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I am a tool.

Posted by Justin at 11:03 principles, rants

Feb 232015

Image via Wikipedia

I feel like a real tool here. I barely even read my own blog. I may as well bequeath the whole damn thing to Ralph and give up. I finally looked today, Thursday and found out there was a whole great post from Wednesday that I had no idea existed. It is getting hectic this time of year and I am not weathering it well.

I would admit to getting older and being more decrepit but I think Ralph has shown all of us that you can be an ~~old fart~~ er retired and still be reasonably in control of your mental faculties. This time of year is about to kill me.

From figuring out gifts to getting to all of the parties and miscellaneous bull crap that come on at this time of year. I am not going to dwell too long on this, I just don’t have that much to say on the matter.

I need some heavy duty doses of sleep and caffeine, not at the same time of course, that would defeat the purpose of each.

I hope your holiday season is not driving you to drinking or at least excessive drinking. And lay off the rum balls.

Anyway, have a good weekend, it will all be over in 2 weeks.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Getting Traffic to your Blog.

Posted by Justin at 11:02 Plain 'ol Cantankerous, Technology

Feb 232015

Image by v o 1 d via Flickr

Hello again folks. I was thinking for today about how this blog gets traffic. I see the stats in 3 different stat counters every day and they are all different. Different, but similar enough in trends to be useful.

Now you may have clicked into this post just to see what sage wisdom I have to offer when it comes to getting traffic to your blog. I have a short answer: Beats me. Now before you click off (literally, if you don’t like something on this blog just CLICK OFF!) at least read the rest of what I have to say.

Some people look into a business degree online when
they want to learn more about marketing to get the desired effects of blog traffic.

The trafffic here on the Coots is fairly constant. We get between 80 and 100 or so visitors per day. Sometimes there are more. Like Yesterday, with Ralphs post. There were 131 visitors at 1140 mountain time when I checked. Why so popular? I dunno, I can only hope people are linking to older posts, as I can see Ralph’s Current post has only garnered 10 visitors. Of course that was last week. This week has been no different though.

It doesn’t seem to matter too much how we promote each post. Twitter, linked In, Facebook, Digg, we advertise on each of these plus stumble upon and traffic is the same. People come to read about Cantankerousness and to have a good time. I would like to see more. So what do we do? I could ask each person who reads this post to tweet it to 10 others and ask them to do the same, but I am almost positive that somewhere that is illegal.

If not illegal then too much like a pyramid scheme. So don’t do that. If you have any ideas, please let me know! I would like to hear how you each get traffic, besides the “go out and comment” answer. This post will be linked on Twitter and all of the other sites, so we have that. Just, how do you each get traffic? And, do you have any blockbuster ideas for a cantankerous post that will go viral and make us all famous?

I can’t wait to hear from you all!

PS. go back and check out Ralph’s post from Wednesday. We would like to have some more answers to our poll!

-Justin

Blog Traffic: 128191 Unique Visitors | Gvishnu.Com (gvishnu.com)

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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I am a Giant Waster of Time

Posted by Justin at 11:02 Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles, rants

Feb 232015

Angry Birds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before you start thinking that this title means something deep or is a description of my character in World of Warcraft (do they still play that? I don’t.) it isn’t. This title is the truth. I am sure this topic has been covered and you are most likely to click off of this post and leave the Coots site right now. But hold on a second, you need to be logged in for a few more seconds for it to count. Really Hang on. Just a bit longer.

Have you ever noticed those videos over in the sidebar? How about clicking on our personal blog sites? maybe Facebook? Click that link and head to Amazon.com and get yourself something nice and we can make a couple of pennies. Ok are you good? See what I did, I just took something normal and easy and managed to waste a bunch of time doing it.

You know, I am fairly good at it as well. If I actually spent half the time writing as I do screwing around I would be able to say I write for hours and hours every day. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have that luxury.

I can spend time doing crap that doesn’t mean anything and why? Am I afraid of the actual writing? No. I usually justify it by saying if I start to write something I will just get interrupted and my wife will need something so I may as well not bother. Before you know it Netflix and Angry Birds are calling you from that seductive corner of your computer.

I try to leave the computer completely but then my kindle beckons with that book I am having a hard time putting down….Damn, I should have washed some underwear instead. I need more sleep. Now the discussion needs to shift towards what needs to be done about it? I think I have proven that the “Just Write” argument is out the window…gotta kill some pigs.

Cerebral Cortex location (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is just a niggling in the back of my cerebral cortex that says I can’t do this same old same old anymore. We are heading to Florida in June and I thought this morning, “Well I guess I will just neglect the blogs some more” while I am gone. and then, “No! I can pre write some posts!” and then, “Yea right, I can’t write the regular ones.” That in turn inspired this post.

So I am going to reward myself when I write something by being able to shut off that damn Adele song for more than 10 minutes. The wife got a hold of that song and the kids play it and she plays it and the radio plays it and it never seems to get out of the *explicitve deleted* repeat loop!

But I digress….how do you fellow monkeys fight the urges that keep is from doing actual work? How do you more efficiently waste time so that you can still work? Inquiring minds want to know….and if you remember that you are as old as me….

-Justin

PS. The podcast is going to be revived on this blog very soon. If anyone has an idea about something you want to hear about or want to be a guest, let me know.

I am thinking of using a new format and maybe a “What can the Coots be Cantankerous about” much like the “What can’t Adam Complain about” segment on the Adam Carolla Podcast.

Give me some topics…and vote for Ralph in the CNS leader poll already. His fragile ego can’t handle one lonely vote. And I don’t want to write the CNS any more than I have too.

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Think Before You Tweet

Posted by Gurl at 11:44 rants

Feb 102015

I am getting ready to blast someone I actually like…and it almost hurts me. This person has been very good to me, and given words of encouragement a time or few. However, last night, he Tweeted something out that just made me see red. He’s generally a decent guy, but without context the tweet was just plain idiotic.

He is a Digital Emperor, and has a lot of awesome things going for him. He’s just released his first Iphone app. He’s got a great music service going and he has a blog. Yup, he’s a blogger and much more. Something I am striving to be. Let’s take a look at the tweet, then I will say why it peeved me off.

I don’t need another blog to read…what I need is another “doer of great shit” that I can admire.

Nathan Hangen
nhangen

As I said, I like Nathan. I can also see his point. However, without context, the comment seems to indicate he thinks he is above reading “new to him” blogs. May or may not be true. If I were a new follower who was embarking on my adventure in blogging, that would make me wonder if I was doing the right thing. It would upset me that someone I admired might never look at my blog until I got to the big time..if that was my aim and I got there.

Yes, we could use more people doing great things. Yet we all have to start somewhere. Nathan him self started out writing articles for a paltry sum each in order to fund his business start up while he was in Afghanistan as a member of the US Military. His story is inspiring to say the least.

However, just because you’ve “made it” does not mean you can say or do anything you want! We should think of others and help them. Nathan is great for helping those who cross his radar. However, I think he should have thought a moment before posting the tweet in question. If someone like me, who admires and respects him, found that post off putting…imagine a newbie bloggers reaction. Especially with all the talk of the blogosphere being saturated! In this case, I think he could have done a lot more harm than good.

Here’s the kicker for me…I doubt he will care. He spoke his mind and will stand by it. The two of us and some others were in an almost heated discussion on another blog…and he came off as very narcissistic to some of us. There are times it seems Nathan has a hard time seeing others points of view. I sometimes wonder if the nice guy or the asshole is the real Nathan Hangen. The jury is still out for me on that one for now.

I know that one of the reasons his comment hit me hard is that I am working on becoming a do’er of great things. My start on that is building a great blog, and then moving on to great products. It’s going to take time, so I am depending on others to want another blog to read as I move up to a doer of great things. A LOT of people use this model these days. It would be easier to do it the other way around, but this is the most cost efficient way for me. And it pisses me off when it seems someone is knocking what I do. Most especially when they are doing the same darned thing.

So here’s my points for the day:

Think before you tweet (or post to other social media)! You don’t have to keep it nicey nice, but don’t be a friggen hypocrite.
Be very careful not to put people you admire on a pedestal. It will come back and bite you in the ass.
Grow a thick skin if you are going to be doing something new to you. It will help you weed the naysayers from people with legitimate advice.
Don’t depend on anyone’s thoughts to validate you or what you are doing. If you are, then you’re on shaky ground.
Learn to call out the bullshit when you see it. It just feels good to tell it like it is.

Gurl

Hi! I am a thirty-something college student in Virginia, USA. I started blogging as a personal outlet in August of 2009. I am now turning Gurls Asylum into a semi-niche blog and working on ways to improve my search ranking AND monetize it. I am also an avid Facebook gamer and Tweeter . I love to read, watch movies, listen to music, and blog!

How to blog is elsewhere, here we are Cantankerous!

Posted by Justin at 11:48 Coot Law, principles

Nov 262014

This site is not going to tell you not to blog.

We also are not going to blow smoke at you and keep filling your little head with dreams of getting rich quick while eating ice cream in your underwear and only working for an hour a day. Not including bathroom breaks.

We are also not going to give you advice on how to blog, how to set up a site or how to run it into the ground. We are not going to tell you, well we probably will tell you how neat we are. The Consortium of Coots is pretty neat. Don’t forget it or I will crash your system.

This site is to tell stories and vent grievences. To tell how it is without regard for anyones feelings. If your feelbads get hurt while you are here, then you probably do not belong her in the first place. How’s that for Cantankerous.

This site exists to be something a bit different in Blogistan. Maybe like your strange Uncle that shows up to the family reunions and just lurks in the corner waiting to regale the young ones with stories of the past.

I intend to post Manly topics like skinning game and setting snares. Topics that will make strong men weep freely like the loss of a good dog or the benefits of duct tape and zip ties.

If you are easily offended, get out. If you want to be offended and argue, bring it on. Comments are always available and contact forms abound on the site. My email is justin@cantankerousoldcoots.com.

Just be aware, comments and contention will probably lead to a guest post request so get something ready.

That is all.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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