JovialJMan - 100 Posts Special

"Because writing 100 posts is comparable to having a birthday... right?" - OddballGreg
"Who brought the 100 candles?" - JovialJman

98 Days ago (on the 18th of June), we started writing daily blog posts. Today, we've written 100 posts, (imagine that ...) Let's talk about some of the interesting things regarding the journey here, and crack a few jokes too.

Did you notice that there are more posts then days? (I didn't until yesterday). The reason for that is the fact that OddballGreg published 3 posts on one day, (I think he got a bit too excited ...) There have also been 2 days which the post were a bit too late and were not counted and indexed for that day; Greg's post yesterday ,being one, as he had no internet access (I am sure he facedesked when he realized that he could not post it on time). The other being Greg's Blogging Music post which went up at midnight but was seen as the next day.

This is my 19th personal post , and boy has it been a strange journey here. I have had the very kind help of Greg, to help improve my writings, and he has said it has improved, (let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree). Ideas are limitless but when I have to think of a post for a day, then all the options seem to disappear, like magic, (somewhat strange for a novice magician)

TCSA has been going for 38 days, if you start counting from Greg's last Storytime Sunday, which, of course, I do, (that is over a full month of OddballGreg and JovialJman's joint ramblings on TSCA, (who would have thought it's been that long).

On 30th of July 2014 OddballGreg achieved 1000 total pageviews, (OddballGreg was all by his lonesome then). Today we are sitting at ± 2600. What an achievement! I would like to thank each and every one of you who have shown your support. Thank you.

Let's recap on some of the post that has seen a fair amount of attention (their page views are accurate as of the 23rd of September) :

The Magic of Performing Magic (75 views)

This was my 4th post and a somewhat follow up to my first post, The Disillusion Of Magic, which was recommended by a dear friend of mine, Clinton. I am rather passionate about the topic, which I really think shows in the amount of views it has gotten. It is my favorite post I have written so far as it allowed me to talk about a favorite pastime of mine.

Parkour and Muscle Damage (60 views)
"A story about a younger me jumping around on things, swinging on things, and hurting myself like you would expect. Also, turns out that parkour is still really fun even though I tend to hurt myself. I quite enjoyed telling this story about my usual bad ideas, and was quite proud when Parkour South Africa shared the article on their Facebook community."-OddballGreg

Tabletop Roleplaying Games (44 views)

"I may be a nerd, I may play Dungeons and Dragons, but so do a ton of other people in world, even though we have computers and videogame consoles. People really enjoyed reading this article, and I really enjoyed writing about a really awesome hobby. In fact, perhaps Jerome and I will write an article about the escapades of us playing DnD eventually." - OddballGreg

Statistics (And The People That Believe Them) (37 views)

"You probably still believe statistics, but since they make up such a large part of our lives, we can probably let you off the hook for that. Apparently, a fair percentage of people like reading about the potential statistics have for being wrong, but hey, percentages can be fudged now can't they?" - OddballGreg

The Truth About Spongebob (34 views)

This post was one that was recommended or suggested by my sister. I was struggling for an idea on the day and she said Spongebob is a representation of the 7 deadly sins, and thus the post had formed. I was still learning how to write a post with more accuracy so Oddball had to help a bit with that one. While doing the research for that one I came about a fair deal of other cartoons and their supposed connotations.

With the top page views as they are, if we were to speak about Spongebob giving magicians statistics of Role Playing games, after his accidental muscle damage from parkour, would that be the most popular post so far? maybe, (let us know down in the comments, what your idea would be for a popular post). Geocaching (Glorified Treasure Hunting) is less then a week old, but it has already climbed to the 6th position of the most viewed post. It goes to show that if the right audience is achieved, the amount of views should go up, and since there are people out there ,that I know of, that would like to start or already have started Geocaching they find it somewhat interesting and share it with others.

We have had views from many different places, here is a list of some; The United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Kenya, Italy, Ireland, France and the Philippines. We have a very diverse audience but it is scary to think that we have gotten a few more view from America, than South africa, they represent about 44% and 41% of our total pageviews respectively.

Do you have any thing that you would like us to talk about, or have any questions, please ask away down in the comments, over Facebook or on Twitter. Thank you for taking the time to read today's post. If you know of anyone that you think might like the blog, please share this with them, as I am sure they could find it of some interest. If you would like to see the newest posts as they are published, please like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for your support and I hope you have/had a wonderful day. I shall write again overmorrow

Enjoy National Heritage Day (aka. National Braai Day) tomorrow buddies.

Storytime Sunday - Parkour and Muscle Damage

And it is time for the first ever... Storytime Sunday! Complete with memories of pain and stupidity and advisories to would-be Traceurs.

Ahh parkour, a much loved ex-hobby of mine. Before I continue, I would like to preface the particular story I'm about to tell, I should mention, as I've said a few times in the past, that I am an idiot and prone to stupidty occasionally. That said... lets begin.

For those of you who have yet to hear about Parkour (Or it's related, but actually different cousin, Free Running), it is something of a mindset and method of movement. To use a cliched style of speech, it's "A way of life." To describe it in a very simple and easy to understand way; Parkour is the basis of efficient movement. It's getting from place A to place B as quickly as possible. It's the "Through instead of around" argument. For comparisons sake, (and because I'm likely to get annoyed with you if you do a flip and call it Parkour), Free Running is something of an offshoot from Parkour. The objective with Free Running no longer being the fastest traversal of space, but the most stylish. Free Runners do flips and arbitrary movements that are visually appealing and obviously difficult to pull off, but the their objective is different. Anyways, now that you know what Parkour is, lets get back to how young people (AKA me) can be stupid and hurt themselves.

Once upon a time some young (well.... young-er) version of myself stumbled upon this wonderful new "sport" known as parkour. I say "sport" because it is not, in technicality, an competitive activity, but rather a method of movement. So being the bright and happy go lucky, devil may care lad that I was, I pulled on my track-pants and running shoes and went at it. As I'm sure you can guess, a relatively unfit and untrained person jumping and hanging off of things, or jumping off of them, is not a particularly safe nor intelligent thing to be doing. (In hindsight, at least I didn't jump off a building.)

This guy... is better than I was...

So where's the issue then you ask? Well, one day somewhere along my 11th grade I decided to hang off of some metal bars and was rebuffed by the searing pain of torn muscle in my left shoulder. Much to my luck, my injury was not especially serious to any degree, however it did serve as an effective wake up call to stop behaving like a brainless monkey hanging from metal trees (Nobody ever threw peanuts at me though...) The tear was not especially severe, although it hurt like hell, and while I still have full control of my arm in all capacities, I do have a patch of skin that is near completely dead to the touch over my shoulder blade. (oooh, Poke it!)

So what can I tell you that you should do if you would like to do Parkour. Well... I would say "Don't"... but that's crap, we both know Parkour is awesome. So what I will advise is that you don't just put on some sneakers and start climbing things. Joke's aside, it's a good way to hurt and even kill yourself as many a news report over the years has since told. (And I always say, if you're gonna kill yourself, do it with style. Splattered bodies are unsightly.)

Rather, go do some research. The internet is, I find, your friend in many a case. There are tons of resources on the internet to help you get on track towards becoming a Traceur (Or Free Runner) and taking part in this awesome activity. (Or breaking your face accidentally.)  Wikihow has tons of tutorials of varying quality on subjects such as this one on doing the Safety Roll: http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Parkour-Safety-Rolls
Please learn how to do the roll... Like... seriously. That can save your life.
Youtube also has a veritable mass of similarly themed tutorials as always for those like myself who need a bit more visual information to figure things out. 

And lastly, there are probably hundreds of Parkour and Free Running groups across the world who are more than willing to show newbies the ropes so they don't end up dead or maimed. Being a resident of South Africa, I know of the local group for my South African; ParkourSA, who maintain an active Facebook and Twitter following and regularly help would be runners in organizing to train with others. I highly recommend you check them out, either on their Facebook Page or by dropping them a Tweet on @ParkourSA. For my international readers, a quick Google will likely have you where you need to be in no time.

Anyways, hopefully you have been amused or educated by this lengthy lament about the necessity for research. Or at least become less likely to accidentally commit suicide.

Don't forget to leave a comment or suggestion and share this with anyone you think might injure themselves without this information.

Have an AWESOME day, and I bid you adieu.