FedEx Cast Away Commerical

foremost

foremost [fawr-mohst, -muh st, fohr-]

adjective, adverb
1. first in place, order, rank, etc.

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Not a new word to me but I always thought it odd that the phrase "first and foremost" is often used.  It just seems redundant...and I'm not the only one who thinks so: Common Redundancies (F-O). No, I'm not the only one. (see what I did there? did ya?)

I do know this blog isn't foremost in any category, not even for Cast Away Crossroads.

(but, like Avis, we're #2!.  Some people think this blog is #2 -ahem-)

Cast Away Quiz

IMdB has a Cast Away Quiz with various levels of difficulty.

You don't even have to scratch your answers on a rock.

Big Hits

More than a little annoyed at the end of the Cowboys/Giants game, I got online to try to take my mind off it. I wasn't going to visit any of the rash of doom 'n gloom posts that have hit my reader and were being posted on the Cowboys website and Facebook pages so I decided I'd pop in here and check the stats, see who has been visiting and what they were looking at.

I'd noticed quite a few hits yesterday on my Cast Away posts and the movie must have played on TV and I didn't notice it in the listings. The Feedjit stats showed that, but don't tell the entire story; many people have the Do Not Track extension on their browser so their visits won't show up on it or have some other "stealth" application or add-on. Unless they have Blogger cookies blocked, however, it will show up on the Blogger stats. (and I've previously blocked some of the tracking stuff, but I won't be able to see the top navbar and have to go in via the dashboard to create a post or look at the stats) Looking at the day's stats, I noticed there had been quite an increase in traffic earlier.

As you can see, there was quite a few visitors, relatively speaking, that came to this blog. ("relatively", because ToTG doesn't get all that many visits.  200/day is fairly avg., sometimes more, sometimes less.) I have it set to not track my own page views or the visits would double on the days I have nothing better to do than come in here.

I decided to switch to the "day" mode on the stats and saw this:

90+ visitors in a matter of a few hours. Wow. Wish it would be like that all the time; I would put in some paying ads...which would probably drive the traffic away.  I also wish the Cowboys had put that many hits on Eli Manning.

I'm glad I'm not trying to make a living at this blogging thing.

Cast Away End Scene

The end scene from "Cast Away", filmed near by.

Other posts about the movie. (and posts about the posts!)

In Russia

The weight loses you!

I follow a pretty cool website in my reader,  English Russia.  They post a lot of photos of ordinary people plus those of abandoned buildings & missile complexes, rusting military equipment, polluted areas, etc.  (It doesn't do much to allay the conception that life in Russia is bleak) Some of my favorite posts are of pretty girls and aspiring models, cheer leading teams and the like...IOW, women.

There's a place for comments after each post and as is almost always the case, there are some trolls trying to stir up trouble, with some saying the girls look like prostitutes and the regular Russian readers replying that all American women are hookers (or fat or stupid).  It's like a cold war of words. 

I don't comment there anymore, not since a year or so ago when I used another Gmail account as my address; before the day was out, it got hacked and I immediately changed my password and deleted everything out of my contact list and all mails I had saved. (I was warned because I have an alert that will email me in case of any suspicious activity.) I think I've commented once since then, but left a fake addy and name, something like "putin_sux@drunkrussians.com"   (Hey, if the cold war is firing up again, I want to shoot a round at 'em) If this had happened when I first got online, I would never have visited the site again, but I think I have my computer locked down pretty well and I haven't had any trouble since then.

This post just hit my reader:  Good Job, Tatiana! and it has a series of photos of a young woman from childhood all the way to now as a young woman.  She was a chubby little thing as a girl, then looked pretty good for about a year or so, but now she's *almost* painfully thin. (JMHO)

I'm not going to post a photo from the site because just today I found a site that had nabbed some of my Cast Away photos and passed them off as their own and I don't want to be a hypocrite by doing the same thing. (and besides, I'm leery of asking permission since the hacking job) If he had only asked, I probably would have given him permission to use them as long as he had credited this blog as the source.  I left a scathing reply and if he doesn't take them down or give me credit, I will contact his hosting service.  It's just the principle of the thing, y'know?

I bet he's got some Russian blood in him.
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If you're wondering about the title "In Russia...the weight loses you" it's a tribute to that great Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff and his "Russian Reversal" jokes.

Surprising Snake Spike

I had noticed an increase in traffic when I checked in Wednesday; most of the new visitors were coming from two different website forums that linked to the post Rattlesnakes in Palo Duro Canyon.

I kept an eye on the Feedjit Feed but unless I want to count each visitor, I had to wait until the Flag Counter totaled up the day in the early evening(around six p.m., i think)  I was semi-shocked to see that the blog traffic had tripled the average.

Usually when this pathetic excuse for a blog sees such a "large" increase in traffic, it's because Cast Away aired somewhere in the world.

I signed up for Google's AdSense a few years ago, but never followed through with the process.  I always figured the hassle to me and the extra loading time for my visitors wouldn't be worth the dollar a month - or less - I'd make from the few dozen visitors I get each day. 

While this blog doesn't get all that much traffic, the Flag Counter says that 169 different countries have visited. While most visitors are from the U.S., followed by the U.K. I did notice there had been one visitor from Iceland.  One visitor...and they, like most of the others, never came back.

About That Time Again

I was looking at this blog's Flag Counter the other day and viewing the yearly graph, I was reminded that April Fool's Day is coming up.

For the last couple of years, I've linked to the Google blog and their annual April Fool's joke and it had a trackback and people saw the link and came here.

I'm sure they were disappointed.

This blog averages around 50 unique visitors every day, 80 on a "good" day.  Now and then the count tops 100-150, but that's rare.  They mostly arrive from search engines, looking for gay dwarfs, sister's feet or other things I'm sure they meant to find but didn't...at least not anything applicable to their original intent. 

There are quite a few hits from people searching for Duane Chapman (Dog the Bounty Hunter) or for a particular vehicle I just happened to photograph at a car show.  Some come for videos, but often YouTube has taken them down.  That's probably a visitor that will never come back here, but I can't help that.  I always wonder why they don't search YouTube, but on the other hand, sometimes the comments after the video might be what brings them in. My friends, family and regular readers are sometimes enthused by a certain video and Google or other search engines has their comments in the results.

Many come from different parts of the world when the movie Cast Away is shown, and I'd bet the other spikes in visits shown in the above graphic are from that.  ToTG is near the top in most types of searches for that movie.

My claim to fame. -sigh-

No matter the reason they arrive here, I appreciate the traffic...even though I don't have any paying ads. I don't validate my self-worth by the hits on my blog, but the interest does make it seem worthwhile.   I also appreciate my online friends, my family members and loyal readers who do stop by and laugh at an old fool just foolin' around all year long.

It Don't Mean Jack

I haven't been doing a lot in this blog; even though my computer is near my air conditioner, the heat wave has sapped my inspiration. As a result of fewer posts, the blog has been getting fewer visitors. It usually gets an average of 75 hits per day on the counter, but this last month the number has dropped to 50. To be honest, I enjoy having the "larger" amount of visitors, but it doesn't mean anything other than a fluctuating interest in this blog...and since I don't have any paying ads, it means even less than nothing. IOW, no jack means it don't mean jack. -grin-

Clicking on the graphic a couple of days ago, I noticed a fairly significant spike in visitors over the weekend.

It was too late to see exactly what the visitors were coming to see on the other counter, but I had a suspicion. Sure enough, checking through the TV listings for last weekend, I found that Cast Away had been shown several times over a couple of days. In fact, while waiting on another movie to start, I had watched the last fifteen minutes of Cast Away and that's when I noticed something strange.

After doing a cursory search, I found that others had noticed the same thing. When Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) visits his ex-fiancee Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt)and is driving away, Hunt runs down the driveway of her house after him, yelling - what it sounds like to me and others - "Jack....JACK!"

Since the Hanks character's name is "Chuck", I guess Hunt didn't mean Jack either.

Lazy Sunday

I haven't been doing much in this blog - as you can tell, huh? I really haven't felt like it, plus I really need to run a new line to this computer and increase my speed back up to where it's supposed to be. In fact, the snail's pace of my DSL connection has kept me from doing much at all online. I've got some photos to upload, but I don't care to play a half-dozen games of Hearts waiting on the upload and I can forget having more than one or two tabs open at a time. I really enjoy listening to my Launchcast radio, but it takes so long to load the player I've almost given up on that.

Yesterday was really a lazy day for me and other than playing the ToTG Triva Tournament, I didn't check in here, not even to check the visitor stats from either of the "counters" I have. It must have been a lazy Sunday for everyone else because we had the least amount of visitors since I started the blog, unique OR repeat.



Still, there were a few visitors to the Cast Away threads and a couple for my post on "The Short Bus" but I was surprised there was no one checking out "My Sister's Feet" or the Gay Dwarfs.

YouTube Recommends

Cast Away is one of my favorite movies, and this blog is at the top or very nearly so in searches for the flick (well, at least for the scenes that were filmed near here) , but I think YT is overestimating my interest in the movie:

(click for larger view)

ToTG Sets Record!

No, not a late April Fool's joke, but this blog actually set a record for visits today. (well, a record for this blog) The increased traffic resulted from the post Google Changes Name and came from the hoax post at the official Google blog.

Here are screenshots from our Flag Counter widget:

Weekly visitors



The dark blue denotes new visitors (1,303) and the light blue is the total counter views. (1,687). I'm sure most of the total above and beyond the first-time views is from me popping back in here so many times watching the numbers climb on the Feedjit widget. I couldn't keep up with the count, but at one time I estimate there were over a hundred hits in less than a minute.

Here is the graph for monthly visitors:



The previous record for visitors was something on the order of 200+ when a post about the marquee tag was linked to from a Mozilla forum with another post about the Cast Away crossroads following close behind. (and that one wasn't about the movie, but was from an alternative energy thread in a forum and meant to illustrate how flat and suitable this area is for wind generators)

What did I learn from this? Well, if I want to increase hits, all I have to do is link to the Google blog. First, though, I'll need to load this blog up with ads.

Nah, THAT would be a joke, thinking I could make money off of this blog.

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UPDATE: As I predicted, yesterday had our second largest number of visitors, with 399 first-time visitors and 515 total.

There also was an increase in hits on the "Cast Away" posts; it must have been showing on TV.

Castaway's Great Ending

Following a Google UK link from a hit on this blog's "Cast Away" posts, I discovered this blog post: Grace and Truth to You: Castaway's Great Ending and Lessons Learned When Facing A New Crossroads in Life

It's a great post with photos taken from a trip to the crossroads and ranch house, but like so many other forum threads and blog posts on the 'net, the comments veer off into politics.

It even brings into play Godwin's law; what I'd like to know...and even though the post was on a minister's blog, and said nothing about politics, I have to ask...is what the hell does Hitler have to do with this fantastic movie? I know it's not part of the post and is instead in the comments section, but still....

Granted, I didn't read all the replies after the political angle was brought up, but my eyeballs sometimes glaze over when I see this sort of discussion.

Nic Cage as Everyone

Another of my favorite sites I subscribe to in my Google Reader.

Nic Cage as Everyone has a simple but brilliant premise, namely to put Cage's face on everyone's body. Granted, they haven't done everyone on Earth as of this writing, but most of the Photoshopped creations done so far are hilarious.

Here are a few of my recent favs:

Cage as Michael Jackson



as George Washington



With a nod to Cast Away:



Nic Cage as Everyone

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I had been meaning to post about this blog for a while, but always managed to forget. My memory was jogged today when I noticed Cage was the Caricature of the Day .

Cast Away Count Contest

Just got up from watching the Cowboy game to see what was coming on afterwards, and noticed that "Cast Away" is beginning on the FX Channel now as I type.

I predict there'll be nine hits - or more - on my Cast Away posts. (there was one from Pasadena, CA earlier, about four hours + ago)

Gee, I hope I win something neat-o.

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UPDATE:

The movie ended five minutes ago, and a quick count shows 11 hits in the last forty minutes.

Cast Away Locations in Google Maps

Since I've had thousands hundreds a few requests via email for the exact locations of the farm house and intersection used at the first and last scenes in Cast Away, I decided I'd embed a Google map to show just where they are.

For greater detail, click on the link "View Larger Map" at the bottom of the embed.


View Larger Map
I've got it set to the intersection but you can drag the map upwards* to see the farm house.

*Go up/North by dragging the map DOWNWARDS with your cursor.

Since I couldn't put a "push pin" in the map, I wasn't for sure just how I would pinpoint the locations, then found out by opening up the larger map, then clicking "More" and checking the box "Photos", there were a couple of photographs of each location, allowing the viewer to zoom out and see a better map by selecting "Map" at the top of the Google Map page.

After following those convoluted instructions, you should see something like this:

The top photo is the location of the farm house; the bottom one is the intersection.

Google Maps won't let you zoom in too close, but at least by having the two photos as "placemarks" in lieu of "push pins", you can have some idea of just where the locations are.

If you have the Google Earth application, you can download a .kml file with the locations at this page on Waymarking.com

Here are the two main posts about those locations:

Cast Away Crossroads

Arrington Ranch House

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Edit to add: I had noticed my Cast Away posts were still among the most searched for articles in my blog and decided to check them - to correct grammar errors, "clean up" a few sentences, center the photos, etc. and I noticed that when I followed the directions to view the photographs in the larger map that they had disappeared - meaning that whoever had uploaded them had deleted them or their account(s).  I'll see if I can upload my own photos to those same spots on the map.  

More Cast Away Visitors

Checking the Feekjit counter just now, I noticed several hits in a row from Ireland, England and the Netherlands from search results on this blog's Cast Away posts. There's always an increase in visits when the movie is aired here in the U.S., so I figured it must have been shown on the BBC, and sure 'nuff, checking their website's Cast Away listing, it came on earlier this evening. (England is six hours ahead of CST here in the Panhandle)

In case you've stumbled across this blog and did not know that we're up at or very near the top of search results for the movie locations, here are the posts:

Cast Away Crossroads

Arrington Ranch House

Those are the two main posts, but I've mentioned the movie in several others.

Cast Away Over/Under

"Cast Away" is showing tonight on the FX channel, coming on in less than 45 minutes and again immediately after.

I wonder how many hits my two posts will get?

Cast Away Crossroads

Arrington Ranch House

I'm setting the line at 10. Any takers?

I'm also thinking of going back to the intersection, sweeping up some gravel and selling it on eBay.

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UPDATE: The first showing is just ending and there's been five (5) visitors so far. Looks like the over/under may be too close to call. OTOH, it's only 8 PST on the coast, so maybe we'll get the California crowd to give it to the "over".

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A quick count shows there were 14 more after the ending of the first showing, bringing the total up to 19. The bad thing about the Feedjit counter is that it allows someone to opt out and delete their visit.

Curious Cast Away Crowd

Noticed that Cast Away was on the tube Saturday afternoon; as soon as the show started, this blog started getting hits left and right from Google and other searches.

Here's but a small sampling of the visitors:






I believe there were close to a hundred hits within a ten minute period. That's a pretty significant amount of visitors for this insignificant blog.

Cast Away Crowd Coming; Contest Commences

Just noticed where TNT.tv is airing "Cast Away" tonight at 7p.m. (CST). That will most likely mean a modest surge in this blog's traffic from Google, AOL or other search engines for "cast away farmhouse" or "cast away intersection location".

Who would have ever thought this blog would be at the top of ANY listing on the 'net?

To celebrate, ToTG is offering one free chance in our *"Free Gas for a Month" contest to the person who guesses closest to the total number of hits. (from "Cast Away" searches only)

*Details to be announced

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Original post was in November '08.

Welcome to the latest batch of Cast Away fans!