How's Everybuddy Doing? Rambling about nothing.

I don't really have a topic tonight.  We've been all over the map of late, when it comes to content, and it's been a wild ride watching the hit count on various posts.

We did curiously great on the Christopher Reeve birthday post, the Amanda Palmer coverage got RT by Ms. Palmer herself, so we're at 460+ hits right now (a normal post gets between 20-40), and the Oreo Candy Corn taste test did shockingly well with almost 200 hits.  And some comics stuff does okay, too.  Opera?  Not so much (which is weird on a site that's usually about movies and science fiction and comics).

But, as has often driven followers of this site nuts, I have no specific agenda with The Signal Watch, so you're not going to see me talk a whole lot about one thing.


Birthdays and Special Dates

Why have I been doing these?  Well, in part because my various social media outlets keep alerting me to some of these items.  On other topics, I wanted an excuse to write the post.  For example:  what reason am I going to have to post on Richard Bong?  I've wanted to post on that guy for years and could never think of a reason to do so.

Other cases, like Chuck Jones, I just saw online that it was his birthday, and in my opinion, the man should be an American household name (yes, Nathan, I know he's a household name at the Cone house), but Jones wasn't in front of the camera, so he gets talked about in small circles.  If I can get a chance to talk about a guy I've looked up to since middle school, dangit, I'm gonna post on his b-day.

And if you have to wonder why I'm looking for reasons to post pictures of Sophia Loren, we're going to have to start all over around here.

Ms. Loren will be right here, waiting, while you ponder that question.

The birthday posts are fun.  I assume it also informs some of the perspective with which we approach this site, and, I suppose, it tells you a little bit where our head is at.

Books

Something that I think is absolutely true is that I feel I understand the material I'm reading or watching on a much greater level when I write a post about it.  So it's a nice exercise for me to do a post about a book I've either just read or listened to via Audible.com, and try to put together my thoughts on what I've just read.

It's not even really intended as a recommendation, though the conversations often end with a recommendation (I really like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, for example).  It's just my way of working through the book and it's component parts before moving on to the next.  I don't do it all the time, especially if I didn't like the book very much, but mostly I hope it doesn't bore you guys.

And, one of my all-time highest hits is on my discussion of The Great Gatsby, which continues to get hits all the time thanks to high school students looking for something for a term paper.

Personal Stuff and the Comment Section

People, I cannot thank you enough for not making me regret my decision to return to blogging with The Signal Watch.  Yes, the comments come far fewer and less frequent than the heyday of League of Melbotis (many comments now lost to the switch from HaloScan).  But it's all very civilized these days here at the site and at the various social media outlets where our content pops up.

I don't know why or how that's happened, but - keep it up!

It can be hard to put your opinions out there - or it could be - if I didn't feel like a real discussion could be had.  Heck, I can put up a post about my stupid writing project, and folks are either respectfully silent or have something worth saying.  It's kind of nice.

Thanks, team!



I guess that's it.  Have a good Wednesday.