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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(08/15/04)
THE SUMMER OF NICE COMES TO A CLOSE
Ah, summer in Sacramento is coming to a close. Sadly, that means it's only going to be 103 degrees for another couple of months. Hate to see it go. Flop sweat is such an easy and healthy weight loss technique. Soon come the northern California rains. Which, thankfully, only last for, oh, about SIX MONTHS... And with the end of summer comes the end of the Summer of Nice. It's been big, it's been crazy, it's been fun. So that's Nice Guy year one behind us. Can't wait to see what's in store for year #2.
GOOGLE ME SOFTLY
We get our web site traffic at the Nice Guy from a number of different means. First, of course, is from people who are members of The Nice Club, and get our newsletter and drop in to see the new updates every couple of weeks. They, in turn, share this with other people, who also come. I also do some guerilla marketing and post up links to our site on message boards, which brings even more people. And there's also folks who just get links to our comics sent to them by friends and loved ones.
But another means of people coming to the site is through search engines. Our web providers gives us some handy stat tools that let us review all of our numbers, which pages get hit most, and what sites people are coming from to get to our site. But one of the pieces of info we can review is how people get to our site from search engines. People will type in a search phrase in, say, Google, and end up at our site, often without ever meaning to. Sure, there are some people actually looking for us, and they'll type in searches like "Nice Guy Comic" or "The Nice Guy Michael O'Connell Tim Watts". But others stumble across us completely by accident, looking for something else altogether. It just so happens that the combination of words they used appear on our site, and they find us unintentionally. Some of the ways people find us, and the searches they use to do so, can be pretty amusing...and often disturbing.
I just thought it'd be fun to share some of the top searches used that accidentally led people to TheNiceGuyComic.com. If you're a regular reader of all of our site content, like the Rant Shack, then you might see how some of these word combinations led to us. Some examples are listed below:
Guy Photos
Girls Crying
Wallpaper of Nice Girls
Nice Boob
One Day Love Will Find You Journey
Construction Worker Guys
Nice Guy Syndrome
Jeff Guy
Desktop Beatches
Being a Nice Guy Trials and Tribulations
Global Thermonuclear War Game
Free Comic Strips
Chuck Jager
I Need a Nice Guy in Michigan
Mom and Guy
Nice Guys Just Want to Be Friends
Nice Guys Finish Last
1 Guy 2 Girls
Olsen Twin
Guy Wallpaper
Nice Girls
Corey Feldman Untalented
Comic Strip About Being Nice
Hey Nice Guy
Nice Strip Girl
Guy Strips
Kidney Stone Comic Strip
When a Guy Works in a Strip Club
Nice Little Girls
Wish I Could Be Your Guy
Those Little Boob Are Nice
Nice Strip
Nice Guy and Dateless
Nice Guy Rant
2 Guys
Puerco Pibil
And while there's usually a lot of variation each month, for some reason, "Nice Boob" seems to make the list every time. Never should have written that "Boob Raider" strip last year. But hey, if I hadn't, we might have missed out on some traffic, and maybe some new Nice Guy fans. We're not above getting our business from pervs. Or fetishists into girls crying. Or fans of Puerco Pibil. It's all good! So thanks to you, Google, for helping bring new warm bodies to the Nice Guy each month. Even if they don't find the "desktop beatches" they're looking for. Or Corey Feldman.
YOU'll FREAK FOR GEEKS
Just discovered another new show on DVD, which, I'm very sad to say, I managed to miss out on on its very brief life on network television. Going on my friend Cindy's advice (it was more like an order), I decided to pick up and try out "Freaks and Geeks". The DVD box set contains all 18 episodes of the show that NBC canned before it could find an audience, despite rave critical reviews. Once again, I found Cindy Jones is wise, Cindy Jones knows all.
I'm only 6 episodes in, and already I can tell this was a brillliant series, and I'm already dreading reaching the final episode. What a wonderful character show. In case you're not hip to it, this is a show about high school students in 1980 Michigan. For those of us who remember 1980, the nostalgia factor alone is worth it. In the opening couple of minutes of the pilot, you've got some kids walking along doing Bill Murray lines from Caddyshack...something I remember doing with my friends back in the day, too. The music, the pop culture references, the fashions...they all evoke that time between disco and Thriller, a time when America was still trying to come out of the 70s (and people spent much of the 70s trying to put the 60s behind them), a confusing time that nicely mirrors the confusing time that high school was for all of us.
I think the show's title, oddly enough, is one of the things that did it in. "Freaks and Geeks" refers to the two main classes of 1980 high school students that are explored--the "freaks", or the stoner, slacker, rocker types, and the "geeks", or...well, the geeks. See, here's the thing...I think the use of the word "freak" to describe that particular group is a use of the word a little too rooted in 1980. In our modern world of 2004, with our flying cars and sonic showers, we tend to use these two words synonymously. A "geek" is often considered a "freak". People generally don't go around calling the cool guys smoking behind the school "freaks". I honestly think this confused people. People heard "Freaks and Geeks" and thought, "What, is it just a big show about nerds?". Just my take on it. I'd love to be able to travel back in time, have them change the title, and see if my theory would pan out.
But whatever caused it to get the boot, it was a serious injustice. This was a very genuine high school show, dealing with all the issues of identity, self, class cruelty, the awkward evolution from childhood, family, longing... All without having to hire perfect looking WB cookie cutter teens and putting the school in Honolulu or something. It was honest, sometimes painfully so, and funny as hell. If you're old enough, you'll definitely see yourself directly in a lot of these characters, but I don't think that's a prerequisite. It was very universal. Man, what a sad loss of yet another great show. Network TV is really starting to piss me off, especially with their new habit of shutting shows down after 3 or 4 episodes if the ratings aren't there yet, and replacing them with some new "reality" show. Shows like "Freaks and Geeks" deserve a chance to find their audience. Well, it least there's a second chance, now, for us to discover it again in handy DVD format (which I'm finding is my preferred way to watch shows now).
Listen to Cindy Jones...get yourself a copy of "Freaks and Geeks" and take a little trip back in time, back to high school. You'll find yourself digging out your old yearbook later that night, I guarantee it.
Click above to try it out yourself!
DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Come on, you know you're pissed you didn't think of it first...
SPEAKING OF SCHOOL...
It'll be back to school next time we update (in two short weeks), so go buy that new Trapper Keeper, start drawing the Van Halen logo on the inside cover, and take a break from your trig homework and check out the new Nice Guy update. See you then!
Michael
The
Nice Guy
“Pilot”
Now on Sale!
ITEM!
New strip added in the Comics! section: "Kneeeel Before Zod"
ITEM!
New update in The Rant Shack...with the news on the A-1 Comics Van Fundraiser...and the shocking Tim Watts finger news...
ITEM!
Update to the Photos page with A-1 Comics shots! Sorry, no shots of Tim's finger...
ITEM!
Always find out the latest NG News in the What's Cookin' Section
ITEM!
Look for new material on the 1st and 15th of every month!
And now available for purchase! "Serenity", the film continuation of Firefly! Order yours now!
Want to see more? How about watching the first 9 minutes of the film for free? Click below!
