Readers’ Expectations 1: Chris Harrison Shirtless, The Remake of Starry Night, and The Personality That Causes Cancer

Straight up, what did you hope to learn about here?  If I was someone else, would this all fall apart?

What makes a post popular is not necessarily when a lot of people read it the day it’s published.  What makes it popular is when random people do Internet searches and stumble on it, day after day.

For example, by far my most read is Capital Punishment, In Theory, which at the moment has had 889 direct hits.  That means nearly a thousand readers have come to my site because they wanted to know more about the morality or immorality issues of executing criminals.  So it’s safe to say that more random people have come to my site to hear my thoughts on capital punishment than for any other specific reason.

Statistically speaking then, the other main reasons people wash up on my shore is to read my thoughts on The Bachelor, LOST, healthy eating/organic lifestyle, and oddly, mustaches.

Honestly, when I write, I never think about what the reader might want to read about.  No offense.  I write about what I personally would want to read about it.  Then from there, the readers can sort out what they feel is worth reading past the first paragraph of.

My definition of successful writing is the ability to write about anything (from The Golden Gate Bridge (I Wish You Would Step Back From that Ledge, My Friend) to an old abandoned amusement park (Canyon Land) and make it interesting and intriguing and to hopefully reveal some kind of truth in the process that wasn’t obvious before.

But far all the times the metaphorical spaghetti has stuck to the wall, there were also times it didn’t.  I have made it easy to revisit my most popular posts with pages like Best of 2009 (statistically the most popular posts from last year) and Reruns (a collection of all my different series), but today I will celebrate my least popular.

That doesn’t mean they weren’t popular the first time they were published, because many of them were.  It just means no one has read then since.  In other words, they evidently don’t have much replay value.

Bottom Ten Posts of All Time

Mixed Reviews

The Friendship Police: Why the Heck Not?

Dr. Deja Vu: The Interstate to Memory Lane

The Modern Day Tortoise

I Was Born in a Small Town

Of Mutts and Men

Did You Know?

Ghosts in the Machine

Dr. Deja Vu: Before and After

The Edge of “Me Too” Culture

That was fun.  But before I’m done with this subject today, I also need to acknowledge some of the random Internet searchers who came to scenicroutesnapshots.com, only to be disappointed.  I’ve seen all kinds of random search terms that people have typed in to get to my site.

Surprisingly, only a few of them have been kinky.  And a few were deliberate pranks, like “Nick Shell that I dated in high school”.  I never did find out who did that.  But just in the past few weeks, grazing the floor of search terms, I have definitely come across some oddities:

“Chris Harrison shirtless” I’m sorry, sir or ma’am.  I know you really want to see what’s underneath that tuxedo, but he’s the host of The Bachelor, not a contestant.  You wish.

“Buzz Aldrin shirtless” Okay, same person.  Chris Harrison was one thing, but leave the 80 year-old astronaut alone.

“where can I get a remake of Starry Night?” You mean a reprint?  If you want a remake, I’ll do it.  I haven’t painted since the 4th grade, but I can make this work. I won’t even charge that much.  Fifty bucks sound good?  It may end up looking more like the abstract version of the original, but I’ll get you your remake.  Nice doing business with you.

“to increase your salary, simply mustache” Alright, buddy.  Yes, it’s true.  I can actually help you with that one.  Men with mustaches have higher salaries (Must Not Mustache).  But never, and I mean never, say the words “simply mustache” again.  Not cool, man.  Not cool.

“Lynyrd Skynyrd song that goes- oh that third eye blind” I’m no Casey Kasem, but I think you’re referring to their song “That Smell”:  “Oh, oh, that smell.  The smell of death all around you.” The actual lyrics were a lot different than you thought, I know.  Yes, because “third eye blind” and “that smell” sound so much alike.

“personality that causes cancer” That would be “the Kate Gosselin”, but I haven’t written about that yet.  Good for you for reading my mind, though.

“road turns into mouse” Oh, I get it.  I’ve heard about guys like you.  Look, it must be pretty cool to test different kind of marijuana for pot dispensaries in Denver for a living, but maybe you should cut back on your Internet searching while you’re “working”.

The Most Popular (and Favorite) Posts of 2009

It’s been a big year for Jenny Slate, and for some reason, pickles. After writing over 250 posts this year, I now present the best 25 of them which readers unknowingly chose as the Most Popular and Favorite of 2009.

When I have a stream-of-consciousness thought, I write down a rough draft title for it on a slip of paper which later becomes a page and half long post. Sometimes these subjects I write about magically connect with readers. But I can never know which random topics will fly or land. I just throw them out there and see what happens.

Since September, I have been exclusively publishing my writings on this site, which provides built-in technology that shows me which posts are clicked on the most. Therefore I can determine which are the Most Popular of 2009.

The Top Most Popular Posts:

Jenny Slate Will Not Be Fired for F-Word Accident-

Without exception, this post makes an appearance every week in the Top Posts section of my site. Though the mishap took place a few months ago and is no longer entertainment headline news, there are still curious people out there finding my article through Google searches. It’s so popular that twice as many people have read it than the #2 post.  http://wp.me/pxqBU-5W

 

Pickles Make for Good Reading Material, Episode 3-

How would you waste $50,000? There are, of course, plenty of annoying and limited rules placed on this question. http://wp.me/pxqBU-26

Pickles Make for Good Reading Material, Episode 4-

What if you could only eat free restaurant food for the rest of your life? No more of Mom’s lasagna or double fudge brownies. http://wp.me/pxqBU-4o

Paranormal Activity Vs. The Fourth Kind-

My review of two thriller movies was taken to a whole new universe when a random “alien abductee” left an out-of-this-world comment at the bottom of the post. http://wp.me/pxqBU-dL

New News-

The human race is hungry for new information. But we tend to settle for celebrities making fools of themselves and infomercials that promise a cure for male hair loss. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3L

 

 

#8 (tie) Boyspeak-

This Manspeak spin-off/prequel became quite popular thanks to a friend who advertised the post on her facebook wall to her thousands of facebook friends. This post confronts the fact that many men never grew out of their “own little world” mentality from when they were boys. http://wp.me/sxqBU-boyspeak

#9 Manspeak, Volume 7: Bromance-

It’s pretty obvious that bromantic comedies outsell romantic comedies these days. But bromance isn’t anything new; it’s been around since Biblical times. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3W

#10 (tie) The Invisible Touch, Yeah (The 2nd Installment) –

What causes us to become close to certain people but not others?   http://wp.me/pxqBU-20

#10 (tie) Big Hands-

For some people to be wealthy, it means that others must be poor. This post takes a look at what things would be like if America was neither. http://wp.me/pxqBU-6l

For the slight majority of this year, my posts were exclusively published on facebook. I wasn’t able to have a clue of how many people read them. All I had to go on were comments people left. Therefore I deem these most-commented-on writings the Favorites of 2009.

The Top Fifteen Most Favorite Posts:

Snail Trails- If I’m the only person who remembers something happening, I hold the exclusive rights to that event actually being real. http://wp.me/pxqBU-a

The Opposite of Evolution- A scientific explanation of how the Earth was created by God in 6 literal 24 hour days. Intelligent Design 101. http://wp.me/pxqBU-1a

Red and Yella Will Kill a Fella- Flashbacks from the Snake Man and how his words of wisdom also apply to fast food. http://wp.me/pxqBU-l0

Manspeak, Volume 9: Appearance- The episode introducing the term “Bachelor Pants”.
http://wp.me/pxqBU-6f

Barley Into Beer- Comparing beer to soda, from a Christian perspective.http://wp.me/pxqBU-2L

The Funny Thing about Jews- The Hebrew people make up less than 2% of the US population, yet dominate American entertainment. A brief look at some of the actors you didn’t realize were Jewish. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kY

Robes Man- How a robe makes any man more sophisticated and at the same time a bit creepy. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kR

The Magically Disappearing Friend- They only exist in our minds. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kV

Dog Whistle- What does God think about his name being on our dirty money? http://wp.me/pxqBU-lc

Story of My Life- Why I can remember such amazing details. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kC

Party Like It’s 1999- Ten year reunions can actually be awesome. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kJ

Hedge of Protection and Travelling Mercies- Analyzing our goofy-worded prayers. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kM

Hungry Heart- We will never get over our selfish past of life in the womb. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kN

My Jewish Upbringing- Seriously, I’m not really Jewish? http://wp.me/pxqBU-i6

Campfires- As kids, we knew how to hang out with our friends. It’s gotten more complicated as adults. http://wp.me/pxqBU-3

Like an actor who is blinded by the stage lights and is therefore unable to see the faces in the audience, I can not see who the people are that read my writings each week. But whoever you are, I thank you. Thank you for sharing my weirdness. Takes one to know one, yes?

Honorable Mentions:

No Pork on My Fork- We don’t eat possums or vultures, but we do eat pigs and shrimp.
http://wp.me/pxqBU-jO

The Modern Day Tortoise- Working hard vs. working smart. http://wp.me/pxqBU-kP

Most of Life is Just Simply Showing Up- The rest really is just details.http://wp.me/pxqBU-kf