I started this website on a whim and, initially, as a Tumblr about 10 months ago. When I did, I told myself it would be for my personal pleasure and to get me to write more. When I realized that Tumblr was a somewhat addictive format that didn’t lend itself to substantive writing I shifted my focus to WordPress (while maintaining a Tumblr account for it’s outstanding Dashboard feature and community). Since doing so in late November, just over nine months ago, I’m had the pleasure of welcoming 10,000 unique visitors. That total is a good 9,000 more than I would have expected.
Though I hope to write more social commentary, political discussion and scientific/religious debate, I’m quite enjoying the pop-culture and review format so much of When[It]StrikesMe has assumed. And it pleases me greatly that those of my friends that I’ve let in on the site’s existence have enjoyed reading it.
I was asked recently what advice I would give to someone who was just starting out with their own site. I told them to a) write it anonymously (I sure as heck don’t want my ability to write freely impinged upon by knowing the consequences of doing so publicly and in perpetuity online) and b) to do it for pleasure and not revenue (though, of course, if you want to click on an ad and help defray the GoDaddy cost of hosting, that’s greatly appreciated too).
You can more easily follow the blog by clicking the RSS feed, Twitter feed and Facebook icons on the upper right hand of your browser page. Anyways, thanks to all 10,000 of you visitors. It’s my hope that you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing.
I haven’t had the time to post in the last two weeks. I hope to correct that with a LOST Quick Hits in the morning. I’ve just been extremely swamped at work and with some personal stuff re: buying an apartment.
In the meantime, please consider supporting Nashville during this horrific (and criminally under-reported) natural disaster. For those who still don’t know due to the mainstream media’s baffling refusal to acknowledge the devastation in Middle Tennessee, Nashville and its environs are under water with many historic buildings, businesses and homes quite simply devastated by floodwaters as high as 13 feet in some buildings.
Make your donation to the Nashville chapter of the Red Cross.
I’ve been a bit under the weather the last week and have gotten way behind in doing updates. As a result of said illness, my fam decided to push 24 this week to a double dose next week. Hopefully there will be more of naughty Chloe next week for my 24 Quick Hits. I do plan on doing LOST Quick Hits after tonight’s episode, but I’ve been delinquent in doing the SEC Power Poll with Phil from Save The Shield. Finally, I hope to get back to doing LOST Recaps. Next up is the Jeremy Bentham episode which I do really want to write about. Hopefully I’ll do that this week.
Anyway, to get away from my dreariness and the update central, here’s the fun stuff I found on the interwebs this morning. All in the form of cartoon, with one outstanding video, to boot.
Click on through to view. Read more…
I’ve been swamped at work and haven’t been able to churn out the site product like I’ve wanted to. So here’s an update of what I have in the works once work calms down:
Book Reviews
Non-Fiction Book Reviews (“The Next 100 Years”, “The World Without Us” and “The God Delusion”)
Graphic Novel Reviews (“The Walking Dead”, “Y: The Last Man” and “Pax Romana”)
TV and Film Reviews
TV Reviews (The Shield: Season 1 Review and The West Wing Recap for Season 1)
LOST Recaps (The rest of Season 5)
Movie Reviews (Carriers, Rogue, The Education of Charlie Banks and Angels and Demons)
Gadgetry Reviews
Review of the FitBit, two weeks in (what I’m closest to being done with)
Unboxing the Kindle, a first look
In the meantime, enjoy this Animated GIF:
I’ve started up a Facebook page for When [It] Strikes Me. I’ll be manually updating it with stories from time to time, so it can be another means of following the site, along with RSS or just plain bookmarking.
I’d appreciate folks becoming fans by visiting the page here.
Also, you can always follow me on Twitter for automatic updates on all posts.
Someone paying close attention will note that I’ve added a few features to the right column of the site. I’m still playing with them and will be fiddling and filling them out, but they are as follows, after the jump. Read more…
I have come to the conclusion that I’m going to be transitioning from the Tumblr format, to a more long-form friendly format. It probably will be either WordPress.com or WordPress.org. Nevertheless, I’m going to keep checking my dashboard on here, as I enjoy reading the latest interwebs fun and anti-creationist rants (which seem to be what Tumblr is best for). For those few followers I do have on here who would like to continue to read, when I’m set up on WordPress, I’ll advise. They have email subscription features.
My Tumblr experience was fun, but I found the format to be a massive time-suck and the themes really aren’t ideal for what I’m looking to do. Ultimately, the forum was dictating my content production. I’d prefer it to be vice versa.
It’s been fun.
Let it be known across the lands that Verizon’s .net email accounts have the absolute worst spam filter known to man. And what’s up with only being able to block 100 addresses as permaspam?
Ugh, time to start transitioning friends to my gmail account.
- Me, after spending too much damn time cleaning my frigging inbox.
So earlier in the day I posted an info graphic pie chart of What You’re Really Having For Thanksgiving. Well, I’ve discussed Google Adsense’s poor choices in the past (with diplomatic incidents over Eastern European city spelling and deciding to put anything from Scientology on my interwebs). Today, they made me smile with an ad that was poorly crafted and perhaps perfectly placed.
The ad (which can be viewed in context in a screencap after the jump) discusses giving goats to poor folks in Zimbabwe. Let’s deconstruct:
The good:
- The programs of livestock donations do work well and are very good ways to give.
- Ads like this should work well at Thanksgiving.
The contextually funny:
CLICK TO KEEP READING Read more…
I do my own service in real life that allows me to thank you in person, but I wanted my interwebs person to remind in posterity that I honor and acknowledge your dedication, sacrifice and love for this great country of ours.
So be you a serviceman past or present, Army or Navy, Air Force or Marine, Lt. Colonel or Specialist First Class, Active Duty or Reserve, National Guard or State Militia, decorated or forgotten by history as an individual. We recognize you all, together, on this day.
