For example, and for those of you that aren't familiar, when you are drafting a post, right above the regular toolbar (all the usual icons to click if you want to italicize, hi-light, go back, etc.) there are two tabs, "Edit HTML" and "Compose".
I guess I accidentally hit Edit HTML a few months ago, because every post between then and two days ago has been a frustrating experience indeed. Everything I tried to italicize had <'s and >'s everywhere. And any links I tried to include didn't actually link. I mean, the letters were there, but you couldn't just right click them and get connected to anything*. And any pictures I tried to attach were an incomprehensible string of letters, numbers and symbols:
I very vaguely understood that this was HTML (?), but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn it off. As I discovered two days ago, all I needed to do was click on the "Compose" tab. Live and learn.
The other issue is that given that I made zero effort to promote drinking-for-two, for a long time my only readers were friends of mine and/or Sara's, so I didn't have a lot of incentive to check my stats or anything like that.
However, things change.
While my number of "followers" has been static since about last May**, my readership has recently increased dramatically. What's significant to this particular post is that part of this is due to having acquired a healthy number of readers from Russia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. In fact, Russia is now 2nd only to Canada in terms of number of page views by country. How?? Why?? Has there been a sudden increase of interest in Evan Dando's penis in the Eastern Block?
I managed to figure out that one of the "referring" sites is this: http://troll-face-ru.blogspot.com/. I visited the site, naturally, to try and figure out "how?? why??". As best I have it, it's a collective of Russian cartoonists. But it hasn't revealed a damn thing. Given that it's almost all in Russian. Never mind that it's a whole different language. It's a whole different ALPHABET.
But it sort of makes me wish that I could read Russian, not only because I would like to understand how visitors to troll-face could possibly be connected to me***, but also because I really like the artwork.
My Russian literacy is limited to one word. Het. Pronounced, nyet. Meaning, no.
My spoken Russian is not much better. Da: yes. Nyet: no. Dasvidanya: goodbye (literally, until we meet again). Babushka: old woman or grandmother. Borscht: borscht. Smiert spionom: death to spies (which I learned from watching the Bond movie The Living Daylights****). Fetyuk: pussy, as in, "don't be such a pussy" (a now obsolete slang word which I learned from reading Gogol's Dead Souls). The end. (Kahneehetz). I just learned that one. Thanks, Google.
Think I might actually get Rosetta Stone for Russian. It is, after all, the country/language of 1/4 of my ancestors*****. Given my gift for follow-through, I expect I'll actually get the software sometime in between now and 4 years from now. And maybe, very much maybe, sometime in between that and the time of my death, I will be able to recite the Cyrillic alphabet and have expanded my vocabulary to 30 or 40 words.
At any rate, to celebrate my new Slavic friends, and more importantly, to celebrate (if I must) the recent impregnation of one of my oldest friends******, I propose that I collect a group to go back to the Russian vodka bar near my apartment for a second go at Absinthe. And also some vodka. Maybe even hang out and pretend we like Russian dance music. Who's with me? They give you free pickles!
*ie, Don't call me Grank. Anyone who read that post and didn't actually look up the urbandictionary definitions because the links didn't work should give it another try. I fixed it*******.
**I curse all of you who read regularly but have not bothered to officially "follow". You make me appear very unpopular.
***I expect that the connection is something completely random (rather than the acquisition of an actual fan of my prose stylings), but I'd still like to know.
****Timothy Dalton, without question, is the most under-rated Bond ever. He was awesome!
*****If anyone was ever curious about the ethnic origins of "Granken". It's Russian. One of my dad's clearest/dearest memories from his childhood is watching the coldwar American news with his dedushka and having said dedushka shake his head at the translations of the horrible things the Commies were saying, commenting, "you know, that isn't what he said." Wait. I guess I can add dedushka to my vocabulary.
******this particular friend decided to tour eastern Europe after university graduation, and spent about a month in Sarajevo waiting for a visa to get into Russia which never materialized.
*******I can't be sure that it has anything to do with my request for help, but in the meantime, there have been a couple of additions to the definition for the adjective, "granky". And I'll take them:
1. an emotion, between happy and horny. ie: oh, im so granky right now
and
2. cool. ie: that was pretty damn granky
If anyone out there is responsible for any of this: THANK YOU. Regardless, things are still looking up.
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