celebrating 300,000 pageviews

If you ever glance at the counter near the bottom of the sidebar, you might’ve noticed that yesterday we went over 300,000 hits / pageviews.  That’s quite an accomplishment, I think.  Perhaps that will prevent certain other bloggers from calling this blog obscure (not that we listen to them anyway, especially when they don’t even visit their own blog!).

Anyway, I think this calls for a celebration.   It’s a big milestone (albeit arbitrarily chosen, but it’s a large round number with many round numbers).  I suspect many blogs never reach that many viewers.

I’d like to take all the regular readers out for pizza, but unfortunately it’s not in the budget.  Actually, there is no budget, because there is no money.  Nobody has made any donations.  And that’s okay, because we don’t ask for donations.  We’ll gladly receive them, should anyone feel generous, but we don’t ask for your money.  We like to keep the humor here free, where all can enjoy and participate for no charge.  So that’s why there’s no pizza party.

It’s not just a few posts that get a lot of pageviews — there are actually 33 posts that each have over 1,000 views.  That’s amazing to me, that so many people have read my ramblings!  I’m sure most of you regulars can guess what the top posts are, but how many of the top 10 could you name?  Here’s the listing:

1. random Monday quotes
2. add your own captions, basketball photo
3. Halo costume
4. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew & Beaker – top boffins
5. funny quotes about Mondays, part 2
6. some random quotes for your Monday morning
7. viewer mail, issue #6
8. the special days of April, pt 2
9. Toilet Facts
10. Man vs Food — Carnivore Pizza Challenge

Some of those are very predictable.  For those of you who are curious, here are the next 10:

11. some quotes for your Monday
12. caption contest, unfair sumo wrestling match
13. I want a tank to drive around town
14. the special days of April, pt 1
15. Wendy’s new Baconator burger
16. Exercise Is Bad For You, New Study Shows
17. man vs food – super burger challenge
18. offended at poop
19. Get your super-powers here
20. a new Tower Defense game

Have you read all of those?  (I wonder how many of the regular readers have read everything here.  You should get a gold star!)

Of course, these are not necessarily the top 20 posts in terms of quality, but the public has spoken.  Is your favorite post missing?  (Or does anyone even have a favorite post?)

celebrating Juneteenth

I just heard that today is a holiday.  Nobody told me to take the day off work!  So I did some research, so I won’t miss this opportunity next year.

June 19 is Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day.  The day is to commemorate the announcement of the abolition of slavery.  The holiday started in Texas in 1865 but is now recognized in 31 states, including Arkansas.  The name Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth, which is called a portmanteau.  (You learn something every day.)

I’ve been told the day is traditionally celebrated with a large feast served as an all day meal in a park or outdoor space, and that food typically includes barbecue, fried chicken, greens, baked bread, red soda, pies, home-made ice cream, and watermelon.

Did you notice the part that said “all day meal”?  There was also a mention of fried chicken and barbecue.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  🙂  Unfortunately I don’t know anyone having a party for this, but now you know, so there’s no excuse for next year.

the special days of March, pt 1

As we have done in previous months, we will look at the special days and holidays of this month.  Since it’s March, I reckon we’ll focus on March’s holidays.  🙂  As usual, this is not a complete list — those can be found elsewhere.  But I guarantee you will not find another list like this one.  Not only do we list the best of the unusual and strange and obscure holidays, but we add our own unique commentary and analysis.

Let’s start with looking at the month-long celebrations and observances.

  • Music in Our Schools Month — I think students should be exposed to different types of music, like with Music Appreciation classes.  But make it fun.  Too many people know only the “Top 40” stuff on the radio.
  • National Frozen Food Month — This may sound like a bachelor’s food only, but there are now some nice frozen foods, like lasagna, which are really good.  Mmm… lasagna…
  • National Noodle Month — Speaking of lasagna…
  • National Nutrition Month — I’m not sure if this should be the same month as National Frozen Food Month.  Also, I figure this would be January, when everyone is starting a diet and trying to eat healthy.  By March, most of us have given up.  (Maybe they want renewed emphasis on nutrition…)
  • National Peanut Month — Peanuts are good by themselves, but add chocolate, and they’re even better.  Or you can have something with peanut butter and chocolate, like Reese’s, which are excellent.

The only weekly celebration worth mentioning is:

  • 2nd Week National Bubble Week — A good idea for bubbles is to blow them over cubicle walls at work and act like you don’t know what happened.  Another good office prank is to rip a bubbly fart, but you surely don’t want to get caught for that one!

Now let’s look at the individual day holidays and observances:

  • 1 National Pig Day — Since most people don’t keep pigs as pets, I reckon it’s best to celebrate them by eating sausage, bacon, and ham.  Mmm…
  • 2 Old Stuff Day — Uhh… what?!?  I reckon you should be thankful for antique cars and such things.  This day ought to make the Important Evil Genius happy, because he supposedly has a rather large collection of antiquated old relics that he plans to build a doomsday device with.
  • 3 I Want You to be Happy Day — I really do want you to be happy, every day.  That’s why I publish this great blog — to make everyone’s day a little more surreal.  🙂
  • 3 If Pets Had Thumbs Day — According to some scientists who believe in evolution, this would make animals a lot closer to humans.  But that’s silly. In fact, this whole day is silly.  What’s the point of it?
  • 3 National Anthem Day — If this is for the national anthem, there’s already a holiday or two where that is traditionally sung and/or played.  But perhaps this means we should each have our own anthem this day.  I’ve always thought it would be awesome if we each had our own theme song.  It could play when we get to work (although that might reveal your lateness to your co-workers) or when we walk into a meeting at work.  Of course, we’d want the option to turn it off, for when we needed to be in stealth mode.  But I think this could be really awesome.
  • 4 Holy Experiment Day — Uhh… what is this for?  I’ll figure out something.  How about on this day you try to live a completely holy life.  Although, if you’re a Christian, you should be trying to do that every day.
  • 5 Multiple Personality Day — Isn’t that normally considered a disorder?  If so, why are we celebrating it?  It can be confusing to have multiple personalities, so I recommend against it.  Besides, if you want to add or remove parts from your current personality, you can do so without adding the disorder.
  • 6 Dentist’s Day — I appreciate dentists, but I’m not going to celebrate this day.  They already make plenty of money, plus I don’t want to go to the dentist any more than I have to.
  • lasagna6 National Frozen Food Day — This would be a good day for lasagna.  Mmm…  Of course, there are other options, like Hot Pockets, and there are some frozen desserts that are pretty good.
  • 6 On this day in 1912, Oreo cookies went on sale for the first time.  Now we might take them for granted.  But imagine eating your first Oreo, then discovering how good it is with milk.
  • 8 Be Nasty Day — Why is this a holiday?  We shouldn’t ever be nasty.  There’s a place for joking amongst friends, but we shouldn’t ever be nasty.  (I could come up with better holidays than this…)
  • 9 Employee Appreciation Day — Employees should definitely be appreciated.  This would be a good day to give everyone the afternoon off, or to let them leave early, or to at least buy their lunch.  If this day is on a weekend, it should be observed on the following Monday.
  • 9 Panic Day — This is just stupid.  If there’s a reason to panic, then panic, but don’t schedule it!
  • 9 Daylight Saving Time Begins — We’ve discussed this before, and we decided it should be changed to better accommodate the average working person.  I really don’t like losing an hour of sleep, nor does that help productivity the following Monday.  There is a better way…
  • 10 Middle Name Pride Day — This is good if you have a good middle name, but some people may not.  Also, it’s a good time to learn why you were given the name you got.
  • 11 Johnny Appleseed Day — This is to honor a man who planted and sold a lot of apple trees some 200 years ago.  He lived a simple life, and he was a deeply religious person.  And, if you’re curious, that wasn’t his real name.  I didn’t know you could be famous for planting apple trees…  He has become a legend in some ways.  I need to figure out how to become a legend, other than planting trees.  Perhaps someday this blog will be legendary.  If my blog traffic continues to grow at its current pace, eventually the whole world will be reading it.  🙂

This post is getting really long, so I’ll continue the list tomorrow.  (There will be a link above this post to the next one.)