2011, a numerical assessment

Wrote 53 blog posts

Definitely less than 2010, when I wrote 74 posts. I think in the first part of the year I had actually been more active, but from summer onwards I think I got wholly distracted by Google+ and most of my content generation and general thoughts were going on there due to the pure simplicity of it.

21,752 people visited this website

That’s a staggering increase in numbers for me. Up from 6,250 unique visitors last year. I’m not sure what I did to deserve that, but it’s quite cool 🙂

Thanks to all that dropped by, and here’s to a 2012 with more writing, both personal journal stuff, more photos, and most of all, more tech related stuff, especially WordPress useful functions (these posts seems to draw the most comments).

Travelled 44, 616 kilometres through 7 countries

This is just a rough assessment as per my TripIt stats. I would have covered a bit more ground than that with various trips to Kampot, Kep, Kirirom National Park, Ho Chi Minh et al.

Country-wise I stayed in or passed through Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, France, United Kingdom, and Ireland.

Lived in 3 apartments

From my old place on 6Z Mao Tse Tung Boulevard, to Warren’s house near Russian Market, to my current flat in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland.

Took 2,813 photos with my DSLR

This isn’t counting the photos I’ve rejected for being blurry, out of focus, or generally crap 😉

A big step up from the 1082 photos taken in 2010, although I only got the camera in May of 2010.

Gained 471 followers on Google Plus

Sent 1,163 emails from Gmail; 2,687 work emails

Bit of a drop from 2010 on the work front, when I sent 3,015 emails. Was it a quieter year for work, not sure about that.

Listened to approximately 15,618 songs

My average number of scrobbled tracks per year is about 14,000, so I’ve listened to a bit more this year than usual. Probably helped along by scrobbling songs from my phone.

It was a tight race to the top this year, with only 34 plays between the top five artists. I hope Sunken Foal will be happy to be sitting in my top 10 too 🙂

My top 20 artists this year are:

1. Autechre – 490 plays
2. Venetian Snares – 486 plays
3. Radiohead – 484 plays
4. Loscil – 472 plays
5. Aphex Twin – 456 plays
6. Trampled By Turtles – 300 plays
7. Boards of Canada – 263 plays
8. Susumu Yokota – 233 plays
9. Woob – 232 plays
10. Sunken Foal – 227 plays
11. Gillian Welch – 209 plays
12. Rhythm & Sound – 203 plays
13. Lusine Icl – 193 plays
14. Brian Eno – 186 plays
15. The KLF – 184 plays
16. Hellfish & Producer – 182 plays
17. Cat Power – 178 plays
18. Lucid Dreams – 175 plays
19. Nouvelle Vague – 173 plays
20. Yo La Tengo – 168 plays

And here’s a lovely graph of my listening trends, courtesy of Last.fm’s Listening Trends in their playground.

Bought approximately 1,100 songs from Emusic

Simply based on the fact that I get 100 tracks a month, but I did take a month off. I definitely picked up a few other new album here and there, usually from Bleep, when they weren’t available on Emusic.

Will I change this pattern? It’s not particularly cheap at €30 a month, although that is a good deal for 100 songs (I’m on a legacy account since they increased their prices). Still I could pay GBP10 a month to Spotify for a premium account but not actually ‘own’ any of the songs and be somewhat more dependent on the cloud.. I’ll think about that one..

Searched Google 5,186 times

Fairly consistent, with July (travelling back to Ireland and being somewhat uprooted) being my quietest month. Per day my highest volume of searches happens around 6pm.

Met 1 special lady

Amen to that 🙂

No more numbers

Yes, sorry about the number overload. This is more of a personal reference. I might try to do the same next year and see how things compare year to year.

Fingers crossed I might actually find the time to create a new design for this blog too. I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas to make it easier to find the stuff of mine you’re more interested in, and generally refresh the whole look and feel of the site. Design concepts are half-completed!

Have a happy new year’s eve celebration, whatever you may be doing. Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2012 for all my friends, family, and blog readers!

PS. Hat tip to Naoko McCraken, who I met at WordCamp Malaysia 2010, for giving me the inspiration to write this post.