This is the curator’s corner; a place where I express my own thoughts about whatever crosses my mind. The jokes are much more fun to read. This section of the site can safely be ignored.
So it’s been another long week for me. Lots of O.T. and lots of stuff at home to take care of. For some reason, optimists cannot resist the opportunity to piss me off when I’m swamped like this. They say shit like, “Oh I bet you’ll really appreciate that paycheck!” or even, “Isn’t it wonderful to keep busy like that.” Just fuck off already.
I’m worn out and tired. Their optimistic take on my situation isn’t something I want to deal with at the moment. It would be nice if they would just give me a nod and say, “Yeah. Been there,” so that I know that they actually understand, then move onto some other topic.
The more I think about it, the more I think I need to work on flipping the subject onto them. Sort of a “Enough about me, tell me how your life is going,” kind of tactic. Something that’s iron clad and air tight so I can reflexively deploy the optimism deflector without them having a clue that I really don’t give a fuck.
Part of getting older is the joy and wonder of physically falling apart. An increasingly common occurrence, I had a brain splitting headache this past week. It was one of those that necessitated the use of a sick day… or in this case two sick days.
When I get knocked out of commission like that, my state of mind is going to be altered. It’s bad enough when my head is exploding with pain, but coming out of that state is when the real mindfuck begins.
It was like my brain was a wet sponge being squeezed, and all the liquid memory started to percolate. Once the squeezing finally stopped, I still had to put the memories back in place and in the right order. Along the way I realized a lot more time had passed since my last introspective, and so many changes have occurred. The horrors I re-experienced were not just bad dreams; they were the realities I once lived through all over again.
And now it’s mostly over. I can finally go back to my routine. Only a touch of tension to remind me that I had not been well. I’m left with a mild sense of uneasiness that the world I live in is a very different place than it used to be…
But I can’t worry about that now. Too much work to catch up. Too many other things to worry about. Too little time.
So my hobby is running this website. Primarily I collect and share jokes. I also create and post a comic. Also you can’t forget about these little asides I keep writing. So quick recap: Collect jokes, make comic, rant, and post it all on this website. For some reason, this brings me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
If you regularly read my Sunday rants (although I highly doubt it), you may have noticed my fixation with visitor numbers. It got me to thinking about things… Why do I care? If curating this site is only a personal hobby, and I don’t make a dime no matter how many visitors I get, then why do I care if anyone ever visits this site?
When you look at people’s hobbies, there’s usually some kind of reward. Let’s look at some examples:
People who exercise get healthier bodies which are more attractive, and therefore increases their social status. Higher social status can lead to additional successes in mate selection and even job advancement along with a higher income.
People who restore old cars get to enjoy seeing that rusty heap turn into a shiny museum piece on wheels that they can then sell to collectors for considerably more than they put into the vehicle.
People who collect things tend to buy and sell for profit. Although mathematically there have to be a substantial number of losers in this game, we tend to gloss over it.
People who learn to play musical instruments can perform in public for money… People who learn to paint can sell their artwork… Actually all artists can sell their stuff.
Even people who go hunting for a hobby justify it by claiming they consume the meat, and that the meat has a monetary value.
Try googling “hobbies that don’t make money” and you are going to get results about hobbies that make money.
My point is, you’d be hard pressed to find a hobby that didn’t have a prosperity potential behind it, and in our increasingly capitalistic minded society, earning something for creative endeavors is becoming the only reason for creating. Isn’t the joy of creating enough?
But that still doesn’t answer the question… If I don’t make any money from this, why do I care about how many people visit this site? To be honest, I wouldn’t actually feel better about running this site if I made money off of it; I’d feel worse because of the stress caused by the obligations that come with monetary transactions.
PS: You know I did try incorporating Google Adsense into this site once… Even after two years, it didn’t even manage to get halfway to the $100 threshold needed for Google to cut a check. Never again.
PPS: I think I may have found a hobby where the hobby itself couldn’t lead to making money: Birding (aka bird watching). You might be able to come up with a method of making money off of birders, but no one is going to pay you to watch birds. So unless you’re drawing or taking pictures, or writing books or papers about birds that you can sell, bird watching by itself seems to be financially pointless. Can you think of any other popular and socially acceptable hobbies where money can’t be made?
It shouldn’t really matter. I mean, I really like running this site, no matter how many people visit on a regular basis… but the analytics were still off by a lot more than I expected.
It’s mainly attacks from server farms, China, Russia, Ukraine, and various other hackers who routinely visit the site in order to scan for security weaknesses. It made the site appear to have more visitors than it actually did. I added some new rules to the htaccess file in order to bail them overboard so I could see truer numbers. The results were a little disheartening.
First of all, I should mention what I did. I added a few simple lines to the .htaccess file that redirected any visitor who snoops around wp-login or wp-config to google.com. That was it. For some reason my stat counter considers these valid visits when they obviously aren’t. The htaccess redirect prevents them from ever actually reaching this site.
The good news is that after redirecting those obvious bots, the number of visitors is not zero. Real people actually come here, and some of you come here on a fairly regular basis. Thanks for that. It means a lot, and I appreciate your choosing Flush Twice.
The bad news is, the numbers are embarrassingly low, and if you take away the people who googled “Ginger Jokes”, it gets even lower still. The total number of visits from actual humans is currently under fifty per day. All things considered it’s really not that bad, as it always appears to be over thirty.
Back in its heyday, Flush Twice was getting over 500 uniques per day. That may sound like bullshit, but back then, there weren’t as many cool websites to visit, and I was able to plug this site in forums. Today, plugging a site on a forum can get you banned or doxed, so I’m not taking any chances. Also, people have a lot more choices and slicker marketing campaigns targeting them. Small, independent sites like Flush Twice get shoved to the side, and nearly forgotten.
You also have to take into consideration that many internet users hang out on Twitter, Facebook. Pintrest, YouTube, and other heavyweight sites. They don’t have any incentive to venture out from their walled gardens, and so they don’t. Strangely, even when a heavyweight site noticeably increases their agitation level, they still won’t leave it. (I know this because I had to kick my own unhealthy addiction to reddit.)
But you came here today, and for that I thank you.
Pax,
-f2x
PS: In case you noticed (which I doubt, but still…) I changed the category for these asides from “News” to “Sunday Rant”. It should be fairly obvious as to why: It’s not really news, I’m usually ranting, and except for about three posts, they’re always on a Sunday. So there you have it. If you were thinking, “Hey did it always say ‘Sunday Rant’?”, it’s not your mind playing tricks, I really did change it.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows anything about “Webcomics” (a term I now despise), that I don’t actually draw my characters. In actuality, I painstakingly create these tables of body parts and shade them. Each body part has to be done in multiple configurations and angles. The finished product is where I put together the various body parts like paper dolls.
OK, some people actually do draw them and scan them in… But the style I’m using can’t actually be drawn, so instead I use these elaborate templates. I know I’m not the only one who does this, and some very popular webcomics actually do use this method of re-using stock images.
Occasionally I actually go back and update my templates. It’s why since 2011 the characters have had hands. It’s why the female breast looked really weird in all of my older comics. I review these templates and make adjustments and improvements. Some call it “Art Evolution”, and I don’t do it every week.
But right now I’m reworking arms and hands. If I do it right, no one should actually notice. If I do it wrong, you still won’t notice, because I’ll just continue to use the old templates.
Oh, and I’ve made the eyes bigger again. I’ve noticed that bigger eyes seem to make the characters cuter. I’m sure Margaret Keane would approve.
Sometimes life is boring. Right now, I kind of like boring. Boring is comforting and safe. There’s something to be said about that… But I’m not bored.
I worry a lot. I don’t want to, but it’s something that comes natural to me. About 80% of the time, everything works out fine, and there was nothing to worry about. On the other hand, it’s the other 20% of the time I’ve got to be vigilant about. If I don’t watch out for those things and take care of them when they happen, the situation snowballs, and before I know it, I’m in over my head.
So right now, though things aren’t perfect, there aren’t any major issues. I’ve still got a lot of things on my mind because there are potential problems around the bend, and I’ve got to be ready for them when the time comes. However, as of this very moment, everything is safe and sound.
As I get older, I don’t experience the dreaded boredom. It’s boredom accompanied by dread. Because while I don’t know when, where, or how, experience has taught me that shit’s going down sooner than expected. I’m getting too old for this shit.
I don’t usually run ads on this website, but this is different. I put a little side banner up for my new site, and it’s going to stay there for a while.
Actually, it has another purpose. If you’re viewing this in a standard web browser, You’ll note that it pushes the rest of the side bar down further so you have to scroll to see it. For people who are just here for the daily joke, it keeps my silly attempt at making a comic out of view. Of course if you like to read my comic, it’s merely a flick of the scroll wheel away.
Other than that, I got over my cold, and generally I’m doing OK, but as they say on Facebook… It’s complicated.
After recovering from my last illness back in November, I was hoping to avoid any further issues for at least 12 months. Alas, during the recent gift giving holidays, someone managed to give me a cold. ‘Tis the season.
OK, so I haven’t really had time to work on Deny From, and I’m starting to think adding it to Flush Twice wasn’t such a great idea. Obviously it wouldn’t really work on mBlip.com (which is doing awesome BTW), so perhaps I’m going to move it to Golden Soapbox? Yeah, I’m not really sure what to do with it. I just know that I really don’t have the energy to work on it at the moment.
And that’s what I love about mBlip! I don’t need to spend any effort on it to make it an amazing place to visit. It just automatically posts new things every day. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should.
Well, that’s about all I have the energy for. Thanks for stopping by. The jokes are really going to suffer this week because I’m really under the weather right now. Hopefully we’ll have better stuff waiting for you next week.
As you may have read in the comic above, I have a new site that I’d like you to try out. It’s called mBlip, and it’s has all kinds of fresh content every day!
mBlip uses sophisticated software to bring you a pleasant and enjoyable media experience. And unlike Flush Twice, there’s never a “hiatus” on mBlip. The content is regularly updated by computers, so you can rely on it being there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
PS- I suppose you kind of noticed that I’m a little bit excited about this new site of mine. Well, it’s been a while since I actually came up with an idea that really felt right, and somehow I was able to piece together all the technology to make it work. It’s a site that I, myself enjoy using, and I’m actually kind of proud of it. So how about it?
Flush Twice has been around since May of 2003. It started out as a JOTD (Joke of the Day) website. New jokes were published every weekday. Over the years, good jokes were increasingly hard to come by, and eventually they got so rare that I just stopped trying to publish them.
Since 2004 there has also been an eponymous comic. I still occasionally publish a new one on Saturdays. It’s also rare anymore, but sometimes it happens.
Here lately I’ve been posting a “Link of the Day”. For the time being, I will be featuring a new website from my enormous collection of bookmarked websites every weekday. None of it is solicited promotions, and no one is paying me to feature their site. These are just websites that at one time I thought were interesting enough to add to my bookmarks folder.
I highly encourage using some kind of ad blocking extension before clicking on any of these links. You’ll also hear me say this phrase a lot about these posts: “They can’t all be winners.” But it’s better than just leaving the site abandoned.
The jokes were generously provided by friends and visitors such as yourself. I want to express my eternal thanks to everyone over the years who helped contribute to the collection.
So what is it that makes a joke funny?
It all boils down to a sudden shift in perception. The story starts you thinking one way, then the punchline turns that thinking on its ear. The art of the joke is to craft a short story that isn’t overly contrived, then deliver a punchline that suddenly shifts your perception about the story you were being told.
Many of the jokes on this site are offensive, and I make no apologies for it. Offensive jokes work by making the reader uncomfortable through the use of a taboo subject thus enhancing the underlying humor. Without the offensive element, the joke would simply not be as funny.
