Thanks For Visiting, SeaMonkey!

Good evening, Ladies and Germs.

When I first started "You Can't Get There Here" I honestly had no clue if anybody would ever read it.

As such, I didn't even bother to put a hit counter on this mofo until almost two months into it.  In order to scam one for free (and not knowing any better), I nicked one from some fly-by-night outfit that would generate code for me if I included an ad for this sketchy stomach relief cure-all that even Abe Simpson wouldn't be caught dead using.

Regardless, at face value, it looked as if it would meet my humble needs so I did a quick C&P and jammed that magical gibberish into one of the blog's many gadget slots.

Wow, that sounded inadvertently dirty, didn't it?  

Now take note that every time you get one of these page load counter thingies, you can set the initial number to whatever you want.  At the time I figured a conservative visitor estimate would be about 172, which was the number of profile views I had at the time. I knew it was a low ball figure, but I'd rather undercut it than be accused of posting up some artificially inflated number.

Soon I was amazed as the visit count hit five hundred on June 27'th and one-thousand on July 22'nd.  Then, in the first week of September when I was closing in on another landmark, disaster struck.  My hit counter exploded, taking it's precious numerical testimony along with it.

Normally you can just log into the site where you got the initial code from and retrieve an internal record of the count.  But I'd chosen poorly with my initial provider and just like a pack of electronic carnival hucksters, they'd long since packed up and moved on to the next virtual town of rubes.

So, after some cursory research this time, I got set up with another one through Pax.com.  On September 20'th I was delighted to hit two-thousand page loads.  After my first crisis I meant to keep a daily log of my hit count just in case history was tempted to repeat itself, but Pax's "little counter that could" seemed pretty reliable.  So, like 80% of the most important things I seem to do in my life, I let it slide.     

Content that the problem was past, I went on merrily a-bloggin', wringing my hands in anticipation of hitting three-thousand visitors.  Then, last night, at around the twenty-eight hundred count:  it happened again.  My page load count vanished off the face of the earth.  Just like Shelley Long. 

I went to www.pax.com to try and see if they kept a count but the site wouldn't come up.  Frantically I checked the message boards through Blogger for guidance and came upon an interesting discovery.

When I said I'd underestimated my visitor count, I wasn't kidding!  .

I discovered through the hitherto previously ignored (but shamefully obvious)  "Stats" tab on my blogger dashboard a veritable cornucopia of interesting trivia.  Here's a sample (as of November 3'rd):

Pageviews today...35
Pageviews yesterday...67
Pageviews last month...1,276
Pageviews all time history...3,859 

'3859?' I thought to myself.  'Holy shiznit!  You gotta be kidding me!'

I tempered my initial reaction to this, knowing full well that this number (nearly a thousand hits higher then my initial estimate) also included my own page loads.  In other words, it included all those times I went to my blog to compose a new post, edit something after it went up or just check the hit counter.  I quickly noticed the "Don't Track Your Own Pageviews" option and turned it off without further ado.

Which left me stuck.  How could I reset the hit counter without selling myself short or self-aggrandizing the number?  The answer came to me when I noticed this:

Pageviews by Countries

Canada 1,569
United States 1,073
Denmark 225
South Korea 179
United Kingdom 136
Netherlands 65
Australia 59
France 54
Brazil 47
Germany  44 

Wow, I've always wanted to say this: "I'm big in Denmark!"

* Ahem *...sorry. 

Just for poops n' chuckles I added all of this up (last night mind you so it may be different now) and got 3428.  I subtracted this from the All-Time Pageviews history number (3832) and reasoned that the difference of 404 represented how times I'd contributed to my own hit tally by doing administrative-type stuff.  This was actually a bit higher than I'd originally surmised, since I'd estimated an average of three "internal" visits per page on one-hundred posts, which would have given me around 300 superfluous results.

Look, I know I promised before that there would be no math, but I find all of this stuff kinda cool.

Here are some other interesting pieces of trivia:

Pageviews by Browsers

Internet Explorer                     1,904 (49%)
Firefox  (Yaaay!!!)                   1,087 (28%)
Chrome                                      459 (12%)
Safari                                           250 (6%)
Java                                               35 (<1%)
Jakarta Commons-HttpClient         30 (<1%)
Mobile                                           27 (<1%)
Opera                                            14 (<1%)
BAVM                                           8  (<1%)
SeaMonkey                                    7  (<1%)
     
Is anyone else out there thinking..."SeaMonkey?  Really?"   Seriously, show of hands, please. 

Okay, check this out:


Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows                       3,359 (88%)
Macintosh                         286  (7%)
iPhone                                 51 (1%)
Other Unix                          50 (1%)
BlackBerry                         19  (1%)
iPod                                   19  (1%)
iPad                                    4 (<1%)
Linux                                   1 (<1%)
Nintendo DSi                      1 (<1%)
PLAYSTATION 3             1 (<1%)

Alright, my keen analytical mind has discerned three noteworthy things here:

1. RIM better watch out RE: the undeniable, compelling sexiness of the iPhone.  It's like the Greek Siren of technological gadgets!
2. If all the "I'm a PC" people fought all the "I'm a Mac" people, it would be a slaughter.
3. It's pretty sad when the poor bastards with a DSi and PS3 are so hard up for entertainment value that they'd rather read my barely-coherent ramblings then say, oh, I dunno, play a game!   Notice that I've got no online hits from 360 users, since we actually have some decent games other than Barbie's Horse Adventures.  

Finally, here are the entries that seem to have garned the most attention from readers thus far:


"If you yell 'PLAY FREEBIRD!' one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the neck!" - Part I
Jul 27, 2010, 1 comment   475 Pageviews
The kick-off to my live-music concert series, featuring the infamous "Banger's Uniform".
       
Lowered Expectations: Part I
Apr 9, 2010   71 Pageviews
My first story of many about some of the worst jobs I've had over the years.
  
Resurrections are big this time of year, aren't they?
Apr 5, 2010, 4 comments  63 Pageviews
My first post ever...Awwwwwww!   

"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part IV - Exploitation
Jul 22, 2010  50 Pageviews
Things start to go sour at Sears.  Well, aren't you all the Negative Nellies? 
   
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part IV - Exaltation
Sep 6, 2010   49 Pageviews
My initial triumphs as a supervisor at Sears...Yay, me!
   
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part I - Mirage
Jul 13, 2010  48 Pageviews
Documenting my first few "blissful" years on the 'Softer Side', yo.   
 
"Yeah, I got yer 'Softer Side' Right HERE, pal!" - Part V- Tribulations
Sep 4, 2010  48 Pageviews
Some personality types which tested my patience as a manager.  Attention law enforcement: this entry contains pertinent clues as to where most of the bodies are buried. 
  
"Born To Be Alive" - Part I
Oct 18, 2010  47 Pageviews
Fun (and deadly danger!) on the set of "Roller Town". 
        
Wheelman - Part IV - "Tour Guide"
Oct 6, 2010   44 Pageviews
My "comedy of errors"-style trip to Peggy's Cove while driving for the Atlantic Film Festival.
   
Who Watches The Watchmen?
Jul 6, 2010, 1 comment  39 Pageviews
The impact of the military industrial complex on our society.  "Holy, one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other, Batman!"


This leads me to a few conclusions:  

• My beloved Kind Readers love to hear me go all 60 Minutes on shitty jobs.  
• A disproportionate amount of them have likely torn up their Sears charge cards.
• They read my first post and decided: "Yep, well, that's enough for me!"
• They like reading about me humiliating myself while on roller skates.
• They like reading about me humiliating myself while driving.
• They're susceptible to conspiracy theories. 
• They have a fetish for mullets. 

Bless each and every one of you for following me thus far!  Thanks to anyone who's taken the time to visit and read.  I promise that if you keep showing up so will I.

And now that I have irrefutable proof that I've snared at least a few people with nothing better to do, I must impose upon you a tremendous favor.

This blog has been and always will be completely free but for the first time ever I'm going to have to ask you for payment.  And, in my humble opinion,  the payment I'm proposing will be in the most valuable currency I can possibly imagine:  


Your advice. 
 
For the meaning behind this (and many other) cryptic comments, check back in a few days for the next episode of "You Can't Get There From Here" entitled "Dreams Die Hard"!   

EPIC: More interesting stats:
http://justcoolpics.blogspot.com/2010/02/funny-statistics.html

FAIL:  Hey, I found Denise Crosby at least!  Do I get some kind of reward?  What if I bring in Micheal Dorn as a bonus?
http://www.monkeyspit.net/sites/missing/