Needle, Meet Haystack

Last year, I got you guys a video.  This year, I got you something a little more abstract: 50 blocks.

50 blocks is the difference between adolescence and adulthood.  It’s the space between dependencies and independence.  It’s the starting line for self-reliance and full control.  It’s-

Oh, forget this horse-crap. I’m moving.

For those who missed the riveting tale, I basically failed at life two years ago and had to move back in with my parents.  It hasn’t been terrible, but at the same time, I’ve wanted to get out and move on to the “grown-up” stage of my life.  Sleeping in the same bed I had in high school was a torturous reminder of how far I had to go in life, and how far short I was from where I had imagined and planned to be when I graduated college.

As of this coming Saturday, that will no longer be the case.

I found a swanky one-bedroom apartment in a good complex that’s pretty close to work, and am in the process of realizing that I now need to buy all those little things that I took for granted, like soap dispensers, towels and toilet paper.  Also, furniture.  It’s been interesting, to say the least.

Hopefully, moving and getting set up shouldn’t take too long, but I will definitely be without Internet for a good part of next week, so you may be post-less during that time.  One post and then a week-long break; interesting way to kick off year two, right?

But enough about me, let’s talk about the blog!

Aside from downgrading the blog post output (150 as compared with the previous year’s 340), the site has been pretty much the same.  I’ve had a chance to meet a number of Internet blog friends in real life, and some of them are awesome! Others are okay, and other-others appear to be working on a long-form, Catfish-like deception to the Internet at large.  Still, it’s nice to interact with folks in a way that’s different from chat windows and Skype, even if it turns out that some of ‘em kinda suck.

It was interesting trying a different level of community involvement; in between people getting on my case for donating to charity and rebooting the NMH Facebook page just in time for its first-ever contest, things got a little more interactive, instead of me blogging at you and occasionally responding to comments like a week after they were posted.  I’m working on a few things to improve the whole blogger/reader thing we’ve got going on, and welcome any comments, (polite) criticism and suggestions.

Speaking of contests and moving, I’ve decided to combine the two.

That’s right – it’s time for The NMH Second Birthday Contest!

Just become a fan of the blog on Facebook, and you’ll be automatically entered to win a box full of random goodies that I’ve scrounged up whilst moving – a smattering of movies, cds, books and other goodies.  No odd socks or dilapidated action figures here!

Thanks to everyone who’s been reading, Tweeting, Facebooking, commenting, emailing, linking, and supporting the blog over the past two years.  Without you, this page would be the equivalent of a hobo on a street corner shouting random life lessons at pedestrians.

Wow, you guys.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already.  A lot has happened since I started the blog over 340 posts ago, and I appreciate all of you being here with me.  From the casual visitors to the Twitter followers to the subscribers, I’m very thankful for you giving me the opportunity to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from work and life with all of you.

To commemorate this momentous event, I’ve made a little video for you guys to say thanks.  But first, to preempt a few questions:

• Yes, that is Megatron on my shirt.
• Yes, I shot this video outside in Arizona in the middle of May, and the weather was pretty nice.
• Yes, I’m aware of the eyebrow thingie.  It’s an unconscious facial tic that I’ve had since I was born.  Sorry if it’s distracting.
• Yes, it tasted bad.  Not Double Down bad, but close.
• No, I won’t tell you what it actually was.

If you’re having trouble seeing the video, click here.

Thanks again for all of your comments, tweets, links, emails and general terrificness.  Without you, this blog would be a really lousy secret public journal site.

I’ve had a few questions regarding my thought/work process for making blog posts.  I’ll probably expand on this at some point in a future post, but here’s the short answer: I don’t have one.

Sure, I might get ideas that I write down for future use (too many, as it turns out), but most of the time, I just sit down and start writing.  No “creative thought process” – I don’t wait.  I just get it out.

Every post is the rough and final draft.  You don’t see premeditated, edited content.  It’s just ideas in their raw, unadulterated form.  I might pause to think of something to add, but I don’t go back (unless I’m correcting spelling).

The only time I do anything different is when I’m doing guest posts – I usually reread those once.  And when I do my contributions for The Daily Get Up, I usually think of my topic (but not the post contents) in advance.

So apologies to all of those hoping for something a bit deeper and more “inside the mind of a blogger”-ish.  There’s no process; I just write the posts.

Which might explain quite a few things, actually.

Got a question you want answered in the FAQ?  Contact me through one of many methods here.

Every month on the 19th, I’ll be tackling some questions regarding the blog, specific posts, or myself.  Email, tweet, or facebook message me and you’ll get an answer.  For more immediate responses, go to my formspring page.  All questions will be posted anonymously unless you request otherwise.

And if you want to answer some questions from me, please fill out the reader survey!

Where did the search term roundups go?

Since I’ve moved over from the old wordpress site, my search-related traffic is no longer as condensed as it once was – I was primarily getting the numbers and info from WordPress search stats, and now there are so many places that the traffic and terms come from, that it’s harder to collect them all as quickly.  Also, you guys use some real NSFW stuff when you look up this blog.  I don’t know whether to be honored or creeped out…

Why aren’t there more JTMSCBAKS entries?

I got a bit sick with the format, and was running out of fun jobs to post about.  if you have a suggestion for one I didn’t do, you’re welcome to submit one and receive full credit for it.  For the time being, I’ve switched over to NSS posts on Saturdays instead.

Will you ever put up a guest post from another blogger?

Yes I will!  I haven’t opened the doors quite yet (this one really doesn’t count), but if you’d like to do one, or have an idea for one, you’re welcome to send it to me.

Are the owners of images actually credited on your site?

I know that I should probably use captions, but I actually link to every image source site by making the whole image a hyperlink.  If you click on any image (except for the ones I’ve hosted on this blog, which are mine), you’ll go straight to the image’s source page.  If anyone wants to volunteer to go in and re-format over 300 posts with images to have captions for free, I’d be more than happy to let you do it.

That’s it for this month’s FAQ!  Thanks for 10 months of awesome, everyone!

How many ways can you spell “Flavor Flav”?  Let’s find out…

Hey kids!  Correlate the terms in the list with this post to make a fairly accurate guess at how many hits each post got from search terms!  It’s super fun!

Or, you know, laugh at misspellings and enjoy reading a list.

This list is based on the number of specific hits that each article got from links, search engine redirects, syndication on other sites and so on.  So without further ado, here are the top 10 posts of 2009 – with commentary!

1. Fail Your Way To Success! Written as a response to all of the “this is what you can learn from failure” articles people have been putting out recently, this post owes its status mostly to the term “Fail” becoming a complete sentence.
2. Body Language Basics: The Handshake An essential part of any job seeker’s repertoire, this post kicked off the “Body Language Basics” series.
3. Quick Sidenote This one was more of a joke than anything.  All I did was write a bunch of permutations on the phrase, “Mr. Potato Head” – that’s the official spelling and phrasing, by the way.
4. JTMSCBAKS: Restaurant Chef I don’t feel like typing out “Jobs That Might Seem Cool But Actually Kinda Suck” each time, hence the abbreviation.  This one was based on a chapter in the amazing book, Kitchen Confidential.
5. JTMSCBAKS: Astronaut This one was based on some reasoning I had for not following my second childhood career goal, as well as some articles I’d read on Gizmodo and Cracked.
6. How To Decide Whether You Should Take the Job I’d love to say that this one is due to a lot of job seekers finding the blog, but It’s probably here for the same reason as #3.
7. Flavor Flav and Your Job Search Part of Extended Metaphor Week, this just proves that even GI Joes can’t overcome giant clocks and viking hats.
8. Question of the Week: Optimal Submission Time This post answers one of the most common questions that I’ve received.  Hopefully, it’s saved a lot of people from applying for a job over a three-day weekend.
9. JTMSCBAKS: Haute Couture Fashion Designer Factor in that soon after this post, I had another one about dancers, and you’ll agree that June was probably the blog’s least manly month ever.
10. The Top 11 Options For The Jobless One of my favorite posts, and judging by all the traffic this blog gets for the term “hobo,” one of yours, too.

Failure and hapless mendicants still reign supreme!  On the rise: gestures of greeting and travel show personalities.

By the way,  I’ve been nominated for Brazen Careerist’s Best Blog Post of 2009!   [EDIT: Voting has ended.]

Wow, everyone sure seems to love failure this month.  And the homeless.  And outer space.

…and now, Mr. Potato Head is out of the top 10.  What took his place?  Find out below:

* It looks like there’s only a limited number of spaces held for these results with my current site analytics, so apologies to the two of you who sent in the searches for “cool hamster”