is something that I no longer remember - not because I'm losing my marbles but because I don't actually recall ever knowing.   Maybe my mother received it at some point, perhaps when my grandmother died.   Who knows?   Hidden in the recesses of time.

The HitTail List - first count for 2010

It's very annoying when you have an idea for a great post in your head and somewhere during the course of the day it vanishes. Of course, I know I should have written it down before I forgot it, but this time I didn't. Some master post gone for good.

Meanwhile, it's that time again: the checking-up-on-of-the-HitTail-Top-Ten.

Of course there are plenty of old favourites here (sorry, acne treatment reviews hasn't made it yet, for all those who think it should have). In order, they are:

1. athletes hand - sans apostrophe, as you might expect.
2. mike crowl - surprise, surprise - and sans capitals.
3. the great divorce notes - a perennial. One of these days I'm going to put some real notes about the Great Divorce on here.
4. googleads.g.doubleclick.net - a total newcomer, which meant nothing to me. I checked it out on the Net, and it brings up the I'm Feeling Lucky page on Google. Hmm. Can I really have been the end result of so many lucky searches?
5. nintendo jewellery - with jewellery spelt correctly, you'll notice.
6. brent stavig - our old friend whose main claim to fame now seems to be the fact that he turns up on my blog!
7. james berardinelli - considering that I haven't mentioned James' name for some time on here, it's interesting that he still gets on this list.
8. karl maugham - only because I misspelt his name so often.
9. shrinking shirts - a constant problem for people, obviously.
10. athletes fingers - just in case you missed number one on the list.

Those who only made it into the top twenty are a real mixed bunch:

mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com - why would anyone actually search on that?
athlete hand
postile
lesley martin euthanasia
the great divorce chapter summaries
henry lewis gates
here lies eric ambler
religious jeans
crowl
john gray philosopher

I know I've written about all these, but surely other people have too? I'm not going to go further down the list, but Chrissy Popadics only made it to 21st place this time, and how do you pronounce Boise, 22 - and 26 and 28 and at least once in each of the next decades as well. The people of Boise must wonder why the name of their town is such a problem for the rest of the world. Maybe it's time to change it.

It's checking out HitTail time again!

It's worth going back to HitTail on a regular basis to see whether the things people search for and find on your blog vary much over time. I haven't looked for a while, but anyone who's read this blog consistently over the last year or two (the multitudes who have...) will probably find that this latest list isn't much different to previous ones. People plainly keep on looking for the same things, which is a bit unnerving for anyone wanting to be original. Not only does athletes hand (sans apostrophe) have twice as many hits as the next item, but athletes fingers and athlete hand also both get in the top ten (as nine and ten, respectively). [The hand in the picture is a genuine athlete's hand. So I'm told.] 

My own name, Mike Crowl, is second, the great divorce notes and Brent Stavig come next; James Berardinelli, the film critic, is still going strong in 5th place, followed by our mysterious old friend, Nintendo jewellery (with jewellery spelt the correct way, you'll notice). Karl Maugham, the artist, with everyone spelling his name incorrectly - as I did for years - comes next. (It's Maughan.) And eighth, we have our old favourite, shrinking shirts. 

It seems that the last time I checked this was late last year: as I say, things haven't altered much. Here's the latest list compared to the previous one: 

athletes hand...........................athletes hand 

Mike Crowl.............................Mike Crowl 

the great divorce notes...........James Berardinelli 

Brent Stavig............................Brent Stavig 

James Berardinelli.................the Great Divorce notes 

Nintendo jewellery.................shrinking shirts 

Karl Maugham......................Nintendo jewellery 

shrinking shirts......................Karl Maugham 

athletes fingers.......................athletes fingers 

athlete hand...........................Chrissy Popadacs 

James has slipped a couple of notches, Brent has maintained his place. Karl has snuck up a place, and shrinking shirts have dropped two places. C S Lewis' book has risen, and so has Nintendo Jewellery. Interestingly, Chrissy Popadics has slipped off the radar completely - but she's still in 13th place on the top 100. 

You may not be excited with what people look for on the favourite search engine directory, but I'm always intrigued. As I've no doubt mentioned before: if I wrote about nothing but these ten topics (or the variations within them) I'd probably get people checking out my site galore. But do I want to? I should no doubt be inventive, and find ways in which to drop one of these names/phrases into each post. I'm not sure that it would help me climb to the top of the Google tree, but it would be an interesting exercise. Perhaps I should give it a try over the next ten posts, just for the fun of it (and add Chrissy Popadics - pictured at left being squashed by her then future husband - in for good measure!)

Updating the HitTail Top Ten

18 more posts to go before I hit the big 1000. The aim, as I said in an earlier post, is to do this before the end of 2008. I guess I could write a lot of idiotic, meaningless posts - one-liner posts, even - but I'm going to play fair and aim to keep up the extraordinarily high quality of my posts. (Did I hear someone say, Phooey?)
Anyway, it's a while since I checked out HitTail. For various reasons it's gone on the backburner in the last month, along with a few other things. (Partly because I've been more busy musically than I have through most of the year, and partly because of the prostate stuff which I've discussed in several posts on Workreport.net.)
I thought I'd see if there's been any change in the top ten search items that pick up on my site. And nope! They're pretty much the same as they've been in a long while. Here they are again:
1. Athlete's hand - the all time favourite; currently running at over 152 searches, but if we count all the variations on the theme, there'll be far more than that.
2. Mike Crowl. Well, there's a turn up for the books.
3. James Berardinelli. This film critic has been amongst the top for some time. Don't ask me why: I don't talk about him that much.
4. Brent Stavig. Another top name on the list. Extraordinary.
5. The Great Divorce notes. I have never listed any notes about C S Lewis' The Great Divorce. It's only the combination of having mentioned the book and having 'notes' in the title of my blog that brings this one up so regularly. Other books get the same treatment, but obviously not as often.
6. Shrinking shirts. Another one of those items that got mentioned in a post once and have kept this blog in the public eye ever since.
7. Nintendo jewellery. I sometimes suspect that I'm the only blogger to have ever mentioned Nintendo jewellery. I still have no idea what it is.
8. Karl Maugham. Due to my inability to spell Mr Maughan's name correctly, anyone else who spells it incorrectly finds my site.
9. Athlete's fingers. One of the other variations on number one in the list.
10. Chrissy Popadics. I mentioned Chrissy once many moons again - maybe mentioned her again briefly in a later post, and ever since then she's turned up trumps. Wierd.

Comparing this list with the previous one I did in August, there's only one change: The Great Divorce Notes don't appear there. Instead, my name comes up twice, the second time as Michael Crowl. Scary.

More on Nintendo jewellery

A few other times I've mentioned Nintendo jewellery without really knowing what it is. Well, I've just discovered a whole swag of photos on Flickr.com which show Nintendo jewellery. Those who have been troubled by my lack of knowledge can now be assisted by the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words (so the much overused cliche goes) and check out this link.

The Top Ten

What's important about these ten names or items?

Athlete's hand
James Berardinelli (the self-taught film reviewer)
Mike Crowl
Brent Stavig (singer, bandsman, actor?)
Shrinking Shirts
Karl Maugham (whose name is properly spelt as Karl Maughan)
Chrissie Popadics
Nintendo Jewellery
Athlete's fingers
Michael Crowl

They're the ten top search phrases on my HitTail list. Note that I appear under two guises; James Berdinelli comes higher than me on the list (!), both athlete's hand and athlete's fingers appear, and Chrissie Popadics, about whom I've only ever written once as far as I recall, manages to get to 7th place. The mysterious item, Nintendo jewellery is there, and Karl Maugham, incorrectly spelt comes in at 6th place.

The names or phrases that make up the second ten are just as an intriguing bunch:
Henry Lewis Gates
religious jeans
La Monte Young (a composer)
The Great Divorce notes (C S Lewis' incomparable book)
Ronnie Rinalde (the whistler)
Stephen de Pledge (the pianist)
Hitchcock auteur
Athlete hand (can't get away from this one - maybe I should write all my posts about it!)
Brother of the More Famous Jack (a novel)
Church going notes (I have no idea why this gets picked up)

Singers Claire Barton and Kiri te Kanawa don't quite make it into the top twenty, but some form of search for athlete's fingers, hands, itchiness, feet, toes etc makes another ten or so appearances - in the first 350 entries. The same phrase, in some form, appears four times in the top ten Google Analytics keywords as well. Maybe I should forget writing about art and become the blog for athlete's feet!

Blogging and other things

Why blog?

Because I have nothing else to do.

Because my life is empty and blogging fills in some time.

Because I have to write and blogging does the trick.

Because I think I can write.

Because I’m trying to communicate with a world beyond my immediate sphere.

Because I want my family and friends to hear my opinion on everything.

Because my wife has had enough of hearing my opinion on everything.

Because I’ve committed myself to blogging at least once a day.

Because I believe in blogging.

Because I want to make lots of money from having a blog.

Because when I first heard about blogging several years ago I couldn’t see the point and now I can.

Because there are people out there just waiting to hear from me.

Because I want to know whether anyone reading this understands irony or not.

Because.

Because it gives me a chance to tell you why guys wear engagement rings.

Or what a smidgen is.

Or discuss the Hitchcock auteur theory.

Or admire nintendo jewellery - if you can tell me what the nintendo side of this kind of jewellery is, I'm be interested. Here's a pendant with the name Nintendo attached to it, anyway.

Consider why athlete's might have athlete's hand rather than athlete's foot.

Or to answer such queries as: what music does the aquaggaswack play? (I didn't believe I'd ever written about such an instrument until I checked back on my blog just now! Crikey, you'd think you'd remember something like that.) Here's some information about it, according to the Oddmusic site: The first version of the Aquaggaswack, built in 1996, only had about 18 pot lids and was narrower (It didn't have the outer sections). This second version, revamped in 1998, has 29 pot lids representing a majority of the notes in an octave, plus some quarter-tones. The center lids have mostly "bell"-like tones and the outer sets have a more "gong"-like tone. All the lids were obtained from thrift stores and friends. At various times both versions of the Aquaggaswack also included a cymbal, jingle bells, a cowbell with clacker and a mine cylinder.
Any the wiser? There's a picture of the aquaggaswack on that site as well, if you think that a picture's better than a thousand words (or even the 94 in the paragraph above).

Nintendo Jewellery

While checking out another HitTail search phrase – sorry to inflict so many of these on you in a row, but needs must – I came across this quote from another blog, called Wiifanboy.

We've wasted our lives. What have we been doing all these years, while we could have been learning to work with gold, silver and platinum jewelry, and sharing handmade Nintendo jewelry with our friends and loved ones? Oh, right, going to school and having jobs. And also actually playing games.

That learning to work with gold, silver and platinum makes a nice contrast with the Nintendo jewellery. I’m not sure what Nintendo jewllery is, but the site also has Star Wars done with Lego men, so Nintendo jewellery could mean anything!

Wiifanboy, which appears to have been going a good long time, and is concerned not just with Wii (which has only been round a while) but with a number of other computer gaming areas. Check out the photo of the D-pad necklace. It’s rather cool. (Even I, as a person of the middle-age, think so.)