statistics - bizarre indeed

Blogspot has a new tab/function on my page (well, I assume everyone else's too): Stats. I don't know if you can see it, or if it's only available to me. Being inveterately curious, I - of course - looked. It has a graph of page views vs. time. I can't tell if that includes me or not. (update:yes, it does) One tab in Stats provides a list of post titles and number of views for that particular page. The maximum by a looooong way was Scary Hairdos in the Reichstag on Election Day.

It also has a "traffic source", which makes no sense to me. It also leaves me wondering which country/corporation uses .tr This tab lists "Referring URL" and "Referring Sites". Neither one makes sense to me. Given this ... what's the point? I've been interested recently in how statistics is used to further misguide the ignorant/uneducated (which ever you think is less offensive a term, though I really do mean both). If so, these statistics are simply incomprehensible and therefore harmless. I think.

That said, the other function, Audience, is actually interesting, since it's graphic: a world map with countries (and US states) in different colors based upon viewing traffic, a text list of those countries, and pie charts indicating which browser program is used for looking at the page. I realize a large number of the US views might be myself, if the system doesn't consider whether or not I'm the viewer. But the rest of the world? Germany: a couple of friends & in-laws there. France: one in-law there. UK - French resident moved there. But ... Canada, Russia, Netherlands, India, Luxembourg, and Malaysia??

Inveterate curiosity sated: Went to list of how many views per post from today. My viewing is included in the numbers. Therefore the number of views from the US is not really *that* impressive, since a significant - if small - % is mine. I'm not in Turkey or Malaysia, though...

Wheee

Detroit v. Pittsburgh

2 industrialized cities on their economic death beds competing for the Stanley Cup.

trivia:
The last 2 teams to do back-2-back cups? Detroit & Pittsburgh

In 2007, the Stanley Cup made its first trip into a combat zone. During the trip to Kandahar, Afghanistan ... the Cup was put on display for Canadian and other NATO troops. It briefly came under missile attack on May 3.

Sure, so while looking at the list of champions, I noticed that Scotty Bowman, the former Red Wings coach, under whom they won the first Cup in 42 years, was a repeat coach, and repeat and repeat ... having coached the following teams to win the Stanley Cup:
Montreal: '73, '76, '77, '78, '79,
Pittsburgh: '92
Detroit: '97, '98, '02
Can you get tired of winning so often?

Game 1 - tonight

Worst Food of 2009

Worst (nutritional) (commercial restaurant) Food in America

Obviously they weren't looking for those pie crusts made with lard, rather than Crisco.

Wow ... impressive ... some of these things taste pretty good. I actually ate one last week.

here we go again ... and again ...

following Wednesday night's post, which was a break in studying for my epidemiology final exam ... life seemed to be going better.

Wednesday night: found my wallet, when emptying my bag in preparation for studying, the fairies must have returned it, because sure as hell's hot, I know I looked in that damn pocket. Studying seemed to be going well. I found new stuff to study in preparation and figured it was not hopeless.

Thursday morning: We get the kids off to their respective locales.
9:10 a.m. I blew my nose yeah, no shit, this is relevant
9:11 a.m. My ear over-pressurizes, as happens sometimes when one blows one's nose.
9:30 a.m. on the train (which everyone here calls the "light rail" -- it's a train, people), my ear starts annoying me even more
9:50 a.m. am sitting in the student lounge eating a late breakfast & reading the news, and my ear hurts, pretty badly
10:10 I ask myself, what the hell am I doing sitting in the basement of a building housing the medical school, when the student walk-in clinic is across the street?
10:15 standing in the clinic, I have tears runing down my face
10:30, after begging for someone to see me, I'm crying
keep crying through the doctor's exam, no doubt contributing to the prescription for heavy narcotics. Apparently I have an ear infection
11:10 on the phone to Mr.Gopher, have gone past crying to actually sobbing
11:15 write a note to my Epi prof informing her that I won't be taking the final, and ask for her to let me take it on Monday (I assumed this would mean getting an incomplete)
11:17 write a note to my academic advisor, letting her know that my internship term paper would not actually be arriving on her desk Friday morning, and asking for an incomplete.
12-ish - finally at home, in bed, desperately waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. Eventually stop crying and fall asleep out of sheer exahustion & good drugs

3-ish - briefly rise to consciousness. Realize that jr.Gopher#2 had at least 5 ear infections before he turned 18 mo. God help him, is this the crap he dealt with? No wonder he kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming! I'm surprised he ever stopped! He didn't get wonderful painkillers?! The things we do to our children. I'll never take pediatric ear infections as de rigeur again.

4-ish - Epi prof tells me that I will be allowed to take the exam on Monday. No incomplete. yea.
5-ish - advisor (who failed to respond to at least 3 e-mails in the semester asking what I was supposed to do for the course, tells me on Wednesday morning that I need to turn in a paper no later than Friday) ... tells me that she'll give me an incomplete. not-so-yea.

Friday (yesterday): Jr.Gopher#1 is next door with Jr.Gopher#2 as usual on Fridays. 1-1/2 hour after dropping him off (i.e., walking through the foyer), I get a call: he's still got diarrhea, he can't stay. Jesus, Mary & Joseph! Give me patience! Are you kidding? Of course, I was still pretty stoned on Vicodin & wouldn't have gotten any studying done. But, I would have gotten a whole lot of sleeping done. And, of course, Mr.Gopher works late on Fridays. Did the boys go to bed at a reasonable hour? Well, 8:30, rather than 8 seems pretty reasonable, after our now-traditional popcorn & cold veggie dinner in front of a movie. Did the boys go to sleep at a reasonable hour? uh ... no

Saturday: Study? Are you kidding? I planned on spending the day with my family, delighting in the satisfactory discharge of my academic obligations. I'll be damned if I'll pass that up.

Saturday night: Study? Yes. Package arrived in today's post for Mr.Gopher, is hastily removed from view. 5 minutes later, he comes out and says, well, the hell with surprise, I need help dealing with this. Lo, and behold, he had purchased something I really liked from my wish list. A nice little posey ring. A nice, rather squashed posey ring. I think someone put it in a punch press, based on the sheer force which would have been needed to accomplish this damage. Although, given the damage to the outer package, the inner (inadequate) packing, and the invoice, I am kind of surprised that the ring wasn't squished a lot flatter. Scathing letter demanding restitution in contrast to their retarded return policy ... Study? Well, there is tomorrow, right?

Technically Sunday (12:06 a.m.): Well, I suppose I'll go find the text I'm supposed to read as the lector at Mass tomorrow ... um this ... morning.

no big surprise

okay, anyone who knows me will quickly realize that this is simply another method of expressing deeply held sociopolitical opinions. You are likely a member of the raving angry left (except for mom, who's so far left, she's right). You will likely find this simply amusing, if you bother to watch it at all.

I love democracy. I love the 1st Amendment even more. But, god, I love Comedy Central. Um... the one on TV, not the one at 1600 Penn. Ave.


p.s.
a little plug for Polinaut
We explore the universe of campaigns and politics. Join us in the search for intelligent life.

[def.] Point Source

Point source, a natural or anthropogenic discharge location producing unwanted materials into the environment

my first personal contribution to Wikipedia. Cool, eh? Maybe if I thoroughly contribute to the page for this, I'll get bonus points from my Public Health Pollution professor?

Hey, this isn't even really procrastination. I noticed it was absent when looking for it for an assignment.

Great Minnesota Get-Together

1,500,000 people at the State Fair **
7,000 applications for
3,000 workers
2,714 4-H animal exhibitors, of which are:
580 beef
283 rabbits
280 poultry
267 goats
471 dairy animals
381 sheep
453 swine
450 different foods for sale
63 of which are sold on a stick
4 sold by the bucket
50 games on the midway
5,000 entries in the Creative Activities, of which there are
19 categories for cookies
6 categories for scrapbooking
11 categories for competitive stamp collecting
4 sheep which will eat radio microphone if opportunity presents
10 times per day ask 4-H ers to sweep cattle barn
14 4-H ers seen texting and sweeping
200 animals will be born at the fair
Misidentification of animals by parents to their children:
3 identified lambs as "goats"
5 identified turkeys as "geese"
1 identified a duck as a "pelican"

only 12 days to get all of this in!



**This year, I guess it will be 1,499,996 people in attendance, since the 4 of us won't be going.

1.2 million sq. ft.

1,200,000 sq. ft. =
27.55 acres =
0.11 sq. km =
11.2 hectares =
1,111.111 times bigger than our house in Lansing =
1,114,836,480,000,000,038,753,601,580,957,696.00 barns*

Or

1.2 million sq. ft. = 10 minute walk from my office to the front door of the Honeywell plant in Golden Valley.

I've gotten lost very single time I've walked more than 20 feet out of my office door. With a map. Luckily there's a bathroom in the safety department's area, or else I'd have exploded or resorted to leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Which would probably have gotten run over by the NASCAR forklift truck speedway.



*no clue what this 'barns' is, but it's awful damn small. It was just an option on the 'unit conversion' program.

3:1 odds

There's a German saying: Dreimal umziehen ist wie einmal ausbrennen - moving 3 times is like having your home burned once.

So, counting:

Summit - 5th St. - Aikane St. - Rialto Blvd. - Off Post - On Post - 5th St. - Tuckerton - North Beach - Station House - Fire - God Awful Pit - Farm House - Morgantown - Salem - Morgantown - Salzburg - Morgantown - Harrisburg - Spartan Ave. - Lake Lansing Road - Durand St. - Sycamore Ave - Illinois Ave. - Smetana Rd. ...

that makes 23 moves + 1 fire = 8.6 fires

If you eliminate the summer jobs and count 1983 - 1987 as just Morgantown, that still makes 18 moves in my whole life,

16 of which I remember

7 of which are by my choice.

AND NOW ONE MORE !!


Packing tomorrow must include cleaning the bathrooms, since B&I are arriving Friday. At least having a stupendously disorganized and messy abode doesn't need to be excused by my lack of interest in housekeeping. All of the brown cardboard boxes piled around the apartment hide the strata of toys, cat hair, dust, and simple 'stuff'.

Best Place to Break Up in the Twin Cities

Best Place to Break Up
Winner: Science Museum of Minnesota

Listen, honey, it's just not working out. See, you're like this 4,000-year-old stone slab of cuneiform, the world's first written language: Your communication skills are primitive. Or you're like the "Deadly Medicine" exhibit about Nazi eugenics. You're a traveling exhibit in the museum that is my life. You're fascinating, I learned some neat things from you, but you were never meant to be a permanent part of my collection, sweetie. That's just the way life is. Our relationship is as dead as that Egyptian mummy over there. Let's go over to the Disease Detectives display downstairs. See, you're like a horrible microbe that ended up in my food after the chef at a restaurant didn't wash his hands. Now you're in my digestive tract, and I'm sick...of you. Really, really sick. You make me puke. And, well, I don't want to puke anymore. Is this making sense? Good. I'm going to see a mountain-climbing movie at the Omnitheater now. Stop crying, the kids on a fieldtrip are staring.

Like I could make this up?

The "best of" also included:
Best Place to Get Arrested for Soliciting Sex in Public -- Mpls/Stpl Lindburgh Terminal almost made it
Best State Fair Food -- walleye on a stick
Best Parking Lot
Best Silver Lining to the 35W Bridge Collapse
Best DMV (yes, they really mean the Dept. Motor Vehicles)
Best Speed Trap

Great Flaming Fruit of the Looms!

I wish I could have found this in English.
The first "Olympic Torch" was the 'wonderful idea of Dr. Goebbles'. Yup, a PR move for the 1936 Berlin Games, to bring it from Athens to Berlin. The Greek Communists tried to keep the torch from reaching Germany (don't forget, the communists hated the nazis).

Far, far, far more amusing in the history of political/social protests surrounding the Olympics:

The Chair Leg and the Kerosene Soaked Underpants (no, shit, really):

In 1956, 9 Australian students stepped into the shoes of other protesters, in a rather different manner. As the Torch was briefly going through Sydney, one of the students, dressed in the olympic torch-bearer's garb, ran through the cheering spectators. In his hand was a torch. The students had painted a chair leg silver and attachted a pair of burning kerosene-soaked underpants. It was intended to be just a brief prank - but he then wound up with the honor-guard of the Sydney Police. At the end, he had to give the home-made torch to the mayor of Sydney, who made his speech with the silver-painted, underpants-combusting chair leg.

When the 'real' torch-bearer arrived, most of the onlookers had already gone home.

Ah, the tidbits of history

March 5, 1770: Snowball fight incites the Boston Massacre.