And so we climb back over the 20,000 mark for the first time since May, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I didn’t think we’d get there, but extra hits for the Enslaved and Monster Magnet interviews put us over the top to get to the above 20,842 page views (according to Yahoo) for the month of October. Awesome. Thank you.

I’ve now been keeping track of The Numbers for over a year, and if you look back at October 2009, you’ll see 2010 was more than twice as many. It’s hard to complain about that.

By Google‘s estimate, The Obelisk got hits from 111 nations between Oct. 1 and 31, the top five being the US, the UK, Germany, Canada and Italy. Surprisingly, Sweden wasn’t even in the top 10. I couldn’t be more up that country’s ass if I tried, but hey, I guess you take what you can get from the coldness of Stockholm. Wherever you are, thanks for checking in. A special hello to the one person in Uganda who stopped by.

The pages with the first and second most views were the Monster Magnet review and interview, so I guess I owe Dave Wyndorf a beer. Right behind them was the Hawkwind interview from the end of July and the Cough streaming track, which is cool because it means people actually listened to the song. You never know what’s going to strike a chord, and with so much just left on the front page, it’s hard to tell what’s really the most viewed, but it’s interesting nonetheless, and I hope you enjoyed reading/hearing/viewing whatever you did.

A lot to come in November, so let’s get to it:

The Maple Forum: Kings Destroy‘s And the Rest Will Surely Perish will be released Nov. 30. Physical copies are expected within the week and from there it’s just a matter of getting a little word spreading about the album — which, if I haven’t said it yet (and I know I have) is fucking incredible. We’re pressing 300 and I’ll have some portion of that for sale here. I’m going to see if I can put the Paypal button in the sidebar, and I’m sure, as always, that it’ll be an adventure in screwing everything up. If the site suddenly goes down around the end of this month, you’ll know why.

I’ve also just received the audio for The Maple Forum‘s following release, the first of 2011, and it’s a rocker to be sure. Info on that to come.

audiObelisk: I’ll have the November podcast as soon as I have a copy of Kylesa‘s Spiral Shadow, as per yesterday’s Buried Treasure. I’ll probably try to get it again today, and pending that, maybe tomorrow or Thursday. Before the weekend, in any case. Till then, listen to “Dopesmoker” again. That’s what it’s there for. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, as well. Your feedback and the thought you put in was killer and much appreciated. Seeing that as the most viewed page in “What People Dig” in the sidebar was very exciting for me.

Interviews: Chris Goss hopefully this week. I also have Riotgod, High Watt Electrocutions, Elliott’s Keep and Spiritual Beggars in the can and Six Dumb Questions features with Blackwolfgoat and Tasha-Yar to go up later today and next week, respectively. I think the SDQ thing has some real potential and I hope you’ve been enjoying it as well. Plenty of good stuff to come there.

Facebook: I don’t know if it’s been a help or a hindrance, but whatever. I don’t check the MySpace anymore, so if you’ve sent me something through there, I didn’t see it. Get in touch either via the contact form here (preferable) or on Facebook. Sorry, but I’m only doing one social networking thing at a time, and until Diaspora opens up and is the new coolest thing ever, it’s this. Blah.

Reviews: Working on getting caught up. In the next week, I hope to do OJM (today), Whores of Tijuana, Kin of Ettins, Suplecs and Black Space Riders, but I might not be able to resist throwing Wino‘s Live at Roadburn 2009 or the new Slough Feg in there as well. We shall see. Lots of cool albums though, and no shortage of things to say about them. I tend to think of the reviews as the meat of this site, the everyday thing, so thanks for any reactions you may have given this month, positive or negative.

Good stuff all around. Thank you for your continued support of this strange project.

Sincerely,
JJ Koczan
H.P. Taskmaster

Tags: self-aggrandizing, The Numbers

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 10:48 am and is filed under The Numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.