by Jason Joyner | Jul 26, 2007 | Blog, blogging, goofiness
If you have a blog, I highly recommend utilizing a service like Blogflux’s MapStats. It tracks where people are from who are visiting your blog, what brought them there (like a referring page), or what they were searching for on Google. It’s cool to see people from around the world end up at Spoiled for the Ordinary.
I put the widget in my blog when I returned from Germany last year. I posted some pics from the Calling All Nations event we went to, and my link got posted on the website. So last July and August I received a ton of hits, with a majority of them international. Cool. For a while my traffic dropped in the fall as that link faded on that site, but it has been climbing since January.
I think the funniest thing about MapStats is checking out what search phrase people used to end up at this blog. Some of them make sense. “Jason Joyner,” “Spoiled for the Ordinary” are at the top. My #2 search phrase is my review of the Song of Albion series by Stephen Lawhead for one of the first CSFF tours. Now I’m on the first page of Google for that phrase. I posted about the NBC show Heroes when it first started, so I got a lot of hits from that last fall. Not as many now, as I don’t follow the show. There are phrases for books I’ve reviewed. I can understand why people would search for these things.
However…there are some pretty goofy things that I’ve had visits from:
Vick’s Vapor Rub Expiration Date – I’ve had several searches for this! Hope they liked my tale of woe.
David Crowder and Evil Squirrels – Enough said.
Dinosaur ninjas – Um…yeah. Why would someone be searching for this anyway (and how did I end up posting about it?) My only guess is that it somehow involves John C. Wright.
One person came here looking for “spoiled teenager help”. I can see how they’d be confused. Here’s my advice: smack ’em, they probably earned it somewhere.
And my personal favorite: “cramer short squeeze tmy april 2007”. I have no idea what they wanted or what they found here. I can only hope it wasn’t for nefarious purposes.
If you don’t have this widget, plug it in. It’s easy, and it’s good fun.
by Jason Joyner | Jun 25, 2007 | Blog, cooking, goofiness
I just had to show off my first attempt at making my mother’s famous rum cake recipe. She bequeathed it to my brother when she died, and he gave it to us a year later (ya know, just so he could torture us a year – love you too bro!).
You may not get the full effect, but I was quite proud as it tastes awesome. I suppose you could lick the monitor, but I don’t have that interactive of a blog.
Now taking orders at $25 a cake…
by Jason Joyner | Jun 25, 2007 | Blog, cooking, goofiness
I just had to show off my first attempt at making my mother’s famous rum cake recipe. She bequeathed it to my brother when she died, and he gave it to us a year later (ya know, just so he could torture us a year – love you too bro!).
You may not get the full effect, but I was quite proud as it tastes awesome. I suppose you could lick the monitor, but I don’t have that interactive of a blog.
Now taking orders at $25 a cake…
by Jason Joyner | May 30, 2007 | Blog, fiction, goofiness, miscellaneous
On Brandilyn Collins’ blog recently she posted a list of CBA best-sellers and commented on the fact that Amish/Mennonite stories continue to be popular reads in the CBA. That got me thinking…
*collective groan throughout cyberspace*
…what if we had some of the best and brightest in Christian fiction trade genres with each other?
Ted Dekker writing his version of a prairie romance.
Lori Wick writing Peretti style spiritual warfare.
Rene Gutteridge taking a page from Robert Liparulo.
Brandilyn taking on chick-lit a la Kristin Billerbeck. (Whoops, already done. See 4/10, 4/11, 4/12)
Anyone else have any unique parings that would make for an interesting read?
by Jason Joyner | May 30, 2007 | Blog, fiction, goofiness, miscellaneous
On Brandilyn Collins’ blog recently she posted a list of CBA best-sellers and commented on the fact that Amish/Mennonite stories continue to be popular reads in the CBA. That got me thinking…
*collective groan throughout cyberspace*
…what if we had some of the best and brightest in Christian fiction trade genres with each other?
Ted Dekker writing his version of a prairie romance.
Lori Wick writing Peretti style spiritual warfare.
Rene Gutteridge taking a page from Robert Liparulo.
Brandilyn taking on chick-lit a la Kristin Billerbeck. (Whoops, already done. See 4/10, 4/11, 4/12)
Anyone else have any unique parings that would make for an interesting read?
by Jason Joyner | May 8, 2007 | Blog, goofiness, miscellaneous
I guess turnabout is fair play. Last week I took it on myself to tag a few people, and now Becky has returned the favor with the topic is “8 Random Facts About Myself.”
The first rule of the game, however, is to post the rules of the game. Here they are:
- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
So…
1. I hate tomatoes, but I’ll eat spaghetti sauce, salsa, etc.
2. I’ve snow skied in July. You’ll have to ask to find out more.
3. I’ve written fan fiction for a Star Wars Xbox role-playing game. How big of a geek does that make me?
4. Our cat is named Obi-Wan. Actually, my wife named him, not me. She asked our oldest what we should name the cat. Oldest (who was three) replied “big Star Wars toy”. I think her compromise worked (although he should’ve been named Darth Maul).
5. I did Youth With a Mission’s 9 month Bible program called the School of Biblical Studies. We read the Bible 5 times in those 9 months.
6. I’ve been on four different continents.
7. I saw The Little Mermaid in theatres about 6 times. Yikes!
8. I almost fell out of the back of a truck while in Thailand. There was no way that I should’ve been able to avoid falling, unless an angel caught me.
That’s all I can think of. Now the hard part – finding eight people to tag! (Sorry folks, I don’t intend on making this a habit.) How about Mir, Solshine7, William G. Jones, Chris Well, Matt (your public needs this!), Bob, the Cubicle Reverand, and we’ll see if we can get the esteemed John C. Wright to participate!
