Otherwise Occupied - random

Recent searches, part 2.

gregh — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:50:00 -0500

It's been nearly 2 years since I last looked at what brings people here. To be sure, there have been some decided traffic changes. For one thing, my regular readership is much greater than it has been. I know this in part because Google Analytics tells me that since the first of the year, 32.27% of my site's visitors are returning visitors. (Mint tells me something similar, but I've only been using it a month.) The numbers for the last month show only a 24.85% return rate. However, I've had my highest visitor counts ever in the last month.

Anyhow, in a practice that those of us who follow our web access logs tend to do, I'll now arbitrarily elaborate on some of the searches that have led people here over the last 4 months.

Some things never change. 3.73% of my visitors since the start of the year came through a search for "Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals." That search usually leads to this page.

3.32% of my visitors search for "otherwise occupied." That leads to the homepage, generally. Following the clickstream, it's clear that that's how some people find me. For others, I gather they're just sorely disappointed.

Searches regarding USF are huge, and they also produce very interested readers. Rather than type this up, or try to analyze the various ways people search for USF information end up here, below is a screen capture. I'd just like to do a little editorializing first. Look at all of this! This is clearly information people want. Wouldn't it make sense for the school to publish this information online?

The final one is my favorite. It's "romero exception." It brings up my first blog post. There are 7 requests, all from California. 6 from USF. We seem to have the market cornered on Romero Exception teaching.

Random sightings

gregh — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:50:25 -0500

Some random stuff of late:

Clark and Michael: A bizarre little made-for-the-web show, with "Arrested Development's" Michael Cera.
Michael Cera gets fired from Knocked Up: I discovered the non-secret Clark and Michael while looking for this video.
Kawasaki Concours14 First Ride: Wow. Sport-touring bikes just keep getting faster and faster. But for the "fins" on the sidecases and the lack of cruise control, this looks like a great bike. Heat issues remain to be seen.
Victory Vision First Ride: Meanwhile, Victory's just made what appears to be a big splash in the touring category. I've long thought it would be nice to have a bike that could easily get me from point A to point B, when I wasn't concerned about the roads at a destination.
Hide-a-Pod: iPod theft deterrent device. (Squirting sold separately.)

"I hear there’s some kind of deep-fried bacon?"

gregh — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:40:47 -0600

BACON, CHEESE AND BEER DOG:

Ingredients:
1 hot dog
1 slice of thick-cut bacon
1 can of spray cheese
1 can beer (It doesn't matter what kind, but we recommend something dark. Corona probably isn't a good idea)
1 cup flour
Oil for frying

Instructions:
This one is a little work-intensive, so be ready to buckle down. First take the center out of the hot dog with an apple corer, if you have access to one. If not, just cut out the middle with a knife. Fill the cavity with the spray cheese and use the hot dog you removed from the middle as a cap to keep the cheese in. Wrap the bacon around the hot dog and deep-fry for two to four minutes or until bacon is cooked. Dab them dry with a paper towel (so the batter will stick). Mix the beer with the flour until it reaches a thick, but lump-free consistency. Dip the dogs in the batter, coating the dog completely, and deep-fry on high heat for two to three minutes or until brown and deadly.
NOTE: Don't fry them too long or all of the cheese will explode out into the oil. That's very bad.

To paraphrase Joey, "What's not to like? Cheese? Good. Hot dogs? Good. Bacon? Gooood."

My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine

gregh — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:00:30 -0500

Bye bye, Pluto. We barely knew you. As it turns out, there wasn't much to know.

Mingling and small talk

gregh — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 01:39:09 -0500

First, I wanted to write "small talk" as "smalltalk" (or, roughly Smalltalk.) Perhaps I'll note at the outset that I've always wanted to learn some Smalltalk, just because I feel I should. It's just a little tough to take the time these days, as I find myself also wanting to learn Ruby (to play with Ruby on Rails) and PHP, which Drupal, the software driving this site, is written in.

Don't get me wrong, I could download Squeak and go through some demos and then maybe I'd know something of Smalltalk. But that's not really knowing or learning Smalltalk. And light hacking of Drupal is not learning PHP. I'm closest, at this point, to feeling I'm learning Ruby, but for the most part, it's just been hacking around. I wouldn't dream of putting any of the three of them on my resume. Basically, I feel that I need to be able to sit down and actually turn out some light code off the top of my head before I'll even think of suggesting I know a language.

This came to mind largely because I find I don't make small talk very well, and that leads to poor mingling skills. Now, I no longer feel like writing about that, other than to say it's a skill I need to develop. I have a feeling, for instance, that the person I was talking to about the Student Bar Association website work that I'm doing wasn't the least bit interested in the details of keeping content fresh that I found myself addressing.

Maybe if I download and try out Squeak I can make small talk about Smalltalk?