Year End Blog Digest

My Best Posts of 2009:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Top 10 posts in 2009

In The Running For Strangest Title Ever. 3,350
Falcon at the Lake 3,239
Sir Isaac, You Magnificent Bastard 2,783
This is Mutiny, Mr. Christian! 1,339
Pi Day 1,244
Sappy Cat Blogging 1,190
Forensic Facts–Do Cats Eat Dead People 1,039
Range Report- m1903, M1911A1, M1917 1,019
Paul Revere’s Ride 1,017
Arms And Armour of Imperial Austria 781

It is interesting what posts get the most traffic over the year. I don’t know why a fluff piece about Isaac Newton gets so much traffic, nor why there is so much interest in Elliot Ness from people in Spain. The Arms and Armour of Graz post garnered a lot of German Spam, which I couldn’t read.
Top 10 Search Terms in 2009

Wren
Honey bee
Peregrine falcon
Bumblebee
Eliot Ness
Milkweed
Isaac Newton
Elliot Ness
Bumble Bee
Can of Worms

Top 10 Referrers in 2009

crankylitprof.wordpress.com 2,406
gentlemansc.blogspot.com 2,235
ambulancedriverfiles.blogspot.com 1,843
oldnfo.blogspot.com 453
maypeacebewithyou.blogspot.com 349
crucis-court.blogspot.com 291
williamthecoroner.wordpress.com. 281
rethoryke.wordpress.com 251
atomicnerds.com 232
epmonthly.com/whitecoat/blog-links 200

I get most of my referral traffic form CrankyProf, AngryProf, Ambulancedriver, OldNFO, and MattG. Thanks, folks.

Here and Now

The sun must set to rise
The light will leave your eyes again
Then breaking like morning’s dawn
Does summer feel the winter come

The hardest part of life
Is to live while you’re alive my friend
So sing an unwritten song
Or repent for the deeds you left undone

This is Here
This is Now
It’s the moment that we live for
And we just can’t live without
It’s all clear to me now
We’ve already started dying
And our time is running out
Oh, Right Now

Time is ours to steal
She’s a secret to reveal my friend
And when your children have all grown
You’ll wait by the window
And wish them all back home

Walk a little further off the beaten path
And we’ll drive on even if we get there last
Our backs against the wall
And we will lunge and bite
And we’ll rage, rage, rage
against the dying of the light

C2008 Great Big Sea

Knut Haughland

Via LEX an obituary of a remarkable man. I first learned of Haughland by reading Between Silk and Cyanide, by Leo Marks, a story of code making and the S.O:E. I commend the book to you all. There are 116 copies on Amazon as I write this. I’m always amazed by how brave people can be, and I wonder how long we will be lucky enough to have such people around.

Could Be Verse

When flowers doze upon their lonely beds
And oaken sentries nod their noble heads
And piney cushions snug the cuddled fawns
And dewy gems bejewel the dreaming lawns,
I sit and wait in patience born of pain
For some sweet sonnet to ignite my brain.
And as Aurora lifts her rosey veil
My muse approaches – haggard, had and pale.
Fetid, fingered, rancid, rank and frowzy,
No wonder all my poetry is lousy.

– Victor Buono

Christmas Cat Blogging

Christmas Eve

Peace on Earth, goodwill to Men. A new covenant. And here is Eileen Ivers and her group doing “Do You Hear What I Hear” from An Nallaig, An Irish Christmas: 06 – Do You Hear What I Hear

Process, Not Outcome

One of the good things about blogs is the opportunity for really intelligent people to make themselves heard. One of the bad things about blogging is the blow to one’s ego when really intelligent people say things that you think but in a much more thorough and articulate manner. Blunt Object does it again with his post process-people.

Ignoring the process leads to focus on short-term goals. It doesn’t matter HOW you obtain the laudable result, the only thing that matters is the result itself. Indeed, that opens you up to a whole big lot of unintended consequences. See?

Power is transient. If you want processes to keep your political antagonists/enemies/rivals/whatnot from ramming their agendas down your throat, it would be wise not to circumvent processes that keep you from doing the exact same thing.

Shortest Night of the Year

Go outside and light a fire, or a sparkler, or something and call back the sun. It’s bloody dark out there.

Gift Giving

Via Blunt Object, I find TJIC’s Demorgan’s Law Applied to Gift Giving

I argued that, to many people all of the time, and to all people some of the time, receiving a decent gift at an appropriate time (birthday, Christmas, an anniversary) is quite important, not for the value of the gift, but because of the signal that a decent gift sends.
Because I’m a huge nerd, I made it into an equation:

A && T && M → G

where:
A == caring, as expressed in paying Attention to recipient’s interests
T == caring, as expressed in Time spent
M == caring, as expressed in Money spent
G == Gift purchased

RTR

New Adventures In Body Modification

Melt Restaurant in Lakewood, Ohio is offering a 25% discount for life for their customers who get a tattoo of their logo, a grilled cheese sandwich, on their bodies. H/T Bob

I’ve seen many interesting tattoos as a forensic pathologist. The guy who shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself, who had tat of a naked woman in chains kneeling in front of a grotesque skull castle. That was when I started really noticing and researching tattoos. The alcoholic who had “your name” tattooed on his penis, and used it to win bar bets (and died of cirrhosis). The man who was shot by police with the word “Outlaw” written across his chest in fractur script.

I’ve seen plenty of Harley Davidson tattoos. I’m not sure that I would be willing to get a brand name upon my body, even if it was a brand I liked. I tend to favour classic tattoo iconography, companies and brands both change too often. I also think that a human analogue of a NASCAR vehicle is…creepy.