Star Wars on the Brain?

March 1st, 2006 by Potato

Turns out Star Wars: Empire at War was released a few weeks ago. I hadn’t really noticed, and won’t have time to give it more of a try for a while (the demo didn’t grab me and scream at me to get the game so much as whisper, in a sultry tone, “look for me in the bargain bin, and we’ll stay up all night. Oh, and I don’t mind if you spend the whole time wishing I was more like StarCraft… just as long as you play me hard, you video game addicted tool.”) The Onion had this to say about it: “Sure, you could find a deeper or better-tuned strategy game—but this one has AT-ATs.”

Oddly enough, I find myself humming the Imperial March a lot (Vader’s theme) lately, and I’ve had it stuck in my head all night. At first I didn’t really mind because… you know… Star Wars. But now, it’s getting on my nerves. Anyone know of a way to get it to stop, aside from getting a legitimately annoying song stuck up there?

I think it might be some sort of subconscious metaphor about my thesis. However, I’m not yet clear on what exactly it’s alluding to. The fierce oppression of a half-mad sorcerer? The desperate search to retrieve the plans to the ultimate weapon before it can be taken away by the rebel scum? The ascendancy of the pupil by facing the master in combat?

Anyway… I took a look at the site’s traffic. It peaked over the winter break, and has been slowly dwindling. I guess I haven’t been writing very entertaining posts lately. I’ve noticed a few patterns. Firstly, traffic dips significantly on the weekends. I can think of two possible reasons for that, the first being obviously that people like to procrastinate and read this while they’re at work (or that they only check on weekdays and have lives on the weekend), and the other being that since I usually visit my parents on the weekend, it’s never updated anyway. Next, despite my predictions to the contrary, long posts generally don’t generate any comments whatsoever. Perhaps they’re too long to bother finishing? And finally, it’s really exciting to have enough traffic to see patterns in it! (Even if half of it is from search engine crawlers).

Posted in Blessed by the Potato, Gaming, Insanity | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Star Wars on the Brain?”

  1. rez Says:
    March 1st, 2006 at 7:06 am

    I can’t speak for everyone, but I personally only comment on shorter posts. I’ve looked at a few usability studies for websites that told me something everybody already knows: people don’t like to read. If I see a short post I’ll take the time to read it (often making me late for work) and then comment. But if I see a long post I decide to read it later, but when I come back to read it there’s already a new post so I skip the old one and move on.

    As for the Imperial March, I don’t understand what the problem is. :)

  2. Potato Says:
    March 1st, 2006 at 8:10 am

    It’s an old joke, but apt:

    “You know you’re a grad student when… you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.”

  3. Ben Says:
    March 1st, 2006 at 9:41 am

    I actually prefer the longer posts, I’m a slow reader so they kill that much more time during my workday. Although I sometimes have to read them in shifts because the white text on black background combo usually makes my eyes go all wonky after a couple paragraphs.

  4. netbug Says:
    March 1st, 2006 at 11:33 am

    Personally, I like the short ones. I do read these at work (you’ll notice that my comments happen usually between sunday and wednesday) so reading a short post between calls is easy. The long ones I have to pay attention to more and that can distract me from a call (which is good for me, but can be detrimental to my marks on the call).

    And a lot of the time, the long posts are on a particular subject which just doesn’t peak my interest. I read them all when I can, but some things my response would be just “meh”.

    Take the Razor post for example, that was a really really good critique, but the thing is, ya, it’s a cell phone. I have one. I don’t want a new one. And I hate the proprietary crap that’s occuring right now that you mentioned. I want to buy a device that is a little computer that I can configure myself, sync with a program that I choose and do what I want with it. That’s not going to happen for a while.

    BTW, what are the stats from my IP (if you can pull them up) in terms of overall hits?