Category Archives: blog statistics

Happy 2000th! [Reader Participation Welcome!]

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My blog has grown quite a bit over these past years and what you’re reading now is my 2000th blog post on this site. Which I think is pretty damn awesome and warrants some kind of celebration!

So, I’ve been mulling this over in my head. How can I best celebrate my compulsion to share my opinions with the world? And then the simplest answer just came to me: by having even more opinions!

Here’s the deal, though: As a thank you to my plentiful and loyal readers (in my head you’re an army, breathlessly waiting for my blog post every day), you can decide what I should have opinions on! And you can decide in what way I should express them!

This is how this is going to work:

Step one

Choose a book, story, comic, movie, an episode (or two) of a TV show, a political topic, a blog entry, several things to compare – you can choose pretty much anything you ever thought “I wonder what kalafudra thinks about that?” of.
[It should be accessible to me though – a column in a local Taiwanese newspaper might be a bit hard.]
You can also specify a particular question – like what I make of the use of the word chagrin in the Twilight novels. [Please don’t choose that.]

Step two

Choose a form in which I should comment: The usual review, a blog-along or maybe even a vlog… it’s up to you!
If you want something else entirely, I’m willing to consider it – though I might have to draw the line at expressive dance. Also, I really suck at drawing things.

Step three

Leave a comment to this post and let me know what you want from me.

What else

You’re welcome to choose crappy things for me to review – much fun can be had with ranting. The only thing I’d ask of you is that you consider that I only have a limited amount of time – so please don’t ask for a blog-along of War and Peace, as it would probably take me a decade to finish.

Depending on the number of comments I’ll get on this [btw, you’re welcome to invite other people to this], I might not be able to do everything. But within a reasonable amount, I’ll try to get to all the suggestions.

Finally, so this doesn’t drag out into all eternity: I’ll take comments left until May 31st into account and then I’ll try to do it all within the next three months, so until August 31st.

So, get cracking! And thanks again for sticking around and reading! :)

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXVI

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Again I thought that, hey, it’s been 4 months since I last saw a question in my blog stats. Goodbye, AQATG! I’ll just have another look before I post the official “this feature doesn’t exist anymore” thingummy.

And there it was. Incospicuously. All in small letters. Even without a question mark. But it was there…

“who is katie in monsters vs aliens”?

Katie (Renee Zellweger’s character) is the young woman who makes out with her boyfriend in the car when the aliens land on earth. [For more info see my review here.]

And right after that, there was ANOTHER ONE!

“how was the doctor’s wife portrayed in b[lindness?]”

Well, I’m guessing here that we’re talking about blindness and either about the book or the movie.

My personal opinion of the doctor’s wife? Courageous, loyal, strong, admirable, practical. She’s a caretaker, with all the positive and the negative things that come from that.

Need more info? Read the book. Watch the movie.

AND ANOTHER ONE! The next question I’m really not qualified to answer. But the format is especially interesting, so I’ll post it anyway:

“www.how did edward hopper influence cont[emporary art?]”

[Might I suggest wikipedia?]

I don’t know if it pays to keep this feature up… Maybe you want to chime in [plus, I’ve never used the poll feature before, so…]?

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXV

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Every time when I think that I can scrap this feature because people have finally understood that typing whole questions into search engines is an excercise in futility, the questions are back. *le sigh*

“is the movie jcvd in anyway biographical”?

Yes and no. The situation in the beginning of the movie – Van Damme fighting for custody (though in reality he has a son, not a daughter), only getting crappy roles in crappy movies etc. that’s pretty true. (Though I don’t know if Steven Seagal really cut his ponytail for a role and therefore booted Van Damme out.) The whole robbery thing – no, that didn’t really happen.

“what is my favorite disney movie?”

Well, how the hell should I know what your favourite disney movie is? At that, how should anyone but yourself find that out?

“what is the difference between a buffalo”?

I’m pretty sure that this question was cut off. If not, it’s another genius example of what we call Anti-Humor here in Austria. I love it.

Other examples would be:

  • A pig goes round a corner and is gone.
  • A man gets on the bus, drives for five stations, gets off and goes into a shopping center. When he comes out again, the bus is gone.
  • Two scyscrapers sit in a cellar and knit oil. What is wrong with this picture?
    Fish don’t have wings.

And now, there’s

  • What’s the differenc between a buffalo?

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXIV

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Today’s question is kinda serious… amazingly enough.

“what is the theme of big fish by daniel [Wallace]”?

In my review I said it was about

the creation of myths, of the truths in stories, of the dangers of interpretation and the meaning of lies.

Other themes are redemption and reconciliation, understanding another human being and what makes family. But mostly it’s about what makes the identity of a man or a woman – their accomplishments or their dreams?

In any case, it’s a novel that can handle and deserves a lot of thought – and as usual, interpretations are very personal. So I guess it would be best to see what you can gather from the novel, not what I can get from it.

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXIII

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Today’s question is short and sweet:

“what can you do in bielefeld”?

Some people would say, “nothing because it doesn’t exist“. But let’s indulge a little bit and pretend that it does exist, here are the Main Sights, according to Wikipedia.

But I guess, apart from that you can pretty much do everything in Bielefeld that you can do in any other city of it’s size.

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXII

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See, one needs only complain about the lack of questions and BAM! The questions are back in my blog stats! Or at least one question.

“what song does the blind kid sing in slu[mdog millionaire]”?

First thing – read the comment by Shefaly here, she answers some of the questions you might have about the song.

Second, the name of the song is “Darshan Do Ghanshyam Nath Mori” and it may or may not have been actually written by Surdas.

So, there you go.

kalafudra [making the internet better one post at a time (est. 2004)]

Answering Questions Asked Through Google – PSA

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I know I haven’t answered a question in  a while – but it’s not for a lack of trying! I don’t know why, but some major paradigm shift must have occurred and people started to realise that typing questions into search machines which are not built for answering questions is kind of stupid.

In any case, it’s been ages that I got a question in the blog stats (and that I got a search term more interesting than “kalafudra funny pictures”, which makes me afraid that someone is looking for funny pictures of me). So, I will continue to check and as soon as there is a question, I’ll revive AQATG.

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXXI

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Before you complain (in case you have noticed and actually care, that is) I’m very well aware that there was no AQATG last week. I’m sorry about that, but there weren’t any questions to answer.

Anyhow, today we have one:  

“why is dead until dark a bad book”?

Dead Until Dark is not necessarily a bad book. But it’s not a very good one either, in my opinion. The important part of this sentence is the last one though: IN MY OPINION. So, you wanna know whether a book is good for you or not? There’s only one way to find out: You will have to read it.

I’m sorry that I had to break this news to you. But it’s better to know than be kept in the dark, right?

Answering Questions Asked Through Google XXX

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“was shakespeare having an affair with a”?

Well, that question is a little cryptic, I have to admit. What do you think comes after the a? A hussie? A.? Alexander? Another woman? Man? German Shepherd? Actress Gwyneth Paltrow?

There are many possibilities and most of them are disturbing. Fact is, William Shakespeare [I’m assuming that we’re talking about the poet, though there are other possibilities] was not known for his prude lifestyle, so I’m betting the answer is yes.