An Unseemly Menudo of Post-Scripts, Addenda, and Crap About the Hit Tracker that Mama Dog Will Find Boring
Every now and then I get the faversham caught in these little loops where I just can’t seem to get the loose ends tied up from three posts back. That’s where we are right now. I know nobody else cares, but I’m just not going to be able to move on with my life until I get a few things finished. So:
I took two whacks at discussing The Magnetic Fields’69 Love Songs, and both times I forgot to mention the article in The Believer where Rick Moody picks out what he considers the 31 most essential of the 69 songs. I never did read that article fully because I didn’t know Vols. 2 and 3 enough. Having listened to all three of them pretty much continuously at work the last couple of days (with just a little time out today for something utterly different), I finally feel qualified. So that’s on my to-do list for the weekend, along with disassembling the baby swing, lowering the crib, putting up the safety gate, outlining a short story, doing some freelance work, Hotel Rwanda, administering some tough love to our inept handyman’s company, getting our tax forms together, doing the laundry, and figuring out where I put the $10 that ol’ paul S gave me for the Oscar pool last year.
This I can’t believe. I actually left out – more like forgot – the ending of my mug story. When I sent that email out to the office, people were stopping me in the hallway for weeks afterwards, asking if I’d found my mug. One day I noticed another mug in the break room that somebody had apparently mislaid some days or weeks earlier. It was about a quarter-filled with coffee, and the creamer in it had turned. Violently. There was something green and scummy floating on the top. I turned away in disgust and hoped that nobody would think it was mine. I mean, I was maybe overstating things a bit in my description of my mug’s filthiness. Sure, it was filthy. But there was nothing green floating in it.
Later that day, somebody thoughtfully set the mug with the green floater on my desk. Thanks awfully. Shortly after that, Dan the Chemist walked by and exclaimed, “Oh, you found my mug! Where was it?”*
Weight update: down another half pound, to 195.5. That’s 5 pounds off since the new year, if you’re counting. This weekend, I will have ice cream.
And lastly…it’s well established, I think, that I spend too much time poring over data from my hit tracker. I’ve long since realised that I’ll never be able to keep track of all the IP addresses of regular visitors – particularly since so many computers reset the address upon startup – but I try. There are a bunch of you whose numbers I recognise, and others whose numbers change but stay in generally the same neighbourhood, so I can tell who it is. One thing I’ve enjoyed is finding recurrent visits from unfamiliar people in exotic locales. About a week ago, somebody in Egypt made a bunch of visits, apparently going methodically through the archives from the beginning. I was kind of flattered and mystified, but was bummed when they stopped in November of 2004. It made me wonder if that’s when I started getting really boring. Did I start talking about the hit tracker then? Maybe I should check. Anyway, whoever the mystery person in Egypt might be, they started up again today and made it through January of 2005. I hope you come back and catch up again, mystery person in Egypt, so that you can see me saying hi to you. Hi! Then there’s someone at Microsoft who’s been looking in kind of regularly. I think I know who that is – probably the one person I know who works for Microsoft – so I won’t out him unduly. Back a few months ago, I had a regular reader who was a stranger to me, but whose name and work phone number I was able to discover through the hit tracker. Creepy, huh? She worked at some educational institution of other, and I’ve noticed that a lot of schools seem to have the employees’ names built into their Host Names – like asmith-xx.usc.edu. The person in question had a more distinctive name than “A. Smith,” and a quick look at the school’s web site filled in not only her first name but her direct line. I thought it would be funny to call her sometime when I saw she was looking at the faversham and say, in my best Voice of Authority, “This is Papa Dog. Get back to work.” I don’t think I would have really done that – like I say, I creep myself out enough just having snooped as much as I did – but she dropped out of sight before I got around to it, so the point be moot.
Okay, I’m bloviating about IP addresses. That definitely means it’s time to call it a night. And I’ll see you all tomorrow.
___________________
*The two of you who know Dan probably laughed there. For the rest of you, explaining the lovable disorder that is Dan would take a whole other post.
I took two whacks at discussing The Magnetic Fields’69 Love Songs, and both times I forgot to mention the article in The Believer where Rick Moody picks out what he considers the 31 most essential of the 69 songs. I never did read that article fully because I didn’t know Vols. 2 and 3 enough. Having listened to all three of them pretty much continuously at work the last couple of days (with just a little time out today for something utterly different), I finally feel qualified. So that’s on my to-do list for the weekend, along with disassembling the baby swing, lowering the crib, putting up the safety gate, outlining a short story, doing some freelance work, Hotel Rwanda, administering some tough love to our inept handyman’s company, getting our tax forms together, doing the laundry, and figuring out where I put the $10 that ol’ paul S gave me for the Oscar pool last year.
This I can’t believe. I actually left out – more like forgot – the ending of my mug story. When I sent that email out to the office, people were stopping me in the hallway for weeks afterwards, asking if I’d found my mug. One day I noticed another mug in the break room that somebody had apparently mislaid some days or weeks earlier. It was about a quarter-filled with coffee, and the creamer in it had turned. Violently. There was something green and scummy floating on the top. I turned away in disgust and hoped that nobody would think it was mine. I mean, I was maybe overstating things a bit in my description of my mug’s filthiness. Sure, it was filthy. But there was nothing green floating in it.
Later that day, somebody thoughtfully set the mug with the green floater on my desk. Thanks awfully. Shortly after that, Dan the Chemist walked by and exclaimed, “Oh, you found my mug! Where was it?”*
Weight update: down another half pound, to 195.5. That’s 5 pounds off since the new year, if you’re counting. This weekend, I will have ice cream.
And lastly…it’s well established, I think, that I spend too much time poring over data from my hit tracker. I’ve long since realised that I’ll never be able to keep track of all the IP addresses of regular visitors – particularly since so many computers reset the address upon startup – but I try. There are a bunch of you whose numbers I recognise, and others whose numbers change but stay in generally the same neighbourhood, so I can tell who it is. One thing I’ve enjoyed is finding recurrent visits from unfamiliar people in exotic locales. About a week ago, somebody in Egypt made a bunch of visits, apparently going methodically through the archives from the beginning. I was kind of flattered and mystified, but was bummed when they stopped in November of 2004. It made me wonder if that’s when I started getting really boring. Did I start talking about the hit tracker then? Maybe I should check. Anyway, whoever the mystery person in Egypt might be, they started up again today and made it through January of 2005. I hope you come back and catch up again, mystery person in Egypt, so that you can see me saying hi to you. Hi! Then there’s someone at Microsoft who’s been looking in kind of regularly. I think I know who that is – probably the one person I know who works for Microsoft – so I won’t out him unduly. Back a few months ago, I had a regular reader who was a stranger to me, but whose name and work phone number I was able to discover through the hit tracker. Creepy, huh? She worked at some educational institution of other, and I’ve noticed that a lot of schools seem to have the employees’ names built into their Host Names – like asmith-xx.usc.edu. The person in question had a more distinctive name than “A. Smith,” and a quick look at the school’s web site filled in not only her first name but her direct line. I thought it would be funny to call her sometime when I saw she was looking at the faversham and say, in my best Voice of Authority, “This is Papa Dog. Get back to work.” I don’t think I would have really done that – like I say, I creep myself out enough just having snooped as much as I did – but she dropped out of sight before I got around to it, so the point be moot.
Okay, I’m bloviating about IP addresses. That definitely means it’s time to call it a night. And I’ll see you all tomorrow.
___________________
*The two of you who know Dan probably laughed there. For the rest of you, explaining the lovable disorder that is Dan would take a whole other post.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 11:15 PM
3 Comments:
Good God, you've probably frightened away at least half of your readers now that you've revealed your predatory IP snooping habits!
On a more positive note, have you tried to bleach your mug at work? The stuff kills 99.9% of all bacteria/germs, including HIV.
Love,
Mama Dog
I'm glad you know that I've been visiting, even when I don't always comment.
Hi, Papa Dog! This is your reader in Egypt, delurking for the first time ever, and only because you caught me. I'm an American college student, and I'm having loads of fun here. I wish you, Mama Dog, and Baby Dog the best, and I hope you'll give Doggy Dog a treat for me. Thanks for updating every day! I love to read your writing.
Taj
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