dianaschnuth

Seriocomic has put me on their list o’ “Linky Love.” And I didn’t even ask. How cool is that?

Thanks, Mike!

People have made it here to my little site from:

• Googling “kris heath” ohio (I wonder if they found Kris’s song?)
• Googling GLASSMEN DCI 2005 (Too bad they came up with Topless Drumcorps instead of the Glassmen’s 2005 repertoire)
• A Technorati search for www.kottke.org (which yielded forth my rantings on stereographs)
• A Yahoo search for dianaschnuth.net (huh? why?)
• Googling Larry King Live December 2004 Gordon Hinkley and Larry King, Gordon B. Hinkley, and one search on AOL for transcript of gordon b hinckley at larry king live december 2004
• Googling acidfox productions
• Googling churchgoes scott peterson christian
• Somebody’s own stats page from New Zealand (probably Mike Hudson’s, as his is the only .nz blog I frequent)
• A few comments I made on Blurbomat, [daily dose of imagery], and a Trackback I posted to adot’s notblog*.

It looks like most of my hits are friends jumping on to see if I’ve updated, with the occasional stranger making a ten-minute stay with multiple page views. The person looking for Kris stayed on my site for over a half hour, and it looks like Sheryl probably left my page open in the background at work for nearly 45 minutes. 🙂

I think I’m having too much fun with my counter.

Well, I just banned a dozen IP addresses in the same subnet (is that what it’s called? the first two numbers are the same) from commenting on my blog. I’m going to see if that puts a stop to the spamming that just started this weekend.

If it doesn’t, everybody be prepared to plug in your e-mail address next time you comment on a post. Don’t worry, MT encodes your e-mail so it can’t be harvested by spiders or bots or what-have-you. Goodness knows I can’t afford to have you guys stop commenting at all… my poor self-esteem couldn’t handle the strain. I’ll put a note in the comments area if I institute required fields.

So, yay for the fact that my blog has finally been targeted by a spam-bot. That means *someone* knows I’m out there, besides you diligent few. Boo for spam-bots.

I know I should probably wrap up the detail work on this site before I start bemoaning my sparse readership (again). After all, the website archives aren’t on this server yet, and my CSS and PHP still have some glitches to smooth out.

Still, though, I find myself posting my link in other blogs’ comments, and signing up on all those blog tracking sites, and wanting strangers to think my site is as cool as I think theirs is. Are. Whatever.

But, in all actuality, I created this site: a.) to keep in touch with my out-of-town and sometimes out-of-touch friends; b.) to encourage myself to continue writing and journaling; and c.) to give myself a continuing web design challenge. So, I ask you, the readership, what you’d like to read:

1. More day-to-day shit (e.g. ‘my job sucks’ or ‘my computer crashed’)
2. More links to news stories (e.g. the new Willy Wonka movie, Viktor Yuschenko’s face, or the death penalty)
3. More philosophical and sociopolitical thoughts and ideas and rants
4. More pictures and picture galleries (daily or weekly, even, if I have that many good ones?)
5. More links to linkworthy blogs and rants
6. Your content’s just fine as it is! Why do you always worry about shit so much?

Leave some love in the comments section.

What is Hanukah? (from Hanefesh.com):

The Jews observe the Festival of Lights for eight days, in honor of the historic victory of the Maccabbees and the miracle of the oil.

The Hebrew word Chanukah means “dedication.” In the 2nd century BCE, the Syrian-Greek regime of Antiochus sought to pull Jews away from Judaism, with the hopes of assimilating them into Hellenism — Greek culture. Antiochus outlawed aspects of Jewish observance — including the study of Torah — which began to decay the foundation of Jewish life and practice. During this period, many of the Jews began to assimilate into Greek culture, taking on Greek names and marrying non-Jews.

In response, a band of Jewish settlers took to the hills of Judea in open revolt against this threat to Jewish life. Led by Matitiyahu, and later his son Judah the Maccabee (“The Hammer”), this small band of pious Jews led guerrilla warfare against the Syrian army.

Antiochus sent thousands of well-armed troops to crush the rebellion — but the Maccabees succeeded in driving the foreigners from their land.

Jewish fighters entered Jerusalem in December, 164 BCE. The Holy Temple was in shambles, defiled and desecrated by foreign soldiers. They cleansed the Temple and re-dedicated it on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev. When it came time to re-light the Menorah, they searched the entire Temple, but only one small jar of oil bearing the pure seal of the High Priest could be found. Miraculously, the small jar of oil burned for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be brought.

From then on, Jews have observed a holiday for eight days in honor of this historic victory and the miracle of the oil.

Today, the observance of Chanukah features the lighting of a special Chanukah menorah with eight branches (plus a helper candle), adding one new candle each night. Other customs include spinning the dreidel (a top with Hebrew letters on the sides), eating “oily” foods like potato latkes (pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts), and giving Chanukah gifts & coins) to children.

Continue reading →