2014 Sean's Ramblings Visitors

Happy 2015! Now that 2014 is complete, it's time for my annual post where I share data about Sean's Ramblings visitors and how people find this blog. I truly find this fascinating, and I hope you do too. The information below is courtesy of Google Analytics for January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014.

Top 10 Visitors by City:

1. New York, NY

2. Pittsburgh, PA

3. Chantilly, VA

4. Arlington, VA

5. Washington, DC

6. Deerfield Beach, FL

7. Los Angeles, CA

8. Owings Mills, MD

9. Chicago, IL

10. Johnstown, PA (Technically, just outside Johnstown)

I started tracking this data in 2009, and with the exception of the unusual amount of visitors from San-Ch'Ung, Taiwan in 2009, the combination of New York, Pittsburgh and Washington DC (not necessarily in that order) is always in the top 3. This year, DC slipped all the way to 5th. What's going on, DC? Do I need to write more posts about Metro or the DC blogging community?

London also fell out of the top 10 this year. I guess Will and Kate don't visit my blog as much as they used to with the new baby.

Remember, if your city is not in the top 10, visit my blog from multiple computers or mobile devices in 2015 early and often!

Top 10 Visitors by Country

1. United States

2. Canada

3. United Kingdom

4. Australia

5. Germany

6. Brazil

7. France

8. Philippines

9. India

10. Italy

While the top five countries are identical from 2013, I'd like to welcome Brazil to the top 10. Clearly, folks in Brazil looked to Sean's Ramblings for quality World Cup coverage like this.

Top 10 Keywords Used to Find Sean's Ramblings

1. Sean's Ramblings (or some variation of this)

2. Sally Wiggin Drunk

3. Sun Refining and Marketing

4. Talk Like a Pittsburgh Pirate Day

5. Don Cannon Drunk

6. Songs with Hawaii in the Title

7. Mark Melancon Singing Japan

8. Sean's Ramblings Daylight Savings

9. Delaware Hates Pitt

10. Erica Blasberg

These are almost completely different from last year where folks found Sean's Ramblings by questioning who is (or was) TJR, wanting Fleetwood Mac concert reviews, or, well, looking for something about Flavor Flav. In addition, I must have left out Sean's Ramblings from last year's list.

In 2014, people really wanted information about current and former WTAE newscasters being inebriated. Meanwhile, I'll have more about Sun Refining and Marketing and Erica Blasberg next week.

Thanks to all of you for visiting my blog!

Sean's Best & Worst of 2014

Many television shows, magazines, websites and newspapers have best and worst of 2014 lists. Well, I do too!

Best Movie I Saw In The Theater: Gone Girl. A well-made film with a huge twist. Great acting by Neil Patrick Harris, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry & Emily Ratajkowski too.

Worst Movie I Saw In The Theater: Gone Girl. I liked the book much better. Yes, I only saw one movie in the theater in 2014.

If you think my list so far is a bit ridiculous, I encourage you to stay here. It gets better. Possibly.

Best Song: My rule is that the best song must be from a video that I posted on my blog. I actually didn't post many videos this year, but I'll take The Walker by Fitz and the Tantrums slightly over Vance Joy's Riptide. And yes, I realize that the video for The Walker was posted on YouTube in October 2013, but I don't think I first heard the song until 2014.



Worst Song: I think I'll go with Anaconda by Nicki Minaj solely for her desecrating Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back. I just hope that Sir Mix-a-Lot got paid well for this. (I don't even want to share this probably NSFW video here.)

Best Sports Moment: The Pirates reaching the playoffs for the second consecutive year, highlighted by Josh Harrison excelling in rundowns.

Worst Sports Moment: The Penguins leading the Rangers 3 games to 1 in the Eastern Conference Finals only to lose the next three games and scoring only 3 goals in these games.

Best TV Show: Game of Thrones. HBO had a free preview this spring, and I was able to record the entire first three seasons. It took me a few (okay, more than a few) episodes to figure out who was who, but what a show. Now I need to watch season four. Honorable mention to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a consistently funny show.

Worst TV Show: Anything on Bravo. I can't stand any of the people on that network especially any housewives or Vanderplumps or people that work on a boat or sell houses. Bring back West Wing reruns!

Best Book I Read: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This is the summary: "Unbroken is a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war in several brutal Japanese prisoner-of-war camps." Any of these could be its own story, yet all of this happened to Zamperini. All of this is just unbelievable. I'm hesitant to see the movie since I don't know how it will work. To fully tell Zamperini's story, I don't know how the movie can be less than 5 hours. Honorable Mention: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. A fun Forrest Gump-esque book.

Worst Book I Read: I didn't read nearly as many books as I would have liked in 2014, so I'm the worst for this category.

Best Blog Post: My post on becoming a dad for the second time along with the 6-month update. I still like my idea of bringing a Pittsburgh festival to DC too.

Worst Blog Post: My post congratulating someone named William Tell on marrying Laura Conrad. Exactly.

Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

2014 Sean's Ramblings Year In Review

Welcome to my 10th annual (yes, 10th! More on this in a few weeks) year in review, where I take the first few lines of the first entry of each month in order to produce a random and (hopefully) interesting summary of 2014. Please note that this is not my last post of 2015. I'll have another entry or two to close out 2014.

January - Happy New Year everyone! Anytime that a picture of someone wearing a Pittsburgh sports logo or discussion of Pittsburgh appears in a major magazine, I'm going to blog about it (see Emma Watson and the New Girl cast).

February - It's the Monday after the Super Bowl and Groundhog Day, so I'll keep today's post short and simple.

March - As I'm typing this on Sunday evening, the Federal Government and every school in the DC area announced that they are closed on Monday even though it is calm outside right now.

April - Today’s post comes from Tyler of YinZSTER, and is part of a special day of shenanigans from other Pittsburgh Bloggers. You can see my post over on Small-Town Dad, where I write about preparing to be a new father again.

May - With a new child, it's time to find a bigger home for the family. While I'm not really looking to leave the DC area, there are two job openings in Los Angeles that interest me: the head coaching job for the Los Angeles Lakers and being the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

June - Did you realize that it is now June? That means Celebrate Fairfax!, Northern Virginia’s largest community-wide celebration, is set to take place THIS WEEKEND (June 6-8, 2014) at the Fairfax County Government Center.

July - As a global national social-media influencer, I was invited to attend Gifford's Good Times Ice Cream Tour Ice Cream Social at Dulles Golf Center & Sports Park.

August - Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez is struggling. Actually, that may be an understatement. Alvarez seems to have lost the ability to accurately throw the ball to first base.

September - Former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison officially retired over the weekend. While I have never been an NFL quarterback or even played one on the internet, I would think that Harrison would be at the top of the list of defensive players I didn't want to play against.*

October - As a soccer referee (and probably every other type of referee), you are required to dress professionally. There is no room for individuality when you put on your yellow shirt and pull up your black socks with white stripes by your knees.

November - Did you vote today? If so, good for you. If not, there's still time to read this and go to your local polling station.

December - One of my son's favorite books these days is Dr. Seuss' One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. When he wants us to read this book, he simply asks for Green Fish. I don't know why.

I hope that you enjoyed Sean's Ramblings in 2014 (though I'm not done yet)! Thanks again for your support.

* This post is particularly funny since Harrison came out of retirement and will start against the Ravens in the playoffs on Saturday.