A Week in Tokyo 27
Starting off the week with some Korean food with member Len Vesper.
Just thought that I'd mention that I have a load of figure samples - many of which are unboxed. At times, when I'm waiting for a stash of new samples, I end up giving readers some of my older (but in good condition) figures - do forgive me if you end up with an unboxed or older figure when we meet ^^;
While I don't get to meet everyone due to the schedule, do ping me if you are up for meets during your trip to Tokyo - my contact details in my profile page.
Figma Kagami is still my fave figma who I take with me everywhere.
Ah before I forget, site stats are now going to be posted as a News Item under "stats". So that I don't bore you to death every month, I will update you occasionally in the Week in Tokyo series.
September served just under 19 million page views (18,961,758) to an average of 90,829 unique daily users. The monthly unique users amounted to an accumulative total of 2.7 million visitors (2,724,893).Also, I need to get a better understanding of how many folks are using the feeds so will be playing with some header redirects and FeedBurner - let me know if you spot anything odd.
These numbers have gone down a bit since Aug where total page views were 2,016,7204 and users were 2,869,758. Most of this is due to me sending users to my flickr instead - wanted to offload traffic to flickr for a more stable server than trying to ramp up page views. Another reason why views are down a bit is because I'm not writing as much articles as before. Rather than churn out quantity, I want to take more time to deliver original photo articles - still stand by my earlier Quality over Quantity statement ^^
Learnings
1. I notice some folks reporting how many "hits" they get on their site and just thought I would clarify what a "hit" means. A hit is a single request to the server. So if a top page has 60 images and 1 CSS file, a single visit to that top page would get 62 hits including the actual HTML for that page - more definitions of "hit" here.
Folks who are looking for advertisers may want to consider publishing actual page views and unique users as advertisers are not interested in hits. My hits for September were 152 million (152,338,492) but that does not mean anything and I would only be embarrassing myself if I published that number ^^;
2. The "this time last year" feature has done really well since they started to appear in the feeds - great for new users (judging from the page views) but probably annoying for veteran readers - will look for a solution around this although I do notice many veterans going back to enjoy the new conversation.
3. The Alexa rank has taken a nosedive since Firefox 3 was released - looks like many IE6 users made the switch. Alexa is still mainly powered by software in old versions that came installed in Windows in IE6. Nearly 60% of dannychoo.com users are now on Firefox - stats here.
4. Got dannychoo.com banned by the adsense folks again ^^; Luckily I have comrades there and my account is now activated. Keywords such as "s-e-x", "breas-ts" etc are automatically detected by google and if there are spikes in traffic then the Google Adsense police come to see if there is anything fishy going on - ie adsense blocks on a page with ecchi content..
These particular words also affect the number of pages indexed by Google and affects Page Rank. This is one of the reasons why some of your posts go missing. Please use the standard words like "eyes" or "dolphin" or "health care time" etc if you need to describe these objects/actions ^^;
Notable referrers of the month were... And thanks to my sponsors And thanks to everybody else who drove traffic to the site. Will be implementing new sharing features to make it up to you.
Finally, thanks to you the reader and the great folks who participate in the community.
Living in Tokyo, not only do you get interesting experiences reading Engrish here n there, you also get to listen to it - this chap was singing in his best Engrish - the crowd around him oblivious to what he was actually saying.
Th Japanese still crazy about Krispy Kreme - a huge line (which I forgot to take a pic of) at this store. Example of a Krispy Kreme queue below.
Japan has Cold Stone too but the girls would burst out singing every now and then - very cute. Singing Cold Stone girls in your region too?
Spent a while deciding what I wanted because it all looked yummy. Been studying how more choice can at times confuse customers/users. This is one of the reasons why I had the portal redesign a while ago.
I think this is what I chose...
Which ended up looking like this. Which is sweeter - the dessert or Kagami?
The latest M Dee's goodies are chibi maruko-chan - anybody watch this? I usually watch it on TV while having din dins on Sunday evening.
Time for some yakiniku at Anrakutei. Its where you cook raw meat on the grill in the middle of the table. Do they serve this in your neck of the woods?
Do recommend you try it when in Japan.
I usually go for the egg soup, rice and a few plates of meat.
Many places in Japanese restaurants have these electronic bells which you use to call the waitress/waiter. If they had these in Hackney London then they would be all gone.
Fried ice cream type dessert.
One of my fave past times - office cleaning/figure dusting.
A raccoon (?) in a UFO catcher with its tail tied to the rack.
Picking up some evening dessert from the local supermarket.
Dead animals in a bag.
Lunch with Tsurya-san.
How are you liking the new season of Heroes? Heard some folks knocking it but I'm enjoying it. I hear its been difficult to get hold of a recording from friends?
Nendo puchi Haruhi is soo sweet.
Spring rolls at the Chinese place round the corner.
Some Macross Ace Frontier for your PSP anyone?
Din dins at home.
Lunch with Kagami - 880 yen.
As each year passes, I notice Halloween being celebrated more n more. Actually the word I should use is "monetized." As with Christmas, Halloween is another event that people spend money on without knowing the true meaning.
I'll be staying at home this Halloween but know that a load of gaijin will be out n about > Gaijin...
The lovely Melody and her new album.
Wherever you go in Tokyo, you will always find part timers handing out leaflets for contact lenses. Most Japanese people I know use contacts. Have not really asked the reasoning of their personal preference to contacts over glasses.
I tried (green) contacts as a teenager but never got used to them - probably because contacts for folks who have Astigmatism didn't exist back then.
I choose not to wear contacts today because I don't think I could be bothered with all the hassle of maintaining them. I know that they sell the one day disposable contacts but still.
A relative told me a horror story about how one of her friends had a contact go to the back of her eyeball - she had to have an operation to get it out. I think thats another reason why I want to stay away too ^^;
Besides, glasses don't look that bad at all. They are annoying sometimes especially when doing sports (sky diving/ swimming) or cosplaying as Vader (they steam up), but find them easy to maintain over contacts.
Do you prefer glasses or contacts and why?
Oh and I really dislike ads like the one below taking the mickey of out girls wearing glasses - girls with glasses are gorgeous!
Afternoon tea with Foxkeh.
Evening in the lounge with some Kemeko manga reading, TV and a few warm beverages.
The kewpie worm baby.
Some Tai Yaki after an evening stroll - 150 yen.
Mentioned in my British Embassy Tokyo news item - trying to figure out why the British Ambassador David Warren wants to have lunch with me.
This mornings desk.
Hectors desk - also full O figures ^^;
Out n about in Shibuya.
Meeting at iKnow.co.jp.
The iPod Touch box makes a great case for a figma. Speaking of Apple - cant wait to hear what new laptop they are going to announce tomorrow.
New dashboard figure Asakura replaces the Tropical Dom.
And take a look at more pics of this lovely lass over at the GSC site - just gorgeous.
