From the Web Site Report Archive (2007)
For a long, long while, starting in 2002 when I could finally get reliable web stats about this site, I obsessed about “my” web analytics. How many visitors? What browser did they use? What were they looking for? I published monthly summaries (which wasn’t all that obsessive, given how it led me to regular site improvements) and provided commentary. I stopped in late 2010, when it became more of a chore than a fun thing to do.
By 2018, the site reports were cluttering the site with low-value content, and (after making a backup) I decided to clean up and delete those old reports. Still, there were a few snippets worth preserving here, either for historical value, a few chuckles or a glimpse at old-school webmastering. Here it goes, copy-and-pasted more or less chronologically from 2007
January 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, January 2007 Total Visitors 9,679 Total Pageviews 21,244 (Corrected Total: 11,762) Total Hits 25,161 Total Bytes Transferred 452.7MB Average Visitors Per Day 312.22 Average Pageviews Per Day 685.29 (Corrected Average: 379.4) Average Hits Per Day 811.64
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. Most numbers are slightly lower than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 540 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 328 /reviews.html 207 /about.html 203 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 161 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 128 /links.html 125 /francais/index.html 124 /writings.html 119 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 117
The unexpected show of old, old, old reviews (some of which I repudiate) comes from a Wikipedia mention, more about which is to be found below.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 5314 (5851) Explorer|6 1587 (1833) Explorer|7 665 (406) msnbot|1 524 (412) Explorer|5 442 (574)
Explorer|7 continues to climb up the charts.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1130 (1057) www.google.ca/search 373 (310) google.co.uk/search 116 (101) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 97 www.google.fr/search 54 (51)
You’re surprised to see Wikipedia cite me as an authority on Eric L. Harry’s Arc Light? Well, imagine my surprise at seeing a ten-year-old review dredged up as a noteworthy reference! I keep waiting for someone to remove the link and reveal me as a fraud. (Especially now that I’ve gone back and rewrote the review to my current “standards” of “quality”.)
In other “you may not want to link to my reviews” news, author David Louis Edelman spotted my positive-but-not-enthusiastic review of his Infoquake and used the money line of the review on his book blog and Infoquake‘s Amazon “plog” for a total of about six different URLs that I can see from here. Can a quote on the paperback edition be far behind? (A good thing that I actually meant what I wrote. On the other hand, I can’t help but consider the source of the review…) At least Edelman has the good taste of describing me as merely an “SF blogger”. Whew!
(If you want a hilarious third-party consideration of my credentials, go to the “Discussion” page of the Wikipedia “James Robert Baker” article, where I’m mercilessly described as “a published author who reviews cinema and books for Solaris (magazine)”. It’s true, but it still doesn’t make me an authority.)
One conspicuous absence was the pretty definitive lack of references from image search engines: Looks like my upgraded robots.txt file did the trick after a few weeks. (The lack of image-related links may also explain the slightly lower numbers this month. Good.)
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Aside from the spam, there wasn’t much in the christian-sauve.com mailbox this month. What was left was pure quality, but really can’t be shared with you (even the best of you) as it was all about old friends and new clients making contact.
On the other hand, one visitor’s comments made me add a few lines to my Solaris Explained essay. Go and have a look over there for the details.
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)
Here are our top-ten queries:
christian sauve 18 samantha ivers nude 14 sauve 10 frank camper 9 being canadian 9 stomach shrinkage 9 advance screenings 8 solaris explanation 8 ftaires 7 advance movie screenings 7
Ha, take that Samatha Ivers! I rule over my own web site!
“Ftaires”, in case you wonder, is a reference to one of the scariest lines in Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves(mentionned in my review of the book). I am completely mystified as to why it would suddenly become a hot search items just now. Maybe a contest or academic exercise of some sort?
>what happened to himillsy cheese monkeys >what happens if you overcorrect during lasik eye surgery >what is mitch rapp from transfer of power afraid of >what is the song that comes on when the 2004 movie cellular ends >what is the thesis for bridget jones's diary >what to eat for losing flab and weight >what's better 2020 vision or 15:20 vision >where abouts is the league of gentlemen filmed >where can i read about the comparisons of the movie holes and the book >which sport was the theme for the 1999 film mystery alaska >who wrote the 2006 novel free fall >why is my oscar fish sedate
Like Zen koans, some of those questions are best left contemplated than answered.
February 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, February 2007 Total Visitors 9,334 Total Pageviews 21,185 (Corrected Total: 10,954) Total Hits 25,486 Total Bytes Transferred 468.1MB Average Visitors Per Day 333.35 Average Pageviews Per Day 756.6 (Corrected Average: 391.2) Average Hits Per Day 910.21
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. Taking in account the shorter month, most numbers are slightly higher than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 535 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 376 /reviews.html 183 /about.html 172 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 166 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 144 /search.html 141 /boreal/ 136 /ctact.html 124 /francais/index.html 113
The continued good showing of old, old, old reviews (some of which I repudiate) comes a mention on the Wikipedia page about Eric Harry’s “Arc Light” novel, mentioned last month. (See below for correlation).
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 4944 (5314) Explorer|6 1337 (1587) msnbot|1 760 (524) Explorer|7 676 (665) Explorer|5 534 (442)
Explorer|7 continues its slow climb up the charts.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1061 (1130) www.google.ca/search 312 (373) google.co.uk/search 118 (116) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 93 (97) www.google.fr/search 43 (54)
No changes from last month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Other than a blissful and unexpected respite from spam, there wasn’t much of note in the christian-sauve.com mailbox this month. For instance…
1. Evon, writing from a US federal government address, asked:
Do you have a list of sites where I can get free movie tickets or see the preview in washington dc.
Um, no. Re-read the last paragraph of the essay, please.
2. Otherwise-anonymous american Eric wrote to state:
Read your review of the Gemini Man. Dumb.
At first, I didn’t know whether he was calling The Gemini Man dumb, or rather refered to my review. Then it stuck me: Eric is a man of few words. He obviously meant both! A dumb review of a dumb book!
Then I felt much better.
3. Finally, Michael from New Jersey wrote to announce:
I’ve created a custom google search engine that only searches independent movie review websites. Your site is included. Check it out at www.miconian.com/tools/indie_reviewers.html
Though I first thought this was just another piece of spam, I looked at the site and found both a pretty cool targeted search engine and a fun movie blog. Check it out indeed!
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)
Here are our top-ten queries:
being canadian 21 christian sauve 15 movie sneak previews 14 advance screenings 13 advance movie screenings 11 solaris explanation 8 solaris explained 8 free movie premiere tickets 8 southern california christian men that spank 8 free movie preview tickets 7
Ooookay. Note to everyone searching for “southern california christian men that spank”: Stop clicking on my site. You’re freaking me out. Thanks.
March 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, March 2007 Total Visitors: 10,287 Total Pageviews: 23,650 (Corrected Total: 13,402) Total Hits: 27,333 Total Bytes Transferred: 480.5MB Average Visitors Per Day: 331.83 Average Pageviews Per Day: 762.9 (Corrected Average: 432.3) Average Hits Per Day: 881.7
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. All numbers are noticeably higher than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 614 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 423 /about.html 237 /reviews.html 183 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 148 /francais/index.html 140 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 133 /writings.html 127 /texts/being-canadian.htm 125 /ctact.html 122
The continued good showing of old, old, old reviews (some of which I repudiate) comes a mention on the Wikipedia page about Eric Harry’s “Arc Light” novel, mentioned in January. (See below for correlation).
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 4937 (4944) Explorer|6 1639 (1337) Explorer|7 814 (679) Explorer|5 810 (534) msnbot|1 803 (760)
I keep expecting Explorer|7 to surge forward dramatically, but so far it’s been a relatively slow climb, month after month.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1091 (1061) www.google.ca/search 370 (312) google.co.uk/search 100 (118) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 72 (93) www.google.fr/search 63 (43)
No changes from last month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A little bit of spam and no legit messages in the christian-sauve.com mailbox this month. Sorry.
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)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>rene angelil is of what kind of descent 58 >christian sauve 24 >free movie screenings 19 >advance screenings 16 >being canadian 14 >solaris explanation 11 >free movie tickets 9 >roderick thorp 8 >movie sneak previews 8 >how to get free movie tickets 8
The lone oddity here (about René Angelil) can be blamed on a radio trivia contest somewhere in the US. Suddenly, every listener just types the question verbatim in the search engine and clicks on as amny links as possible.
>canadian book about baseball aliens and the mafia >nazi teddy bears
This almost sounds like fun.
>is it possible to take out your eyeball and not die
This, on the other hand, not so much.
April 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, April 2007 Total Visitors: 9,608 Total Pageviews: 20,186 (Corrected Total: 9,989) Total Hits: 25,304 Total Bytes Transferred: 440.5MB Average Visitors Per Day: 320.26 Average Pageviews Per Day: 672.86 (Corrected Average: 333.0) Average Hits Per Day: 843.46
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. All numbers are noticeably lower than last month, which I blame on society.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 527 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 359 /about.html 178 /texts/solaris-explanation.htm 144 /reviews.html 141 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 140 /reviews/2002/books02f.htm 128 /reviews/1997/books97b.htm 117 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 95 /francais/index.html 82
I continue to repudiate the old reviews that show up here for little reason.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 4829 (4944) Explorer|6 1696 (1639) Explorer|7 867 (814) msnbot|1 678 (803) Opera|9 266 (New)
Little change here. Hello, Opera|9 users!
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1105 (1091) www.google.ca/search 297 (370) google.co.uk/search 140 (100) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 53 (72) google.com.au/search 52 (New)
Little changes from last month. I’m still amused at how much traffic Wikipedia sends my way regarding a little-known thriller.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A little bit of spam, personal messages and…
1. After reading my 2001 trip to New York, an anonymous visitor adds:
J’ai lu sur ton voyage a New York. Je suis alle moi meme a New York deux fois en 2005 et en 2006 et j’y retourne dans 2 semaines…mais je te le jure si tu pense que c’est cher la-bas as-tu deja visiter l’Europe? Plus particulierement le Royaume-Uni? La c’est cher!!! New York c’est rien a comparer!!
Shorter translation:
If you think New York is expensive, it’s nothing compared to Europe!
My answer:
Yes.
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)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>solaris explanation 20 >solaris explained 16 >being canadian 15 >advance screenings 14 >free movie screenings 14 >christian sauve 11 >free movie tickets 11 >movie sneak previews 11 >solaris ending 11 >advanced movie screenings 6
Now there’s humility for you: Three essays (about free movie tickets, explaining the Solaris movie and being canadian) account for nine out of the ten top search queries here.
May 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, May 2007 Total Visitors: 10,382 Total Pageviews: 21,183 (Corrected Total: 11,701) Total Hits: 23,876 Total Bytes Transferred: 415.1MB Average Visitors Per Day: 334.9 Average Pageviews Per Day: 683.32 (Corrected Average: 377.5) Average Hits Per Day: 770.19
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. All numbers are noticeably higher than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 542 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 332 /reviews/2002/books02f.htm 254 /reviews.html 174 /about.html 147 /texts/solaris-explanation.htm 144 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 134 /reviews/2005/reviews-2005-09september.html 131 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 126 /ctact.html 120
I continue to repudiate the old reviews that show up here for little reason.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 5019 (4829) Explorer|6 1930 (1696) Explorer|7 815 (867) msnbot|1 686 (678) Opera|9 510 (266)
No change here.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1234 (1105) www.google.ca/search 291 (297) google.co.uk/search 116 (140) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 83 (53) google.com.au/search 59 (52)
No change here either. The Wikipedia link continues to embarass me.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Aside from a surprising number of personal messages from friends and one lone piece of “visit my site pleaaase” spam…
1. After reading my explanation of SOLARIS, an anonymous visitor writes:
Good job – We just watched it. I’m too much of a literalist for movies like this and in some kind of sick way, that means I’m like Gordon. I have to understand it! Alas, I don’t “get it.” Thanks for the blog though!
Glad to help.
2. Coming from my long-neglected List of 100 good films, an Indian correspondant asks…
hi this is karthi from india, ur top rating is nice and helpfull fr me. i’m an asst.director in indian feautre films i want more lists of love and romance film list.if u don’t mind mail me that requesy filmlist
Building a list of ten recent romantic films I enjoyed was a bit of an exercise (hey, I’m a guy), but I finally manager to scrape together the following:
HITCH (USA, 2005)
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (UK, 2005)
BRIDE AND PREJUDICE (UK/India, 2004)
LES AIMANTS (LOVE AND MAGNETS, Canada, 2004)
LOVE ACTUALLY (UK, 2003)
DOWN WITH LOVE (USA, 2003)
BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY (UK, 2001)
LE FABULEUX DESTIN D’AMELIE POULAIN (AMELIE, France, 2001)
MOULIN ROUGE (USA, 2001)
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (UK, 1998)
Notice the heavy proportion of non-USA films? Hmmm…
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)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>solaris explained 22 >christian sauve 15 >solaris explanation 14 >stomach shrinkage 14 >advance screenings 13 >free movie screenings 13 >free movie tickets 11 >movie sneak previews 10 >solaris movie explanation 9 >how to get free movie tickets 7
The list is, er, depressingly familiar. Lose weight, see free movies and have SOLARIS explained to you. Just another month on christian-sauve.com!
June 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, June 2007 Total Visitors: 12,057 Total Pageviews: 21,812 (Corrected Total: 12,895) Total Hits: 25,591 Total Bytes Transferred: 482.2MB Average Visitors Per Day: 401.9 Average Pageviews Per Day: 727.06 (Corrected Average: 429.9) Average Hits Per Day: 853.03
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. All numbers are noticeably higher than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 547 /reviews/2005/reviews-2005-09september.html 457 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 435 /reviews/2002/books02f.htm 306 /reviews.html 180 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 151 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 143 /about.html 128 /ctact.html 128 /texts/being-canadian.htm 114
Not sure why my old reviews are showing but, but who am I to argue with popular taste?
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 6885 (5019) Explorer|6 2155 (1930) msnbot|1 722 (686) Explorer|7 682 (815) Opera|9 359 (510)
Little change here.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 988 (1234) www.google.ca/search 253 (291) google.co.uk/search 91 (116) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 63 (83) google.com.au/search 44 (59)
Little change here either. Aren’t people getting tired of the Wikipedia link?
No new interesting links seen this month. Oh, a forum reposted a link to my “Free Movies” essay, but I was looking for interesting links.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A bunch of spam came through the mailbox this month. Once that’s removed, we’re left with…
1. An independent movie director asking:
Would you be interested in receiving a review screener of [Movie] ?
No. See my review section’s Frequently Asked Question 7 for the explanation.
2. Some more spam sent by someone who hasn’t read FAQ 7:
[Novel Title] takes a look into the future. The Author has attempted to incorporate a scenerio, like the world has never seen. Most science fiction books/films focus on aliens or creatures from other planets. What if the force, we were compelled to fight; was a force of nature we needed for survival on Earth ? The Author was compelled to rely on technology, as are most people in the world. But could this problem really happen? Just looking at the most recent planetary/climate warming news, who knows? [Novel Title] is an Inspirational/Spiritual Science Fiction novel, and the Author hopes the book touches everyone in a special way.
Uh-huh.
“touches everyone in a special way”… too easy…
(I was actually going to wisecrack about this being “PublishAmerica SF at its finest”, but a look at the novel title via Google tells me that this is indeed a PublishAmerica title. All hail the scum-suckers of the publishing world!)
3. An anonymous student writes…
thanks for the calculating god book review, im using it for my grade 11 summative because i have to read the book and state what other critics wrote, gj your site is cool
You, young person, are my hero of the month. From my web logs, I know that my reviews are “inspiring” (to various degrees) a lot of high-school essays. But you actually wrote to tell me so, and that makes me happy.
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>christian sauve 16 >free movie tickets 14 >free movie screenings 14 >roderick thorp 11 >being canadian 11 >solaris explanation 11 >movie sneak previews 11 >movie sneak preview 9 >free movie preview tickets 9 >solaris ending 8
No surprises here. You’d think that after five years, people would actually understand SOLARIS.
July 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, July 2007 Total Visitors: 10,071 Total Pageviews: 18,683 (Corrected Total: 12,336) Total Hits: 22,187 Total Bytes Transferred: 406.9MB Average Visitors Per Day: 324.87 Average Pageviews Per Day: 602.67 (Corrected Average: 397.9) Average Hits Per Day: 715.7
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. All numbers are noticeably lower than last month, which I blame on global warming.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 492 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 337 /reviews/2002/books02f.htm 297 /reviews/2005/reviews-2005-09september.html 199 /francais/index.html 181 /about.html 146 /reviews.html 139 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 133 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 122 /ctact.html 121
Old reviews are popping up again. (There’s no accounting for taste.)
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 6063 (6885) Explorer|6 1380 (2155) msnbot|1 617 (722) Explorer|7 426 (682) Opera|9 322 (359)
Little change here.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 585 (988) www.google.ca/search 169 (253) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 80 (63) google.co.uk/search 62 (91) google.com.au/search 33 (44)
Little change here either. Summer equals less people on the web.
No new interesting links seen this month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A bunch of spam came through the mailbox this month. Once that’s removed, we’re left with…
1. “S”, from Los Angeles, reads my L.A. travelogue and is kind enough to send the following:
As a native Angeleno, I must tell you that I enjoyed your commentary on this, my fair city, Los Angeles, immensely–very funny! It was interesting seeing my city through “fresh eyes” as it were. I also appreciated your comments and insights. They are actually opinions shared by many of us natives. There is an unmentionable, yet self-evident, class system built into our city life. As an inner city teacher, I see it everyday. Speaking of which, I was very glad to read that you survived your South Central adventure (I’m sorry but I had a little chuckle at your expense)–good thing you stopped at Vernon.
On your next visit may I suggest bringing along your social anthopologist hat and “keeping it real” by checking out the highlights of cultural diversity in our city: 1) Dim Sum in Chinatown, 2) The Japanese American Museum in Little Tokyo, 3) The Plaza at Alvaro Street, and 4) the M&M Soul Food restaurant on King Blvd in the heart of a more realistic LA. Yeah–the real LA isn’t all that pretty. Really very few of us can keep up with the “Brenda and Brandon Walsh” BH types. But at any rate–the real LA is way more interesting!
Excellent recommendations, “S”. I’ll keep it all in mind the next time I’m in your fair city.
2. A police officer read my formerly-skeptical review of Frank Camper’s Merc and sent along the following (which I’m selectively [redacting]):
I attended two of Frank Campers’ Merc School sessions […] while employed as a Tactical Officer for a […] Police Department. This Mr. Camper did, and with better insight to utilize military tactics in a light discretionary warfare situations which was perfect for dealing with armed gangs. I developed a different approach to open areas with large drug sales and it was highly successful. My Tactical Team was in high demand. We smashed several large groups dealing drugs from several locations in unincorported areas […] The felony arrests went up. By attending this school, however, didn’t mean I wasn’t scrutinized by Federal, State, or local Law Enforcement, or by my own Department. But the arrests following my attendance at the Merc School increased by using those tatics Frank taught. […]
What’s interesting about this is that not only does it reinforce my current belief that Frank Camper is exactly who he claims to be in his sometimes-too-good-to-be-true autobiography, it also highlights that Frank Camper’s camps actually did good things for police enforcement in the US. Not bad!
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>sneak preview movie tickets 11 >advance screenings 11 >movie sneak previews 10 >free movie tickets 10 >free movie premiere tickets 9 >franoise yip nude 9 >free movie preview tickets 7 >being canadian 6 >christian sauve 6 >solaris explanation 6
No surprises here. Free movie tickets make the world go round.
Elsewhere in the web logs, I see the following gems:
>how to overcome being bored as a christian
Heh.
August 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, August 2007 Total Visitors: 8,264 Total Pageviews: 17,411 (Corrected Total: 10,357) Total Hits: 20,509 Total Bytes Transferred: 375.2MB Average Visitors Per Day: 266.58 Average Pageviews Per Day: 561.64 (Corrected Average: 334.1) Average Hits Per Day: 661.58
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. All numbers are noticeably lower than last month, which I blame on holidays. It was a dull month for everyone.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 457 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 369 /reviews.html 168 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 130 /about.html 119 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 117 /contactt.html 103 /links.html 99 /search.html 94 /reviews/2005/reviews-2005-09september.html 93
Old reviews are popping up again. (There’s no accounting for taste.)
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 4425 (6063) Explorer|6 1127 (1380) msnbot|1 656 (617) Explorer|7 570 (426) Opera|9 192 (322)
Little change here. IE7 nibbles at the total some more.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 748 (585) www.google.ca/search 187 (169) google.co.uk/search 68 (62) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 61 (80) yahoo.com/search 34 (new)
Little change here either. Summer equals less people on the web.
No new interesting links seen this month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
No spam in the mailbox. But not much else either.
I told you it was a quiet month.
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>advance screenings 18 >movie sneak previews 12 >free movie premiere tickets 10 >advance movie screenings 10 >francoise yip nude 9 >solaris explanation 8 >free advance movie screenings 8 >free movie tickets 8 >solaris explained 8 >christian sauve 8
No surprises here. Free movie tickets make the world go round. Now imagine free tickets for SOLARIS, starring a nude Françoise Yip!
If you’re wondering which questions were fascinating the world in August 2008, have a look at this:
>what are the specific aspect of the character in the movie meet the fockers that >what exercise is best for losing weight around the midriff >what places does christian bale like to frequent >what should you expect if you are being charged for altering a prescription >what success means to me_word limit 120-150 word_ >where do people get free movie tickets >where to find sneak previews for movies >where was the movie matinee with john goodman filmed >who in the world is christian sauve >who is the jellyman fforde >who were the actors who played in the movie made in kanata >who is the stupidest titan from age of mythology >why is ending of the movie dances with wolves the reverse of the book
Elsewhere in the web logs, I see the following gem:
>is sauve as good as the name brands
Accept no substitutes!
September 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, September 2007 Total Visitors 6,553 Total Pageviews 15,452 (Corrected Total: 8,023) Total Hits 18,588 Total Bytes Transferred 346.0MB Average Visitors Per Day 218.43 Average Pageviews Per Day 515.06 (Corrected Average: 267.4) Average Hits Per Day 619.6
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. All numbers are noticeably lower than last month, which I blame on, oh, Google.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 451 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 241 /reviews.html 139 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 100 /about.html 93 /francais/index.html 93 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 92 /links.html 90 /contactt.html 85 /search.html 79
Old reviews are popping up again. (There’s no accounting for taste.)
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 3241 (4425) Explorer|6 907 (1127) msnbot|1 675 (656) Explorer|7 569 (570) Opera|9 119 (192)
Little change here. IE7 nibbles at the total some more.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 670 (748) www.google.ca/search 210 (187) google.co.uk/search 78 (68) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 51 (61) google.com.au/search 33 (new)
Little change here either. Have I offended the Google Guys?
No new interesting links seen this month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A few letters in the mailbox this month, some more amusing that others.
1. My travel reports attracted modest notice. First, Mary praised my recent Chicago 2007 report:
Enjoy tremedously the article written and pictures of Chicago. First time reading and will save this link.
Then an Ottawa-area acquaintance wrote in to ask for a small grammatical correction, and added:
I found your LA Con report, and having read it, I must say, very well done. I and my not-then-yet wife were there, had a blast, and your piece well captured many of the essences of the con.
Thanks to both of you!
2. In the “more amusing than others” category, here’s this month’s main exhibit, presented in full:
can you pls have the summary of rockets red glare
No caps, no apostrophes, no return address: My guess is a high school student looking for easy plagiarism. Not that it changes my answer: No.
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>being canadian 20 >christian sauve 15 >solaris explained 10 >movie sneak previews 10 >roderick thorpe 8 >amazon isbn 8 >advance screenings 7 >sauve.com 7 >frank camper 6 >sneak preview movie tickets 5
No surprises here. Free movie tickets? An evergreen subject of fascination.
If you’re wondering which questions were fascinating the world in September 2008, have a look at this:
>what happens if you get cut sneaking in movies >what is ebola christian explanation >what is the name of the wreck that would explode from rusticles >what is the protagonist in the novel the hot zone >why godzila is my favorite movie essay >how do you greet an extraterrestrial >how many days will blurriness last after lasek
Faithful readers of these monthly installments know that I’m unexplainably amused by the habit of some fundamentalists to prefix every search query by “christian” in the hope of warding off anti-christian elements of this world or something. Here’s this month’s batch of wackiness:
>christan dust nude pics >christian analyzing cartoon with hidden sex scene >christian book review of encyclopedia brown series >christian book the ultimate goal la verne >christian c. sandersons museum >christian cowboy jokes one liners >christian de sauve >christian documentary on moby dick >christian film reviews low-budget >christian full service web marketing pros >christian jokes 2007 >christian jokes on priorities >christian literature book free distribution >christian messages in monsters inc >christian metaphors in asimovs foundation >christian movie review_ jurassic park >christian movie reviews pulp fiction >christian opinions on the grinch >christian review of ken follett books >christian review of the hobbit >christian reviews of ray bradbury >christian rideau actor >christian sauve toxic spell dump >christian sauve.com >christian short stories better life style >christian story he took our place >christian stunt movie 4 >christian trilogies
(For the record, I once reviewed a book called the Toxic Spell Dump: I don’t go around dumping toxic spells.)
October 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are 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 2007 Total Visitors: 7,049 Total Pageviews: 17,684 (Corrected Total: 10,110) Total Hits: 21,934 Total Bytes Transferred: 428.1MB Average Visitors Per Day: 227.38 Average Pageviews Per Day: 570.45 (Corrected Average: 326) Average Hits Per Day: 707.54
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. All numbers are a bit higher than last month, which is nice for a change.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 475 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 266 /reviews.html 157 /francais/index.html 128 /links.html 120 /about.html 103 /contactt.html 100 /search.html 95 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 93 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 87
Nothing unexpected here.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 3534 (3241) Explorer|6 1152 (907) Explorer|7 614 (569) msnbot|1 464 (675) msnbot media|1 83 (new)
Little change here. IE7 nibbles at the total some more.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 836 (670) www.google.ca/search 241 (210) google.co.uk/search 78 (78) yahoo.com/search 60 (new) wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light 46 (51)
Looks like google likes me again.
There were a number of new mentions of my name on Google this month, most of them due to me attending two conventions, and co-winning an Aurora Awards for the Fractale Framboise blog. Few of those mentions, however, were accompanied by links back to this web site, which is as it should be.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A few letters in the mailbox this month, some more amusing that others.
1. My saga regarding Frank Camper’s Merc continues to attract attention:
Merc: The Professional, Frank Camper can you help me to get me in contact wit Frank Camper
To quote my email answer:
Unfortunately, I don’t have any contact with Frank Camper. Once every two years or so, pseudonymous people write me to tell me that Frank Camper is alive and well and living in Alabama, but that’s the extent of my knowledge of his current whereabouts. Sorry!
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>being canadian 12 >christian sauve 10 >free movie tickets 10 >roderick thorpe 10 >solaris ending 10 >movie sneak previews 9 >movie sneak preview 8 >sneak preview movie tickets 8 >solaris explained 8 >stomach shrinkage 6
No surprises here.
>2003 action packed heist movie failure >2003 canadian action packed heist movie failure >canada action packed heist movie that was a failure in 2003 >canadas 2003 action packed heist movie >canadas 2003 blockbuster movie failure >canadas blockbuster film spectacular failure in 2003. what was the name of this >canadian 2003 blockbuster film failure >canadian action movies released in 2003 >canadian action-packed heist movie 2003 box office dud >canadian blockbuster action packed heist movie of 2003 >canadian made movies in 2003
Oh, I wonder if this was a trivia question somewhere. (The answer, by the way, from memory: FOOLPROOF. And it was an enjoyable movie.)
>erotic honor harrington books reviews >eye-popping violence sex scenes and nudity but what about what we think nowadays >how to make helicopter shot in bowling spin more effectively
Some of those words don’t go together.
>irobot is a depressing movie film -roomba
My first reading of this query was something like “I Robot is a depressing film, says Roomba”.
>krug steve dont make me think cheap ebook
Yeah, Steve Krug! Don’t make me think about cheap ebooks!
November 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, November 2007 Total Visitors 6,394 Total Pageviews 15,596 (Corrected total 9,153) Total Hits 19,451 Total Bytes Transferred 408.4MB Average Visitors Per Day 213.13 Average Pageviews Per Day 519.86 (Corrected average 305) Average Hits Per Day 648.36
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. All numbers are slightly lower than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/index.html 409 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 261 /reviews.html 138 /contactt.html 116 /about.html 115 /reviews/1996/books96b.htm 88 /links.html 84 /writings.html 84 /francais/index.html 81 /reviews/index.html 81
Nothing unexpected here.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 3126 (3524) Explorer|6 1037 (1152) Explorer|7 662 (614) msnbot|1 325 (464) Gigabot|3 129 (new)
Little change here.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 848 (836) www.google.ca/search 314 (241) google.co.uk/search 76 (78) yahoo.com/search 48 (60) google.com.au/search 39 (new)
The one big new link of the month was a mention of my review of John Clute’s The Darkening Garden on Clute’s own blog. It’s a mention without comment, but I could feel Clute’s disapproval at my clumsy attempt at using the English language to talk about his work.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
After weeding out personal messages by friends and known acquaintances, one moment of Zen was left in the mailbox this month:
An anonymous correspondent asks, without context:
can i have one for my mom.
I leave you to ponder this.
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries this month:
>being canadian 9 >solaris explained 9 >christian sauve 8 >movie sneak preview 7 >free movie premiere tickets 6 >amazon isbn 6 >glenn kleier 5 >frank camper 5 >roderick thorpe 5 >solaris ending 5
No surprises here.
>how busy is new york fries in aberdeen mall >how does the scary movie 4 movie trailer attempt to sell the film to >how many movies has monique imes bee in >how to get free movie passes montreal >how to get free movie tickets from the news paper >how to get free tickets >how to get home delavary cinema ticket >how to get in movie theaters without tickets >how to get invited to free movie screenings >how to get passes to sneak preview movies >how to get sneak previews tickets >how to get tickets for advance screenings >how to reclaim new york sales tax for canadian tourist
These are the questions that fascinated the web this month.
December 2007
Ready for another look at the hum-drum routine of an obscure web site? Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, December 2007 Total Visitors 7,898 Total Pageviews 19,654 (Corrected total 11,607) Total Hits 22,034 Total Bytes Transferred 494.1MB Average Visitors Per Day 254.77 Average Pageviews Per Day 634 (Corrected average 374) Average Hits Per Day 710.77
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. All numbers are noticeably higher than last month.
Our top ten most popular pages are:
/reviews/movies/2002.htm 674 /index.html 462 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 344 /reviews.html 166 /texts/solaris-explanation.htm 133 /about.html 119 /contactt.html 112 /writings.html 109 /links.html 104 /search.html 102
There is a perfectly lucid explanation as to why movie reviews for 2002 would end up in the top spot. Keep reading.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 4128 (3126) Explorer|6 1041 (1037) Explorer|7 923 (662) msnbot|1 262 (325) CazoodleBot|x 176 (new)
Little change here. IE7 nibbles at the total some more.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1021 (848) www.google.ca/search 264 (314) google.com/custom 219 (new) google.co.uk/search 112 (76) yahoo.com/search 65 (48)
I like Google and Google likes me. The appearance of the Google /custom search can, I think, be explained by the same factor that pushed the 2002 movie reviews to the top of the rankings. Keep reading…
No new noteworthy links this month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
One fun letter in the mailbox this month:
An anonymous correspondent asks…
I would be interested in your take on the John Twelve Hawks trilogy that begins with “The Traveler”. Book 3 of the trilogy not yet out.
Whenever possible, I try to wait until a planned trilogy is entirely published before committing to reading it. (The notable exceptions found elsewhere are just that: notable exceptions.) I have followed the “John Twelve Hawks” chatter since The Traveller came out in 2005 and would be mildly interested in seen what the fuss is about, but I will wait until all three books are out (probably in paperback, preferably at used book sales) before commenting any of them here. As for the identity of “John Twelve Hawks”, the best theory I’ve read so far can easily be found by Googling “John Twelve Hawks screenwriter”.
4. Search Queries Oddities
Here are our top-ten queries:
>who is the man that makes a call to new yorks last phone booth - thereby setting 446 >solaris explained 15 >movie sneak previews 15 >the killing star 13 >roderick thorpe 10 >sneak preview movie tickets 9 >advance screenings 9 >solaris explanation 8 >solaris ending 8 >amazon isbn 7
There’s the killer query, at the top of the Top-10: A radio station trivia contest question, blindly put in Google by hundred of contestants. It doesn’t take much more than that to distort up my monthly statistics.