1. Wondered why my blog is getting less traffic lately.
2. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.
3. Liked that Dina (Saskia Burmeister) stood up for herself when a bullying teacher (Robert van Mackelenberg) blamed her for something she didn't do.
With bullying in schools, I think the main problem is students bullying each other. But sometimes it's the teacher that bullies a student. I remember seeing it when I was in high school.
4. Thought about how there are also teachers who are bullied by students.
5. Wondered what happens more often—teachers bullying students or students bullying teachers.
6. Finished watching the episode.
7. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.
Proud of and happy for Hannah (Cassie Howarth).
She was feeling for sorry for herself because of being paralyzed and was in the mindset that the only thing she could do is lie in bed.
Then Zac (Charlie Clausen) took out her wheelchair, told her to get in it and left Hannah. When he came back, she had gotten herself dressed and in the wheelchair.
8. Listened to the song "Nullarbor" by The Lucky Wonders while exercising.
It's on my Aussie Spotify list, but I don't think I've heard it many times.
I think it's a pretty song.
9. Went to the Lucky Wonders website.
10. Saw that they're available to perform at weddings.
11. Saw that their instruments include ukuleles. That's very cool.
12. Wished I was musically smart enough to know their music had ukuleles before reading about it. I wish I could know these things just by listening to the music.
13. Talked with Jack about sugar gliders. He announced that he'd like them as a pet one day.
We talked about the diet controversy.
We'll look more into it...someday.
Jack's pet desires are usually met with a veto from me.
14. Looked at a pet education website about sugar gliders.
They say the two biggest problems are low calcium issues and obesity.
I think when people think of fat sugar gliders, they imagine them being fed hotdogs and funnel cakes. But the website says obesity can happen from overfeeding them mealworms. Mealworms are high in fat.
For calcium, you have to make sure the insects they eat, are fed calcium. This is called gut-loading. I learned about this when I had the green anole as my roommate. I bought the crickets with the plan that I'd start the gut-loading IF the lizard started eating the crickets. I had my doubts, because the anole hadn't eaten the mealworms I had offered previously.
The lizard showed no interest in eating and died. Then I was left with crickets for pets.
15. Thought the diet of the sugar glider looks complicated.
I think my biggest question and concern, when talking about getting an animal, is how difficult would it be to leave it when we go out of town.
If it's easy to feed, it's not a huge deal, because we have someone come each day to feed our cat.
But feeding a sugar glider doesn't look easy.
16. Felt that in life people have to choose between having lots of cool pets or traveling.
I usually opt for traveling. But sometimes I like to imagine having pets instead.
I'd want chickens and rabbits, probably.
I might want a dog but probably not.
17. Thought I probably wouldn't want reptiles.
We have lizards outside. I like seeing them free. There's no point is us having one in a cage.
18. Thought one of the best pets, really, was the crickets. I loved having them in my room.
They were very easy.
Well...no. They were easy, because we didn't end up traveling when we had them.
When we'd go to the lake house, I'd take them with us.
We did talk about traveling, and I remember stressing about what we'd do with the crickets.
The thing with crickets, though, is they don't have a very long lifespan, usually. You can have them as pets in the months between your big family vacations.
19. Remembered that I got the crickets in February. Then the last one died sometime in the summer. It was before July 5, because we went to Florida for a funeral, and I know we didn't have to struggle to find a cricket babysitter.
20. Reminded myself that even without the traveling factor, some pets are easier than others.
I'm betting having sugar gliders would be a million more times challenging them having pet crickets.
21. Looked at my blog stats.
I'm wondering if I can compare this year to last year.
For Monday to Thursday this week, Statcounter says I've had a total of 204 visitors, and 232 page views.
That's a low visitor to page view ratio. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, mathematically. But what I mean is it seems that for the people visiting, not many are sticking around for long. (Maybe it's because I talk about boring things like blog statistics)
What I'd like to see is a high ratio. I'd rather have a small number of visitors who visit multiple pages on my blog, than a large number of drive by visits.
22. Looked at this week last year. Monday the 19th-Thursday the 22nd.
23. Realized I shouldn't be counting Thursday, since the 2015 one is complete. The 2016 one is still in progress.
So....
Let's recount this year. Monday-Wednesday = 167 visits and 191 page views.
Last year I had 265 page views and 325 page views.
Wow!
That is a big change.
I'm considerably less popular this January than I was last January.
24. Looked at this week in 2014. I wasn't even blogging then, and I think maybe I was doing better.
25. Counted. From January 20-January 22, 2014 I had 240 visitors and 280 page views.
That's really sad.
Though I'm not too sad.
Well, I'm not sad at all actually. I'm more intrigued. And I kind of had fun doing the math.
I do hope, though, that my blog visit rate increases.
26. Thought that sometimes the best part of having a blog is tracking visitors.
It's fun.
27. Realized that's a bit of an overstatement.
My favorite part of blogging is the research, the web surfing, and the opportunity to express myself.
But I do have a lot of fun checking the stats.
28. Thought one good thing about having an unpopular blog is there's more freedom. I don't have to worry much about boring a large audience. I can write thousands of words about my toenails if I feel like it.
If I was really popular, I'd probably start worrying much more about pleasing my readers.
29. Thought it would be hard to please my readers even if I wanted to write about only what pleases my readers. Because how do I know what my readers want to read?
It's easier to just write about what I want to write about, and then hope that someone out there is interested.
I'm just saying if I was more popular, I'd probably be more anxious about pleasing readers. I'm not sure it would change my content.
Sometimes I have days where a certain post gets a lot of visitors. I start worrying a bit about what I said in the post. What if I said something really stupid? What if there are several major grammatical errors? What if I said something very embarrassing or controversial?
30. Listened to Whitley's "Cheap Clothes" while exercising.
I think it's one of the prettiest Aussie songs.
31. Saw that the most popular Whitley song on Spotify is "More than Life". I'm betting that's due to Dance Academy.
32. Learned from Google that Whitley released an album in 2013 called Even the Stars Are a Mess. It's not on Spotify, unfortunately.
33. Went to the Tropfest website.
Today I'm going to watch my last 2008 finalist film.
It's called "White Lines".
34. Started watching the film.
So far, it's very dialogue-heavy.
35. Thought that one of the actors in the film looks a little bit like an actor I like. I forget his name, but he's from UnderBelly: Razor and Sea Patrol.
36. Found the name of the actor. It's John Batchelor.
I'll check to see if he has "White Lines" in his filmography. I doubt it. The guy looks like him, but not exactly.
37. Checked.
Batchelor wasn't in "White Lines".
He is, however, in a recent short film called "12 Steps".
38. Liked these lines from "White Lines". You know what the problem with you trying to be a smart ass is, Ray? You got the ass bit down pat. It's the smart part of the equation you always struggle with.
39. Finished watching the movie.
I thought it was cute. It had a nice little twist.
I'm not sure the ending fit well with everything.
40. Felt that the theme of the movie was along the lines of people trying to over-state their contribution to the world.
41. Decided to just talk about the film. I've often torn between being vague and giving away spoilers.
I'm going to opt for the latter. If anyone happens to be reading this, and they want to see the film for themselves, I suggest they close their eyes and skip ahead a few lines.
So, the movie starts off with two cops in a car. One wants to retire and the other is a rookie. There's some intense, antagonistic buddy-film type dialogue. The implied idea is that they're about to do some major crime fighting. Then we learn that they're parking cops. The big criminal they're fighting is a guy who was in a parking space fifteen minutes too long.
42. Saw, from IMDb, that both of the main actors in the film have appeared on various TV shows.
For the most part, they seem to do small guest roles.
43. Saw that Craig Maclean, the writer and director of "White Lines", has only that one film on his filmography.
44. Saw that Colin Lane, one of the main actors, starred in a 2009 comedy TV-movie called I can't Believe It's not Better. Patrick Brammall was one of his co-stars.
It's a behind the scene thing of a sketch comedy show, I'm not sure if they mean it's a real behind the scenes thing or a fictional one.
I'm guessing it's the latter.
45. Saw that, in the late 1990's, Colin Lane starred on a TV show called The Adventures of Lano and Woodley.
There were thirteen episodes.
I'm not sure if it was a big thing, medium thing, or one of the projects that few people knew about.
46. Saw that Lord Wiki has things to say about the show, which makes me think it was fairly popular.
47. Learned from Lord Wiki that Lano and Woodley weren't just a TV show.
They were a popular comedy duo.
48. Decided I was wrong about the actors from "White Lines" being guest-star type actors.
Well, they might be that now. But in the past, they had more significant roles. Or at least Colin Lane did.
Now I shall look more closely at Scott Harrison.
49. Saw that Harrison was in a 2014 movie called The Heckler. I don't think he was the main star, but his name is fairly high in the credits. I don't think it was one of those tiny, walk on-walk off parts.
50. Saw that Harrison has been in at least two movies with Roy Billing.
51. Found a third movie that's a Harrison-Billing combo.
52. Wondered if Billing and Harrison are friends.
53. Started watching a Lano and Woodley video.
I think Colin Lane looks a lot like David Morrisey.
I thought that, to a small degree, while watching "White Lines", but now I'm seeing an even stronger resemblance.
53. Decided that Colin Lane looks like a mixture of David Morrisey and Adam Hills.
54. Thought, as for singing, Colin Lane reminds me of Barry Manilow.
55. Saw that Barry Manilow is gay and has a husband.
I didn't know that.
56. Started to watch another Lano and Woodley video.
It's about a creative version of sign language—kind of like charades sign language.
57. Finished watching the video.
I liked it. I had many laugh out loud moments.
58. Decided to watch one more Lano and Woodley video. This one is about voice-overs.
59. Finished watching the video.
I thought it was clever and hilarious.
2. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.
3. Liked that Dina (Saskia Burmeister) stood up for herself when a bullying teacher (Robert van Mackelenberg) blamed her for something she didn't do.
With bullying in schools, I think the main problem is students bullying each other. But sometimes it's the teacher that bullies a student. I remember seeing it when I was in high school.
4. Thought about how there are also teachers who are bullied by students.
5. Wondered what happens more often—teachers bullying students or students bullying teachers.
6. Finished watching the episode.
7. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.
Proud of and happy for Hannah (Cassie Howarth).
She was feeling for sorry for herself because of being paralyzed and was in the mindset that the only thing she could do is lie in bed.
Then Zac (Charlie Clausen) took out her wheelchair, told her to get in it and left Hannah. When he came back, she had gotten herself dressed and in the wheelchair.
8. Listened to the song "Nullarbor" by The Lucky Wonders while exercising.
It's on my Aussie Spotify list, but I don't think I've heard it many times.
I think it's a pretty song.
9. Went to the Lucky Wonders website.
10. Saw that they're available to perform at weddings.
11. Saw that their instruments include ukuleles. That's very cool.
12. Wished I was musically smart enough to know their music had ukuleles before reading about it. I wish I could know these things just by listening to the music.
13. Talked with Jack about sugar gliders. He announced that he'd like them as a pet one day.
We talked about the diet controversy.
We'll look more into it...someday.
Jack's pet desires are usually met with a veto from me.
14. Looked at a pet education website about sugar gliders.
They say the two biggest problems are low calcium issues and obesity.
I think when people think of fat sugar gliders, they imagine them being fed hotdogs and funnel cakes. But the website says obesity can happen from overfeeding them mealworms. Mealworms are high in fat.
For calcium, you have to make sure the insects they eat, are fed calcium. This is called gut-loading. I learned about this when I had the green anole as my roommate. I bought the crickets with the plan that I'd start the gut-loading IF the lizard started eating the crickets. I had my doubts, because the anole hadn't eaten the mealworms I had offered previously.
The lizard showed no interest in eating and died. Then I was left with crickets for pets.
15. Thought the diet of the sugar glider looks complicated.
I think my biggest question and concern, when talking about getting an animal, is how difficult would it be to leave it when we go out of town.
If it's easy to feed, it's not a huge deal, because we have someone come each day to feed our cat.
But feeding a sugar glider doesn't look easy.
16. Felt that in life people have to choose between having lots of cool pets or traveling.
I usually opt for traveling. But sometimes I like to imagine having pets instead.
I'd want chickens and rabbits, probably.
I might want a dog but probably not.
17. Thought I probably wouldn't want reptiles.
We have lizards outside. I like seeing them free. There's no point is us having one in a cage.
18. Thought one of the best pets, really, was the crickets. I loved having them in my room.
They were very easy.
Well...no. They were easy, because we didn't end up traveling when we had them.
When we'd go to the lake house, I'd take them with us.
We did talk about traveling, and I remember stressing about what we'd do with the crickets.
The thing with crickets, though, is they don't have a very long lifespan, usually. You can have them as pets in the months between your big family vacations.
19. Remembered that I got the crickets in February. Then the last one died sometime in the summer. It was before July 5, because we went to Florida for a funeral, and I know we didn't have to struggle to find a cricket babysitter.
20. Reminded myself that even without the traveling factor, some pets are easier than others.
I'm betting having sugar gliders would be a million more times challenging them having pet crickets.
21. Looked at my blog stats.
I'm wondering if I can compare this year to last year.
For Monday to Thursday this week, Statcounter says I've had a total of 204 visitors, and 232 page views.
That's a low visitor to page view ratio. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, mathematically. But what I mean is it seems that for the people visiting, not many are sticking around for long. (Maybe it's because I talk about boring things like blog statistics)
What I'd like to see is a high ratio. I'd rather have a small number of visitors who visit multiple pages on my blog, than a large number of drive by visits.
22. Looked at this week last year. Monday the 19th-Thursday the 22nd.
23. Realized I shouldn't be counting Thursday, since the 2015 one is complete. The 2016 one is still in progress.
So....
Let's recount this year. Monday-Wednesday = 167 visits and 191 page views.
Last year I had 265 page views and 325 page views.
Wow!
That is a big change.
I'm considerably less popular this January than I was last January.
24. Looked at this week in 2014. I wasn't even blogging then, and I think maybe I was doing better.
25. Counted. From January 20-January 22, 2014 I had 240 visitors and 280 page views.
That's really sad.
Though I'm not too sad.
Well, I'm not sad at all actually. I'm more intrigued. And I kind of had fun doing the math.
I do hope, though, that my blog visit rate increases.
26. Thought that sometimes the best part of having a blog is tracking visitors.
It's fun.
27. Realized that's a bit of an overstatement.
My favorite part of blogging is the research, the web surfing, and the opportunity to express myself.
But I do have a lot of fun checking the stats.
28. Thought one good thing about having an unpopular blog is there's more freedom. I don't have to worry much about boring a large audience. I can write thousands of words about my toenails if I feel like it.
If I was really popular, I'd probably start worrying much more about pleasing my readers.
29. Thought it would be hard to please my readers even if I wanted to write about only what pleases my readers. Because how do I know what my readers want to read?
It's easier to just write about what I want to write about, and then hope that someone out there is interested.
I'm just saying if I was more popular, I'd probably be more anxious about pleasing readers. I'm not sure it would change my content.
Sometimes I have days where a certain post gets a lot of visitors. I start worrying a bit about what I said in the post. What if I said something really stupid? What if there are several major grammatical errors? What if I said something very embarrassing or controversial?
30. Listened to Whitley's "Cheap Clothes" while exercising.
I think it's one of the prettiest Aussie songs.
31. Saw that the most popular Whitley song on Spotify is "More than Life". I'm betting that's due to Dance Academy.
32. Learned from Google that Whitley released an album in 2013 called Even the Stars Are a Mess. It's not on Spotify, unfortunately.
33. Went to the Tropfest website.
Today I'm going to watch my last 2008 finalist film.
It's called "White Lines".
34. Started watching the film.
So far, it's very dialogue-heavy.
35. Thought that one of the actors in the film looks a little bit like an actor I like. I forget his name, but he's from UnderBelly: Razor and Sea Patrol.
36. Found the name of the actor. It's John Batchelor.
I'll check to see if he has "White Lines" in his filmography. I doubt it. The guy looks like him, but not exactly.
37. Checked.
Batchelor wasn't in "White Lines".
He is, however, in a recent short film called "12 Steps".
38. Liked these lines from "White Lines". You know what the problem with you trying to be a smart ass is, Ray? You got the ass bit down pat. It's the smart part of the equation you always struggle with.
39. Finished watching the movie.
I thought it was cute. It had a nice little twist.
I'm not sure the ending fit well with everything.
40. Felt that the theme of the movie was along the lines of people trying to over-state their contribution to the world.
41. Decided to just talk about the film. I've often torn between being vague and giving away spoilers.
I'm going to opt for the latter. If anyone happens to be reading this, and they want to see the film for themselves, I suggest they close their eyes and skip ahead a few lines.
So, the movie starts off with two cops in a car. One wants to retire and the other is a rookie. There's some intense, antagonistic buddy-film type dialogue. The implied idea is that they're about to do some major crime fighting. Then we learn that they're parking cops. The big criminal they're fighting is a guy who was in a parking space fifteen minutes too long.
42. Saw, from IMDb, that both of the main actors in the film have appeared on various TV shows.
For the most part, they seem to do small guest roles.
43. Saw that Craig Maclean, the writer and director of "White Lines", has only that one film on his filmography.
44. Saw that Colin Lane, one of the main actors, starred in a 2009 comedy TV-movie called I can't Believe It's not Better. Patrick Brammall was one of his co-stars.
It's a behind the scene thing of a sketch comedy show, I'm not sure if they mean it's a real behind the scenes thing or a fictional one.
I'm guessing it's the latter.
45. Saw that, in the late 1990's, Colin Lane starred on a TV show called The Adventures of Lano and Woodley.
There were thirteen episodes.
I'm not sure if it was a big thing, medium thing, or one of the projects that few people knew about.
46. Saw that Lord Wiki has things to say about the show, which makes me think it was fairly popular.
47. Learned from Lord Wiki that Lano and Woodley weren't just a TV show.
They were a popular comedy duo.
48. Decided I was wrong about the actors from "White Lines" being guest-star type actors.
Well, they might be that now. But in the past, they had more significant roles. Or at least Colin Lane did.
Now I shall look more closely at Scott Harrison.
49. Saw that Harrison was in a 2014 movie called The Heckler. I don't think he was the main star, but his name is fairly high in the credits. I don't think it was one of those tiny, walk on-walk off parts.
50. Saw that Harrison has been in at least two movies with Roy Billing.
51. Found a third movie that's a Harrison-Billing combo.
52. Wondered if Billing and Harrison are friends.
53. Started watching a Lano and Woodley video.
I think Colin Lane looks a lot like David Morrisey.
I thought that, to a small degree, while watching "White Lines", but now I'm seeing an even stronger resemblance.
53. Decided that Colin Lane looks like a mixture of David Morrisey and Adam Hills.
54. Thought, as for singing, Colin Lane reminds me of Barry Manilow.
55. Saw that Barry Manilow is gay and has a husband.
I didn't know that.
56. Started to watch another Lano and Woodley video.
It's about a creative version of sign language—kind of like charades sign language.
57. Finished watching the video.
I liked it. I had many laugh out loud moments.
58. Decided to watch one more Lano and Woodley video. This one is about voice-overs.
59. Finished watching the video.
I thought it was clever and hilarious.