Category Archives: Sunday’s Rant

Hobbies

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.

So why?

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Pax,

-f2x

<sub>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?</sub>

It went from bad to worse.

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.}

Working on the Art

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.

Pax,

-f2x

Welcome to Dullsville. Enjoy your (brief) stay.

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.

Pax,

-f2x

Still Plugging mBlip

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.

Pax,

f2x

Sick, again.

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.

Pax,

-f2x

Happy New Year

OK, now that we got that out of the way…

Introducing mBlip!

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!

What are you waiting for? Try mBlip today!

Pax,

-f2x

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?

mBlip

It’s Christmas Day

You know what? I’m not doing this. It’s Christmas day, and I’m taking some time off.

Sorry, but no thoughtful insights or pros. Also, this coming weeks jokes will be lame so deal with it.

Until 2017 gets well underway, I’m not going to let managing a website get in the way of my vacation.

Go spend some time with your friends and family.

Merry Christmas,

-f2x

It’s the Hap-Happiest Season of All.

When you’re young, Christmas is a magical time that you look forward to, and revel in every year. Then you get older, and Christmas becomes this pedal to the metal shit-storm of too much to do and too little time.

Just driving home from work becomes a test of nerves as the holiday shoppers play demolition derby in every intersection. Stopping to pick up milk, eggs, and bread is like trying to get a seat on one of the Titanic’s life boats. This isn’t a war on Christmas; Christmas is war!

So in this week leading up to the holiday, I want you to know that I’ve said a prayer for all of you to get through this season safely and sanely. Don’t forget that it’s not about the petty mayhem surrounding you, it’s about those precious moments you get to have with the people you care about the most.

Pax,

-f2x

Deny From

So a couple of years ago, I decide to register denyfrom.com. I’m not actually linking to it, because I never really developed it, and at this time I intend to let it expire when its time is up on February 11th. Nevertheless, I rather liked the premise, so I’m going to add a “Deny From” category to Flush Twice. Since most of what I’m going to publish is a lot of shitty CIDR blocks that need a second flush to get’em down the drain, it should fit in nicely.

So what is this premise?

It’s about unwanted crawlers and bots on the internet. You see, in the old days, most of the botnets were individual’s infected PC’s. While some of them still are, the current trend is to use compromised hosting accounts. So basically server farms. There also seem to be certain rogue countries (Notably China/Ukraine/Russia) that also mercilessly hammer websites with their spambots.

The good news is that these hackers/bots are easy to identify. You just look at your visitor logs, and when you see an IP address trying to do things on your site that a typical person could not even imagine doing, cross reference that address with an IP address information site to see if it was coming from a rogue nation, or a hacked webhost. Then you collect all the associated CIDR’s and run them through an optimizer before dumping them into your .htaccess file’s “deny from” list.

The goal is to achieve a reduction in unwanted hacking attempts and improved analytics. Once you block all the bots, then the rest of your visitors are the actual humans you built the site for in the first place.

Of course not everyone wants to go through the trouble of looking through their visitor logs, so I’m going to post my “deny from” lists here. People can simply copy and paste them into their own .htaccess files, or leave comments on the merits of denying all the IP addresses I keep adding to the file. (People leaving comments? Ha! Like that is ever going to happen.)

Some groups really hate this idea and feel that bots should be free to roam, rape and pillage every WordPress blog with endless login attempts, referral spams, comment spams, exploit seeking, and content scraping activities. To them, blocking these IP addresses seriously impairs their ability to piss on someone else’s parade in hopes that maybe they can compromise other people’s sites and use them to bolster their clients’ analytics, or maybe get you to buy their security product.

Why are you bringing this shit here?

Because I can.

No seriously. I thought about doing it before, but I didn’t because I couldn’t figure out how to keep it separate from the main attraction: The jokes and comics! But in case you haven’t noticed, you don’t see these side posts in the main blog. I’ve solved that problem, and if all you want to see are the jokes, and maybe the comics, then that’s all you have to see.

At the end of the day, it just means another menu option under a new category, and that way I don’t have to be bothered with running yet another entirely separate site to express a sub-genre of my many neuroses.

Besides, it didn’t feel right to put it on GoldenSoapBox.com, which is a site that I also maintain. GSB is already exceedingly boring. But it has a really good tomato soup recipe. Be sure to visit it if you like recipes, Linux, and more of my little side rants. The deviled eggs are simply to die for!

Pax,

-f2x