2011 blog in review

Although my number of blog posts dropped this year, party as a result of a career change and certain lifestyle adjustments, it has been a pretty good year for the Peanut.

Some of the highlights:

This blog had a couple pieces published in the Winnipeg Free Press Sunday Xtra's regular Blog of the Week feature (and got one other mention courtesy of The Cold Cold Ground.)

I joined Twitter.

Campus radio talk show Winnipeg Internet Pundits continued to build momentum under the guidance of "Top 30 Under 30" starlet Tessa Vanderhart. Yours truly was invited on a couple of times to assault the air waves. That was fun. For me at least.

I have heard rumours and stories about bloggers getting free stuff, but sadly I was always left out of the party ... until this year. Finally all of my hard work paid off with a small amount of schwag, including some movie passes which I was able to share with readers through our first ever caption contest.

I did another interview, this time with Green Party leader James Beddome. I get very positive feedback on my interviews, but damn .. they're more work than you might think. I'll look to do one or two more in 2012, but with no major elections coming up I'll have to think of another excuse.

Best new blogs

Not only has my post count dwindled, but so has my available time to read blogs. That said, here are some new Winnipeg-area blogs that caught my eye in 2011:

The aforementioned Cold Cold Ground is a great new urban-issues blog.

Winnipeg Girl started Love Me, Love My Winnipeg bright and early in 2011, and since posted some excellent thoughts about life in the North End and Winnipeg in General.

The Winnipeg Rag Review has picked up momentum to the point of writing 25 posts in December!

Westerner doesn't post a lot at The Land of Ice and Grain, but when he does post it is usually well thought out and worth reading.

Little Grey Bird is a nice blog written by an ex-pat Nova Scotian, and I admire the clean aesthetically-pleasing look also.

The Manitoba provincial election inspired a new set of 'coloured rods' to spring up in the bloggosphere. Many were short lived, but The Purple Rod and Rod Rouge have stuck around. Congratulations, guys! (Girls?)

Top blog posts

A recent poll showed that most people consider the return of the Jets to be the biggest story of the year. My hit counts corroborate that, as my top 2 posts were both Jets-related:

Winnipeg's new NHL team unveiled: this was my world-wide exclusive unveiling of a prototype jersey for Winnipeg's new NHL team:

New Jets logo, tweaked: I critique the actual Jets logo and suggest a slightly different version.

Thoughts on Hydro CEO Brennan: this was a bit of a surprise, as it was a pretty unremarkable post in my opinion. Some people obviously found it interesting.

2011 Manitoba provincial election platform: here I unveiled my hypothetical election platform. I'm glad this one drew some eyeballs because I actually put a little bit of effort into it. In fact, I strongly recommend that potential Liberal and PC leadership candidates give this post another look as your respective parties attempt to regain relevancy. What you're doing is not working. You need new ideas.

Winnipeg radio: FM station correlation: this is my analysis of the overlap amongst Winnipeg's lame mainstream FM radio stations. Traffic was aided by a link from a music industry blog.


Those were my top new posts. There are some old ones that still get decent traffic. Top of the list is How to get to Vimy Ridge from 2008 which still draws hundreds of hits throughout the year. I think this is pretty cool, as any Canadian who is in that area of Europe ought to make the trip if they have time, and if I can help a little bit then awesome.

Top search terms
(not including obvious ones like "anybody want a peanut" or "cherenkov")

leah hextall - I'll save you the trouble: I do not have nude pictures of Leah.
cool helicopters
find your fetish - in retrospect it was probably a mistake for me to publish the fetish post. That was a time when this blog was still trying to find itself.
phil sheegl - I'll save you the trouble: I do not have nude pictures of Phil.
how to get to vimy ridge

Honourable mention:
sam owns an acre of land on red river. the government dams the river. a lake forms behind the dam, covering sam's land. does the government owe sam anything? - I got 31 hits from this. Apparently this is a practice exam question for Applied Law in the U.S. I can just imagine the frustrated law students stumbling upon my blog. Sam Katz? Riverside Park Management? What is this? Sorry guys .. this is for the advanced course: How To Bilk Taxpayers Out Of Thousands Of Dollars.

Oddest search terms

The moment you have all been waiting for! A selection of this 2011's odd-ball search terms that somehow led to this blog.

boobs touch in bus - I'm listening ... tell me more.
buzz lightyear mulroney - Ha. Ya, they do kind of look the same, don't they?
did hugh mcfadyen rape girls - What??
hihiihhi - Hi!
jack motherfucking layton - Now now, don't Google angry.
safeway can burn in hell - My, what an angry readership I have. Do they even allow grocery stores in hell?
stephen hawking thingy - Oh, you mean gravitational singularities in space-time within the framework of general relativity? That thingy?
thank you universe anybody want a peanut? - Aw, shucks ...
why is winnipeg so poorly planned - insert your own quip here: __________


Other year end wrap-ups:
Slurpees and Murder - Alphabet Poem
One Man Committee - Looking back
The View from Seven - A few thoughts
Progressive Winnipeg's - Google searches.
Winnipeg .. One Great City - Good riddance
West End Dumplings Top Posts and Disappointing story of the year.

Thanks to all my visitors, and all the best in 2012!