More Random Referrer Phun

[yikes].woh.res.rr.com (Road Runner Holdco Llc) [Label IP Address] Ohio, Dayton, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
11th September 2008	22:52:56	www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=JYJ&q=raping babies mindset&btnG=Search www.joelogon.com/blog/2007/02/tactical-ninjas-islamic-terrorists.html

I'm just going to assume this is homework for an Abnormal or Criminal Psych course.

[yowza].rochester.res.rr.com (Road Runner Holdco Llc) [Label IP Address]
New York, Malone, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
11th September 2008	14:16:19	images.google.com/images?q=john%20deere%20nude&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_05_01_foo.html

Hot Tractor-on-Tractor Action.

bluecoat2.wood.army.mil (Headquarters Usaisc) [Label IP Address]
Arizona, Ft. Huachuca, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
16th November 2008	00:05:25	No referring link
16th November 2008	00:05:36	www.google.com/search?q=ran over cat%2C now have low tire pressure www.joelogon.com/blog/labels/driving.html

You can haz tire gauge.

[sigh] (Fairfax County Public Schools) [Label IP Address]
Virginia, Alexandria, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
17th December 2008	12:43:39	search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&FORM=AS5&q=Stabbing %2b Reston %3c VA %2bNew Year's eve www.joelogon.com/blog/labels/arlington.html

I'm hoping this refers to a past New Year's Eve, and not an upcoming one.

[foo].proxy.aol.com (America Online Inc) [Label IP Address]
Virginia, Reston, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
18th December 2008	13:26:53	aolsearch.aol.com/aol/imageDetails?s_it=imageDetails&query=kneed in the groin by a girl&img=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joelogon.com%2Fimages_temp%2F110505viagrasofttab400.gif&site=&host=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joelogon.com%2Fblog%2F2005_11_01_foo.html&width=124&hei www.joelogon.com/blog/2005_11_01_foo.html

Is there really that much to know? Really? And for those men who get off on this -- just google "Krav Maga", that should do it.

[urm].sip.bna.bellsouth.net (Bellsouth.net Inc) [Label IP Address]
Tennessee, Nashville, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
18th December 2008	19:32:05	www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS247&q=pussy%20pictures%20for%20phones&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/10/phone-sex-photos-warning-stupid.html

Because nothing says "class" and "sex machine" better than gynecological photos as your cell phone wallpaper.

Lastly, we're seeing an epidemic of people losing condoms in Virginia. Remember, kids, Virginia is for lovers.

Tags: referrer phun

Random Referrers

And now, time for another edition of everyone's favorite narcissistic blog game show, Random Referrers:

[uhhh].cpe.net.cable.rogers.com (Rogers Cable Communications Inc) Canada, 0 returning visit Date Time WebPage 4th September 2008 10:26:17 www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=im having an affair how to i get out&start=10&sa=N www.joelogon.com/blog/2008/07/im-either-having-affair-or-mid-life.html

Unless there's blackmail involved, I would say, "Just say, NO!"

[hrm] (Comcast Cable Communications Holdings Inc) California, Los Angeles, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
3rd September 2008	15:07:00	www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Free Magazines for Stupid people&btnG=Google Search&aq=f&oq= www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/11/uncut-snatch-for-stupid-people.html

If the people truly are stupid, why wouldn't you charge? I sense a business model (*cough* US Weekly *cough*)


[oof].sktn.hsdb.sasknet.sk.ca (Sasktel Wide Area Network Engineering Center) Canada, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
27th August 2008	23:01:19	www.google.com/search?q=i%27m worried my straight leg jeans are too tight&btnG=Search&hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&hs=nYs&sa=2 www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/09/fashion-is-tax-on-people-who-think.html

If you can get your jeans on without having to use pliers, you're probably still okay.

[uhh].dyn.optonline.net (Optimum Online (cablevision Systems)) New Jersey, Denville, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
21st July 2008	20:52:38	www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pepcid ac for performance anxiety www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html

If you're taking an antacid for performance anxiety... I'm going to hope you're a competitive eater.

[oops].camdenmo.org (County Of Camden)
Missouri, Camdenton, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
15th July 2008	08:31:03	www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=i ran over a possum and my brakes smell hot www.joelogon.com/blog/labels/driving.html

Mmmm, hot possum. Honestly, if you run over a possum and it gets trapped in your wheels, and gets cooked by your brakes, I think that counts as good fortune (and good eatin'...)

[ouch].nj.res.rr.com (Road Runner Holdco Llc)
New Jersey, Cliffside Park, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
3rd July 2008	01:25:02	search.live.com/results.aspx?q=what to do if needle breaks in ass cheek&go=&form=QBRE3 cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=73547862146091&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=6b4c6fcb,b52d60a5&FORM=CVRE8

I would try to ask what exactly you're shooting up into your ass cheek, but then I realized that I don't honestly want to know.

Finally, to those folks representing the many repeat visits from mx1.mtlqc.ca (Teksavvy Solutions Inc) to my writeup of Orson Scott Card's terrible Empire -- I hate to break it to you, but the book is just bad and it's not going to get any better, no matter how many times you come back.

Tags: random referrers

Mullets, Facepalms, and Creative Commons

I was looking at my referrers the other day, and other than a random MSN Search query for "Card for blessing non religious person who has more than her share lately" (got that, Hallmark people?), there wasn't really that much out of the ordinary.

That is, until I saw a hit from Wikimedia Commons for "Wikip-facepalm.jpg."

I followed it back to the Wikipedia entry for facepalm (it's on the Types of Gestures page) -- and there I am:

This, of course, is a spiritual followup to my mullet making it into Wikipedia.

Now, other than the pure showing off/vanity of it, this illustrates one of the primary benefits of forgoing copyright in favor of Creative Commons licenses:

If you make it easy for people to use your stuff, they will use your stuff -- and it's more likely that they'll attribute you for it, than if they simply stole it.

Of course, I'm not a professional photographer, and I don't have any pretensions of making any money off my photos. So I license nearly all of my pics "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic" -- I don't even require "noncommercial" use (whatever that means these days) -- just give proper attribution and adhere to share alike (which, in all likelihood, would really curtail any use except noncommercial use).

I'm not a revolutionary -- I do still think that there is a place for intellectual property (though I feel that the idea of "tolerated use" is fascinating). But when it comes to personal sharing, I've come around to the idea of "What are you saving it for?" (I'll probably talk about that some more later.)

Incidentally, since I wear glasses, the photo doesn't depict my actual facepalm (fingerprints, you know) -- my true facepalm is more of an eyerub:

Tags: flickr, creative commons, facepalm

My Blog Is Read by Master Criminals

More referrer fun -- this time, a criminal mastermind from the Show Me state wants to know "how do I steal money from someomes [sic] credit card":

[IP redacted] (Xspedius Communications Co) [Label IP Address]

Missouri, O Fallon, United States, 0 returning visit

Date	Time	WebPage
9th December 2007	16:22:10	www.google.com/search?q=how do I steal money from someomes credit card&hl=en&start=10&sa=N www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/11/uncut-snatch-for-stupid-people.html

This calls for a facepalm:

See more facepalms.

Monday Thus Far

* Returning to Standard Time, Effects of: Yeah, an extra hour of sleep. That'll help.

I seem to have been running on Pacific Time for the past few months, anyway.

* Robo-quotable: A source tells me that my robocall entry was quoted in the print version of the DC Express today. I was expecting this, partly because of the subject, but mostly because my referrers showed a hit from the DC Blogs live feed, originating from wpni.com (Washington Post Newsweek Interactive), which is one of the work domains for the Post.

I took a look at the PDF -- above the fold, very nice.

* Quitting unemployment is called "getting a job."

* Not Going to Vegas (Baby): The inaugural BlogWorld & New Media Expo happens this week in Vegas. Back when I was employed, I had been planning on going to this, since it was always nice when the company paid the freight for the blogging boondoggle/junket/networking opportunities.

After you go to a couple, though, you realize what a racket they are -- the same speakers; the same marketing blogging consultants pitching themselves, their blogs, and their books; the same blog backscratching and circle-jerking.

I'm not the only one to notice this.

Not saying they aren't fun, or that they can't be useful or interesting. It's still a huge racket, though, and I'm not going to go on my own dime right now.

* Lastly: I just got my copy of Leopard and I need to get food and coffee. Except Blogger keeps hanging when I try to publish. Argh.

Condom Stuck in Virginia

This "condom stuck in" referrer meme is like a self-reinforcing, self-fulfilling prophecy. And not a particularly welcome one, at that.

It's a vicious circle, which features prophylactics of various types getting stuck in various places:

CPE-[redacted].vic.bigpond.net.au (Telstrainternet44) [Label IP Address]

Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 0 returning visits

Date	Time	WebPage
18th September 2007	12:37:14	www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=condom stuck in virginia&meta= www.joelogon.com/blog/2007/09/madam-youre-looking-for-help-in-wrong.html
18th September 2007	12:37:42	www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=condom stuck in virginia&meta= www.joelogon.com/blog/labels/referrers.html

Then again, I could be mistaken: Virginia might be Aussie slang for girl-parts. Or, Virginia might refer to a particular person.

If this is the case, I apologize to you, Ms. Virginia, wish you luck, and bid you a speedy trip to the GP or OB/GYN of your choosing.

On the Plus Side, It'll Keep the Office Gossips Wondering

Can you imagine? You're in Investor Relations or whatever and you go check out your company's profile on Google Finance:

...and in the related Blog Posts, up comes some random idiot blogger's entry about one of your approximately 3,829 employees (or at least, someone using the office network) who got a piece of a condom stuck in her cooch a very private area (and who can't even spell "vagina" correctly, at that):

gw.insightns.com (Insight Communications Company L.p)
Kentucky, Louisville, United States, 0 returning visits

Date	Time	WebPage
5th September 2007	12:51:23	finance.google.com/finance?cid=8460311 www.joelogon.com/blog/2007/09/madam-youre-looking-for-help-in-wrong.html

Tags: google finance, hr nightmares

Madam, You're Looking for Help in the Wrong Place

More referrer phun. Is this something I want to be associated with? Not in the slightest:

[redacted].dhcp.insightbb.com (Insight Communications Company L.p)
Kentucky, Louisville, United States, 0 returning visits

Date	Time	WebPage
4th September 2007	15:32:08	www.google.com/search?q=i have a piece of a condom stuck in my vaginia&hl=en www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html

Also, maybe it's just me, but wouldn't the fact that the condom is in pieces be of slightly greater importance?

Late Night Shots, Backfence Bye-Bye, WaPo's "Porch Monkey" and Ratting Out Tourists

Some items of local interest from the past few weeks:

* The Return of Late Night Shots: I was just going to leave this one alone, but I'm seeing a spike of traffic to my Late Night Shots entry from last year. It's on the first page of search results for "late night shots", and the renewed interest is most likely due to the City Paper's feature story on them this week, which was picked up by Metafilter and god knows where else. (The City Paper's site was down for a while Friday, perhaps due to the increased traffic or maybe a denial-of-service attack -- who knows.)

If you hate over-privileged douchebags, the people who love to hate them, or both, check out the comments in the story.

* Backfence Gone: As had been announced, Backfence.com is no more. I'd had a semi-permanent listing in the local blogs section of the Reston version, as they'd pretty much stopped updating the featured blogs a while ago. Oh well.

* You Can't Reclaim Porch Monkey: A couple of weeks ago, the Post had a story about the resurgence of front porches, and how they get neighbors talking to each other.

It was a feelgood piece, which is why I was especially ambushed by the last paragraph:

"The porch sealed the deal for the couple -- she's a credit union retirement specialist, he's an Army translator -- because it strongly evoked her Midwestern childhood. 'I was a big-time porch monkey in St. Louis. Everyone was outside on the stoop until long after the streetlights came on.'"

I've never heard the term porch monkey used as anything but a racist slur against blacks. Regardless of whatever Clerks II has to say about it.

In an odd bit of timing, the Post's Howard Kurtz had specifically mentioned the phrase a few months earlier, in an item decrying the appearance of racial slurs in... comments.

Also, I guess it's one of those second-tier slurs, as it doesn't warrant "quotes" or the "PM-word" treatment.

* Throwing Tourists Under the Bus: I submitted the following item, which ran in Eavesdrop DC:

About 3pm, one tourist to another at the Folklife Festival:

"You're just looking for an excuse to take a picture of a black person."

True story, if slightly paraphrased, though it captured the spirit of the exchange.

One only hopes they were talking about the gospel or blues performers, say, and not a random DC resident.

Tags: eavesdrop dc, washington city paper, eavesdropping, slurs, late night shots

This Makes Me Nervous, Curious and Furious

According to Statcounter, I normally don't get more than 200 pageviews a day here (and truthfully, it's usually closer to the 100 side of things).

I don't mind at all -- the only metric I really care about is my Returning Visitors number (since it presumably represents people I know in some way). As long as my Unique Visitors count is close to my pageviews count, I'm happy.

(I realize I'm not going to get a lot of repeat visits or extra pageviews from people who actually think certain words are spelled "felatio" or "vaginia" -- nor do I want them. And I feel better about my various one-off entries when people find the useful info they searched for, like how to beat the Asian flush. They come in, they find what they need, they leave.)

However, occasionally, I'll see my pageviews jump far out ahead of my uniques. Then I'll drill down and see stuff like the following last month, which makes me nervous, curious and furious:

ip[redacted].dc.dc.cox.net (Cox Communications) [Label IP Address]

Virginia, Fairfax, United States, 0 returning visits

Date	Time	WebPage
5th June 2007	15:59:41	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_09_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_10_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	16:20:44	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_09_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_10_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	16:21:53	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_11_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/11/sandwich-is-so-much-better-when.html
5th June 2007	16:23:10	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_10_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_11_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	16:44:20	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_11_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	16:56:07	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_11_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	16:59:33	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:03:35	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:11:30	www.joelogon.com/blog/2006_12_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:12:37	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:15:19	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:20:43	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2006/12/big-tits-and-bonus-checks.html
5th June 2007	17:21:45	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_01_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:24:31	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:33:45	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/
5th June 2007	17:35:17	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/
5th June 2007	17:37:08	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/
5th June 2007	17:48:45	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_02_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:49:49	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_04_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:51:40	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_04_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:55:11	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_03_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_04_01_foo.html
5th June 2007	17:56:11	www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_04_01_foo.html www.joelogon.com/blog/2007_05_01_foo.html

I get nervous because I wonder -- Is someone hoovering up my content to republish somewhere else? Or am I getting stalked -- is there a dossier getting filled up periodically?

Then I get curious -- is it a person, or some kind of bot? What kind of person would just click from monthly archive page to monthly archive page from 4pm, to just before 6pm?

And for the longer gaps -- was this person really reading from 15:59 to 16:20, or were they getting up to go to the kitchen, or taking a bathroom break in the middle?

Finally, I get furious -- What the fuck was wrong with March 2007? That month had a lot of really good entries in it! Here I am, turning phrases, crafting words and putting in pictures and taking a lot of time and pride in my work, and you, you piece of shit, you bitch/son-of-a-bitch -- you spent 64 fucking seconds on it!

Okay, I'm calm. I'm calm. I take another look and see that you're doing something that makes you look like you're jumping back and forth between certain months, like March and April 2007 (which really were both pretty good blog months), so you probably did spend more time in those months. So I have no idea who you are or what you're doing, but at least you didn't just skim past.

I'm calm.

Tags: statcounter, blog metrics, unique visitors, repeat visitors, pageviews

No strip clubs? What the hell kind of planned community is this?

Forget about the lack of cemeteries; Reston has a couple of big hotels (the Hyatt and the Sheraton come to mind), but no strip clubs (let alone any within easy cabbing distance from said hotels).

Don't see the demand? Au contraire -- here's a referrer from about 10:30pm, Tuesday:

(Reston Sheraton Hotel)
Virginia, Reston, United States, 0 returning visits

Date	Time	WebPage
30th January 2007	22:29:48	www.joelogon.com/blog/labels/auctions.html www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8 &rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS205US205&q=Strip clubs Reston%2c VA

Looks like it's discreetly billed hotel room porn for you, fellow traveler.

Now, if you could get it past the zoning and planning boards, a strip club in Fairfax or Loudoun County would make a fortune. Like that would ever happen. (Though I hear the Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County gets pretty cozy with real estate developers. I sense possibilities.)

As it happens, I guess the closest titty pastie bar would be Crystal City Restaurant (never been, though I have been to the Crystal City Sports Pub a few times, which I am told, is run by the same people). Though from here, and especially given the presence of nipple-coverings, you might as well go the whole hog and into the District.