101/1001 (Week 100)

It has been almost four months since I last updated you on my 101 tasks in 1001 days challenge, mostly because it takes almost four months to write out the name of the challenge.

Do NaNoWriMo

I did do NaNoWriMo, sort of i.e. I got bored and gave up half way through.  I suspect than means I won’t complete the next challenge on the list:

Win NaNoWriMo.

English: Animated cartoon on a exercise bike (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ride my bike twenty out of thirty days

We are at Day 708 of the 1001 days and I have ridden my bike a total of zero times.  

On the plus side, I have told 708 jokes.

Expose myself to twenty new experiences (12/20)

Only had one new experience in sixteen weeks: wore a granny outfit and then shared the look with the world.  My post on the velour track suit refers.

Hit 250,000 visitors on my blog (289,099/250,000)

I completed this challenge and posted a photograph to prove it.  Things have slowed down since then: WordPress made it possible to comment on blogs via email, without having to visit.

Nice, WordPress – find a way to reduce everyone’s stats; I’m sure we all love you for it.

I need to set a new target; what do you think it should be?  There are 43 weeks left so please make it realistic, given WordPress’s propensity for scaring away actual visitors.

Free verse poem about loo roll theft, toilet, the office, Hackney, London, UK (Photo credit: gruntzooki)

Write 1001 new poems

I have written 688 so I am only 20 poems behind.  I usually catch up in April, which is National Poetry Writing Month.

This is the one challenge above all others which I am determined to complete.

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Make thirty submissions to competitions or publishers (29/30)

I have submitted five times in the last sixteen weeks, counting multiple poems to the same publisher/competition as one. If I have had success, you’ve heard about it.  I’m not one to hide my light under a bushel; I’m more likely to set the bushel on fire in my enthusiasm to share.

Films & Books

I reached my target and then some to watch 101 new films (114/101), but I am only halfway to my target of reading new books (51/101).  I have done lots of reading, but it tends to be of books that I love.  If I want to reach my target, I have to read 1.15 books a week between now and the end of the challenge.  It’s doable, but I’ll have to give up movies.

the Biggest loser strategy (Photo credit: HikingArtist.com)

 

A Small Celebration

I hit a blog milestone yesterday:

Only 3/4 of a million to go!

For more Six Word Saturdays go here.

Joke 578

These are for an old school friend who is a statistician and sometimes reads my blog.  The law of averages suggests he won’t read it today, but you never know.

The inside of a hot air balloon’s envelope, seen from the gondola. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first one is from statisticsjokes.

A historian, an engineer and a statistician are duck hunting.  A duck rises from the lake.

The historian fires first, and shoots 10′ over the duck.

Then the engineer shoulders the shotgun and shoots 10′ under the duck.

The statistician exclaims “Got him!”

This one is from stats.stackexchange.com.

A guy is flying in a hot air balloon and he’s lost.  He lowers himself over a field and shouts to another guy on the ground, “Can you tell me where I am, and which way I’m headed?”

“Sure!  You’re at 43 degrees, 12 minutes, 21.2 seconds north; 123 degrees, 8 minutes, 12.8 seconds west.  You’re at 212 meters above sea level.  Right now, you’re hovering, but on your way in here you were at a speed of 1.83 meters per second at 1.929 radians.”

“Thanks!  By the way, are you a statistician?”

“I am!  But how did you know?”

“Everything you’ve told me is completely accurate; you gave me more detail than I needed, and you told me in such a way that it’s no use to me at all!”

“Dang!  By the way, are you a principal investigator?”

“I am!  How’d you know that?”

“You don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going.  You got where you are by blowing hot air, you start asking questions after you get into trouble, and you’re in exactly the same spot you were a few minutes ago, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

1.2.3.4.

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who left a comment on yesterday’s post.  You have given us loads to work with, which is exactly what we need.

We aim to re-launch the website in September; I will update you when it happens so you can see the fruits of your labour.

I have the Number 1 readers in the blogosphere, and that’s a fact!

Secondly, if you happen to be in the London area this week, you can visit the Globe Theatre for £2.50!  I have lifted this from the Arts Council website because I think it should be shared:

Come and support Latin American theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe!

“Globe to Globe” is the innovative, ground breaking and jaw droppingly ambitious global theatre festival presenting all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 different languages!

Each day a new theatre company from around the world presents one of Shakespeare’s classics on the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe, Southbank. Not only is it hectic, innovative and brilliant fun but it is a truly unique opportunity to see the best of the world’s theatre and celebrate theatre and language in all its diversity. Anyone interested in theatre should come and see what the world is making. Anyone interested in language and global community should come and see what the world is saying.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we have “Henry IV Part 1 and 2” from Mexico and Argentina and we are making incredible ticket offers to see both these productions! Quote ‘PCDYARD241’ to get two tickets for £5, and get the best seats in the house for £10 for the Tuesday matinee by quoting “PCDMAT10”.

We have more to come this week from the Belarus Free Theatre, the National Theatre of Armenia, Georgia and Brazil. Watch this space: www.shakespearesglobe.com/globetoglobe

It’s part of the Olympic celebrations and a fabulous opportunity.  How I wish I lived nearer.  If you do go, please blog about it and I’ll try not to hate you.

Third on the agenda: I think school is a little more dangerous than it used to be, if this Manchester Realcycle request is anything to go by:

WANTED: Human Skull

Hi!  My son is in need of a human skull for an art project at college.  It can be real or artificial !  Can collect at your convenience.  Thank you.

I’m tempted to give her the Hub’s but he claims he’s still using it.

And lastly, an event so rare, my flabber was ghasted: I logged on to my site stats and there was a perfect number.  It’s the first time in [hang on; let me check.  I can’t remember how long I’ve been at this] three years of blogging that I have found a perfect number on my stats page, so I had to share it.  Has it ever happened to you?

And you made it happen.  Thank you!

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How To Entice New Visitors To Your Blog

Image via Wikipedia

Have a regular feature.

I tell a joke a day.  Sometimes they’re funny.  People come across one joke and they’re hooked, poor fools.

Join in.

I participate in Six Word Saturday and 101 Tasks in 1001 Days.  People come along to read those posts, and sometimes stay.

Make ’em laugh when they get here.

I tell a joke a day; did I mention that?  I also poke fun at my family, myself and my readers.  Some people come back for more.  (I know; I don’t get it, either.)

Use an interesting title calculated to attract.

Funny is good, but hasn’t helped me much in the title department, if I’m honest.  That’s why I’m using one today calculated to appeal to all those bloggers who, like me, are desperate to be noticed.  I would definitely read a post with this title.  I’m guessing that’s why you’re here, too.

Use popular tags.

Since I started adding tags such as postaday2011, joke and humour, I’ve been getting more new readers.  Well, people taking one look at my blog and never coming back again but, hey, the numbers are up.

Use the same tags in more than one language.

For example:

• English: Humour
• American: Humor

Just because your readers can’t spell, doesn’t mean you should exclude them.

Link to other blogs.

Nancy at Spirit Lights The Way is generous with her link backs but that’s no good to me because she’s already a captive reader.   I read blogs new to me and link back to them, so they will come over and see me and link back to me and I’ll link back to them and some of my readers read them and link back to me saying they’re linking to them and them’ll tell their readers and link back to me and their readers’ll link to them and to me and it all gets pretty incestuous and the posts are interbreeding and don’t make much sense any more but that’s okay I can live with that because the main thing is the stats go up.

Specifically, link to popular blogs.

If you’re lucky, that nogoodnik whose popularity you don’t understand but might as well use will return the visit and like what they see enough to mention you in a post.  If they don’t, who needs ’em anyway?  Note: Don’t get tears on the keyboard; it makes it difficult to type.

Post regularly.

Join postaday2011 or postaweek2011, or tell your readers you’re going to post on the third Tuesday of the month when the moon is in Uranus and you need to rant about your partner.  So long as your readers know when to expect you, they’ll stay.

To be on the safe side, I post on average three times a day.  My readers are too exhausted to visit other blogs.

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I hope you found this little guide useful and will tell all your friends about me.  If you hated it, don’t leave a comment, just tell all your friends about me.

Bon chance! (French)

Good luck!  (American)

Wotcha!  (English)

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1/1/11

Image via Wikipedia

Isn’t that a great date?  It’s like 2011 is saying, Yes, you had some interesting numbers in 2010; but let me show you what I’ve got…

2010 had the consecutive (8/9/10, 11:12:13), the repetitive (10/10/10) and the palindrome (01/11/10).  Of course, it all depends on your perspective: my American friends won’t have had the same first one because they put the month before the day; here in the UK 8/9/10 happened in September but in the States it was in August.  Then there’s the manipulation: if I had added or subtracted zeros then 8/9/10 would have been 08/09/10 and rather dull; 01/11/10 would not have been a palindrome at all as 1/11/10.

I love interesting numbers, hence my excitement last night: it wasn’t the 23,000 that got me squealing; it was the 999.  If it had been 23,941, for example, I wouldn’t have mentioned it; but that one-under-a-round-figure in twelve months was just too good not to be shared.

Numbers also show you something about people – here’s something I learned in 2010: people like to smile.  The post of mine to receive the most hits by far was Smile And The World Smiles With You; Dissect It And People Ask ‘Who’s That Freak?’ .  Okay, not one of my better titles but it received 6,831 hits in six months so it must be doing something right.  I’ve even learned the Turkish for ‘smile’ because 32 Turkish-speaking people found me using gülücük.

A total of 7,275 visitors found me using a variation of ‘smile/laugh/funny/cartoon’.  Contrast that with the lowly 8 who found me using ‘scowl’ or ‘scowling’.  There was also the one weirdo who found me using the search term ‘long nipples’, but the less said about them, the better.

Of course, it’s possible that people using negative terms in their blogs are receiving way more hits than I am; there’s a lot of ‘hate’, ‘spite’ and ‘misery’ out there.  But I like to think that most people want to be happy.  And if they do, I hope they’ll visit me: I like feeling happy.  Don’t you?

Wow!

Total visitors to The Laughing Housewife for 2010:

23,999

First Milestone

5000 views: that’s the total I reached the other day.  I’m chuffed; since starting this blog last June, I have had 4997 views from people who are not obliged to listen to me.

This blogging business is addictive, as those subscribers who cursed at receiving three emails in one day will probably agree.  I refuse to give it up, however: how else is it possible to say what you like, when you like and receive instant feedback in the form of rising stats and congratulatory comments?  It shouldn’t be called ‘blogging’, it should be called ‘egostroking’.

Ogden Nash was a surprise hit as far as my stats were concerned; but the best thing was my discovery that I needed new glasses: lordemmanuel found his way to the Nash post and kindly commented, ‘Nice posts. I Love the fact you put about yourself too. Really real.’  But what I read was – and it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘Nice posts’ – ‘I Love the fact you put yourself about too.’ 

I have set myself the target of reaching 10,000 views by the end of the year.  Any suggestions as to what I should write about to make it happen?