I counted 19 peak attendance (but I also consumed two glasses of Brugge’s “Tripel de Ripple,” so there’s a slight possibility of inaccuracy).  At any rate, we occupied three tables.  Brigid has photos (yes, the Waterzooie tasted as good as it looks), Turk has a video, Roberta has a brief report. Fun, fun, fun.

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The Other McCain moves to new digs here.

The famous Jim Treacher announces he’s really somebody named “Sean,” who is now hanging out with Tucker Carlson here.

And while we were distracted elsewhere, Doctor Zero (of Green Room fame) premiered his new site. (Archives, too!)

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Here’s what I’m seeing. (taken c.a. 1800 est)

UPDATED 091221 23:00:  One too many </p> tags!

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Rob K recalls an appropriate quote:

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We must be cautious.”

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If you scroll way down the sidebar... no, keep scrolling... there!... you’ll find some Monthly Traffic stats that our host kindly makes available to us Mee-Nuvians.

As the goings-on on this page have always been primarily for my own amusement (besides being a device for keeping the old blood pressure under control), I’ve never indulged in any of the fancy traffic analysis tools that the web makes available. The idea of doing so seemed to present a risk taking things entirely too seriously^[1]; not to mention offering the disturbing potential to discover things that might be better left undiscovered^[2].

Still, the reported 52,000+ pages served over the last 30 days is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.

Who are all those people?

For a long time that monthly number has hovered around 30,000... say 1,000/day. And I know from looking at other sites’ information that one-half to two-thirds of that is most likely search engine spiders, botnets, spammers, and other miscellaneous automated rabble.  Deduct a reasonable amount (say 50%) of the remainder to account for obsessive refreshing of the main page by the author, and that still leaves several hundred real-live viewers who drop by on any given day.  Who appear to be a taciturn bunch, given that in just over 2½ years they have made just under 300 comments (by probably 30 unique commenters).

So for these last hours of November, I’m gonna call “ollie ollie oxen free,” and encourage you hitherto silent ones to test Mee-nu’s comment functionality.  Tell a bit about yourself, or just say, “hello.”  No registration or personal info required, just click the “Add Comment” link in the footer below and make yourself known, if only for today.

(But if you’re peddling handbags, athletic shoes, or replica watches... forget it.)


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End-of-the-month got busy (again!), resulting in a disappointing 33 posts for October, down from September’s 48 (and August’s 38). 

That makes October the y-t-d low.  Have to get on it next month!

The October linklist will appear (below the break) shortly...

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Arrived late (following a drive up from Kentucky), but not so late as to miss Sunday’s festivities^[1].  New people this time (in no particular order): Owen, Wayne (yet another one!), and Jay (who also has a neat,^[2] albeit somewhat neglected, Installations blog).  Turned out once wasn’t enough for brave folks Midwest Chick and Mr.B, both of whom made welcome reappearances.  Also in attendance: Regulars Brigid, Joanna, Roberta, Tam, Og, and Red (his blog has a new name), plus readers!

The weather was perfect for sitting outside,

except most of the exterior tables were occupied by the Brewpub’s annual pumpkin-carving contest^[3].  Contestants ranged from little kids to the Ripple’s artistic types; entries ranged from
the artistic...

through the clever...
to the disturbing (use your imagination!).

Altogether a fine time (as usual).  Next chance coming in November (date and venue t.b.a.), all readers and bloggers are invited!

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(Stop the Zombie Menace!  October 25, 2009.) more...

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