Monday afternoon, end of May.
It feels and looks like a wet Sunday afternoon in the middle of Winter.
It hasn’t stopped raining all bloody day.
Right now, it’s coming down so hard I can see the rain splatter off the roof of Soph’s car.
I haven’t ridden, although I did nip up the yard and shove a couple of carrots down Vin’s throat.
And I’ve vacuumed the living accommodation in the lorry, generally tidied up.
Said ‘Hi’ to Tracey who was leaving as I arrived.
Oh yeah, washed the car – well, put it through the car wash machine.
But get out there and do something?
Two chances of that happening, Slim and No and Slim’s just left town.
That’s what I need.
A John Wayne western.
That’s what the day feels like.
One of those interminable Winter days that seem to populate the memories of my muchly youth – when I was about ten years old – that’s when the weather seemed to be the worst.
And there’s something wrong with the internet.
Everything seems to be running at ridiculously slow speed.
In fact my laptop thinks everything is too slow so it’s repeatedly trying to bluetooth an additional internet connection via my mobile phone.
The trouble is I don’t get a mobile phone signal at home.
Things are running so slow I can’t establish connections to a significant number of websites – we’re not talking about one or two here!
So I’ve just run a check on our broadband speed (using http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ if you care).
And they tell me that our BT-advertised ‘Up to 6Mb’ service is, this afternoon, actually delivering 1.5Mb on the download and 0.4Mb on the upload.
So, feeling a bit miffed (as some people might believe stereotypical Brits may speak) I’ve flipped over to various comparision websites to learn about what broadband services other ISPs offer – and what speeds they promise.
And you know what?
I.
Just.
Can’t.
Be.
Bothered.
It’s all such a royal pain in the arse.
Speaking of Royalty.
This Reality Podcast got an email from Princess Beatrice!
Really!
She’s been listening since Episode 9 and is – according to her email – hooked.
Yeah.
That’s completely untrue.
Sorry.
It’s the weather, screwing with my head.
The truth is that Princess Beatrice may have been listening since Episode 9, she just hasn’t got around to sending an email about it.
Yet.
But, you know, I remain hopeful.
But here’s a big bag of truth my friend.
A massively enormous bag of truth.
As with all Web2.0 activity, podcast ‘listens’ are notoriously difficult to track, right?
Right.
Web page hits, unique visits – there are web professionals out there who have raised the art of determining true visitor activity to a high science.
And yes, it is difficult.
Sitemeter tells me that this blog receives about 15,000 unique visits a week, but it only captures information on the most recent 100 visitors – so I lose a lot of data.
My host has their own stats package on the website, but it doesn’t give me anything helpful about blog activity – just webpage activity on the domain name root and associated html pages off it.
But looking at the website stats for the day before yesterday (Saturday), the following data stands right out:
| /thisreality/downloads.htm | 2008-05-26 |
What it tells us is that (just) on Saturday 359 unique visitors went to the This Reality podcast ‘downloads’ page on the website.
It’s safe to assume they either listened to an Episode (maybe the most recent one – it usually being released on Saturday) online or downloaded it from there, to listen to at a later time.
It’s also safe to assume a number of people performed the same download or listen online function via the blog.
And it may also be safe to guess that a number of listeners get the podcast via iTunes.
As if this number – and these suppositions – aren’t mind-blowing enough, bear in mind that those stats only relate to Saturday!
Blimey!
Who knows, one of them might have been Princess Beatrice.
Oh yes.
B.
Ummm.
Hi.
This is me.
Again.
I’m really sorry about the rambling.
It’s down to the weather.
And the flies.
Well…
The Fly (duh, duh, DUH!).
No, not The Fly in a Jeff Goldblum kind of way.
The housefly.
Or even…
The Bloody Housefly That’s Been Annoying The Hell Out Of Us Since Friday.
Yes I know they have a limited lifespan.
But this one doesn’t seem to be aware of that rule.
It’s in here, annoying the hell out of the two of us.
Flying around – avoid swats with hands (and cushions), living well past it’s alloted lifespan – and seemingly impervious to the terminal qualities of the tin of Raid spray.
If it comes near me one more time I’m going to pick up that aerosol and…
Throw the bloody can at the fly.
I’m going now.
It’s time for my medication… 🙂
“Slim’s just left town”. That’s one of my favourite saying-ettes. Don’t get the chance to use it much. I’ll have to try it out on Hubby and see if he gets it.
Did you get the fly? A good fly is a dead fly.
I am quite scared as to how closely your post resembled mine as to where several days ago I wrote – “But I. just. cant. be. arsed.”
Thats Freakier than a Micheal Jackson – Austrian Fritzl combo.
Hi Lis, I love that expression, I picked it up in Manchester when I worked up there. You’ll never believe it though… that bloody fly seemed to be immune to everything. And long-lived! So… today I pasted it with Raid until its wings were so heavy with chemicals it fell to the floor. And then I trod on it. Yay me!
Hi Oli. Now that really is freaky! Michael Jackson and Fritzl… 🙂