M&MS 2012 in Review. It’s Like an Annual Report for the Self-Absorbed. Like Me!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 38,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 9 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

My Apologies for the Silence

This one’ll be short, actually, not the short where I say this is going to be short and it ends up at 1,200 words which generally isn’t short by blog standards but is incredibly short by my standards, but more like the short that is short because it’s short. And yes it took me 48 words to say “this is short”, because I am still me, after all. Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry for the lack of updates and vitriol and whatnot. Life has been uber-crazy lately and my muse has decided to spend the last couple of months in Tahiti apparently. I probably won’t be watching The Walking Dead anymore, because the last 2 episodes I saw broke me. I will write up why at some point but I can’t even muster up the energy needed to do that yet, so it’ll appear at some point. I’ll be back to batshit-crazy-guy at some point. Promise.

Yours,

Aravan, God of Transexuals

I am 23 Times More Popular in Vietnam Than Luxembourg

I’m a little bit of a stats obsessive. I love them. I think it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy football so much – stats are like the little milestones that let you say “Hey, neat, this thing that happens hundreds of times a year is slightly different than the other times!”. I don’t memorize stats, though, which is for Rain Man and baseball fans. I just like seeing them, thinking “well isn’t that interesting”, and moving on with my life. If I could have a bunch of people following me all day – or, well, maybe an app or something, because that could get creepy as hell after a while – I’d totally do it, just so I could get information about the things I do and compare them to my average score and the population at large. Couple that with an announcing team or NFL Films guy or – especially – Colby from Top Shot and I’d be in heaven. “Will you look at this! He has been urinating for 37 seconds already, well past his average time of 29.73 seconds! Could his all-time record be in jeopardy?” This would be awesome in every way.

Yes, this is another post about my blog site stats. Sorry.

The World Really Wants to Know About Sophia

Yes, they do. Yes, she is. Yes, it’s a barn.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I underestimated the burning nature of the world’s thirst for knowledge about Sophia and whether or not she was ever found. Ever since The Walking Dead’s season 3 run-up, my blog traffic has tripled. Why? Dunno. Maybe the list of Google search terms for visitors can shed some light on this:

 

 

Dear Aravan: Your Questions, Answered

One of the best parts about having a blog is getting to see how people end up there. On a daily basis, I know how many people reached here by clicking a link on Facebook or Twitter or a different website, but the absolute best section is the Search Terms section. This tells you the weird and wonderful things people have typed into Google and somehow ended up on your site. Some things, like “bob harper” searches, are a natural fit with the blog and so it’s no surprise to get 400 or more varieties of searches in that vein in a 3 month period. Those things are fit perfectly.

It’s the other stuff that I love, though. The things that just don’t seem to be a natural fit whatsoever. They are the absolute best.

So I got an idea: why not take these bizarre and incongruous searches and turn them into a Question and Answer format, along with my most frequent searches? And when I say I “got” the idea, I mean I stole it, completely and unabashedly, from the awesome Candice Bundy. If you like dry humor with a twisting edge (and if you don’t, then what the fuck are you reading this for, anyway?), then you need to read her stuff. She’s even cool in person! (We’ve met, you see. We discussed writing in a bon vivant manner with our devil-may-care attitudes and poignant bon mots and bonded over a rational fear of scuba diving. Also, I was very drunk and may have just been shouting quotes from Revenge of the Nerds all night while she patiently put up with me.) So, here are the questions that you, the world, have asked me, and I will answer them as best I can.

Programming Notes and a Little Bit about GenCon

This one is going to be brief. I’ll wait while you recover from your bout of fainting at that news and as you wrestle desperately with your skepticism. Swear to god, I’ll be brief. Briefish. Somewhat succinct.

Man, it’s hard to do. It’s like asking Hemingway to write a Shakespearean play.

OK, first off, some programming notes. I just got back from vacation on Tuesday (I was at GenCon, more on that in a bit) so I’m a little behind.

Coming later today will be a first here at Me and My Shovel: a podcast. You read that right. Very soon, you’ll hear my gratingly irritating voice for the first time broadcast over the Internets. Because you know my love for keeping things short, this podcast lasts only an hour and 37 minutes. You’re welcome.

The Tactical Guide to Snake Plissken’s Hair

In honor of Snake Plissken Month, I thought it was important to take the time and focus on the most important advantage that Snake Plissken had in his one-man battle against the world. Forget his special forces training, Purple Hearts, and combat experience. It’s not his quick wit and acerbic attitude. It’s not even his guns (ahhh, the 1980′s – we just couldn’t get enough of huge unwieldy revolvers with massive scopes mounted on them). It’s not even his badass jacket. Forget all that shit.

It’s the hair, baby, all day every day.

Cover Art Reveal for Kendall Grey’s JUST BREATHE Novel, Complete with Behind the Scenes Stuff

Kendall Grey knows how to do shit right. She’s organized, has a plan, executes it, all while maintaining her sarcasm-slinging attitude and foul-mouthed proclivities. In comparison to her, I am a slacking lazy bum who can barely raise the energy to write a blog post.

Of course, I’m a slacker compared to Spicolli, so that’s not the highest of praise, either.

Anyway, Kendall’s new cover art for the third and final book in her Just Breathe urban fantasy trilogy is being revealed today. Because I adore her muchly, I want to share it with you, my loyal readers – by that I mean my wife and the same Peruvian farmer who keeps asking “¿Cuál es la mejor pala?” – and pimp out a pretty killer damn cover.

My SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Thoughts About Mass Effect 3′s Ending (UPDATED)

I’m going to go ahead and talk about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and their curious decision to have Chewbacca appear at the very end of the game and lead everyone in the Macarena while the blue elephant plays his round piano. Yes, I know that didn’t happen, but I didn’t want the preview thing to show any actual spoilers to ruin someone else’s experience. I will wait until after the jump, which is right here.

Roger Goodell, Pink Slime, and How They are Related

First off, apologies for no reviews for the last 2 Walking Dead episodes. I am still in full Mass Effect, so I have watched exactly 1 television show since last Tuesday (Archer, of course. How you say, push the rope?) so I am behind. Avoiding spoilers for Walking Dead and Mass Effect 3 hasn’t been easy, and even averting my eyes hasn’t stopped me from seeing little bits and pieces I wish I hadn’t. So anyway, hopefully I’ll get those episodes down and digested and reviewed soon. I do know this: based off the little I’ve heard, those two reviews may be the most bile-filled spewing of hate of them all.

Back to the news.

You probably don’t care about what I’m about to talk about. It involves professional football bargaining agreements, salary cap discussions, the Washington Redskins, and the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s big ole swingin’ dick. There are other fun subjects after that, including fanboy gushing over Robert Griffin the Third as well as some scrumptious and delectable ponderings over ammonia-washed “beef” “trimmings” that get turned into goo and added to ground beef to make meat cheaper. It’s a fun-filled potpourri of goodness!