Has The Random Forest lost it's fire?

Well I hope it hasn't lost it's fire yet, I guess I see it really as just warming up.

So why do I ask this question?

Yesterday I had 8 Feedburner readers. Almost reaching 10 made me greatly excited. The sky felt like an easy height to achieve, I was thinking that next week it will be 20, then 50, then 100 and then one day 1,00,000.

However today I saw that sadly my readers had dropped back down to 5. Oh dear! I felt mildly devastated and confused "what did I do wrong? Was it because I did not post yesterday? Was it because my tongue in cheek dig at the letter Z offended what is probably mostly a US audience? Did Feedburner have a glitch?"

Well I have no answer, I am having extreme trouble working out what I need to provide to get people reading but see this as an exciting journey and want to formulate a list of things to as I constantly read that people like lists. So here goes...

To Do by the end of the week.
1. Submit 2 articles to Blog Carnivals
2. Visit and if liked comment on at least 10 new blogs, subscribing if liked
3. Comment on all my liked blogs at least once
4. Read up and find out about good affiliate programs and which ones I should add to my blog
5. Find out how to change my template without affecting any added coding
6. Find a new template
7. Add one article to Helium and Associated Content (Same article is ok if allowed)
8. Learn to understand the Statcounter stats
9. Post at least 3 more times
10. Make sure I have enough items for my next list of 10

I guess that small set back has caused some concern to me and made me create a list of To Do's but the last week or so has been extremely positive. My traffic has slowly increased as you can see from the image below it's slowly getting better and today my on blog counter just reached 300 unique visits!



Hardly 100,000 a week yet but I'm excited.

Reading other people blogs had become a real inspiration. My attempt at starting a Meme hasn't really worked yet as there as so many around being started and pushed by the big guys (you know who you are) but I am making contacts and I have really started to find some voices I like.

I can't thank everyone enough for commenting on my blog. It really is a great feeling to know that somebody is actually reading and not just visiting for a brief second in fact I best be off very shortly to go on a reading lastest post rampage!

Before I head off I want to thank a few inspirational blogs and blogs I like. I now feel that an online work and some social life is achievable and I really want to work hard to achieve this for myself.

Bush Mackel - Bush started a great series for new bloggers and I have found his blog to be extremely helpful and informative as well as occassionally random and to boot he seems like a very friendly nice guy.

Bob Meets World - Bob again is very helpful and between this blog and his other one John Cow I have learnt the beginnings of the skills I need, also he is a great friendly helpful guy... do you see a pattern here?

Ugly Mail Boxes - This site basically gives me a pretty much daily laugh

Julie Anne Bonner - I'm not sure if she reads this blog but she was one of the first blogs that I came across when I first started my research and she sent me a very helpful email when I first started blogging with my original blog back in April. I always read her new posts and am always entertained.

Snoskred's Life In the Country Has been great and I may use the same template when I get round to changing. Snoskred came by my site and was very helpful when she added me to something came Stumble Upon and it caused that Tuesday hump in my traffic.

Twisted Sisters - This site can be very negative in tone but it's mostly just ranting and good humoured and I like it. Insanity Suits Me has been visiting and commenting on my site which is very encouraging!

I also want to mention Samir because I like his blog design and if you check out his latest post about conversing with urban Indians it is very funny. Christyz has always been a good place to stop by and same goes for Joanne's I'm Happy Fish and Aaron Cook. Sorry if I missed anyone who has been regularly stopping by.

Adios, gonna go find some fuel to help this blog burn brighter......

Movie reviews: SiCKO (2007)

A copy of my review on Helium
Image link from wikipedia.org

After umming and arring I finally decided to go and see SiCKO the new film from the controversial Michael Moore. SiCKO attempts to highlight the huge problems with the American privatized health care and insurance system by showing a series of extreme examples pointing the fingers at the evil insurance companies.

This film is frightening and at times extremely funny. Michael Moore manages to expertly push the audience in shock and makes everyone feel like something needs to be done. I guess I feel this is a good idea, almost everyone knows of a health insurance nightmare and in many peoples opinions medical care is just too expensive but personally I had severe problems with certain aspects of Michael Moores techniques.

I was cynical of this film as I have been with other Michael Moore offerings. To me it felt as though he was again making the argument extremely one sided and treated the average American like they did not know anything and should eat up his propaganda as quickly as he believes people eat up the propaganda given by the beloved government!

Being English the one sidedness that I had suspected was confirmed. When Mr Moore visited England to have a look at the NHS (our government run health system) he painted it in such an amazing light that I wouldn't be surprised if half of the US applies for UK immigration. The NHS is definitely a better system in my opinion than the US insurance system but he neglected to mention the money problems and waiting times problems and hospital cleanliness issues that are common place. I'd imagine that the French and Canadian that he painted in the same amazing light systems also suffer from their fair share of problems too.

I felt the pace of the movie became repetitive after a while too. Although the cases he highlighted were all shocking, i'm sure true, and highlighted the problem very well we all knew that the finally outcome would be bad even if he sarcastically tries to lead us away from thinking that.

One huge and amazing point to come out of the movie was the cost of drugs in neighboring Cuba. A $120 inhaler was found to cost around 5cents in Cuba which really is outrageous and I thank Mr Moore for highlighting this. The stunt he pulled taking ill Americans to Cuba for free treatment was extremely funny and seemed spontaneous and dangerous but I'm sure it was a very well planned activity that included needing to get Visas and using his contacts to pull strings to allow certain parts of the filming.

And the final insult from the self absorbed man was when he put in a kick to an anti Michael Moore web site owner by revealing that it was him that had donated an anomalous $12000 for the medical treatment of the site owners wife. In my opinion real generosity would have been achieved only if he did not reveal on tape that it was him that had given the money.

I think this movie should be seen. The problem is real and it does need highlighting. I just wish that it was a shorter film and that at least some reality had been brought to the other sides of the argument. Michael Moore needs to realize that people are big enough and clever enough to make up their own minds.