Category: blogging

Poll Post Script

Nobody voted in the poll in the last post. That’s okay, I was going to watch Titans anyway, though I did doze off half way through the episode.

I’m going to play my guitar tomorrow. That will cheer me up a bit.

Until then, sweet dreams.

Wasted Opportunity (Also, blog Stats Review)

I’m serving another 24 hour prison sentence. Dinner has been served to both of us, the doors have been alarmed so she can’t wander off without making a huge noise (I can’t either of course, but I know how to turn the alarms off so there’s that at least), her meds have been delivered, and my intermittent fasting period has been kicked off for another night (a little early, but that’s okay).

If I were smart I would be using my prison sentence to work on some 50/90, but the SyFy channel is running both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and how can I not watch that? The only horcrux left is the snake.

We only have one more day in July, and lately that means I have been paying attention to the hit stats for this blog. I created this account in March of 2017 and the monthly counts for 2021 so far have (with one slight exception) destroyed every other month since the account was created. I’m not sure why (though I do seem to be posting more than ever before) but the numbers have been way up since last November and they skyrocketed starting in January. As always, please remember that skyrocketing monthly numbers for me look more like terribly bad afternoons for real blogs. All of you folks paying me visits are my new best online friends, but there aren’t that many of you, you know? Select company, right?

This is not my first wordpress.com account though. The first ran from December 2012 to July 2016. I was curious how my current stats compared to the old account’s. Turns out I am generally getting more hits now than I did then. Mostly. There were two months, December 2015 and January 2016, where the monthly hit count was higher than anything I’ve had with this account. Every other month was significantly lower than what I have been consistently getting in 2021. Why were those two months so much more popular than any other months since I started? No idea. I look at the summaries and I don’t see anything resembling a spike. There wasn’t one post that somehow, magically, drew in the people in droves. Nope, everything looks normal. I just had way more hits in those two months.

I set the record for this account last month, by quite a bit. This month has a chance to come close, but it’s going to take a crazy good night tonight and a really great day tomorrow to set a new record. Also, July has one more day than June so even if I do set the record it should have an asterisk. Roger Maris like a mutha, right?

Okay, I am going to ride out the rest of Deathly Hallows 2 for the next hour or so. Maybe I’ll try to write some lyrics, or a bass riff, or something. Anything, just so long as my mother doesn’t have a bad night.

Please don’t let her have a bad night. Pretty please.

Lunch Break

I’m in the office today. I need to come in four times this month and today makes three. I have Thursday penciled in as the fourth visit.

Last time I came in everything on my desk had been moved around. I assume it was the cleaning staff. This time everything was where I left it. That’s nice to see. I told myself that I had to get a mouse pad before I came back and then completely forgot. The desk is arranged in such a way that there is a seam right where my mouse wants to be. It’s annoying. A mouse pad will fix it… if I can just not forget to grab a mouse pad. I ordered one on Amazon today. Read the first paragraph and then try to guess what day it’s scheduled for delivery… go on… guess. (Thursday)

I had no traffic this morning. Well, almost no traffic. There was a slow down at the junction between routes 93 and 128. Other than that, and one lady who was tailgating me at 70 miles per hour (asshole), the commute was easy as can be. Here’s hoping the same thing happens on the way home. Fingers crossed.

I didn’t forget my lunch today! Will wonders never cease? I did buy a bag of Peanut M&M’s from the vending machine though. Not my finest hour.

Last week my sister was unable to cover shifts at my parents house, so my brother and I just alternated days. There was a whole week where I slept at my house one day and at theirs the next. Today is the first day since that started that I won’t appear at the house in Tewksbury at all. I love my parents. I really do. I’m also very happy to have a day where I am not there. It’s such a stress relief. I’ll be there tomorrow night and all day Wednesday though, so let’s not get all kumbaya and shit.

This morning, before work, I looked at posts on this page made on July 26ths in past years. Last year there was a post talking about my progress in the 50/90 challenge. I had six songs finished and 17 songs in the pipeline. I am crushing that pace right now. Today I have 13 songs finished and 23 in the pipeline. Winning. I wonder how far along I was in 2014 (the other year I completed the full 50 songs)? Who cares.

This weekend is a Harry weekend. This is a good thing. That is a happy thing.

Okay, back to work.

This is Suddenly Difficult

I have been writing these stupid little blog shaped notes to myself, and indirectly to the rest of the universe, since 2005. Yahoo 360 then Myspace then Blogger then WordPress.com then Medium then WordPress.com again. In all that time it has never been difficult.

Until now.

Well… not really. Thoughts build up, puke them out onto the screen, post. That’s still happening. The issue now is just that there are a bunch of things going on in life that are worthy of writing down, but I am not willing to share any of them right now. Suddenly Mr. Overshare is looking at his world and thinking, that’s none of their business. I’m not sure where that came from.

Suffice to say there are two or three things going on that I am really nervous about that are none of your business at this time, and there are one of two things that I am over the moon excited about that are also none of your business at this time.

So where does that leave me?

Did I hear correctly that the person who wrote the Pickle Rick episode of Rick and Morty is now the show runner on the upcoming She Hulk show? If that’s true, I am suddenly really hyped for that show.

Car Music Morning

I put vocals on three songs this morning. I think I am going to be able to do some more tomorrow. I had six ready to go when I started today, and hopefully I will add some more to the list at some point today.

No signal drop out issues. I changed the USB cable last time and changed the mic and the mic cable this time. Next time (tomorrow?) I will use the old mic with the new cable because I am really hoping the cable was the problem and not the mic because the mic is both expensive and the one I use with the band. I don’t want to replace it. It’s like an old friend, you know?

I normally use a Shure SM58 for vocals and today I used a Shure SM57. The mics are almost identical except the SM58 has a better pop filter on the end. That means any time I sang a syllable that contained a “p” sound it probably sounds something like nuc testing on bikini island (slight exaggeration). Oh well.

I am off work today so hopefully there will be time for a good chunk of guitar tracking. I want to mow the front lawn if the weather holds (it probably won’t because New England is now Atlantis) and I have to pick up my glasses at Lens Crafters (WOOHOO!) and I have to check on the water situation in the cellar (I’m a little afraid of that one) and I have a lot of laundry to do and I might want to sneak in a smidge of work at some point too.

Wow. This might turn into a really busy vacation day. When it comes to it I’ll probably just sit in my room eating cheese doodles and watching super hero TV shows and shit. Whatever.

Wait… I can’t do car music tomorrow because I will be working in the office. Fuck. So more car music on Saturday then. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

On a totally unrelated note, I fucking hate the wordpress.com block editor. Fucking hate it.

Okay, talk to you all later. Good day.

No Hidden Meaning

September 3, 2019 was not a noteworthy day. At least I don’t think it was because I didn’t post anything to this blog that day.

I haven’t missed a day since. What’s the count on my current streak of consecutive days with at least one post?

I promise there is no hidden, secret meaning. It’s just a coincidence, m’kay?

Topic-Free Post

June 2021 is about to end. I’m sitting at home watching MST3K. Jen is killing bad guys in World of Warcraft. Bellana is in Vermont and Harry is at his dad’s house.

I feel like I should be doing something impactful but instead I’m sitting here typing this and I can’t even think of a topic to write about.

We have about 28 hours left in the month and I was just looking at the stats for this page and, well… We broke the account’s record for most page views in a month. Thanks, dear readers. I have also set the account’s record for the most posts in a month. In both cases, again with a full day left to go, I broke the records by a lot. So, do I have more page views because I have more posts (yes) or do I have more posts because seeing the higher than normal page view numbers made me want to post more (probably)? I guess it’s like some sort of viscous cycle. I should probably calm down a little with the posting over and over again but… well… it kinda helps me. You know, I keep saying playing guitar is kinda like therapy and I guess in some way so is this page. Also, how am I going to slow things down when 50/90 is about to start? Oh well.

The movie they are riffing on this episode of MST3K has Cesar Romero in it. the movie is in black and white and he’s playing an Air Force pilot or something. Probably an Army Air Corp pilot. I don’t know if there was an Air Force yet. Whatever, Romero is most definitely not playing a deranged clown, but every time I see him on screen all I see is The Joker.

Oh well, what can you do.

Clear That Cache

Addendum to the previous post. I cleared the cache in Vivaldi as well as cookies and a few other pieces of data and now I can write posts again! It’s such a gift. If I were half the analyst I claim to be, I would have done that first because… duh. Of course it was cache. Sign out and sign back in? What are you, an idiot? Clearly it was a little piece of corrupt data lying around.

Change of subject, we have reached the point where we are planning how to pack up the cars to drive to Vermont to help my step daughter move into her apartment. I am so happy for her and I am so sad for me and Jen. The conflicting feelings are really tough to deal with. I’m trying to look outward though and just be happy and excited for Bellana. She’s amazing and this is just one more baby step toward her taking over the world. Well, taking over the world figuratively speaking. I’m not being literal when I say that… or am I?

Okay, back to work, red head!

Dirty Water

As I was wrapping up in the shower this morning the water pressure dropped way down. Huh? Then the water turned brown. Ugh. Every tap in the house was giving dirty, ugly brown water. I sent a tweet to the city’s twitter account, but it was still not even 8:00am yet so I didn’t expect anything. I checked the taps in the kitchen and the bathrooms every 15 minutes or so for about an hour and now they are looking back to normal. I figured that would happen. Someone somewhere near here was having work done and something minor happened and it just took a while to clear out all the dirt.

I just re-read that paragraph and I think it does a good job of making me look like I know what I am talking about when I honestly haven’t a clue. Good work, Robbie.

What the hell is up with my work computer? Everything I need for work is running 100% perfectly. Everything else is running 100% perfectly too with the exception of the very page I am typing this post on. The WordPress.com post editor page comes up blank when I access it from the Vivaldi browser. Not always, only when I am logged in through a non-private window. I tried another tab. Nope. I tried another window. Nope. I tried logging out and logging back in again. Nope. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Vivaldi (without deleting my browsing data). Nope. If I log in through a private window it’s fine. That’s how I am bringing this life saving post to you right now, through the glory of the private window which still works. Now c’mon guys, I don’t want to have to uninstall again and delete all of my browser data and start from scratch. I can never remember my sync password. Don’t be a jerk like that.

I wonder if it’s a cache thing… can I clear the cache? How do you clear your cache in Vivaldi? To the Google I go! (Later. It’s 9:00. I have to work now. I’ll ask Mr Google later.)