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Posts tagged as “Birthday”

Happy birthday, ladies!

Today is the first birthday of my wonderful, screaming monsters. Sarah made them a confetti cake and they got a visit from Grandma Bev and Grandpa Redge. Snow fell. Diapers were changed. They made a huge mess. Photos were taken. Bath time was torture. Getting dressed and having their hair brushed was an unbearable misery. Overall, a perfect first birthday.

Today is also a day tinged with sadness as we remember our lost Olive. Milestones come fast during a child’s first few years. First teeth. First steps. First words. First Christmas. First lawsuit. You get the idea. And, as we see Penny and Beanut make all these steps growing up, we can’t help but be reminded that Livvy didn’t get a chance for any of them. I miss that little baby and I miss the person she could have been.

When the sadness of the situation is overwhelming, I feel comforted in the two girls we do get to see grow, learn about the world, and chase the ever-patient Noodle, and knowing that Livvy’s essence has gone back to the universe that made her. In the end, we are all just stardust and she has gone back to the stars earlier than we would have liked.

Happy birthday, girls. I love you all very much.

Enjoy some photos of babies with a bunch of cake on their sweet, little faces.

Happy 3rd Birthday, The Black Laser and Sienna! And Happy 1000th post!

Me and SJ
The Black Laser and this peanut share a birthday. We make serious faces.

A few weeks ago, it became clear to me that I would probably be able to hit my 1000th post on The Black Laser’s third birthday. As the date (11/11/11) got closer, I realized that not only would I hit 1000 posts but that I would actually have to plan on how to do it so I didn’t overshoot and post my 1000th before the 11th. Exciting!

So what does 1000 Black Laser posts look like? Here’s the breakdown!

Not surprisingly Music and it’s subset Music Videos are the overwhelming majority here. But, what I do find surprising is that I have more than twice as many Writing posts as I do Photography posts. I was fairly sure that Photography would be in second place behind music, but it’s in fourth place behind Thoughts AND Writing. Interesting! I guess I do a lot more writing and blabbing about random crap that I thought. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s all I do here. Why do you people keep coming back? Is it my charm? My devilish good looks? My witty repartee?

To be honest, fewer and fewer people are coming to The Black Laser every day. What’s with that? It used to be I’d get a hundred fifty to a couple hundred hits every day, even if I didn’t post very much. Now, I’m lucky if I break a hundred. Where have all the people gone? I suppose it will just slowly wind down over the next three years until it’s just me, alone, yelling out at the internet, unread, unloved, and uncaring. Hermit mode—ACTIVATE!!!!

As in previous years, I will take this opportunity to wish my favorite person in the whole world a similarly magnificent 3rd birthday. Happy birthday, SJ. I hope I get back to read you more bedtime stories and turn you into a baby burrito soon.

Here’s to another successful year of infecting the internet with my own brand of madness. Cheers!

EDIT///

Here’s the proof!

It’s my birthday.

I am 29 years old. It is an insignificant marker, but that’s where I am. Happy birthday to me. That is all.

I wish The Black Laser a productive, magical year. Everyone who reads this should enjoy a delicious treat in honor of my birthday. I don’t care what it is, but send me a photo.

Love you all.

edit//Here’s something else I learned: I share the same birthday as Iceland. Let’s all eat sheep’s face and rotten shark! Huzzah!

Happy (Belated) 2nd Birthday, The Black Laser!

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of The Black Laser. Isn’t that exciting?! Let’s all have some cake!

What does the bright and shining future hold for The Black Laser?! WHO FUCKING KNOWS?!? What, I can see into the future? Jesus Christ, guys. I may be the Space Pope, but I’m not psychic. Well, I AM psychic, but I’m not a friggin’ fortuneteller. You want one of those, you go to a fucking carnival.

In all seriousness, the site’s long overdue for a redesign. What I’ve got now is SOOOO 2008 that it just screams for the tender loving help it needs. I’ve got some ideas for it. We shall see.

Otherwise, there will be no great changes to the format or content of The Black Laser. Why would it change? So, keep reading, and I’ll keep posting all sorts of crazy crap.

I also want to say happy birthday to my darling niece Sienna as she shares a birthday with The Black Laser. I don’t get a lot of two year olds on this site, so one of you with a direct line will have to convey my birthday wishes.

Happy 1st Birthday, The Black Laser!!

Today is The Black Laser’s first birthday. Yay! I made my very first post here on November 11, 2008, and you can see it here: The inaugural posting at The Black Laser.com/.net. A year in internet time is basically, what?, a decade in regular old meatspace time? That’s pretty awesome. Here’s a look at the current stats.

Screen shot 2009-11-11 at 3.43.59 PM

311 posts works out to 85% of a post every day. Not bad for being written by one solitary Space Pope from Beyond the Stars. I wonder how many of those are just music videos? I could probably figure it out, but I’m not going to. Too depressing, I think. 285 comments is not so great. It works out to comments on 91.6% posts if averaged, or 78% of a comment per day. Mind that this number also includes my comments in response to your comments. I encourage you to leave a comment for me if you liked what I wrote or have thoughts or whatever. I see all of them and it’s good to know people are reading. This number does not include the comments left by people on Facebook, which is too bad since I think the number would be significantly higher. I wish I knew of a way to migrate the comments from Facebook to these pages, but I don’t think it’s possible. Too bad. Our superstar poster is Don Diggler. Good work, Deegs!

And 5,640 spam comments?! Holy crap!

Screen shot 2009-11-11 at 3.47.21 PM

This handy little graph (which you can see full size if you click on it) shows the number of hits received by The Black Laser of the last 12 months. April of this year was a high point in the readership of The Black Laser, with 1,060 views.

Screen shot 2009-11-11 at 3.58.47 PM

In case the little line wasn’t telling enough for you, here’s a table of the data for hits on The Black Laser since 11/11/2008. I don’t know if this will be interesting to anyone but me, but it’s interesting to me and this is my fucking site, so deal.

According to Google, I get 32.52% of my traffic directly, 37.79% from referring sites, and 29.41% from search engines. That is remarkably even, I think. I don’t know, or care, what it signifies, but the numbers are fun!

I’ve had visitors from 84 different countries, including Slovenia, Thailand, Israel, and Poland. Most hits come, unsurprisingly, from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. To all my international readers—thanks!

Screen shot 2009-11-11 at 4.15.25 PM

Internet Explorer 6, people? Seriously, GET WITH THE NOW. You’re not seeing The Black Laser as it’s intended if you’re using IE6. Upgrade to Firefox. It’s free and lightyears better. And you 1059 hits using IE5? May God have mercy on your iSouls.

But more important that all of this, November 11, 2008 was also the day my darling little niece, Sienna, was born. Happy birthday, Sienna Jo! We’re both 1 today! YAY!!!!!!!