I had intended on a happy post yesterday and that obviously didn't happen... ah well, can't be upbeat all the time... I realize today that having no money must be the final piece in the puzzle that is being 'an artist'... so I'm there. I've made it! Yipee!

So without further adieu I will now regale you with the wonder that is Google Analytics. I just installed the tracking widget four days ago, so it'll wear off soon, but for now I am intrigued... blown away... astounded... by all the information that it provides. I can see how many unique visitors I get in a day (keeping in mind that you're all unique, seriously), how many are return visitors, which pages are accessed and for how long. I can see that you are in the US or abroad, who provides you with internet service, the operating system and web browser that was used, and if you found my website directly or were referred by another website (I like that I see that starting to happen). And... tsk tsk... some of you are logging on from work...  =)

A disclaimer - I know what you just read could sound a tad bit worrisome, but keep in mind that with all the information I get - I can't see who you are... so please don't feel like I'm spying on anyone because that would be creepy and I wouldn't even want to do that. The only way I'll know if you access my website is if you tell me by commenting on my blog or contact me via the contact form... and while I'm dying to know who you are and what you think, I wouldn't want to find out by spying on you (I've shown a couple of people what I see and they can vouch, your privacy, for the most part, is as safe as it apparently ever is on the web... something to think about though).

Just so you can see what I'm talking about, I'm posting a pic (albiet a very small pic... If you could read it, you could see that in four days I've had 54 visitors, 52 of whom are 'unique', one of whom was from Ireland (madainn mhath!), 52 hits were direct and 2 were from referring sites, and people accessed my blog (yea!), pics, and partial chapters.  I just think it's neat. I'm gushing. I'll stop now.

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8-oz Gingerale + 3 Tbsp Butterscotch syrup + ReddiWhip = Tummyache

But it was delicious, and looked exactly like the drink Hermione and the boys were enjoying at The Three Broomsticks. I think maybe next time I should cut the recipe in half, because even though my tastebuds wanted more, my stomach definitely had its limits.

Ale + Egg Yolks + Sugar + Nutmeg + Butter = ???

It has sort of a before-taste rather than an aftertaste... when it first goes in your mouth it's definitely unpleasant, but only for a milisecond, and then it's sweet. It was confusing really. Tia said it wasn't disgusting, but it wasn't good either... I think that about sums it up. After a few sips, I decided I wasn't in the mood and poured it down the drain. It wasn't much different than the Egg Beaters version I made earlier except for the funky before-taste and a slightly more golden color.

So... my butterbeer experiment is done. We have a clear winner, and it's got gingerale in it. I'll take the remaining 2 cans of Blonde Bombshell ale to my dad and let him enjoy them.

I keep adding to my website. I wanted to add Google Friend Connect so I could get comments and people could 'join' and 'share' and do all sorts of neat things, but Weebly doesn't support it yet. Other than that though, Weebly has been fantastic. I know nothing about websites or indexing or web crawlers or robots.txt files or root directories, this is all new to me... and FRUSTRATING. Google pretends to make gadgets for the technologically retarded ("no programming required!"), but they're grossly overestimating my abilities. The most frustrating part of the whole thing is that when you go to look for useful help files... they don't exist. They figure they've told you all you need to know in the little video snippets. *laugh*

I still haven't found a search tool for my site that actually works (granted I'm bitching about free stuff), it always comes back telling me that nothing has been found, or it goes out onto the web to look. Not sure it matters right now, but I think I'm eventually going to clutter up my site with so much information that a search tool would be nice to have. Ah well.

Time to go have lunch, hope everyone had a great weekend!

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