I’ve been running a WordPress plugin called ShortStat for most of the life of this site. It’s a great little time-waster at work, offering the standard innacurate hit counts, plus referral links that I can visit when I get bored. Occasionally, a new one will appear, but usually it’s the same dozen or so sites whose readers apparently can’t resist visiting good old Bostworld (god bless ‘em).
This last week, ShortStat and I reached a milestone of sorts. No, we didn’t log our millionth hit — that’s still a long way off. But we did banish a certain now-defunct share site from the list of the top most frequent referrers. A lot of you music lovers will remember this site, run a former music biz guy with an axe to grind (more so than the rest of us, anyway), posting every album he could get his hands on. He linked to our very first share post, “The Genius In Harmony” by the Anita Kerr Singers, and brought in so many referrals that we were swamped for the better part of two weeks. We were new back then, and the massive hit counts made the future seem very sunny indeed.
Continue reading ‘Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Ten’
Why would anyone want to take a vacation right in the middle of the holiday season? A confluence of factors — coinciding free time availability, expiring vacation days, overwork and its attendant unstoppable urge to flee — caused my wife and I to travel cross country to visit the Florida Keys three weeks before Christmas this year. Encamped at an ocean-facing getaway that could also provide animal-free meals, we spent a lovely handful of days sightseeing, indulging in water sport, watching satellite television, getting eaten alive by invisible sand fleas, and generally trying to get some rest before the onslaught of year’s-end celebration.
I put together “Songs Of Spiritual Uplift” back in 1996, shortly after it became apparent that the Meat Puppets were headed for a permanent hiatus. I still had some Nirvana money burning a hole in my pocket, so I made a few phone calls, dumped some gear into the back of my pickup, and made for the recording studio. For a couple years, I actually offered the four-song seven-inch EP on my Web site. I even sold one or two, believe it or not. But I suppose it’s only fair to the likes of the 
Several years ago, I submitted a travel article about northern Arizona to an auto club magazine where a friend of mine worked as an editor. But before I could complete the second draft, I realized I didn’t actually WANT people traveling into my state! After some soul-searching, I graciously withdrew my submission. It’s a pretty bad piece of travel writing (no family bargains are revealed), but it serves as a decent enough accompaniment for the beautiful postcards you’ll find below.