Here’s a selection of the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly "Urchin" web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, October 2003 Total Visitors: 5,341Total Pageviews: 10,852 (Corrected total: 6,655)Average Pageviews Per Day: 350.06 (Corrected average: 214.68)Total Hits: 17,474Total Bytes Transferred: 352.9MBAverage Visitors Per Day: 172.29Average Hits Per Day: 563.67Average Bytes Transferred Per Day: 11.40MB
The "corrected" numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered "pages" by the statistics pre-digestion engine. Results are slightly lower than last month.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/index.html 335christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 219christian-sauve.com/texts/solaris-explanation.htm 167christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 151christian-sauve.com/new-york/day_2.html 133christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1980s.htm 119christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 114christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 114christian-sauve.com/links.html 102christian-sauve.com/texts/losing-weight.htm 96
Hits on my "Solaris Explained" page are down (from nearly 360 in September, and over 500 in August), now that the DVD release of the film has passed.
If you care about such things, (I do!), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2225 (2104)Explorer|5 806 (787)Netscape|5 734 (614)Netscape|4 721 (884)Googlebot|2 198 (New, Top-5)
Yay, Netscape 4 hits are down. You’d think that after all I’ve done to drive these people away…
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 829 (790)yahoo.com/search 374 (325)www.google.ca/search 216 (201)msn.com/results.aspx 132 (188)ask.com/redir 83 (New, Top-5)
Search queries were stable.
Interesting new URLs spotted: cosplay.com/showthread.php
and straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php. The first one will be explained in a moment, but the second continues to elude me. And, believe me, I’ve searched for it on their web site.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Action-packed month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Here’s what happened:
1. Two good acquaintances used the site to contact me after months of nothingness. Cool!
2. Matt, from Washington DC, finds my page on free movie screenings and shares
I just started the preview screening thing here in washington dc. I am addicted and found your writing conveying the exact sentiments that I feel each time i see a movie. I have seen 3 this week and it’s only my 3rd week doing this.
Hurrah!
3. Trolls amuse me. But this one is just pathetic. It start with
(8:19:53) hi are u gay
then moves on (in a separate message, time-stamped below) to
(8:20:55) know one likes u u are a fag
then to a friendlier
(8:21:18) hi
and then
(8:21:37) hi
and finally, having exhausted all other options, the ultimate retort
(8:21:49) hi
Gee. Words fail me as much as this guy. If you’re going to pester me, at least do it with some class and venom. This is just… lame.
4. I nearly started an international incident when I wrote that viewers watching the Australian film CHOPPER may have a hard time in trying to "decipher the thick Australian street-talk" of the film. Naturally, vigilant Australian readers were quick to pounce:
It’s bad enough that Australians have to hear about their "incomprehensible" accent from Americans, but to hear it from a Canadian is dissapointing. You do not often hear Australians complaining about the southern drawl, or hillbilly twang, or the Canadian "pseudo-American" accent, so why on earth do so many educated people have such a problem with our particular language.
I refer of course to your review of the movie "Chopper". The character is a kind of anti-hero in Australian culture. I don’t particularly care for him or his story. It is amusing to hear, however, that he speaks an unintelligable language. The only suggestion I can make, is if your DVD player has a "Slow forward" speed, you try and engage that.
Amends were made, explanations were provided, my French-Canadian-ness was brought up, a link to Roger Ebert’s review saying essentially the same thing was sent and armed forces on both side of the ocean were called off.
5. Authors like it when you compliment their work. And so I mentioned (in my Worldcon 2003 report) that I was intrigued by Tom Kratman’s upcoming book A State of Disobedience. And so I received
Thanks for your support. Send your copy to me and I’ll be happy to sign it.
Yes, sir!
6. But the highlight of the month happened within a twenty-four hours period, as my Worldcon 2003 report was discovered (independantly, as far as I can find out) by both Masquerade fans at the specialized cosplay.com site, and the emcee of the Worldcon masquerade, Gord Rose himself. Gord wrote to ask a few precisions about other people’s less-than-favorable comments I transcribed. (I explained. He made a few good points. He’s a champ.)
Meanwhile, my review of the masquerade (from a non-costumer’s point of view) was reposted on cosplay.com, where I intervened to ask them not to flame me to a crisp. I learned, shall we say, a lot. You can read the entire humiliating exchange at http://forums.cosplay.com/ showthread.php?t=22869 but the key point I’m taking from it is that cosplayers are used to both players and haters, but have a bit of a hard time imagining ignorant/unfamiliar people like me for whom convention masquerades are neither a boon or a scourge. Plus, I also learned that I should definitely learn about the costuming field some more before posting anything else about it.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
4.1 – Top ten queries
>free movie screenings (x30) >solaris explanation (x30) >free movie tickets (x13) >solaris movie explanation (x10) >isbn lookup (x9) >sauve (x9) >solaris explained (x9) >solaris movie explained (x9) >explanation of solaris (x7) >christian statistics (x6)
The hubbub around SOLARIS (the movie) is finally starting to die down. The rest is as usual, though I’m fascinated, as always, by "christian statistics".
4.2 – My name is (what?)
First, let’s isolate the stuff about me:
Christian Sauvé (x4)christian sauve (x3)christian sauve review szpindel
What is cool is that, obviously, people are looking for me. What really spooks me is that someone, possibly Canadian SF author Isaac Sz
pindel himself, saw fit to look specifically for my (middling) review of one of his Aurora-nominated stories.
breakaway scientologist reviews on movies and music scientologist bisson scientologist book reviews scientologist bruel simpsons horror scientologist dramas about gangs scientologist dramas halloween scientologist fanaticism pictures scientologist lehman écrivain scientologist movie reviewers 2 scientologist movie reviews 3 scientologist movie reviews ghost and the darkness scientologist movie reviews jfk scientologist movie reviews rocky scientologist movie reviews the right stuff scientologist nudity scientologist opinions anime claudia scientologist lesbian courtship austin teenager scientologist texas group flash movies scientologist 2 gilgamesh scientologist perspective jacob movie scientologist lord of the rings scientologist reviews love boat slater scientologistmanhattan purple book scientologist movie rental recommendation scientologist movies from scientologist standpoint spanking scientologist fiction where can i find scientologist reviews on the movie school of rock
Oh, you knew that whenever I started replacing "christian" with weird stuff, it was only a matter of time before we got to those wacky scientologists…
4.3 – Let’s all go to the Movies!
>explanation solaris (x2) >solaris plot explanation (x2) >original solaris movie >solaris explanation film clooney >solaris explanation movie >solaris film explanation >solaris movie >solaris rehya >solarisexplanation
Yep, after a few months, this is definitely dying down…
4.4 – Strange, disturbing and wondrous…
>a synopsis of robert j.sawyer's artificial intelligence
Now now… I’ve read references to Sawyer’s work as "wooden" before, but never as robotic. Gee.
>are horror movies harmful to viewers
No. But this web site is. ("Before you die, you see… christian-sauve.com!")
>how do audiences decode the narrative of memento
With maps, secret decoder rings, GPS receivers, decryption utilities and a lot of coffee.
>how to lose weight quickly without paying anything
Well start by buying less food, ya pig!
>list of 100 most beautiful men
Wow, it’s true: On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog…
>raunchy disney movie mistakes
Ah yes, they much be referring to the infamous version of POCAHONTAS that "accidentally" featured a hardcore scene…
>movie prices ottawa (x2) >world exchange cineplex odeon
How are these two related? Well, how about this lousy downtown theater with tiny screens and uncomfortable seats going completely nuts by scrapping matinees and re-pricing everything at exactly the same price as the newest, comfiest theater in the area, just as said better theater priced everything *down*? Yes. I’ll take my daily-movie habit someplace more comfortable, thank you.
Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.