My Favorite Posts

Can you believe it has been ten years since I started the Poop? I'm still enjoying doing it, though with much less frequency. I've cut back on how often I post of course, but I hope I still give you reason to come back and visit at least once a week.
I don't post as much current events because by the time I get around to doing it, they're no longer current.
But it's been a great way to catalog my life experiences and pictures, and stay in touch and share thoughts with friends.
Out of nearly 7,000 posts here are some of my favorites.

My favorite soups

My favorite song

My favorite gruesome sports injury

The funniest moment of Chase's life

An important moment in Chase's life

A funny moment on home shopping networks, two moments actually

My defense of the Charlie Brown Halloween special

The post that really started it all

My favorite tag/label

The most popular post ever

And of course this one that we all look forward to every year

If I stick with this for 10 more years, there will be a post about dropping Chase off at college.
Marinate on that.

What the Heck Happened?

One day I noticed an unusual spike in hits for the Poop.

Most of them were for the post titled "Mrs. Poop's Evening Workout." That was the post speculating about Undercover Boss coming to Retro Fitness, which did eventually happen.
As you may remember, that episode featured a horrible employee named Jackie who was fired for her behavior on the show.

I am guessing that episode recently aired for the first time in New Zealand.

Note: that original post has 25 comments (most all-time) and 3400 page views (just outside the top 10 all-time).

Happy Poop Day!

Eight years ago I launched this blog on November 3rd and I have kept it going for all these years and exactly 6400 posts (including this one).
At times it's been a chore but I've always had fun doing it and I appreciate all of you who have read and commented (especially commented) during those years.
And I plan to keep it going for 8 or 18 or 80 more.

Who Wore It Best?

Who wore this Larry Fitzgerald jersey and black thong better, The Poop or Bibi Jones?

I could have sworn I posted this months ago when Bibi Jones was in the news, but I guess I didn't.

Padding My Year End Stats

The Poop has seen an incredible surge in activity the last two days of 2010 thanks to being linked from si.com's Hot Clicks. It linked to my post of Rex Ryan taking his jersey off as a little something for the ladies this year.
5,000 hits over two days, that's probably the most hits we've gotten since Matt Leinart knocked up his girlfriend.

I'm actually proud my Rex Ryan post was used because I often go through a lot of hard work to make sure Poopheads get to see full and complete pictures of something worth seeing. I hate when there's something that you absolutely have to see, yet no blogs have the pictures of it. The internet, like TV is a visual medium. Must show pictures.

Two Milestones

This is the 5000th post in the history of the Poop.
Not bad for a blog that's a little more than 4 years old (can't believe I missed Poop Day this year. It's November 3rd, remind me next year assholes, send me a card, or an e-card, how hard could that be?).

Here are the number of posts made in each of the 4 full years:

2006: 1631
2007: 1356
2008: 1047
2009: 647

That's a major decline of 38% from 2008. Basically I just don't have the time, so I am lot more discerning with what I post. I've looked at old posts from 2006 and I wouldn't bother reading half that stuff now. But the blog is definitely a lot worse now. Stuff is old, or not published at all. Sometimes it's dark for days at a time if I don't have time to prep stuff to autopost. And readership by real people is down too. I'd say right now we only have about 15-20 real Poopheads.

But there is one thing that's way up: the number of hits. Via google searches for various things, the Poop is getting more hits and page views than ever. In fact, that's the second milestone. We recently passed half a million page views (as calculated by Google) in the history of the Poop.

Voting is Efficacious

A couple weeks ago I asked the Poopheads if I should give a dollar to the homeless woman who complimented my Mitchell & Ness Mets jacket. The overwhelming response was yes. But after the votes were counted, I didn’t see her again – until yesterday. When I stopped to give her a dollar she started telling me her life story (“I was always poor, my father worked in a furniture store”) and asked me for another dollar. Sounds like old sob story-beg for more hustle you often see in strip clubs. Whatever the case I gave her $2 at the behest of the Poopheads and it’s going to take me 300 ad clicks to make that money back.

Should TON Do Some Work?

I hate change.
But there comes a time when it becomes necessary to improve.
For instance, the blue and orange background you see now has been my layout since I started this blog nearly four years ago.
But as things change (this blog predates youtube), this layout may have outlived its usefulness.
Is it time for TON to choose a new layout that doesn't cut off widescreen youtube vidoes?

Turning the Page to Poopfest

Now that Chase's birthday is out of the way I've turned my attention to Poopfest. I know a lot of you have told me in person you would be coming, but if you could be kind enough to reply in the comments section of this post, or the other one, I'd appreciate it because I really can't remember who told me what and Mrs. Poop is going to yell at me, and I'm not going to know how much food to buy.
If you haven't RSVPed by Monday I'm going to have to e-mail you to make sure you read this post.
Thanks.
Once again the date is September 5th, the time is 4pm and the address is being withheld but if you need it, please e-mail me.

Poopfest

Saturday, September 5th, at the Poop house.
In order to make this year's Poopfest more kid-friendly we'll be starting at 4pm, and I will be barbecuing various meat products.
Because of this I will need an accurate count of who is coming.
So please use the comments section to RSVP.
I need to know if you are coming, but also if you aren't.
Otherwise I will have to contact you to make sure you saw the post.
Believe it or not some people whom I might consider friends and want at Poopfest, don't necessarily read the Poop and feel excluded when I use this forum to break news.
So everyone who doesn't reply in say the next two weeks, is going to get a nasty e-mail from me, so you might as well just state your intentions.
I'll leave the link to this post in the header at the top of the page so it can be easily found.

Because of the vagaries of kashrut I ask that you not bring anything.
But if due to your strict Chinese upbringing (you know who you are) you cannot go to someone's house as a guest and not bring anything or you bring shame and dishonor to your family, then bring beer, I guess.

We hope to see as many of you as possible.

And those of you needing my address (which I choose not to disclose in this forum) should contact me via e-mail or Facebook.

Also, for out-of-town guests, the Poop Motel will have limited availability so if you want to stay overnight with us please reserve your room as soon as possible.

The Way Life Should Be

We're headed to Maine for our annual lobster-eating, beach-reading vacation.

As always, in my absence, TON is in charge.

I may have limited internet access to post some things, and I wrote up a few posts I've been working on and get them ready to auto-publish in my absence.

I also posted a bunch of pictures on Chase's blog which will post every other day during the week.

I am also prepared to make a major Poop announcement when I get back.

Classic What Do You Give Me For? The Poop and Hedo Turkoglu

With the new poll feature on this site, and the Magic losing in the NBA Finals I figured now would be a good time to revisit this classic post.



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These Fuckers Gotta Buy

Throughout the nearly four years of The Poop the blog is been a labor of love (more labor than love lately) I never anticipated nor expected any financial gain.
But that hasn't stopped me from trying.
I've earned about $200 from participating in Google's ad program.
Now I'm also an Amazon Associate.
You may have noticed the ads that come along with Paulo's Book Club and even a product review.
Amazon pays me 4% of the purchase price for any item purchased directly from an ad on The Poop.
It's not going to make me rich but if you're buying the item just the same then wouldn't it be nice to play Robin Hood and kick a little something back my way.

April Fool's

Kudos to those of you who caught on to my April Fool's Day Joke. But I don't think any of you specifically noticed the hints, if you had you would have been convinced it's a joke. Not only did I choose 4/1 to make this announcement, check out the time of day I posted this, and go back and read the first two words of every paragraph.

Here's why I did it:

1) I'm a narcissist
2) The enjoyment I get from this blog is the feedback and reaction from all of you. I wanted to see who would react and how, and if anyone would pick up on the hints.
3) Most importantly, pretty much everything I said in that post is true. I have no time to this anymore. It does seem like a chore to me. What I loved about this when I was first doing it is that I was writing the blog I wanted to read. I was posting things in a timely fashion, finding the best pictures to illustrate my story (I hate reading a blog that says "you should have seen this" or "so-and-sos wife is so hot" without the accompanying visual evidence) and I was writing these stories better than the AP or other services and adding my own twisted take on these events. Now all I do is cut and paste directly from the AP, and I do it five days after you've already heard the stories.
4) This post was actually my apology for doing such a crappy job on the Poop lately and a warning that it doesn't seem like the content here will improve, but I trust you'll find it beats the alternative.
5) But, all that being said, I don't plan to ever make an official announcement ending this blog. So much of my life is already recorded in these virtual pages it would be ashame to just let it die. So what I intend is to do the best I can for as long as possible.

Happy Poop Day

It was three years ago that I launched this blog (under a different name).
Since then I have posted more than 4,000 times about things going on in my life and the world.
At first it started because I would send Mrs. Poop e-mails about interesting stories, but so often I realized those stories would be of interest to others as well.
So I decided to start this blog to share my thoughts and stories with all of you in an easier format.
Initially I thought most of my close friends would read it occassionally, but the response has been overwhelmingly. Old friends, new friends, friends of friends, have all become devoted readers. People who I've only met once or twice are among the most committed.
According to the way Google tracks page impressions, The Poop has gotten 366,000 clicks in three years.
Recently traffic has been so good we've gotten at least 200 clicks everyday since mid-July. That may not sound like much but it puts The Poop in the upper echelon of personal blogs.
I recently cashed a check for $155 from all the advertising Poopheads have clicked on.
It's been a lot of hard work, and I would never want to guess at how many hours I've spent on it (I probably could have cured cancer if I'd used my time more productively), but I've had a lot of fun doing it and I hope to keep going for at least 3 more years.
And you guys keep the comments coming, I love reading them, and when I post something cute about Chase and no one says anything Mrs. Poop gets FURIOUS!

Obscure Titles Explained

I've had some obscure references in Poop titles lately and I thought it might be instructive and fun to point out where these titles came from.

"You Sound Like a Damn Fool When You Say It Wrong" is what 2015 Biff Tannen says to 1955 Biff Tannen.



"Good...Great...Grand" is said by the bus driver says Billy Madison his attempts to say he or a friend of his, banged Veronica Vaughn.



"How Dare You Sir" is the famous quote from Jack Ryan in "Clear and Present Danger."



"My Cupholder is Broken" - The most common, perhaps apochraphyl, story of an idiotic question for tech support, from a user who broke his CD-Rom drive by putting his coffee cup in it.

"Like Elmer Fudd Sitting on a Juicer" - Jerry Seinfeld's description of his girlfriend's horrible laugh

The First Rule of The Poop

We don't talk about The Poop on Facebook.
On Facebook I am friends with a lot of people I work with, all of whom for many reasons, do not know about The Poop.
And I'd like to keep it that way.
Given the nature of Facebook and the way everyone can see everything, it's better not to mention the Poop.

The Summer of Poop

We are going on vacation.
The summer of Poop starts with a trip to Baltimore for my parents' 40th anniversary celebration.
Approximate round trip distance: 398 miles

Then we are off to Maine for an abbreviated version of our annual summer vacation.
Approximate round trip distance: 624 miles

After that it's off to Hershey, Pennsylvania for JLeary's wedding.
Approximate round trip distance: 340 miles

Then we get back to work for three days before we go to Toronto for my cousin's wedding.
Approximate round trip distance: 980 miles

So not including other driving we'll be doing while at those locations that brings the total mileage to 2342 miles.

Assuming that Mellow Yellow gets about 19 miles per gallon, I'll have to buy about 124 gallons of gas.

At the national average of $4.07 a gallon, that brings my gas cost to $504.68.

That means I won't have much time to post things on the Poop or the Recap. I'll try to get something in every game for the Recap, even if I just lift stuff from the AP write, just so that I have some kind of record of every game. But you may not find very much or anything here at the Poop.

As usual when I'm away TON is in charge in case of breaking news (I hope another one of my favorite players doesn't die) or anything else he feels like writing about.

The Way OxyContin is Supposed to Work

OxyContin, the brand name for OxyCodone, is actually a wonderful pain reliever when used appropriately. The drug was designed with a time release component so that the patient could get pain relieving effects from one pill over a period of 12 hours.
But the drug has become so widely abused because when crushed, the time release no longer works and the user can get the full effect of the drug over a much shorter period of time.
As some astute Poopheads may have noticed Blogspot has a new feature that works the way OxyContin is supposed to.
I can now assign a time in the future to a post when I write. Without me doing anything further, that post will automatically publish when it hits that time.
So instead of releasing a group of 6 posts in the morning and nothing again until the next morning, I'm now staggering my posts in intervals of about 2 hours, as per the results of this poll.

How Do You Like Your Poop?

I know most of you Poopheads read on a daily basis and have noticed that some days very few things get posted, while other days, I hit you with a barrage of stuff.
This is because the amount of posts I write is a function of the amount of time I have to work on them.
A lot of days I will create ideas and leave them until I have time to craft them into something worth reading. On those days I can finish up as many as 15 posts. That seems like too many posts for a Poophead to digest so I'll often save completed stories and not post them until a day when I have less time, so you at least have something to read.

Would you rather I just post everything as soon as I finish it, 15 some days, 1 or 2 other days?