This Blog’s 2010 Performance in Review, Courtesy of WordPress.com

The performance summary below was a nice little features the people at WordPress.com did for their blogs. Now if only I could find a way to turn it into some monetary income.

WordPress.com should set some traffic rewards where you can get credits to use to purchase their services, like storage space, or domain mapping. I pay for these things just to make this blog function the way I want it to. To think, I donate all this time to work on this personal interest, and people came here as much as they did (2.3+ million page views and about 700,000 downloads), and I still had to pay money to maintain it.

That small possible improvement aside, in my opinion, I would like to genuinely thank WordPress.com for all the hard work they do to provide such a wonderful blogging platform! I did do a review of most of the other well-known platforms before deciding on using WordPress.com and I am glad I did!

The stats helpers at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

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Which Were the Most Popular and Interesting Cartoons You Saw for the Facebook Campaign Against Child Abuse?

Snoopy

Last weekend, the first weekend in December, there was a global campaign on Facebook where people replace their profile pictures with their favourite cartoon character/s.

I was happy to see a lot of my Facebook friends took part. It was really interesting to see what everybody chose for their characters.

Being the curious type, the two most obvious question I had were which characters were the most popular, and which were interesting?

For the most interesting, I would have to give that to my friend Dan, who chose Banana Man.

For the most popular, that’s a much harder question to answer with any confidence. I don’t have enough Facebook friends to get a statistically significant result. Fortunately, I have this site which I estimate provided about 20,000 cartoon pictures to people looking for them over the weekend. Talk about suffocating from smog from the traffic from my blog! OMG!!!

Of course, I don’t have all the comic book characters out there, but I probably have about 500, of which 250 were here. That’s a decent sample size variety for me. I also have visitors from around the world.

From stats on this website, from what I could tell, Snoopy from the Peanuts strip was the most popular character (sometimes with Charlie Brown and Woodstock so hard to separate them out.

Comic book heroine Wonder Woman was a close second.

My Melody from the Hello Kitty strip was third.

Wilma Flintsone was fourth.

Homer Simpson was fifth.

Cinnamoroll from Hello Kitty was sixth.

Catwoman was seventh.

Love-a-lot Bear from the Care Bears was eighth.

Pebbles Flintstone was ninth.

Finally, Lucky Bear from the Care Bears was tenth.

I haven’t seen any articles yet which gives a large sample size for the most popular character, but if you do, please do share.

What about among your Facebook friends? Who was the most popular character or most popular cartoon strip?

And don’t forget about the most interesting character you saw.

What’s the Stupidest Yahoo! Answer Question You’ve Ever Seen?

Warning: This post is intended for immature audiences. Viewer indiscretion is not advised!

Yahoo! Answers has been around since July 5, 2005. It’s a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) site that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users. Being open and on the Internet, with some degree of anonymity, there are some pretty stupid questions that get asked. See the video below, for example.

 


Oh, my, God! That was hilarious! I don’t know which was funnier, the song or video, but I died laughing!!!

Oh hey, Jesus! How U doin?

 

Anyway, what is what is the stupidest Yahoo! Answers question you have ever seen?

It’d be nice if you could provide a link with it, sort of as proof, but not necessary. Please answer by clicking the comments link below.

In the meanwhile, here are some more videos with stupid Yahoo! Answers questions… the term sounds stupid on its own (Answers questions).

Kudos for music selection in some of these videos, too!



 

Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Four Strong Winds (Ian Tyson)

Happy Canada Day! On the day I am writing, that is. You know, for a small population nation, we can compete with anybody when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll and other popular music!

Four Strong Winds is a timeless Canadian song that was written by Ian Tyson in 1960. It was voted the most essential songs in English language Canadian pop music history in a 10 week poll by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2005 (top 50 list). I doubt it will ever leave that chart, whether or not it would hold on to top spot as time goes by.

The song is based on the life of transient farm workers, forced to move where work can be found, but its theme is the sometimes temporary nature of human relationships. That’s about as nice a summary as I could find. You listen to the song and read the lyrics in the great fan video below and see/hear for yourself. The song even has subtle horse hoof running sounds! Love it!!!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF

Four Strong Winds, Ian Tyson Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF

These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.

This song is very singable, in most people voice ranges without requiring a huge range. There are only a handful of chords, and easy ones at that. Nothing complicated about the strumming, either.

The arrangement I have chosen for the tabs include the tune as Neil Young sang it in the video above, without the guitar break. Note the fine differences between the last notes of the third and sixth lines of both verse and chorus. It’s a very fine difference, but that’s why I have included the notes in my tabs. You can pic out the notes to know what I had in mind to go with the chords listed rather than guess, as you often have to do with most online tabs. In some of those cases, there are actual errors people make in singing out of tune, then putting a wrong chord to it, but I’m not going to go further down that road.

However, I have left the verses and chorus in the order Ian Tyson originally wrote them. It starts out with the chorus, then verse, chorus, verse and ending with that beautiful chorus again. Ian and his wife Sylvia sing the song below. It’s a nice version, just a tad harder to tab and sing than Neil’s version with all the country style nuances.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Between the two videos and tune notes left on the tabs, I hope you’ll be able to figure it all out.

Oh, for the ukulele tabs, I left out the D7 transition chord compared to the guitar version. The ukulele D7 didn’t sound right without much of a bass set of notes.

Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.

Other notes about Four Strong Winds:

Ian and Sylvia Tyson

This folk classic has been recorded by many artists including Neil Young on his 1978 album Comes a Time (Young also performed the song with The Band at the famous The Last Waltz concert, and in his 2005 documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold), Sarah McLachlan, Hank Snow, The Seekers, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Marianne Faithfull, The Searchers, Teenage Fanclub, John Denver, Bobby Bare, The Brothers Four (in an album by the same name), The Kingston Trio, Trini Lopez, Waylon Jennings, Chad and Jeremy, Ulf Lundell, The Tragically Hip, Joan Baez, and most recently, Johnny Cash. It was a hit by Bobby Bare in 1964. It was also a big hit in Norway in 1966 in a Norwegian version: “Mot ukjent sted” by The Vanguards and a big hit in Sweden in 1967 in a Swedish version: “Mot okänt land” recorded by The Hep Stars.

The mentioning of Alberta in the lyrics led it to be considered in a contest to choose a provincial song, which it did not win. Additionally, the song is sung on the last night of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival each year.

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Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.4

Tagging 12 or 20 of your Friends as Most Annoying Facebookers

CNN had a great feature article back on August 25th called the 12 most annoying types of Facebookers.

I’ve listed all 12 of them in full description below the tagging picture, but I also had the thought of how great an idea that would be for a Facebook tagging meme! Furthermore, I could add a few other types – not the least being the Facebook Tagger who does way too many of these Facebook tagging memes!

The meme is 1440 x 960 pixels in size so those of you with that monitor can use it as your wallpaper, if you like and have the monitor of that size. CNN only had 6 graphics of their annoying Facebookers, which I screen captured from the video, so I had to come up with my own for the rest.

Warning: Make sure you know your true friends before tagging. Not everybody takes well to being called annoying, even if it were clear it were in jest! There may be real life consequences to this!

Here’s how to get this Facebook picture meme:

  • Click on the picture to get it at full size.
  • Right click on that picture and save to your computer.
  • Upload it to your Facebook profile.
  • Tag your friends!
  • Click the Back button on your browser to return to this post.

Please click here for a complete list of over 100 Facebook picture tagging memes on this site with which you can use for fun with your friends.

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From left to right, top row down…

The Town Crier
“Michael Jackson is dead!!!” You heard it from me first! Me, and the 213,000 other people who all saw it on TMZ. These Matt Drudge wannabes are the reason many of us learn of breaking news not from TV or news sites but from online social networks. In their rush to trumpet the news, these people also spread rumors, half-truths and innuendo. No, Jeff Goldblum did not plunge to his death from a New Zealand cliff.

The Fonz (my creation)
These are the people who who click the “Like” button on a lot of things, including your status. Where they become annoying is where you get a notification only to find out they like it, time, after time, after time. Say something, for goodness’ sake! Even the Fonz said something when he gave the thumbs up, eeehhhhhh!!???

The Self-promoter
OK, so we’ve probably all posted at least once about some achievement. And sure, maybe your friends really do want to read the fascinating article you wrote about beet farming. But when almost EVERY update is a link to your blog, your poetry reading, your 10k results or your art show, you sound like a bragger or a self-centered careerist.

The Obscurist
“If not now then when?” “You’ll see…” “Grist for the mill.” “John is, small world.” “Dave thought he was immune, but no. No, he is not.” [Actual status updates, all.] Sorry, but you’re not being mysterious – just nonsensical.

The Friend Padder
The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. Schmoozers and social butterflies — you know, the ones who make lifelong pals on the subway — might reasonably have 300 or 400. But 1,000 “friends?” Unless you’re George Clooney or just won the lottery, no one has that many. That’s just showing off.

The cant Spelur (aka Bad Grammarian)
“So sad about Fara Fauset but Im so gladd its friday yippe”. Yes, I know the punctuation rules are different in the digital world. And, no, no one likes a spelling-Nazi schoolmarm. But you sound like a moron.

The Sympathy-Baiter
“Barbara is feeling sad today.” “Man, am I glad that’s over.” “Jim could really use some good news about now.” Like anglers hunting for fish, these sad sacks cast out their hooks — baited with vague tales of woe — in the hopes of landing concerned responses. Genuine bad news is one thing, but these manipulative posts are just pleas for attention.

The Facebook Tagger (my creation)
These are the people who tag way more than it’s their business to be tagging. Never mind just the Facebook tagging memes that they tag people on, but also in Facebook notes, and especially people in pictures put up by others where some people aren’t looking their most flattering. Some even retag people after people untag less than glamorous pictures of themselves not to draw attention to the pictures! But the worst ones are the ones who tag themselves in the hundreds or literally thousands of pictures they have. This brings on another set of notifications o the newsfeed after a first notification would have gone out that they posted the untagged pictures, of course! They don’t realize Facebook is not a library or government ID system.

The Poker King (my creation)
These are the worst Facebook pokers out there. The picture shows a hand poking someone’s head off. They know where they can poke themselves!

The Monk (my creation)
Got nothing to say about yourself or your life? Then shut the hell up and don’t put a lame “is” for your status unless you’re a real monk. Otherwise, people just read it as the person is nothing… cause there ain’t nothing after the is!

The Pollster (my creation)
Should you go out dancing? What to eat for supper tonight? Wear red or black to the office party? Do these people think they’re going to get some great insight or statistically significant sampling or what? If you’re going to let a handful of people run your life like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, dice, Tarot cards and other means serve just as well to give you much faster solutions.

The Instigator (my creation)
There are debate clubs for the serious ones among this group who want a debate, but most of them are just Rush Limbaugh wannabes. Wow, that’s pretty low when you can’t even achieve Limbaugh. They just don’t dare to share their controversial opinion in some place where they need to have a spine to hold themselves up, rather than their own Facebook profile. They probably didn’t get enough attention as a child, either. As for my choice of Don Cherry to represent this annoying Facebooker type, I actually respect him cause often, he’s a classy instigator.

The Personalizer (my creation)
Jermaine, why didn’t you show up today? Sophia, how did your exam go? Dawn, you are wrong! (Reference “Don Cherry” and the remark to the left of this annoying Facebooker representation). Hey, dude. This is Facebook and notifications go to everybody. There’s email, the phone and the Facebook Wall if you want to just talk to one person, K?

The Chronic Inviter
“Support my cause. Sign my petition. Play Mafia Wars with me. Which ‘Star Trek’ character are you? Here are the ‘Top 5 cars I have personally owned.’ Here are ’25 Things About Me.’ Here’s a drink. What drink are you? We’re related! I took the ‘What President Are You?’ quiz and found out I’m Millard Fillmore! What president are you?” You probably mean well, but stop. Just stop. I don’t care what president I am – can’t we simply be friends?

The Crank
These curmudgeons, like the trolls who spew hate in blog comments, never met something they couldn’t complain about. “Carl isn’t really that impressed with idiots who don’t realize how idiotic they are.” [Actual status update.] Keep spreading the love.

The TMIer
“Brad is heading to Walgreens to buy something for these pesky hemorrhoids.” Boundaries of privacy and decorum don’t seem to exist for these too-much-information updaters, who unabashedly offer up details about their personal lives, marital troubles and bodily functions. Thanks for sharing.

The Paparazzo
Ever visit your Facebook page and discover that someone’s posted a photo of you from last weekend’s party – a photo you didn’t authorize and haven’t even seen? You’d really rather not have to explain to your mom why you were leering like a drunken hyena and French-kissing a bottle of Jagermeister.

The Detailer (aka Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore)
“I’m waking up.” “I had Wheaties for breakfast.” “I’m bored at work.” “I’m stuck in traffic.” You’re kidding! How fascinating! No moment is too mundane for some people to broadcast unsolicited to the world. Just because you have 432 Facebook friends doesn’t mean we all want to know when you’re waiting for the bus.

The Lovers (my creation)
MJ just sent Joanne a rose. Joanne replies with a “loves her sweetie, MJ” status. MJ tags Joanne as the Flirt in the Harry Potter Facebook tagging meme. All right! Enough already! Why don’t you try expressing that in real life? Go kiss in public if you have to show off! At least I won’t have to see it. Besides, do you really need to show people on Facebook how much in love you are like you need to prove something? Or are you trying to prove something?

The Lurker (my creation)
Shhh!

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 5.9

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