20,000 Views

Woohoo! Thanks everyone!

Question About Blogging

I’ve been blogging for more than a year now, and I’ve started looking back on the whole experience. I like to think I’ve improved a little bit, but that’s part of the problem.

Sprinkled about my blogs older pages are posts that um, kinda suck, are useless or have become so dated as to be pointless (e.g. posts telling that I’ve changed my banner when I’ve since changed it again).

I was kind of wondering what I should do about that. I’ve been wondering if I should delete them so that my average post quality is a bit higher. Sounds good, but it almost feels like cheating or something, I don’t know.

I might also get overzealous an delete something someone might actually be interested in. It should also be mentioned that even some of my crappiest posts still attract a good deal of hits from search engines.

Do any of you guys have an opinion about this? Delete some older posts and hope it makes my blog more readable or keep them and soak up whatever stragglers they attract in?

Entries That Didn’t Quite Make the Cut

I mentioned some time ago that I had a sizable backlog of incompleted drafts. Well, some of these entries were never meant to be. This is my official notice of cancellation.

I’m going to give the title of the entry, and either summarize what I was trying to accomplish with the entry or make my point in as few words as possible. Alternatively I may keep a few select quotes. OK, here we go:

2007 in Review (Third Installment)
I was originally gonna list every search query that landed a visitor here like I did the blog’s other statistics on some other posts, but decided against it due to the amount of traffic I received from people looking for a certain illegal, unethical brand of p$rn$$$$phy due to the Abyssal vs. the Pe%%%%%le entry.

A Comparative Entomology of Michigan and West Virginia
One thing I noticed when I moved down here to WV was that the insect life was quite a bit different than in my birth state of Michigan.

I was planning to write a detailed comparison or something, I don’t really know what I was thinking. Anyway, if I ever write about insects, it will be as a contribution to Wikipedia.

E.T. Versus Nessie!
For some reason I haven’t gotten to write about the paranormal nearly as much as I wanted to with this blog. “ET versus Nessie!” was a weak attempt at rectifying this. Sadly, it was never meant to be.

The post can be summed up in one sentence: I believe that the evidence for UFOs is a lot more convincing than the evidence for Nessie. And I’ll leave it at that.

But, well, just for the heck of it, I’ll post a link I included in the article. It’s a cool little page detailing some of the many Loch Ness related hoaxes that have come forward as evidence for Nessie. Nifty.

A Failure of Mine as a Fantasy Author
I don’t really write fantasy. I was referring to my RPG Maker project. Truth is, I don’t even remember what I was so dissatified with. Oops. All I do know was it was something minor and not worth writing about. So I’m not going to.

Jack Chick’s Straw Man Portrayal of Human Evolution
Jack Chick made a tract that very unfavorably misrepresented the case for human evolution. Needless to say, like most of Chick’s work, it was a steaming pile of bullshit.

I intended to write a rebuttal, but since human evolution isn’t much of a topic of interest for me, I put it off. Here we are, months later and it still hasn’t been posted. I figure that nows as good a time as any to finally cancel it for good.

Well, that’s it for this round of canceled entries. See ya ’round.

Thinking About Changing my Blog’s Url

I was thinking about changing my blog’s url. My main reason is because, as many of you may have noticed, my username is not spelled correctly. Leviathin should be spelled Leviathan.

That didn’t seem like such a big deal back when I first started using it, but nowadays it’s a constant source of mild embarrasment. I’d like my blog to have an url that was actually spelled right. I’d also like it to be a bit shorter and more memorable.

So… I guess the first thing to ask is… is it worth it? I do intend on moving all my posts and comments, so I won’t be losing any content. But, with that said, would I lose any notable amount of traffic? Would search engines have a hard time keeping up? Are there any other problems that could pop up?

And if I do move, what should my new url be? I’ve brainstormed up a few, but new suggestions, or comments on ones I’ve already given would be really helpful.

abyssal.wordpress.com <– taken.
abyssalblog.wordpress.com
abyssalweb.wordpress.com
abyssalnet.wordpress.com
abyssalsite.wordpress.com
abyssalplace.wordpress.com

Intelligent School Shooting Plan?

That’s really freaky. Especially since this is April, and the Virginia Tech and Columbine anniverseries are coming up. Geez. I hope this guy gets some help with his problems. Hey man, if you’re out there, or if someone else is reading this that feels like this guy does, here are some resources for people dealing with anger and depression:

http://www.helpyourselftherapy.com/topics/angerp.html

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ahead4health/anger.htm

http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=1010

http://www.have-a-heart.com/depression-help-1.html

http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=473

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/center_index.php?id=5

http://www.psychologyinfo.com/depression/help.html

P.S. Anti-depressants can be really helpful, too! Don’t believe the bad press and conspiracy theories. Don’t expect a miracle, but I can say from experience that they’re helpful. Try Wellbutrin XL.

I’m Not a Girl, Retards!

Got some interesting traffic today. <_<

Seriously, wtf is up with that?

Don’t Count on Hearing From Me For A While

To make a long story short, I missed paying my tuition deadline and was administratively withdrawn from the university. Which sounds really scary. Except it’s not. All it did was make tuition payment an inconvenience, as I had to wait for Uni to process all the payments and registrations of the punctual students before I could get mine in.

I felt stupid. I had just completely forgot, until a few hours after the deadline. That’s always how my memory works. I forget until it’s too late to do anything, but I remember early enough that I have plenty of time to stress and stew over whatever it was I forgot about. I wasn’t worried this time, though. I had done the same thing last semester (that time because I was out of town) and had little trouble out of it.

I informed my dad that due to my stupidity we would not be able to pay my tuition until I was out of town. Actually, this is gonna be a long story anyway. Sorry about that. Which meant that he would have to stop by the bursar’s office to pay my bill. Not a major burden.

So imagine my surprise when yesterday my dad calls and gives me a delivery through the phone. Turns out that Dad wanted to serve me a heaping platter of Tirade liberally peppered with profanity, threats and spiced with character attacks.

He congratulates me on being kicked out of college with no hope of readmission. Although by “congratulate” I mean “scream ’til his voice was too hoarse to continue.” Eventually there was a loud crashing noise. I think he threw the phone. Then there was static. I think he broke the phone. And that was that, I guess. I bet you $100 he’s gonna blame me for “making” him break the phone, too.

I was kinda confused. I knew about my withdrawal, and so did Dad. Compounding my confusion was the fact that a couple hours beforehand I was online on my university “information liaison online,” or whatever it was called, that said my account with school was fully registered for courses, in academic good standing, not owing any fees apart from tuition and that once I paid that I was all set. Still, dad was so upset that I started worrying myself.

So, I set about trying to rectify the situation. One hour later I was reinstated as a student sans paid tuition. Problem go bye-bye. And just to let you get a better idea of how fast it was solved, I should inform you that most of that hour was spent navigating my school’s moronically designed website (which incidentally gets worse with each update), trying to get ahold of an employee at the registrar’s office (for some reason I couldn’t get anyone until I called another branch of the staff and have them transfer me to the registrar) and then calling Dad who was apparently too miffed to answer the phone.

When Dad finally decided to pick up, he apparently never bothered to check the like, 8 messages I left, so he didn’t know I solved the problem. Looks like I was getting second helpings of that Tirade. Yum.

Dad continued his tirade, anyway, despite me carefully explaining that there was no more problem, and never really . I think that bruised ego may be the cause of this. Maybe he was ticked that after all that screaming and swearing and throwing stuff
around all it took was 3 minutes on the phone with the lady to solve the problem.

To cut to the chase, he ended up blaming the incident on being “lazy,” and my being “lazy” on my seemingly excessing computer use. Dad says that from now on my computer is for school work and school work only. And, he adds that if he catches me “playing stupid games” he’ll “bust it up and throw it over the hillside.”

This’ll all blow over. Eventually. But until then, which may be a duration of time last from zero days to several months, don’t be surprised if I don’t post much, if at all.

2007 in Review (Second Installment)

Care to know the minutiae of what and when people clicked on links I’ve posted during 2007? Then this post will be a dream come true!

2007 in Review

Apparently 2007 is just about over. Wow. The time just flies on by. Anyway, I thought I’d post summaries of how my blog did in its first year of life. I mean, technically I still have about a month to go before this blog gets its first birthday, but, who gives a rip about the technicalities, right? Shout out to WhoreChurch for the idea.

Top Posts for 365 days ending 2007-12-31 (Summarized)

Summarize: 7 Days 30 Days

2006-12-31 to Today

Title	Views
Pekka-Erik Auvinen’s Manifesto: A Commen	886
Image Macros for Forum Debates	348
St. John, the Beloved Desciple, has been	280
Quotes	172
I Lit My Armpit Hair on Fire Today	148
About Me	123
RPG Maker	106
Facts	100
Abyssal vs. the Pedophile	83
Soulstorm Legacy Logo Designed (Graphics	78
How I got into RPG Maker: Prologue, Part	74
My Grandma had a Stroke and Latin isn’t	71
Some Fractals I Generated	54
Religious Quotes	53
Random Soulstorm Legacy Screenshots (Sin	47
Another Fractal Wallpaper	36
I’ve Lost my Muse!	34
Fractal Wallpapers: Third Iteration	29
Links	27
A follow up on the “List of Ammonites”	26
Antlions in my Backyard!	25
Quick Thoughts on the New Nessie Footage	22
The Baraminology of Negroes	21
Fractal Wallpapers: Fourth Iteration	21
Fractal Wallpapers: Second Iteration	20
I Visited CARM Yesterday…	19
I Updated my Banner	18
Advertising, Industry, and Economics	15
The General Epistle of Jude	15
Symptoms of Mental Illness? Cho’s Girlfr	13
Fractal Wallpapers: Fifth Iteration	13
My Heart Goes Out to Virginia Tech	12
AiG’s Goals –Proof or Promotion?	11
Woohoo, my Clustr Map’s First Update!	11
Society for Scientific Exploration	10
RPG Maker Links	10
Update on the Ol’ Clustr Map	9
You are an IDIOT!	9
“Let There be Lists!”	9
Gotta Love War!	9
You Might be a Fundie…	8
Resources	8
Blogging The Bible!	6
More Fractals!	6
Evolution	5
I’ve been searched!	4
“As Spammy as my Namesake” -Abyssal_levi	4
Creation/Evolution Links	4
Soulstorm Trilogy	3
Something Crucial I Forgot	3
Science, Nature, and Technology	3
The Computer Labs are Open	3
I Like Acanthodians, too…	2
You might be a… (part deuce)	2
Non-Fiction	2
I’m not slacking off…	1
UFOs	1
Stuff I’ve Read	1

Curious as to how you can do this yourself? Here is…

The Procedure

Step 1 Copy the following link (In a new tab! Don’t leave my site!):

http://abyssalleviathin.wordpress.com/wp-admin/index.php?page=stats&blog=705353&view=postviews&numdays
=365&summarize

Just don’t forget to fix the two spaces that will appear after “numdays”!

Step 2 Replace “abyssalleviathin” with your WordPress username.

Step 3 Open the resulting page’s source code.

Step 4 Copy from “
Top Posts for 365 days ending 2007-12-31 (Summarized)

” to “lessthanslashtablegreaterthan” Sorry that looks weird, I had to stop the html from parsing. somehow.

Step 5 Start a new post.

Step 6 Paste into the “code” tab of the new post page.

Step 7 Pat self on back.

Abyssal’s Blog Gets a D!

I found this nifty Website Grader which scores you based on how good its “Marketing Effectiveness” is. I gave it a shot and ran my blog through it, as I was curious to see how it would do.

My score was 64/100. Ouch. Actually, that’s really not bad. Sounds not-so-good at first (it would be a D if it was a school assignment), but what the score means is that my site was more “effective” than 64% of the sites that have been plugged into the grader so far. Presumably there’s been quite a few, so I’ll take my D as a compliment.

UFO Oops

I recently posted an entry detailing what seems to be a UFO sighting I had at about 10 PM on 11-19-2007. I now must say that I made an error in that entry. I posted an animated gif purporting to give a crude visual of the more detailed part of the sighting. Unfortunately, I accidentally posted the first, less accurate gif that I made. I have replaced it with the image below, which better demonstrates the change in speeds the “object” exhibited.

I’m going to post a follow-up on the sighting in the future, so keep an eye out.

Blogging The Bible!

A while ago I stumbled upon a site documenting one non-practicing Jew’s attempt to reconnect with his roots and finally get around to reading the Old Testament. It was called “Blogging the Bible,” and while I never got around to finishing reading everything he wrote, I thought it was a fascinating little endeavor.

For a long time I have been completely neglectful of my own study of the scripture, and the fact that I’ve not read all of it still lingers over my faith like a black cloud. Also I must say that the nature of my faith is changing (and I hope in a positive way) and I have many questions along with a dire shortage of answers. So, I thought I might do something similar.

I’m going to be posting Bible passages along with comments from yours truly as I try to sort out the nature, teachings and resolving difficulties for me as a Christian regarding the Bible. And hopefully at the end of it I’ll come out having read the entirety of scripture and hopefully some answers and maybe end up a better Christian. I’m crossin’ my fingers.

Don’t expect this to be some fuzzy “Oooh, wow, God is great! Aw, look at that, how wonderful!” thing. This is going to be a hard, mildly skeptical look at my faith’s founding document, not a sermon or an attempt at apologetics. And don’t expect this to be a mocking commentary such as the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. I have a lot of respect for scripture, but even more questions. I want to learn about and from the Bible, not to look down on it.

My first entry will be on The General Epistle of Jude. I picked it randomly, but it ended up being a good decision because it has those interesting Apocryphal references and of course because it’s so short,

Woohoo, my Clustr Map’s First Update!

I’ve been really wanting one of these for a long time, you know those maps that show where your visitors are from and mark their locations on a map. “Clustr Maps” they’re called apparently. Well, yesterday I motivated my lazy butt into getting one, which was slightly difficult seeing as how I didn’t know what to search for. In any case it wasn’t too hard to find, and much to my surprise, it’s already been updated. *Points proudly at the side bar.*

Long Time No See, eh?

Hello, readers. It’s been a while. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say right now, but I’ve been wanting to at least alert you about my continued survival. That’s right. Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

You may be interested in what I’ve been up to while I haven’t been writing here, but unfortunately I’m going to have to be cryptic and mysterious about that, for the most part. You see, I have been extremely busy involving myself in another internet endeavor and the only thing I have to say about it here is that it looks like my attempts were a monumental failure.

Apart from that I had been up north at my mom’s place for several weeks. Very nice to see some familiar faces. I got to see Wescott (who had recently been to Japan) and some of my other old friends. Not to my surprise, but definitely to my pleasure, one of said friends, Jason, now operates a podcast called “Talking the Talk,” so check that out. I also got to see some of my southern relatives that I don’t see very much.

All in all I guess that means things have been pretty good lately despite my lack of productivity. And speaking of lack of productivity, I’ve temporarily stopped working on anything RPG Maker related. Not that that’ll come as a shock to you or anything, given my history.

Yeah, and as far as blogging goes, I’m disappointed with myself. I really had hoped that this summer would be very productive. Needless to say, it hasn’t. However, I have not totally neglected my duties. I have about 20 (!) unfinished (and in some cases unstarted) blog entries waiting to be posted. Some of these I have no intention of finishing, and will probably just post them as they are. Some of them may end up just getting deleted. Either way, here’s a sampling of what the future holds:

Creationist Museum Lies About Archaeopteryx- The Creation Museum’s portrayal of Archaeopteryx was so inaccurate and so conveniently in-line with what creationists wished it would be like that I have no other alternative than to accuse the museum of outright dishonest and purposeful misrepresentation of facts to advance their agenda.

E.T. Versus Nessie!- Why I feel that it’s more plausible to believe in UFOs than the Loch Ness Monster.

Symptoms of Mental Illness? Cho’s Girlfriend Jelly and his Old Pal Vlad- Some thoughts on the psychological state of the Virginia Tech killer and how the media look in the wrong places for clues to the causes of crime and evidence of an abberant mental condition in those who commit them.

Seung-Hui Cho: A Speculative Biography - I try to get under the skin of “The Question Mark Killer” to show how important it is to be sympathetic even to the world’s “bad guys” so that tragedies like the carnage at VT may be prevented in the future.

I Finally Ended Up Playing “Super Columbine Massacre RPG!”- The title says it, I finally got around to playing the most famous (or infamous) game in RPG Maker history and I’m posting this as a detailed review.

And there’s plenty more where that came from. I have recently managed to acquire some actual published creationist literature (including that book about “creation compromisers” like myself!) so you’ll be hearing about that too, eventually.

I think that should be all I needed to say for tonight. Later, guys.

I’ve been searched!

No, I don’t mean I was stripped naked and examined for drugs or weaponry by law enforcement officers! I mean that somebody, somewhere actually typed “abyssalleviathin” into a search engine! I honestly never believed that would happen, I mean, I’ve typed my name and searched it before (who hasn’t?), but for someone else to just do it is completely and utterly flattering. So whoever you are that cared enough about my existence to search for it, thank you. You made my day. I say this is probably the most significant milestone I’ve reached since I started blogging in the first place, all those years ago. (I used to blog on Myspace a few years ago)

The only way I’d be more flattered is if you left a comment.

Here’s a screenshot from my dashboard to document this monumentous occasion.