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Blogging Statistics for 2010

Last year, on January 2, I tweaked my blog and published some statistics. I guess this is becoming a tradition because I did it again. This year, no visual updates, but I did update the underlying WordPress software. If anyone finds any problems with the blog, drop me a note.

According to one plug in, since I started the blog I have had 4035 unique pages served, 88337 total sessions, and 249,759 total hits. This is a running sum, up from 2250, 33950, and 103380 from last year. Not completely sure what it means but it is interesting.

Last year I added a visible blogging statistic plugin. It has been interesting to see the results. Japan is leading the way viewing the blog, primarily because I got linked on a national news site and got quite a bump for a few days.

Number of hits for the year

 

I’ve had visitors from every state in the union, with California leading the way. I’ve had visitors from a total of 123 countries, out of the 194 countries recognized by the US, +1 since the US does not recognize Taiwan as independent from China. That’s 63% of the countries in the World. I need Africa and South America to step it up a little. Where is Uraguay? Burkina Faso? Come on people! According to that statistics plugin my site has been viewed 12,693 times with 8112 unique visitors.

Blogging statistics

 

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よいお年を

I realized this is actually the first true New Year’s Eve I’ve spent in Nagoya. Two years ago I went to a friend’s house in Tokyo and did mostly nothing while they celebrated New Year’s with their family. I came home on a late train on January 2nd only to learn that I had left my key in Tokyo. Oops. Last year I was arriving back in Japan on New Year’s Ever and had a bit of a transportation mess up and “had” to take the train from Tokyo to Nagoya and got home at 11:59 pm to discover snow.

This year, I woke up to snow again, although it did not stick like last year. Also Tomo suggested that I have a New Year’s Eve party, so that is what I’m doing. Another house party. I’ve stocked up on food and alcohol so all I am waiting for are the people (and a little prep work remaining). I have no idea what this party will bring. I think there will be a lot of TV watching as there are three big shows in Japan on New Year’s Eve, a music festival, a comedy contest, and K-1 (mixed martial arts) fights. I am relinquishing control of my TV. I don’t care what we watch, I won’t understand any of it anyway.

How or when the party will end I have no idea. I can imagine it will go until the first train in the morning or will end pretty much right after midnight as people scramble to catch the last train to their homes. I usually easily make room for 3 people to crash here, 4 people if two don’t mind getting cozy, but my guest room is occupied by a surprise visitor. We’ll see what happens.

Shopping today was a battle. Of course, most the shops are closed on New Year’s Day, so the supermarkets were filled with people. Going to battle with middle-aged women who have no issues bowling you over. But I’ve said that before.

Fight on!

I’ve recalled my younger days living in a colder climate by using the outside as my refrigerator. Yup. Very white trash or redneck. Take your pick. My fridge though is filled with sushi and sashimi, still some beers, and homemade chili. Yum.

I’m not a big cook in the US or in Japan, but with three days of cooking chili and doing dishes, I’ve learned that my countertop is really, really, really low and cooking and cleaning leads to a backache. It’s perfect height for the aforementioned middle aged women and I’m sure they would call me out as “weak” for my complaint.

Time to do the final preparation for the party. It should be fun!

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23.5*sin(θ)

I’ve never been a big fan of the short number of hours of daylight in the winter time. In Indiana, at the far Western edge of the time zone, the sun would rise really late in the morning. I found that very depressing. It was so hard to get up in the pitch black.

Sun Inclination Angle

Nagoya is on the Eastern edge of the time zone, so the sunrise is relatively early. In the summer it is crazy early, and the sunlight wakes me up pretty easily. I’m able to get out of bed, and get going quickly. In the winter though, it is still dark, my room is cold, and I am uninspired.

But now, we are at Solstice, the minimum number of day light hours for those of us North of the Tropic of Cancer, or the sun’s lowest inclination angle. From now until the end of June, the number of daylight hours will increase as the sun appears to take a Northerly trek in the daylight sky. The sin wave is very flat for a while so we are not out of the woods yet, but it is improving. Or will be about 9 hours after I post this.

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Venting

In my shower room, and sounding a bit like Morrissey, there is a fan that never turns off. I guess it is some Japanese thing. Maybe I’ve complained about it before. Since the fan goes all the time, I have vents in my shower door where wind whistles in. The air has to circulate from somewhere, so Japanese construction companies are kind enough to put holes through exterior walls to make sure you don’t get a vacuum due to the fan that never turns off.

From the inside of the house, the vents look like this.

Apartment venting in Japan

 

Basically, this vent is “deployed,” or open to the outside. There is a opening on the outside of the house, and a little filter / insulation in the hole. The vent is pushed in to seal the air from entering. Except when you push in the vent, the air changes from quiet and low flow rate around the edges to whistling and faster flow rate. The valves of the vent are useless. In my living room there are actually three vents.

Apartment venting in Japan

 

The outside of the vent is nothing special, it’s only a slight grate over the hole.

Apartment venting in Japan

 

The biggest problem is a have of set of the vents right by my bed, and nothing to keep the air from rushing over my head. I wake up in the winter time consistently with a stuffy ear because of the draft. I’ve tried many different tricks over the past few winters. Primarily I’ve tried to make a vapor barrier inside the hole. It never worked well though and although the volume was reduced there was still a lot of cold air blowing through.

This time I took an even more aggressive approach. It was time to kill the cold air at the source. It isn’t pretty but who else will be on my balcony? Just me. The grate is now blocked.

Blocking apartment venting in Japan

 

I’m sure I’ll need a tape change and even a change in material, but it seems to be somewhat more effective. Of course, that means that more air is rushing through the living room vents. But at least it won’t pull right over my head while I am sleeping anymore.

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Meee YOW!!!

I live across the street, and maybe a block away from the biggest concentration of hostess bars in Nagoya (Nishiki). Lucky me. As a matter of fact, the bar district separates me from the biggest shopping area in Nagoya as well (Sakae). In general, I avoid walking through Nishiki because during the day it is ugly and dirty. At night, it isn’t any cleaner, but at least the lights mask the ugliness. I get tired of being welcomed to any number of bars with soliciting men and women. Most often I walk to a major street that is lined with offices and shops to get to Sakae. It is a little out of the way but more pleasant. Those times that I do walk through Nishiki, I can’t help notice the signage with pictures of the hostesses in various “sensual” poses.

As I come out of my subway station, I see a little different signage that reminds me very much of those hostess bar advertisements. This ad though is for a 猫カフェ. That translates to a “Cat Café.” Yes, you read that correctly. It is a café where the draw or the gimmick is a bunch of cats to keep you company.

I think the board shows the most popular cats in their most seductive poses.

nekocafe

 

This is the most seductive.

meee yow!

 

You’ve got to click on this link to check out the “cat staff.”

This gives you a little more detail about the concept.

What is the course?

 

Here’s a picture of koreo-kun.

koreo-kun

 

I don’t know if they do shows, if they have a pole, or if they will pour you drinks while purring seductively. I wouldn’t be surprise.