Monday, November 01, 2010

Traffic Report - the blog stats for October

My two little blogs were running each other neck and neck last month.  (And still not much sign of the long-promised scaling down of output!  Sorry.)


There were 39 posts and around 13,000 words on Froogville.

There were 38 posts and 12,000 words on Barstool Blues.


Although JES, my most reliable supporter over the past couple of years, has recently been all but banished from my comment-threads by a tighter censorship regime at his place of work, a new 'comment king', Hopfrog (who does seem rather spookily like my separated-at-birth American twin!), has emerged to take his place.  With his help, I've produced too very lively new threads which could become long-term features on the blogs: one, a discussion of favourite musicians (inspired by my friend Ruby's challenge to nominate my candidates for a "Mount Rushmore of Rock"); the other, a discussion of favourite Formula One drivers past and present (inspired by my review of John Frankenheimer's classic 1966 movie Grand Prix).

Last week's post on Great Film Quotes and the weekend's quiz on the same theme could also attract quite a response, I hope.


And the most exotic of my recent drive-bys have been from Vietnam and Rwanda.  It's a funny old world.

8 comments:

Hopfrog said...

Those two threads were a lot of fun. I even toyed briefly with the idea of starting a website, something like www.mtrushmoreof.com, but after thinking it through I realized it would have quickly devolved into some pretty asinine debates. Four weeks in it would have been, your mt rushmore of tv pitchmen...... Go! Billy Mays, Sham-Wow guy, .......... You get the idea.

Froog said...

One of the best things about living in China is that I've hardly seen any TV in 10 years.

I always liked Samurai Chef! Did they have that in America?

And George Foreman wins. No-one would dare to diss George.

Hopfrog said...

No Samurai Chef comes to mind, except the old Belushi skits on SNL. I think big George made more off those grills than he ever did boxing.

Froog said...

I thought I'd seen Samurai Chef in the US as well, but maybe not. Maybe it was under a different brand name for you? Big thing in the UK 12 or 15 years ago - no idea if it's still going.

There was this set of 'indestructible' kitchen knives from Japan. The demonstrator would do this schtick where he'd cut through a 6" nail and then slice a tomato, etc. It was more like a magic show than a kitchenware informercial. One of those where you know it's almost certainly fake, but you kind of want to buy the things just to give these stunts a try, regardless of whether you're actually going to use them in your kitchen.

Hopfrog said...

Ah yes, called the... ummm literally trying to think while I type.... ugh... cut through a tennis shoe and then a tomato... the... got it now... the Ginsu Steak knife! Don't remember it marketed by a Samurai chef but memory could be failing. Yes, actually during my youth those commercials were pretty big here as well. I think mythbusters had a special on tv infomercial claims but don't remember if they could confirm the claims. Thats right you don't get civilized tv now. Mythbusters is a show that takes all kinds of urban legends and claims and puts them through actual scientific experiments to prove or bust the myth.

Hopfrog said...

By the by, 12 or 15 years ago? lol, try 25-30 years ago at the least!

Hopfrog said...

But wait, there's more....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abLB7aTmnE4&p=FD530B364205A694&playnext=1&index=41

1978 air date.... 32 years old.. wow!

Froog said...

Cool clip - thanks!

We didn't get cable in the UK until the mid-90s. I was watching this on our crappy shopping channel, QVC (Quality, Value, Choice - hardly the most accurate descriptors!), while I was at Bar School in 1997.