Thoughts In The Key Of N

Today is a very special day. I am playing my part by literally playing my part – over my shoulders I wear the banded steel armour made famous by Caesar’s legions. On my head I wear what can only be described as the unholy union of battle helmet and toilet brush. At my beck and call are 100 of Rome’s finest warriors (or at least 100 of Rome’s fairly paid warriors). Yes, dear reader, today I am… THE CENTURION.

No, NOT that one.

Well, it’s a nice idea. Who wouldn’t love to have 100 fearless, well-drilled minions at their very command? Sounds like a grand idea to me. But sadly, my costume aside, I am not today’s Centurion. Rather, Today is a centurion, of sorts.

Back in my uni days, of which there were startlingly fewer than there probably should have been, parties would break out with regularity. At the time, a party was something I’d have to plan ahead for, and really give considerable thought to things like drinks, where to get them, how to transport them. If I spent a bit more time alternatively thinking about cars and licenses, I’d probably have had an easier go of it all, but it was not to be. Anyway, these parties that occurred with bin-night regularity often boasted of someone’s attempt to perform a Centurion. This wasn’t a latin-based Cabaret with dubious choices in head-dress, (although now I think about it, that may just be something I can develop in the near future – MY IDEA. GET BACK). Rather, this Centurion was a drinking game that would feature the contestants drinking a shot of their favoured drinks once a minute, for one hundred minutes straight. I never saw one of these attempts reach the big triple-digit-finish line, but I knew people who claimed to have made it. I think these were boasts of little actual merit – I think they THINK they made it, but with everyone absorbing that much alcohol, I can assume unreliable narrative as the only form of narrative present. Today is not that kind of Centurion. I have only had fifteen shots of water, and then I got bored.

Believe or not, this guy is a Centurion: a Future Roman. No, really.

Rather, today’s post, this very piece, is my 100th post. 100! What a number! It’s got so many components! It breaks into percentages so nicely! Percentages are a form of comfortable data, in that you know exactly what they will total. Every time. And those times they don’t? There’s an explanation. A good one. So here’s some other data for you.

Data Bullllllets!

• Since the dawn of this blog, it has received 2374 views. That’s right, TWO THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR VIEWS. I have no gags for that number – it doesn’t strike me as pop-culturally relevant. (It might be something in Star Trek terms, but I wouldn’t know – I’m a Whovian.)
• Since the dawn of this blog, the busiest day saw 88 views.  What a day that was (I wrote a letter to Dan DiDio. Did he reply? No, he did not. But I’m keen to hear from you, Dan.)
• Since the dawn of this blog, I have somehow collated a close-knit group (who refuse to interact with each other – what the hell, guys?) of followers, who amount to a total of 22. Given that I’m pretty sure three of you are robots (not judging, just observing), I would like you all to say hello to one another, and then think about what you can do to help me get that number into the “Legitimate 20’s” (which, given how society is going, will be on us in just six years).
• 230 Google searches of various terms have arrived at this, my erroneously-named hallowed ground of rambling conjecture.
• Since the dawn of-, I have used 184 tags. Yes, those little bits of meta-data used to filter and categorise my writing. More on this below.
• There’s been 94 comments. This includes mine. (Wait for it…)
• The formatting on this blog sucks so bad you can barely make out the bold words, and the italicised words. I should probably do something about that.

So let’s crunch some stuff.

1. Not including this post (because, you know, it’s not out there yet – get temporal with me!), the above means each post has an average of almost 24 views. ALMOST 24! Now given my robot assumption (which is based on your ludicrous names and urls, that’s right, lauraagudelo272lauraagudelo272 of “lauraagudelo272.wordpress.com” fame), I’m feeling this means that more people than my followers are reading my stuff! OH JOY! OH RAPTURE!
2. Here’s a surprise. Of all the many and varied people who like, read and comment on  my posts, the one who does the most interacting with the posts, in total, is…me. 24 of this-almost-one-hundred quantity were mine, so obviously I’ve been working about a quarter of the interactions, trying to ENGAGE. And I’m obviously failing.
3. Now the tags…given the post count, that’s an awful lot of tags. I have an explanation, I swear: I use them as a way to hide subtle jokes, or reminders. It occurred to me after a great deal of posting, that they were actually a UTILITY, but by that point I’d already filled the meta-data with so much rubbish, it really isn’t worth trying to use them. Sorry gang, maybe during my spring-cleaning-procrastination, I’ll do something about them. No promises.
4. Of the 230 Google searches that have resulted in people finding me, 13 used my name. MY NAME. Given that I’ve done NOTHING of repute, and I have no idea why people would be looking for me without already knowing me, THIS IS SOME KIND OF FAMOUS. A fraction of famous, maybe.
5. There’s a bunch of you awesome followers out there, thank you for sticking with me, and an even BIGGER thank you to the people in that group that DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW ME. Wow. That’s pretty damn cool of you – you gregarious folk! (Bigger thank you to those that actually do know me, because let’s be honest, you know better than the encourage this)
6. A lot of the views are potentially me, stuffing up my URLs and accidentally getting to actual pages. Whoops. Way to sully the data, nimrod.

I comment more than anyone else. I account for more views than anyone else. I feel oddly happy and depressed by that. Dappy? Hepressed? I guess the upside that can be drawn from that (it is data, after all), is that I know my main readership. I know them intimately, inside-out. I could take over there life and commitments at the drop of a hat and no. One. Would. Ever. Know.

That’s a creepy note to finish on. ONE HUNDRED POSTS! I’m gonna celebrate, but how? HOW? Tell me, deer readers, tell me how I should mark this event.
If you are not a deer reader, you too can contribute, just bear in mind the deer hold the power in this activity.

Laura Agudelo, the 272nd, I called you a robot and this may be incorrect/insensitive. Please prove me wrong, and I will apologise to you, netizen.

(As it’s Monday, I’m also doing some powerful creative work. Today there is going to be a sketch or two slammed out. Why? Because I gotta! There’s also a creepy, ghost-story-like segment of my phantom book that is coalescing, ethereally, like a…ghost.)

Dammit. ONE HUNDRED!

Today’s Music: “Big Trouble In Little China”, by John Carpenter’s band “The Coup de’ Villes”

~ by nick on July 14, 2014.

Posted in Diary, Ramble, Uncategorized
Tags: Century, Datanniversary, One Hundred, Thank You