Hey! I did the Google-my-name thing again when I got home from work and lo and behold, I win at Google! My Book of PDR is now the third result in Google for “Patrick D Ryall”. Now that may seem like a pretty weak win what with basically nobody ever going to search for my name on the Google except for me, but hey, at least when I do I get top billing.

And this brings me to a topic that I was thinking about at work tonight: Patrick D Ryall. Somehow this January has been a big month for PDR-related talk here on this website. This should come as no surprise because this is a website that has come into existence for, essentially, the sold purpose of being about me, PDR. But really, I hate talking about myself. Mostly, I bore me. I try to make this website be more by PDR than about PDR. I mean sure, there are plenty of posts about PDR up here because, hey, I gotta post something and sometimes thinking stuff up is hard, but it feels somehow like this last month has been more inward gazing than most. Early in the month I decided to document my grocery-buying of the day in all its glory. Then around the middle of the month I, quite unexpectedly, somehow stumbled into a sort of reminiscence of PDR times gone by. And then after that I began fighting for position on search engine results for my own name, more from boredom than anything, but it all adds up. Somehow January 2011 has become the most PDR-centric month on the most PDR-centric website ever!

In the cybernetic world of the Internet time and space seem even more linked than in our normal world. Though January 2011 will soon have rolled away down the hill that is linear time, all my posts from January 2011 will still be on the same spot in the Cyber-World. And so I shall take this little stop on the Internet Highway and build upon it the Museum of Patrick D Ryall.

If ever someone asks me, “What is Patrick D Ryall really all about?” I will be able to reply “Check out January 2011 on his website and you’ll know.” Probably I won’t reply that way, but I’ll be able to.

But just to make sure that the month really does offer all the information needed, I’m going to use up the rest of this post to link to a few older posts that are about PDR.

• PDR’s First Post on This Website
• Some of PDR’s Complaints About Currency-Based Society
• Several Statements PDR Stated
• A Look At Times PDR Has Been In Hospitals
• Some Thoughts On PDR’s Travels In China That One Time
• Some Names PDR Goes By
• PDR’s Thoughts On His Schooling.
• Random PDR Facts

Okay sure, I admit it, this is essentially just a ploy to find something I can post about so I can, as stated, break my previous posting record of 22 posts in May 2006. But it can also be a glorious celebration of myself! Why not? It can be two things! Besides, having an actual topic legitimately does make it easier to post. I should try that more often.

If you are reading this, you are probably already aware that Patrick D Ryall has a website, but I Googled my own name (“Patrick D Ryall”) just now and noticed that this site isn’t in the first page of results. “That just ain’t right” I figured and I thought that maybe if the phrase “Patrick D Ryall” occurred more often on the site, where I usually use “PDR” it might help. I even put “Patrick D Ryall” in the name of this post, just to drive the point home, right?

So anyway, I, Patrick D Ryall, now have a little icon that should be appearing next to the URL when your on my site. It makes my site look a little bit more professional, which basically makes it a lie, but I am happy to have it there. So everyone should notice it and be happy.

I am still getting amounts of spam that infuriate me. I’ve now turned the settings up so a comment can’t get through unless that person has a comment already approved by me. That means that random people who may come along and want to leave a comment will go into a pile with all the spam in there and I have to hopefully notice that one and approve it while I am deleting. This means I have to be more careful than ever before at cleaning the spams even though it is pretty rare a random person comes to this site.

In the meantime, here’s a list of the ten spams I found most interesting while clearing them out this week in no particular order with the name, then the comment and then my thoughts:

1. The Magic Bullet System 2: “I am loving this site accept I am having issues with getting the rss feed to work in the new Firefox 4.0. Any suggestions? Thanks a million! bye” This is easily the most common type of spam. It acts like it is some random dude and says it is having a problem viewing the site in a certain browser or finding the RSS feed or some other technical thing. Most of them are the same with some words changed. I wanted that kind of spam represented on the list and I picked this one because I think Magic Bullet is those stupid infomercials I’ve watched on occasion and because of the “accept” miswording.
2. Andy Ortiz:”You made some Good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree.” This guy has a surname I have always liked, he compliments me AND he can tell that people will agree with my having seen a UFO by doing a search. Neat.
3. Mending A Broken Heart: “26 Dec 10 at 6:38 pm” Somehow commenting just a random date is creepy. I can’t decide if it would be creepier if the date had been in the future or not.
4. Chris Doll: “Gran pagina web, me gusta mucho.” Spanish? Pagina is a funny word!
5. The Magic Bullet System: “Excellent write-up, I am a big believer in placing comments on websites to help the site writers know that they have added something of great benefit to the online world!” Nice try, spam robot, but I know you are in fact not a big believer in that or anything else.
6. clickbank product review: “Fingers down, you solved a problem I had linked to this for any when. Your blog is very inspiring also. Clickbank Product Reviews” This fellow makes the list for getting the phrase “hands down” so incorrect.
7. Fantastic007: “Hey Every one how are you doinging. hope you are haveing a wonderful day” This guy has a great attitude and amusing typos. This one popped up on two posts I did specifically complaining about the spam.
8. painful broken heart: “@thecico12345 shut up you fucking pussy” Hah! That one just made me laugh. I’d sure hate to be thecico12345 about now.
9. Bonita Dejesus: “Awsome article and straight to the point. I am not sure if this is really the best place to ask but do you people have any ideea where to get some professional writers? Thanks in advance :)” This is another one that makes the list for having a name that amuses me. Also, the idea of heading down to some store or something to pick up some professional writers is sorta fun.
10. bistro table: “What’s evil, then I might desire you’ll now extra acceptable? The standard of an evil human being, the place existence moved away to somebody in the way in which of a wound.” There were a ton of comments from bistro table that were just as incomprehensible as this apparently trying to muse upon the concept of evil. I probably could have filled this list with just those. Instead I picked this one. Oh what the heck. One more…
11. bistro table: “Business is divided into excellent and bad people. Few who do not anything however evil emperor. A person also was once this sort of person.” I want to get “Few who do not anything however evil emperor” on a motivational poster or something.

UPDATE:

And then this happened:

And suddenly another year is gone. Too fast to be properly appreciated and the new one will likely wind up the same way. Everyone be sure to light a candle so that the Dark Lord Char’Nagh can see properly as he makes his rounds this year-end.

I feel that 2010 was a pretty decent year. Granted, I may just be feeling that way because the last few weeks have been pretty nice and the rest of the year was just mediocre. I mean, I’m poorer than ever and I didn’t get to do any travelling whatsoever in 2010, but hey, at least I didn’t have a computer die on me like in stupid 2009. I’m getting comic strips done at a rate that I’ve probably not met since the death of Contains2.

2011 however is going to be the year for the Book of PDR and its related endeavours. I will make this true. So bring it on!

Today saw Kiiip and I joining forces for the first time in months to watch the movie True Grit. It was a solid flick. Somewhat less quirky and ambiguous than typical your Coen Brothers affair, but not without its charms. I am underselling it, I think. It’s really good. Certainly I liked last year’s A Serious Man better, but those brothers have yet to disappoint me. If anybody out there is thinking “I want to see a good Western” they have one they can go to. I’ve not seen the original attempt at making a movie of True Grit, so I can’t compare, but I’ll give this one like Four and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

Haiku!

Powerful hamster,
why do you do this to me?
Please just let me go.

And finally, the spammers are hitting my site harder than ever this week. Over 600 comments over the last two days alone and it still seems like any time I check there are more to go. Probably even as I write this very sentence the spam robots are hard at work creating bizarre compliments that they think will trick me into going to their sites. I will not be fooled! But I will have to delete a bunch of spams.

Haha! I just checked and here is the comment the robots have just added to this Monday’s comics post:

“I want to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this post. I am hoping the same top-quality article from you in the upcoming as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to start my own blog now. Truly the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it. “

Could they lay it on thicker? Geez.