FARATS Fixer Found! Feeble Foliage Freak Forgiven.

My mystery visitor left an anonymous comment confirming that they had loaded the votes for RTP's Charlie Brown tree. For those of you who may not remember that entry, here it is:

Here is what Anonymous had to say in answer to my query as to whether they had voted many many times for this tree:

"I did and i feel bad. i just liked the little tree.sorry i wont do it anymore if you want to start over."

The feeble foliage on RTP's small tree was bound to evoke feelings like this in somebody. I thought from the start that it might win thanks to its "Charlie Brown" qualities. How can I not forgive somebody who feels remorse and "just really liked the little tree"? Didn't we all? Don't feel too bad mystery visitor, because I've got a decent solution that does not involve starting over.

For submitting an entry that moved somebody to vote like crazy, RTP will receive one of the prizes. The entry that receives the next highest number of votes will receive the same prize, as will one more entrant selected at random. This bumps the prize count from 2 to 3, but when you start with really small and cheap prizes, it's not so bad.

the prize: 100 mL (3.4 fl. oz.) of pure joy joy tree juice

I admonish anyone reading this or interested in this contest not to engage in any more crazy voting - one vote per reader, please!

Oh, yeah, Happy New Year! Can I do that now, or am I guilty of premature congratulation?

R A N T W I C K

Coming Thru

Hey all, just a quick note to put you onto what I think is a pretty damn good bike blog (magazine) that I have never seen before called Coming Thru. It is very nicely designed, has no ads and a really wide variety of well written stuff. Check out this straightforward post about why commuting by bike is good:

http://comingthru.com/2010/07/5-reason-bike-commuting-is-a-smart-choice/ 

The site was started by a Belgian and a Finn, so the perspectives are a little refreshing for North Americans too, or at least I think so.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Statcounter and My Mystery Visitor

You know what? When I look at my recent stats, somebody from London Ontario was visiting the hell out of my site over the past few days in an almost "automated" fashion. In addition, they are using some platform that statcounter (a popular online tool I use to keep web stats) can't figure out. Here's a sample:

Date: Dec 28 20:35:02

Browser: Default Browser 0

OS: unknown

Resolution: unknown

Location: London, Ontario, Canada

ISP: Rogers Cable

Most often they were linking from a google search page but sometimes with no referring link. Rogers Cable is a very popular residential ISP here in London. I left out the IP address of my mystery visitor, because, well, I don't know why but I didn't want to post that kind of info.

Around the same time they were showing up a lot, votes for RTP's Charlie Brown Tree went through the roof. If voting is controlled by a cookie rather than IP address, it could be that the platform they are using can vote as much as it wants... I'm not especially savvy in such things. For the record, I don't think for a second that RTP has anything at all to do with this and I'm not even certain that my mystery visitor is indeed responsible for his tree's outstanding performance anyway.

Hey, mystery visitor, if you read this, tell me if you have been voting many many times for RTP's Charlie Brown tree somehow. I have nothing at all against RTP winning this, but I am becoming curious...

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K