Friday, May 29, 2009

There Was a Bat in my Shoe

Axcess Vernon
These are the shoes in question

bat
This is representative; I would not hold a wild bat.

Yesterday morning I was letting my dog in and I heard a sudden and incessant chirp-like noise followed by a brief flutter. I froze, wondering what kind of god-awful bug had made it into our home, and simultaneously spotted it: out of one of my shoes flopped a single bat wing.

OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod - breathe!

I leaned over and grabbed the towel sometimes used to wipe off re-entering damp paws and as I slowly approached the shoe, towel held up half in defense, half in expectation of capture, it emerged, chirping, and took a couple fumbling flaps towards me. Like a teasing, shaking, fumbling toreador, I let out a sound that must've resembled a groaning dog and dodged the bat, which landed on the floor.

After a quick toss, a careful roll, and a short trip to the deck, I released our previous captive, who took quickly to the air.

Weirdest thing: the dog and cats were not acting weird or prodding at the shoe which - with a wild animal - I would've expected.

And the only thing I thought - and still think: dude, there was a fucking bat in my shoe.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Late Celebration: 3 years, 907 Posts

Has it really been that long?

I just took a gander at my numbers and it appears I've been blogging for 3 and a half years (January 2006 start). And I've topped 900 posts. I'll use 1000 as an excuse to get drunk and post my greatest hits (or at least what I think are my greatest hits), but thought you folks, my lovely readers, might appreciate an update of how much wonderful time I spend with you, even if it isn't really "with" you. You know what I mean ;)

Most of my readers blog, so keep doing what you're doing. You make differences in lives every day. Seriously. Every day.

This deserves another view of Sean Hannity, Assclown.

Hannity as an Ass Clown

Cause for Concern Statistics

Cause for Concern Google Analytics
Yeah, that's hundreds per day...

Hey there loyal readers! I promised some statistics a week or so ago and here they finally are!

(if you are not using Google Analytics yet, do it now. Now I say!)

3,005 Visits have been made to this blog in the last 30 days, putting me at a hair over 100 visits a day. In that time, 2,850 Absolute Unique Visitors racked up 3,555 Pageviews which is 1.18 Pageviews on average which does not surprise us with a 26 second average time on site. 88.59% of my visitors showed up, visited no other pages, and left (bounce rate).

By far, the majority of my visitors came from the Good Ol' US of A at over 88%. But the top 5 after that were Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France. In the last 30 days people from 74 countries visited these pages.

Top pages continue to be:
Andrew Wilkow My New Pain in the Ass - 16%
G4: Morgan Webb or Oliva Munn - 10%
Whorelore: A Warcraft-inspired Porn Series - 8%
Stephanie Mohr's Appeal: a.k.a. - Money Suckers - 8%
...and the home page - 7%

Traffic split is:

Search Engines 1,798 (59.83%)
Referring Sites 1,069 (35.57%)
Direct Traffic 138 (4.59%)

And of the people using search engines to find me, the top 25 words or phrases people are using to do so are as follows:
andrew wilkow
stephanie mohr
dungeons and dragons porn
wilkow
glenn beck is a douchebag
naked
glenn beck douchebag
andrew wilkow wife
"stephanie mohr"
olivia munn morgan webb
andrew wilkow show
warcraft pron
bad jesus jokes
bad photoshop
d&d porn
scrabble commercial
lindsay lohan
morgan webb naked
ah teens
ah-teens
jesus dog butthole
cause for concern
glenn beck shirtless
let freedom ring lyrics hannity
baman piderman


(I'm particularly proud of the glenn beck / douchebag juxtaposition)

So perhaps you don't give a shit or perhaps it's just enough to wet your willy and squirt funny-juice all over yourself. Or not.

Either way, I do hope you've enjoyed my stats. If anything changes, I'll let you know.

If you have questions about Google Analytics or any of my stats, please hit me up in the comments. Remember: IRL I'm a web developer.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Jesus Had 2 Dads

Came across this image while playing with my Digg account.

Jesus Had 2 Dads

Best Prop 8 protest poster evar.

Firefighter Gets Stoned



Stephanie from LazyTown is Legal

Yesterday, May 26th, 2009, Julianna Rose Mauriello turned 18.

Stephanie from LazyTown

That is all.

UPDATE: The previous picture I had up was a noted 'shop - and I didn't catch it. It has been replaced. I'm not one to back down from controversy, but that's not really controversy, just disrespect. And she's still attractive.

Rush Limbaugh is a Moron

Last week, Rush - based on a "sample" of three people in the studio - proclaimed that all the skinny people he knows drink regular pop and the fat people drink diet. And therefore: diet pop makes you fat.

Today I heard him say that exercise does not matter; if you want to lose weight, you must change what you eat.

There are quarter or eighth-truths here, but it is clearly flawed, borderline retarded logic.

And with this wit he attacks the left, claiming Obama wants everyone in the country to be poor, wants to feed America to blacks for reparations.

How is it that this douche is the voice of the Republican Party? How do the Repubs not see why they're in this situation?

Keep giving them rope. More and more rope. It only gets better.

Rape Van = Van Mural Wednesday

Last week we introduced Rape Van Wednesday. Unfortunately, I self-defeated by posting the definitive image of a rape van. So from now on, Wednesday will be Van Mural Wednesday, as the standard I set was just too high. Worry not, though. Should I find a more exemplary or worthy (or should you point me in the right direction of an) example, I will gladly post it under the title Rape Van.

For now, we will mix it up with sometimes iconic, sometimes interesting, sometimes horribly shitty murals.

Today, we've got a shitty Star Wars mural on a modded gold van. WTF?

Star Wars Mural

And I'm guessing JarJar is on the other side...

Penith

Just funny.



Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Jesus Florida Plate Stalls

Jesus License Plate

The Jesus License Plate has been stalled in the Florida legislature.

Thank God.

Christians push the "Muslims Are Bad" rhetoric and yet a state mandate of a man nailed to a piece of wood is peaceful. FAIL.

Glad to see it has stalled.

But, damn, that man is buff.

Devil Bunnies!

Devil Bunny

Meet me at the racetrack, Jack
Push your pedal to my metal
Peel this sucker out
Devil bunny devil bunny
Go Go Devil Bunnies Go Go



Wow...forgot how short that song was. Thanks to My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and Monkey for inspiration.

Education in America: Jumped the Shark?



Over the weekend, my father, who works for the mayor of a Cleveland suburb, was explaining that next year in the high school system everything but the state mandated minimum was going to be cut. That means that all the high school kids in the district will go to school for under 5 hours a day, cutting everything except English, Math, Social Studies, and Science. That means no music, art, or theatre.

This, of course, stems from the way schools in Ohio are funded: primarily by property taxes. The state lottery also funnels money into the schools, but as soon as that was instituted the crooked politicians channeled most of the non-lottery money into other projects. And despite a 1997 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that property tax funding of the schools was unconstitutional, in 12 years nothing has changed. Except the installation of No Child Left Behind which provides regulations but no money for implementation, further crippling struggling schools.

This is happening all over Ohio, all over the country. Schools are being stripped of enrichment as budgets fall off from a mix of shitty management and shitty economy. As of right now many children are being pushed through high school without some of the things we considered basics: writing a five paragraph essay, understanding of grammar, basic knowledge of science, history, government.

And then what do they do? They try to get into a college having had a year or two or three of 5 hour days, no extracurricular offered. And if they can get into college, they're looking at $30,000 for an inexpensive state college 4-year degree.

This weekend, as I was soaking in the collapse of the educational system that provided me with quality schooling, I came across this article (or one like it) about how colleges are entertaining the idea of a three-year degree to make college "more affordable." So don't knock down absurd spending levels or sick tuition hikes, but slim down your requirements and push the student through ASAP. That is if it's not a bait-n-switch: "Ooh, sorry, you missed the 3-year degree by 2 credits. Not going to give up now, are you?"

So we're pushing the high school students through at absolute minimum so they can barely get into a college that is too expensive so they can chug through that at the minimum 3 years so they can end up in a work force that - if they can get a job - will devalue their education, paying them much less whilst they sit atop some $20K+ in loans. And that's just the undergrad.

And we're spending trillions on banks and car companies? Where's the education reform? Where's the NCLB repeal? Where's the money for the important things?

Needless to say, it makes me mad. And as the father of a 13-year old, it scares the shit out of me.