Like a Coral Reef

Cool night, so we drove.
The music was loud and occasionally our soundtrack.
To check out the stars, I lay my head on the shoulder of her seat, eyes directly under the center of the moon roof.
The light pollution seemed low, and the stars were per usual stunning, but I was really struck by the trees, scrolling by at a new angle, lit up by the high beams.
They were like a coral reef, as I imagine one would look through a glass bottomed boat.
The shadows were dramatic and shifting rapidly, and there was no chance of observing a single branch.
Then I stopped and we drove around and got burgers.

BRIAN OUT.

Most of August, as seen through Twitter

I've been better at updating on Twitter lately. Here are all of my tweets since my last post (sorry, but they will remain in reverse order):

its official, my dog is not afraid of lightning
about 1 hour ago from web

wooo excused from jury duty because my mailing address is in a different county from my permanent address!
about 7 hours ago from web

what's that you say? i've got beans in my ears
1:15 PM Aug 20th from web

new @astallaslions album is insane. it's the music they play on the elevators in heaven. heaven's elevator music is breathtakingly good, btw
5:01 AM Aug 19th from web

i'm getting an ultrasound today for some mysterious abdomen pains. i don't want to know the gender!
6:15 AM Aug 18th from web

what danger is there if you don't think of any?
4:29 AM Aug 16th from web

happy 50th birthday kancamagus highway
1:20 PM Aug 14th from web

les paul died! he did so much more for music than create a sweet gibson. multitrack recording! http://bit.ly/lRFQ4
10:49 AM Aug 13th from web

i sketched my soul
1:13 PM Aug 12th from web



cancel cable: check!
12:50 PM Aug 12th from web

aaaaaaaaaagh jury duty why
6:51 AM Aug 12th from web

you crawl under people's houses, you hear things...
3:04 PM Aug 11th from web

Not much is missing. I've been drinking lots of water to ease my abdomen pains, which seems to work well. I'm on my 4th liter today. Water overdose, say what?

Select pictures to fill in the rest of the blanks:

chicken with 40 cloves!

amy and i went to a drive-in and saw funny people and the hangover

CINNABLOB!

definitely the most attractive sourdough boule to date. amy assembled the dough, that must be why

Leela found the coolest spot in the apartment.

BRIAN OUT.

Moonshadow

Pictures from my night:





Thank you, full moon, new tripod, and 15 second shutter!

BRIAN OUT.

Search Engine Traffic

So I setup Google Analytics to track traffic to this blog, just to see what random strangers may be coming across all of this stuff, and you can see what keywords visitors from search engines used to find the site. I've only had Analytics running for this site for like 3 days, but already things are getting interesting:

Keywords (or keyword phrases) that brought people to this blog:

• brian cunningham computer systems - comment: I bet this was a search some other Brian Cunningham did when he was checking his Google standings for his website and decided to see who this other Brian Cunningham was with the briancunningham.me domain that somehow has a better Google page rank than him. Now let me take a moment and imagine being the Brian Cunningham with a computer systems operation. "I'm going to start my own business. I know about computers. I put together my sister's computer! And that PC for my girlfriend's mother! They think I should do it for a living, because they don't understand anything about computers. I do. Buying hard drives in bulk, helping dumb people and making a good chunk of change on the side, this will be a piece of cake. I could do this for a living, I can compete with Dell and Apple!" Two months later: "Hmm no one seems to know I exist. I should start working at Best Buy and get the word out." Another month later: "I should start a rock band!"
  
• dog training brian cunningham - comment: Interesting, could be the same situation as above, with a person testing out the ranking of their site. Probably is. I search for "brian cunningham blog" all the time, knowing that that's my best chance of finding myself in the first page of Google's results. It makes me feel good. OK, imagination time! "I have a semi-successful dog training operation. It started out great, 15 people and their dogs, but the last session only had 3. And no one has signed up for my next scheduled session. Better use the Internets to get the word out. First step, start a website! How do I do that?" 3 hours later: "OK, free site builders rock! I have sweet GIFs of dogs barking and running in circles. My site's wallpaper is a pattern of dog bones, so on topic and cute. Posted an ad on Craigslist to promote the new site." Next day: "Uh oh, I have 300 emails from my ad! Oh well, I guess I can't complain about turning customers away, that means the business is a success! That'll show grandpa! He never believed in me. Let's see what we've got here. Do I want to work from home and make $10,000 a week? Oh. My. God. An offer? But what about the dog training? I'm gifted with getting them to heel, I really am. But $10k a week, I don't know. Let me go through some more. Jesus. $15,000 a week? I can't believe how great my ad is working out for me!"
• dog poison recipe - comment: Uh, what the hell? Does this mean that someone was searching for a recipe to kill dogs? Uh, what the hell? They're going to find my website with the dog poison cookie recipe I made up and possibly use them to kill dogs? Guilt. I feelz it. But wait, I found sites listing the ingredients that are toxic to dogs, and and, so, it's OK because those will probably come up first in a search like this? And it's not like I want people to poison dogs. I said so in my first dog poison cookie entry. It's not recipes that kill dogs, it's people, right? Right? I'm not going to imagine being the person who did this search.

and, finally:

• brian cunningham murderer - comment: This is a great one, because it could go two ways; the searcher is either looking for Brian Cunningham the murderer, or they are looking for the person who murdered a Brian Cunningham. Either way, it's kind of unsettling, thinking of either murdering someone or being murdered. Heavy stuff. But the searcher probably didn't know the Brian Cunningham that was murdered too well, or else they'd already know the story. Maybe they went to high school with Brian Cunningham. Whoa, maybe someone I went to high school with heard a rumor that I was murdered, and they are casually investigating! I wonder how the rumor got started. "Hmm, where's that Brian Cunningham guy? He didn't come to the 5 year reunion, and we did? What is he, some kind of jerk?" Another person leans in, someone who secretly hates me, spilling a little of his drink. "I heard he was murdered, actually." "Oh my god really? What happened?" "Well, you remember how he was always with that girlfriend of his?" "Sure, what a slutty bitch she turned out to be." "Seriously, a step above crackwhore. Anyways, her father found out that she was a slutty, slutty whore, having sex with like, 5 guys a week, so he decided that it was Brian's fault, being the first person she dated and all, so he took his bow and arrow-" "-wtf a bow and arrow? What kind of guy is this?" "Oh, big time conservative gun maniac. I heard he tried to suicide bomb a pro-choice rally." At this point a small group has begun gathering, including the slutty, dirty, skanky whore they're talking about. But she doesn't realize they're talking about her dad, oblivious to the fact that he is an insane Christian armed to his teeth. She'd been too busy making out with the guy who works at the bar cleaning the toilets. "So he pretty much hunted Brian down, like his prey. He had camoflauge on, and painted his face dark green, the whole thing. He found out where Brian lived and hid in their trash barrel, which was also where they threw out their dog's crap. He waited overnight, and then next morning when Brian got back from walking his dog, he said 'This is for my slutty daughter' and shot him with an arrow from like a foot away. He was immediately arrested, since there were several witnesses, it being a condo complex with lots of people on their way to work." The slutty girl, suddenly remembering her first victim, quickly went home and opened up Google and typed 'brian cunningham murderer,' desperate to know who could've done such a heartless thing. Then she found my blog and saw a picture of a moose, which also happened to be the name of her pimp (Moose), and remembered that she was supposed to be walking the streets an hour ago. Moose was gonna be pissed!

BRIAN OUT.

Dew

Pictures from my morning:











BRIAN OUT.