Bits and Pieces: Christmas edition
Some people do spring cleaning. I do not. But I do get a bunch of little odds and ends for ideas that sound funny in themselves, but which won’t really support a full-length post. So around this time of year, when I get lazy, I toss them together and pretend that I’m doing it on purpose when in fact I have already mentally checked out and can really only think about eggnog, which is my favorite nog ever.
So here we go: My late-2008 bits and pieces.
I WAS CONSTIPATED, BUT APPARENTLY AM NOT ANYMORE
I’m signed up for these Google alerts. They let me know when stuff I might be interested shows up on the net. I have one set up for “the economy isn’t happening,” and a week or so ago I got one telling me that “Constipated Santa and the Great Swiss Christmas” was being featured on the Yahoo! page entitled “Everything about Constipated.“
Which was awesome. Constipated Santa has finally made the big time.
I asked my mom to get me a picture of CS so that you all could enjoy his stumpiness. There were some tense negotiations. At one point, she threatened to withhold the photo until receiving a photo in return — of her granddaughter wearing the hoodie Mom knitted for her that makes her look like a Jawa. Fortunately, I was able to deliver. So, you may now enjoy CS, and pity him. And us.
Unfortunately, I’m no longer up there. But there is a Yahoo group called “Constipated,” and the tagline is “Constipation relief. Women getting unblocked the old fashioned way!”
Yeah, don’t click on that link.
GAYNESS: TOO GAY FOR PRIMETIME
I submitted a few of my posts to both ezinearticles.com and associatedcontent.com. I did this in the name of profit because if a mere 1000 people view my articles on Associated Content, I get $1.50 and then I’m totally going to buy a snack-size bag of chips.
I submitted two posts to Ezine Articles. One was “Unfortunately Pants” and the other was”Christmas is Gay.” The first went through with no problem, but then this arrived regarding the second:
But this struck me as odd, because I don’t think I was engaging in hate-speak simply because I used the word “gay.” What if I had used the sentence, “Gay people are super cool and always wear really outstanding hats?” There had to be a mistake. So I responded:
But within a few days, I got this back:
I’m so sorry, my faithful gay readers. I have failed you. I apologize for my controversial use of a term that you use joyfully to describe yourselves. Next time I’ll try to write about the Mexican family that runs this really great restaurant nearby and pick on them instead, like maybe I’ll mention how hard-working and friendly they all are.
(Side note: I’ve discovered that in total, 12 people combined have viewed my articles, and that all three pieces are rated as three stars out of five. I’m so on a roll.)
I HAVE MADE OVER $5 ON MY ADSENSE ADS
In like a month. At this rate, I’ll reach the minimum $100 payout around August of 2010, and then we’ll all get naked and party down.
I’ve decided that AdSense sucks major balls on a site like mine. Nobody clicks on my ads because they’re not targeted enough. When I wrote about how I was no longer Robert Goulet, I got an ad for Robert Goulet’s biography. When I wrote about my baby daughter, I got diaper ads. When I wrote about Constipated Santa, I got ads for Kaopectate and anal irrigation. It’s all very incorrect. I picture a little Google monkey running the whole thing from inside a Wizard of Oz setup and getting all frazzled reading my blog.
I’m considering finding non-contextual ads and just placing the fucking things manually, based on what I imagine you all actually want. So basically I’m thinking hemorrhoid cream and old people porn. Stay tuned.
I’M OPTIMIZED FOR TESTICLES AND WEBELOS
I opened up my Analytics dashboard the other day and decided to check out what keywords people are using to find me on the search engines. And here’s what I got:
Honestly, what goes through my mind most here is curiosity. What compels a person to search for “constipated at Christmas”? I understand searching for constipation in general (and actually, I know of a good reference in the Yahoo! archive about that, especially for women), but why at Christmas? Does something different happen with bowels during the holidays? Do they clench shut in merriment? And who was searching for “osu testicle”? Because he spent nearly 7 minutes here, so it’s probably one of you reading this now. Reveal yourself!
But what amazed me most was the fact that I continue to draw a lot of traffic for the top-of-the-heap Cub Scouts honor “WEBELOS.” I noticed that I had a few WEBELOS hits a while back and attributed it to my Um… words post, and to a fluke. But 18 visits? Not a fluke.
What’s really awesome is that WEBELOS visitors fucking love me. On average, a WEBELOS visitor stays for almost seventeen minutes and reads nearly eight pages. That’s insane. And what’s more, the bounce rate of 0% means that they never leave. Hell, they’re probably still here right now, reading this.
To capitalize on what I’ve learned, I considered trying to optimize my site to pull in more of that loyal WEBELOS traffic (which is no surprise given that the LO stands for “loyal”) and announced that I was altering my website so that I could draw in lots of young boys, but I was told that it was a risque positioning angle.
I HAVE BECOME A CLICHE
Over dinner tonight, when my son was refusing to eat chicken fried rice, my wife told him, “You’re lucky you have food. There are kids in the world who don’t have anything to eat.” We’ve also yelled at him for running with scissors, talking with his mouth full, and jumping on the bed. Today I’ve decided that I’m going to tell him that I used to walk five miles in the snow uphill to get to school and that as long as he’s under my roof, he’ll abide by my rules. Then I’m totally going to tell him to get a haircut.
Thus completes my last post before the holidays, or, if you’re Jewish, my first post during the holidays. Merry Christmas to most of you from the Truant clan, and happy whatever to everyone else. Just remember not to eat the fruitcake, lest you get constipated at Christmas. Because there’s really nothing on Google to help you out with that.