Writing for the numbers

I'm perplexed, which isn't an unusual state for me.

"There you go again, Eleanor. Now what's the problem?"

Did my daily blog check-in and discovered, to my surprise and horror that according to my page view count, nobody has read my blogs today. Not one person. Nada. Rien. Bupkis.

As one could expect, this has somewhat unnerved me since I've always strived to write and share interesting, somewhat controversial on occasion, weird-ish and witty in my opinion, copy. For whatever reason, nobody has felt the need to read today.

"So what's your theory as to the reason, Eleanor?"

Of course it's pure speculation on my part since there's no way to ascertain the cause unless blog readers actually post their reasons.

- Today being Sunday, people are busy doing...Sunday-ish things like watching football games or something...cleaning the gutters...walking the dog or cat

- People are hitting the malls early and getting a head start on fighting for a parking place, in order to buy holiday gifts

- People are taking care of personal hygeine Sunday tasks like cutting toe nails, picking up doggie-do in their back yard and related responsibilities

- People are absorbed in baking their Christmas fruitcake, which must be aged for the holiday with an ample amount of liquor. Just wondering why this is a sustained holiday favorite when many people that I know and having watched them eat it, pick out a large percentage of the fruit with their fork. Some leave it on the edge of their plate while others hide it in a napkin. But I digress.

- Sunday is the day for a gum massage and floss the teeth

- Sunday is the day set aside to make-some-green bean casserole. Related to fruit cake issue, why is this a sustained favorite? Anyone reading this want to share? Having only tasted this delicacy once in my life - that says something in itself - went on line to find out what exactly went into the making of this popular dish.

According to the Campbells Classic Soup site http://www.campbellskitchen.com/Recipes/RecipeDetails.aspx?recipeId=24099 (say that fast after a few drinks) , which has honored the dish with its own link, here are the ingredients for Classic Green Bean Casserole:

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (Regular, 98% Fat Free or Healthy Request®)
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Dash ground black pepper
4 cups cooked cut green beans
1 1/3 cups French's® French Fried Onions

Speaking strictly for myself ("well who else would you be speaking for, Eleanor!"), somehow green beans, soy sauce and fried onions just don't do it for me. However, it is one popular holiday dish so who am I.

Moving on...

- Sunday is egg nog tasting day in order to obtain the perfect balance of nog and brandy or bourbon or rum, or all three

Although my consumption of egg nog is limited to a few tastings as a guest over the years, it definitely has earned a place on my tasty treat list. The ever-dependable and definitely too perfect, Martha Stewart, offers these ingredients on her site, to make her perfect nog.

Ingredients

• 4 cups milk
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 12 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup bourbon, (optional)
• 1 cup chilled heavy cream
• Grated nutmeg, (optional)

 

Receipe directions on her perfect site here: http://www.marthastewart.com/334358/eggnog?czone=entertaining/holiday-entertaining/holidaycenter-drinks&center=0&gallery=274594&slide=281657

Really, getting back to the possible reasons, it's all speculation in the end but it does make one wonder. Have I lost it and more to the point, did I ever have it? I mean, go know! Then again, tomorrow is Monday, followed by Tuesday...

To quote Kingsley Amis: "If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing" Do I hear an amen?

Two tweeters no longer like me

Today's blog is on the short and not-to-sweet side. Somehow and according to my Twitter page stats, two tweeters have dropped me. This has got me wondering first of all, who are they and secondly, what was their motivation.

Sharing tweets that strike the imagination of tweeters is a challenge in itself and it's nice when people find one (me) interesting enough to follow one(me again). However...it's also somewhat blechy discovering one has been dropped. One explanation might be that the new tweeter-ers followed me and I didn't reciprocate. It was a twitter social faux-pas. I can live with it.

Another possibility is that perhaps my subject matter didn't interest them. I mean, my tweets do cover life's more quirky stories like road kill calendars, cheese rolling events, Paul the octopus demise, a woman marrying herself...but also more staid commentaries including celebrities being and acting like celebrities. I like diverse subjects.

So the two tweeter who dropped me will miss out on all my creative commentary and witty repartee. Their loss. Plenty more tweeters 'out there' somewhere waiting to be my friend. Y'a wanna be my friend?

Not that much strength in numbers, alas

As a blogger with six blogs no less, I've frequently pondered as to who reads my literary output. Now I know.

Relatively recently, Blogger introduced or maybe it was always there and I never took advantage of it, statistics pertaining to the who, what and where of people reading my blogs. There is an option to turn it off if I want but somehow there's a compulsion to know who's "out there" in cyberland. In retrospect, perhaps I should have clicked on the "don't track your own page views" option. Actually, I've never been big on statistics anyway and have trouble interpreting their meaning. What are numbers, anyway, in the big scheme of things? Right?

In any case, statistics indicate that this blog, Gimme a Break, is the most viewed out of the six since IMHO, it focuses on the quirky, irrelevant yet interesting people, places and things that make life interesting. For example, 330 people dropped by for whatever reason for the entire month of November 2010, while in the "all time history" category, there were 648 page views since its inception. Furthermore, people living in the U.S. frequented the blog most often followed by the Netherlands, Russia, Canada, Germany...etc. Your presence was and is much appreciated, people! This is my favorite blog because it always amazes me how many bizarre and interesting things and people 'out there' on planet earth, waiting to be brought to the attention of readers. It's also the blog in which I express my rants and raves and get things off my chest, so to speak.

The next two in popularity is Note to Myself and A. Playwright's Rambling, the latter devoted to my quest to get any of my plays produced and a means in which to express my angst and frustration, thereof. All this is to say - or write - that ignorance is bliss and some things are best left alone. As a blogger the purpose of sharing our views is the hope that someone, somewhere on this planet, appreciates or finds them interesting. The stats are also an indication as to the popularity of a subject and which subjects interest people.

My newest addition is Starting Over, a fiction story focusing on Sheila, who leaves her hockey-crazed husband to start over, hence the title. It started out strong with regular installments but somehow lost steam along the way. Number-wise, 103 people dropped by in total to read the continuing saga, a cross between a romance story and a soap opera, and 14 people dropped by last month. I suppose if the numbers indicated there was an interest, the story would continue. Then there's a gardening blog, Living in Condoville, a light-hearted look that examines the ups and downs of condo living with names changed to protect the guilty,

So there we have it. To look or not to look - that is the question. I mean, how could I not want to know whose reading this?

Well that explains it! 71% of Tweets ignored

By now people reading this blog are probably bored with my kvetching/complaining about Twitter and my missing tweets. Thing is when you have 170 people (presumably people and not pets, one hopes) following you, every tweet counts.

So today I read this interesting piece about Twitter and people's tweets. Seems that approx. 160 million people located presumably all over the planet and who knows maybe behind, use Twitter. Lot'sa tweets, right? However...according to a Wired piece, a mere - wait for it - 71% of tweets are ignored. In other words, we Tweeters who attempt to make a relatively interesting or at least intelligent statement in the 140 character allotment, are ignored!

Syssomos, a Toronto, Canada, media analytics company, scanned 1.2 billion messages(!) sent in August and September, 2009. Not surprising at least to me, anyway, their findings indicated that 7 in every 10 tweets are ignored, completely. Six percent get re-tweeted and 92% of the re-tweets happen in the first hour. This indicates at least to me that if you're going to get re-tweeted, it will be in the first hour.

So taking this all into consideration, 23% get some type of reply but 85% of those that get a reply, et just one reply. Hey - one reply is better than no reply! Furthermore 10.7% get two replies and 1.53% get three replies.

What does this all mean in the scheme of things? It means, to me that when sending out tweets, they won't necessarily be read and what's more, tweeters won't get replies, either. Makes a person wonder why bother sending them out altogether. As a writer it's a means to draw attention to a blog. Still, it makes you think, especially about those five missing Tweeters, who might have re-tweeted me.