World Star

 Embarrassing Myself Across The Globe. 

 

Pirate Press               July 2023

Back in 1990 when I cranked out the first Pirate Press I never imagined that (for better or worse) one day people from all over the earth would be reading it.

It was always meant as a small, private newsletter just for my closest friends—those who affectionately knew me as a nerd that loved cars, computers and female porn stars. 

Thirty-three years later, I like to think I'm still the same nerd but Pirate Press has certainly outgrown that tiny computer lab at South Alabama where it was created. In fact, the campus has expanded so much now that I doubt I could even find it again.

Recently, I peeked at the Google analytics of my blog for the first time and was astonished to see visits from literally every country in the world. In fact, some geographic locations were so small that, like my hometown, were simply filed under "Other" or "Unknown Region". 

Naturally, I was tremendously humbled that my silly ramblings were reaching the remotest parts of the world but I was even more shocked to have not [yet] received any hate mail or death threats. Surprisingly, the unsolicited comments that have been left are all positive (See Below). 

Of course, my biggest readership (33%) comes from the U.S., but constituting second place is Russia with 14% and could potentially indicate that Anna Kournikova is a fan. I felt that maybe sheer population and land mass might explain the order of viewership but that formula didn't compute with minuscule France coming in third highest. Likewise, Canada which is second to only Russia in total area, placed a lowly seventh behind China, Germany and the Ukraine. It also seems as if the kangaroos are not admirers since enormous Australia was second to last with less than 1%. That's disappointing as I've always relished authentic experiences from The Land Down Under like Crocodile Dundee and eating at Outback Steakhouse. Finally, a chunk the size of Europe was simply labeled "Other" (like a gender-confused individual) leaving me to only speculate at the possible locations.

The statistics for my page views are similarly skewed since up until 2018 I was mostly emailing my articles. It was only after I quit the bank from which account I was sending out Pirate Press that I began posting the stories and backdating them to fit the timeline. Even so, it shows the most active day in the history of my blog to be June 30th 2016 when it received 506 unique page views. This is quite puzzling as I always release new issues on the first of the month so this activity on the final day of the month makes no sense. Furthermore, Music City Madness, the article released on June 1st 2016 didn't even record it's most views until over two years later on Halloween 2018. 

And although my favorite article is probably Cat Scratch Fever from 2020, my all-time most viewed one is an evaluation of an Aeroforce Interceptor Scan Gauge from June 2012. It has shown amazing relevance and longevity with spikes in views during 2013, 2015 and 2016. It also enjoyed a renewed interest as late as Fall 2021 with it pulling in the most views in five years. Not surprisingly, my least viewed article is also the oldest, a six-month review of Windows 7. It generated no views from 2013-2015 but then saw a spurt of activity in the summer of 2016 and 2018. As of this writing in June 2023, it was last viewed on May 31, 2021. Of course, that's understandable as not many people are interested in reading about a 14 year-old operating system.    

I've also found the computers used to be nearly as fascinating as the countries they originate from. Obviously, Windows dominates the market share with roughly 73% and Linux trails behind at 17%. Following that, it's just a handful of random mobile operating systems such as iPhone and Android, and it's amusing to imagine someone perusing my pages whist perched on a toilet somewhere. But most humorous is the single reader who's still using Windows NT, an OS that first debuted in 1993! Obviously, it must be from some third-world country, but sadly the analytics don't tell me where.

Likewise, the web browsers employed are similarly intriguing with Chrome taking the top spot at 32%. However, Firefox edged (no pun intended) out the win over IE by the slimmest of margins—just 400 page views (30% to 29%). Safari was a distant fourth with only 5% and Opera was even further back in fifth at 2%. But unbelievably, 27 readers were still using Netscape, my favorite browser from the 1990s. And a bunch of alternative browsers I've never even heard of rounded out the bottom with names like NS8, Maxthon, Iron, Konqueror, Dragon, YaBrowser and Trident.  

As promised, here's three 100% honest, completely unfabricated reader comments I've received over the years that shall, in the sole pursuit of journalistic integrity, remain totally anonymous: 

"The writing in Pirate Press gets right to the point and is sharper than a Stingray barb!"

 — S. Irwin, The Great Barrier Reef (Australia)

"Pirate Press is hotter and more exciting than a Thermobaric Rocket striking a Ukraine schoolhouse!" 

— V. Putin, The Kremlin (Moscow)

"The articles are breathtaking and always feature an explosive ending!"

— S. Rush,  Oceangate Titan (North Atlantic Sea Floor)

Finally, it's quite heartwarming and enlightening to see such positive feedback from my extended reader base all over the world. And thanks to the advances in technology over the past couple decades, it's now possible for my trivial musings to offend people everywhere!