The strange things you discover while looking at your Sitemeter statistics. I checked somebody in Denmark who visited our page, and found they’d been referred from this Wiki page in Denmark. We’re reference note number [13], in relation to the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan. It’s lovely to be a citation, but I’m not sure I’ve really earned it.
Category Archives: Blogs, Socials
All is well
I was a little upset a few days back by a blog analysis app that decided Brandywine Books was a blog written by do-ers, not thinkers.
But it’s OK now.
I found this new test here that makes a guess as to whether a blog is written by males or females. (I’d link to the blog that pointed me there, but I can’t remember which blog it was.)
We get male.
I feel so affirmed. So warm and nurtured. I think I’ll put on my footy pajamas and watch “Rosie Live.”
Update: Now it says female. I’m thinking this post tipped the scales.
So now I’m gonna kill me a bear and eat it raw. Maybe that’ll help.
Our Secret Masters revealed
OK, here’s the thing.
Via Mirabilis, I find this little internet test thingie, which analyzes your blog and tells you where it scores on the Myers Briggs personality scale.
So I run our URL through the rollers.
And how do we come out?
ESTP – The Doers
The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.
The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
My question(s) is (are), does that sound like Phil?
Does that sound like me?
The only possible conclusion I can draw is that this blog is secretly being run by the Illuminati (who are well known ESTP types).
Comic Ads, from Lileks
James Lileks, the chariots of the Blogosphere and the horses thereof, has added a new section to his Institute of Official Cheer, over at lileks.com. It’s called Comic Ads in Comics.
In the past James has made us wince through revealing the amazing awfulness of pictures of food in old recipe books, and interior decoration as practiced in the 1970s (apparently entirely by blind people). But I think this new section may be the most painful of them all. Ugly, mendacious and pathetic all at once, the old comic ads from comic books are like one of those hypnotherapy sessions on TV crime shows, where the traumatized victim screams “No! No!” as the police hypnotist tries to pull some horrible, suppressed memory out of his subconscious, like a dentist yanking a healthy tooth. Anybody who spent any time with comics in their childhood (and I read a few, though only when they were given to me. The folks wouldn’t let us spend money on the things. I see their point now) will recognize those ads. Post-traumatic stress ensues.
I think I’ve mentioned previously that, before I set my personal sights on immortality through literature, I dreamed of being an artist. I drew incessantly as a kid. I had no high-brow pretensions. I wanted to draw stuff that looked like stuff. I wanted to be another Norman Rockwell or Howard Pyle. I thought I might be a cartoonist, or a commercial artist.
So I can imagine myself snagging an entry-level job with Marvel or DC, and being assigned to draw these abominations as part of my apprenticeship. It reminds me of something I used to say, when I was contemplating (theoretically) what it would be like to try to be a professional actor—“If you’re really lucky, you get to prostitute yourself.”
All in all, I think I prefer being a failed novelist to being a failed artist.
(I mean, “Captain Tootsie.” Nothing could justify that. Nothing.)
Targeted Reading for Boys
Ballantyne the Brave is the website and blog of Joshua T. Phillips, 15, who is dedicated to inspiring boys to read good books like those of G.A. Henty and R.M. Ballantyne. It was Robert Louis Stevenson who gave us the phrase “Ballantyne the Brave.” Phillips writes, “He did this to honor Ballantyne for his bold vision of manhood — a vision which influenced Stevenson himself.”
I see one of Ballantyne’s books is on Leif Ericsson, called The Norsemen in the West. Rife with errors no doubt, but hopefully fun to read.
About time too
Anthony Sacramone, formerly of “Luther at the Movies” and “First Things” is back blogging at Strange Herring.
I suppose he’ll suddenly give it up again in a couple of weeks, but for now, our long night of the cyber-soul is over.
Tip: First Things.
Christmas Book Swap
There’s something of a Secret Santa for book bloggers over here.
The Blogging Ten
I don’t quite understand the rationale for working on a list like this, but the result is good: The Ten Commandments of Blogging.
“You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content.”
True.
Not a lonely Hunter
Hunter Baker, a friend and supporter of my writing career, (such as it is), whose writing you’ve doubtless seen at Southern Appeal, RedState, and other places I’ve lost track of because he does so many (and my brain is full of holes), has a blog of his own now, here.
It has my coveted endorsement.
Sites Undiscovered
I have been away lately. Not physically away, because I am just as close to you as I was before, but I have been away from the blog this week. That is, I’ve been busy–not necessarily fun-busy either. No live sword combats. No book shelf collapses. No visits from brilliant people challenging me to get off my b—. Just busy with non-blog things.
Today I notice that Brandywine Books has been overlooked again for the top 100 list of undiscovered websites, organized by PC Magazine. It may be because we aren’t cool enough, but it more likely that we have been deemed not entirely undiscovered. We’re mostly discovered. Perhaps pre-discoverable. Of course, it’s also possible that we rank 101 on the top 100 list.
Maybe I should have reviewed those Harry Potter books after all.