The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special.

AKA, The Only Time I’ll Ever Get To Use My Sonic Screwdriver and Not Feel Like a Total Jerk.

We had the sheer joy to experience the Doctor Who 50^th Anniversary Special in 3D at the local theater.  It was really difficult to avoid the spoilers present on the web these last 3 days since it was simulcasted in Europe.  Two and half hours before the show I grabbed my sonic screwdriver and met Joanne at the Kamita restaurant, which is a 5 minute walk from the theater.

An hour before the show, tickets in hand, we joined the crowd before a shut door #19.  “Is the door locked?” I asked.  Screwdriver in hand I pointed it at the door activating the light and sound effect.  Which generated a few laughs from the audience.  And I was more surprised than anyone when the theater cleaning staff opened the door at that moment.  The crowd didn't even hesitate to enter in the rush for seats.   Not missing a beat, I called out to no one in particular, “You’re welcome.”

The theater filled quickly.  At least half full before the commercials started.  If you only saw it on TV, then you missed the introduction by Strax, the Sontaran who chained bandaged movie etiquette violators to the wall and explained he loved blowing up the corn creatures and stated that popcorn can feel pain.  

The show was magnificent.  The 3D was not over done to distraction and greatly enhanced of imagery of the 3D pictures within the film.  The ending changes the history of the Doctor as we know it, and the closing shot of the 12 current doctors was worth the price of admission.

Afterwards, there was a short film on the making of the special, narrated  by Colin Baker.

On the way out the door, we headed for the normally unused back exit.  I gave it shot with the sonic screwdriver before opening it.  I hope someone saw. 

The Best Exotic Travelodge Hotel*

An open letter to Wyndham Customer Service department.

My only real question is how dare you take money from customers to stay at your hotel at 2390 Lincoln Hwy E, Lancaster, PA 17602, phone number (717) 397-6531?

Are you serious?  I know you just bought the place, and were renovating it heavily, by why subject your customers to such a heavy renovation in progress? 

With the dry wall removed from the walls, open exposed wiring in the showers, and fresh, but sticky asphalt on the road ways, cobwebs in the ceilings, how can you be serious?  The mats on both my cars have to be cleaned from mud and oil, and probably will have to be replaced. 

The staff must be new as well, as they couldn't find the room keys, all of which were in a single cardboard box.  Nor did they seem to be able to find the thermostat in the common areas.  And please have the maid come to room 152, as no one did so during our stay.

This place is such a joke, that one couple I talked with was at the Shady Maple Restaurant, some 10 miles away, and their waitress gave them a look of horror when they told her where they had been staying.  My wife refused to stay a second day, and went home early.

And in case you didn't notice, that thin plastic sheet proclaiming Travelodge covering the old Canadaina name is invisible at night, as the original sign bleeds through it.

The day manager tried to put a good face on it.  It took 3 tries to find a room that was available, even if it wasn't made.  He said that when I return in March, I will be amazed by the differences.  I just gritted my teeth, because I my thought is why would I ever frequent any Wyndham hotel chain hotel ever again after receiving this kind of treatment. 

And when I crafted this fine letter of complaint and went to send it to you, the customer service department, what did I find?  A limit of 450 characters.  Which doesn't even get to the comments of the staff on duty.

 

Disgustingly yours,

Phil Gardocki

Hotels forever on my personal blacklist:

Days Inn,

Howard Johnson's,

Knights Inn, which I have stayed at and can say at 2 stars, is generously over rated.

Microtel Inns and Suites,

Ramada,

Red Roof Inn

Super 8,

Travelodge,

Wyndham,

*With apologies to the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", which I would rate as a 4 star movie.

Is Microsoft Providing Software For Our Cars?

I have a 2010 Nissan Altima with a keyless entry system.  I got in my car this afternoon put my foot on the brake pedal, and pushed the start button.  All the interior lights came on, along with all the warning lights, but no engine.  I pushed the start button again, and nothing.  The car refused to turn off.  The lights stayed on.  When I got out of the car, it gave me the audio indicator that the key was not in car anymore, but other than that, no response.

After checking the battery, which was at 11.9 volts.  I went to get the jumper cables, but the trunk button would not respond.

OK, what to do?  This being a shaggy dog story of sorts, I actually borrowed Joanne’s car and went to the YMCA to do some laps while Alex was in a Political Science club.  While there I struck up a conversation with someone in the locker room and found out that all the back seats of modern sedans come out easily for back access to the trunk.

Found the switch, opened the back seat, got the jumpers, jumped the car and …

Still nothing.  The lights remained on, while the engine remained off.  Checked fuses, consulted with neighbor, nothing.

I resigned myself to having the car towed to the shop, watched the Eagles lose, had dinner, then  Joanne recommended that I should disconnect the battery so it won’t go dead.  After all, all the lights were on.

It then came to me that I need to reboot the car.  I unplugged the battery for fifteen minutes.  Then jumped it again.  Car started.

There was no blue screen of death, but this seemed an awful like a Microsoft reboot.

Tips on Writing Battle Reports

Note:  this article was written 10 years ago, and probably needs updating. 

Edited lightly in 2025.

This is a tip sheet for those of you that are supporting our hobby by maintain a blog.

This is not a comprehensive document, just my observations on what seems to work, or not.  I am not an expert, these are just my thoughts.  Feel free to comment as I am just learning this art.

What constitutes success with a blogger?  Providing a pleasant experience for your readers.  This will result on return traffic and more readers.  But the only measure we have is number of visits your blog has.  I will have tips for both of these.

On providing a pleasant experience.

Providing a pleasant experience is important.  If the readers are uncomfortable, then they will not stay as long, and may not return.

Fonts and size:  Keep the fonts consistent.  I know this is troublesome.  If you are copying information from Word, Notepad, other sites, you can easily have Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier all in the same paragraph.  It is distracting.

On colors: There really are only a few combinations of foreground to background colors that work.  Others may have an eye catching appeal, but can quickly lead to eye fatigue.  Black on white, or black on light grey work best.  White text on black background quickly drains the biochemicals in the eyes leading to after images long after you leave the page.

Consistency:  Most of us are putting out content on similar topics all the time.  On my WWII page, about half my entries are Battle Reports.  Try to have a consistent layout of the battle reports.   To that end, I have a common header with information on who, what, where, mission etc…   Keep the fonts and sizes consistent. 

All my pictures are the same size.  To do this is easy with windows 10 and 11

    Open the folder where your pictures are in Windows File Explorer
    Create a folder called "Shrink"
    Copy all your photos into Shrink.
    Go to Shrink
    Highlight all your pictures.  Right Click, select  Resize pictures.  
    A Popup will appear,  Headlined with "Image Resizer for Windows"  I select "Custom Fit 1280 x 960.

 

Paragraphs should have a common beginning format.  Indenting some, and spacing others looks unprofessional.  Select a paragraph alignment and stick with it.  Either align left or justification.  My preference is justification

Typos:  When your blog entry is finished, don’t immediately publish it.  Have someone else read and edit it for typos.

Why this tank?  I just happen to like Lees.

Pictures.  Do have pictures, even lots of them.  But be cognizant of the band width and load times.  It’s easy to have megabytes of data being transferred with a page.  Not all broadband connections are the same.  If you are providing photos that are “normal” size, and when you click on them, expand to 5megapixels, be aware, that the user is downloading the 5mp picture, whether he views the expansion or not.  Also, when posting a picture.  Resize the picture to the size you want before applying it to the blog.  Don’t post a 1mp picture, and shrink it with the blogs Small, Medium, or Large settings.  What that means, the full picture is being sent, then resized each and every time someone calls on your site.  This means performance delays which can frustrate the user.  If you have a dozen of these, then the all of them will be downloaded and resized before the user can interact with your site.

<edit 2025>  Microsoft Windows 11 has embedded in it a program called "Image Resizer".  Select all your pictures, right click, select Image Resizer, and select how you want them to be.  I go with 1280 by 960 pixels.

Acronyms:  Don’t use them.  In this document, I use several, FOW, AAR, Batrep, SEO.  Do you know what they all are?  Maybe yes, probably not all of them though.  If you don’t know what they are, your content becomes a frustrating read.  Remember, ideally a lot of people will read your content.  So spell out the acronym, you only have to type it once but it will be read many times.

On Driving Traffic: Driving traffic is the art of finding web surfers and directing them to your site.  When I started blogging it was partially as an outlet for articles I have written, partially because I was encouraged to do so, but mainly to study how to drive traffic.  This is the world we are now living in, and knowing what works and what doesn't work may be a marketable skill.  So I am practicing with a topic I love, and while there is no cash at risk.  It’s a cheap education. 

Driving traffic to your site is work.  If you are doing this for fun, you can take a haphazard approach to this.  If you are doing this for real, then you must be methodical. 

There are three main ways to drive traffic to your site.  Through Paid Advertisements, Posted Links, and Search Engine Optimization.

Paid Advertisements:  Considering where I am posting this missive, I don’t need to go into this. 

Posted Links:  This is where most of your traffic is going to come from.  Posting links to your website from a forum of another website.  Usually by starting a new topic/thread and saying something clever, and providing a link.

1)    Research your forums that you want to post your links on.

2)   Have a catchy title for your blog entry.  It should be accurate but should also excite the imagination.  I post rather consistently, and the content has a consistent fit and finish.  But the view numbers of a specific page can vary by over 300% some times.  For instance, with some of my titles and numbers:

a.     At #1 “Great Expectations”, (507 views).  The title fit my mood at the time, but the numbers are disproportionate as compared to other After Action Reports (AAR’s).  This is one of my older Flames of War Battle Reports, and I suspect a number of these hits are students googleing the Charles Dicken’s novel.  Some of them probably wrote up a report of the failed attack by the Pip’s Canadian Armored Squadron upon the 326^th Infantry Division.

b.  At #2 “Panzer Grenadier-Division Grossdeutschland ”, (501).   This is premier division of the Wehrmacht.  It is also an original posting so it has had a lot of time to build up a view count. Lots of SEO traffic on that one.  (see SEO Below)

c.     At #3 “1944, Encounter with the Wiking SS”, (480).  This is one of my newer titles, so having it shoot to 480 views in a few months implies that the title caught a lot of attention.  There is another title written just a month later, "Attacking the Wiking SS at Vyazma" that shot to 380 views.

d.   At #4 “Stabilizing the Iron Curtain”, (465).  This title is only 4 months old, but for some reason has lots of views.

e. So what are the poor performers on my list?  “Monty’s Pythons Meet the Russians”, at 136 views.  Less than a third of the top rated page.  Followed by “Fighting in Another Hedgerow Nightmare", at 151 views.  Yet this one was just one part of a set of three Battle Reports (Batrep’s) written withing a one month span.  The third was “The Battle for Croydon” at 436 views.  Why then were two of these Battle Reports have 1/3^rd the views of the third?  My only thought is that the “Monty’s Pythons Meet the Russians” sounds a lot like “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

3)   When posting a link, post to the exact article.  Do not post to your front page.  In general, if people don’t see what they expect when they click on a link, they will click off very fast.  My observation is they will not navigate around your site to look for anything.  My rule of thumb is the title of the web page is the title I put in the forum link. 

4)    Don’t expect users to navigate around your site.  I have found by comparing pages from my “Driven” traffic, that less than 20% of the users look at the other articles on the site.  I have left several web pages unpromoted as an experiment, and they range from 60-90 views, where my top promoted pages run 500 views.

5)   Don’t link images and animations from other sites for presentation.  Or at least keep it to a minimum.  When you do this, your site is now beholden to someone else’s site.  Which may or not may not be up to snuff performance wise and can cause considerable delays.  Extreme examples are news sites with 30-50 picture links on the side.  All of them must load before you can read the second paragraph of the article that you are there to read.

               

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique to populate your content with commonly searched keywords that will attract the search engines and present your page on the top 10 selections.  A keyword is a word used by a search engine in its search for relevant Web pages.  Your blog entry should be sprinkled with the keywords that someone would use to find your blog entry.  Keywords must be inserted in such a way as to look natural to the naked eye.  Just lists of words will be rejected by sophisticated search engines and by the naked eye.  Important Keywords should be used multiple times for validation. 

One of the techniques I use that exploits keywords is writing up the units I am fighting with and against, and then referring to them often in the text.  So with “Great Expectations”, Steve Turn’s German 326^th Infantry division is mentioned 4 times.  So someone searching for that division might find my page. 

But let’s face it; unless the keywords are an exact match as the title, you have little chance of a Flames of War Battle Report hitting the top ten results of any search.  That being said, my venerable article on Panzer Grenadier-Division Grossdeutschland is #10 in a Google search, while my 9^th Panzer Division article is #3.

In general SEO techniques do work to a point.  If you are interested doing content for hire or are running an actual business with an online presence, then you must understand how it works.  Ignore the propaganda promising you top placement using just SEO techniques.  That is just so much hogwash.  You need either advertising and forum traffic to drive a web based business.  But a properly crafted page with careful word choices will put you miles ahead of pages that don’t practice SEO.

If you are interested, you will have to do your own SEO research.  It is beyond the scope of this document.

Corporate Nonsense

Odd things I have observed in corporate advertising world.

On Flintstone Kids Vitamins.

"Were the Flintstone's Kids, 10 million strong, and growing."

Obviously they haven't grown much, that jingle started around 1990, so in 22 years they haven't added much to their clientele.

I kept looking at a box of Betty Crocker's "Asian Helper", looking for the cooking instruction, "Just add Asian."

I really take umbrage with marketing when it tries to get the word "NEW" in even when what is new adds no value to the product.  As in "Same Great Stuff, Brand New Box!"  Might as well say, "Same old shit, brand new package."  However, Tostados’ "Hint of Lime" has done this idiocy one better.  "Coming Soon!  New Look!"  All the while reducing that hint of lime to imperceptibility.