The Meter Readers

This is a pic of Vince and Sara. Vince and Sara are the website traffic meter technicians that I have hired to help me monitor and analyze the virtual mountains of raw data generated by the thousands of daily visits to this site.

Basically, it works like this:
Whenever a 'visitor' ( such as yourself) views this site, Sara prepares to install a new InterTube Measuring Machine (IMM) in the ever-growing wall of IMM's seen behind the pair of techs.


First she uses a Mathison Electropsychometer to determine if the visit , ('hit', as us 'insiders' call them) is from a valid IP address or just some sort of electronic 'spider'. Sara told me that if she counted all the 'spiders', she would need to bill overtime hours , so I told her to ignore them.

For those who don't know, a Mathison Electropsychometer is a primitive predecessor to
the Hubbard EMeter, currently used as a sort of mind-reading device for Scientologists.
Using it, Sara can determine not only if the 'hit' is from a human being with an actual soul, but she can also ascertain what rung on the Scientology ladder of enlightenment that that particular soul has reached. Sadly, according to Sara's EMeter readings, most of my visitors (myself included) are still suffering soul-trauma from our past lives as mind-controlled, implant-bearing slaves of the extinct extra-terrestrial dictatorship of Helatrobus.

Sara, who is a lapsed Unitarian, thinks Scientology is to religion what Kilgore Trout is to Science Fiction. I tend to agree, although I believe that Trout was a far superior writer to L. Ron Hubbard and that Trout's works are valid as both literature and philosophy, especially when compared to Hubbard's Dianetics and E-Meter User's Guide, which are both pure bullshit.



After auditing the visitor's soul with her EMeter, Sara installs a fresh IMM in the wall at CamelsBack Inc.'s IT Department, then she runs a length of North Korean surplus Cat 5 wire to the computer that visited the site, thus establishing a connection. This is how "cookies" get on your computer. Sara is a regular Girl Scout when it comes to cookie distribution.












Sometimes Sara needs a LOT of cable; on occasion the users of wireless services have complained, stating that they would rather not have 950 km of cable attached to what would otherwise be a portable computer.
For these installations, I send Vince along with a Tazer .

Anyway, once Sara has connected and installed the IMM, it's up to Vince to analyze the data and give me a report on what it all means. I don't know much about the Intertube, so I pretty much have to take his word for it. Vince likes to talk about browser specifications, OS mods, monitor resolutions and other arcane IT crap, but he really earns his money when he tells me about the
' who, where, when ,how & why' behind the internet visits to my site.

Vince is the one who pointed out last year's rash of 'possum' hits from the United Arab Emirates- UAE surfers were typing in phrases such as 'girls who eat possum', 'pink possum', 'virgin possum', 'nude possum fun' etc. and finding my blog. In real life, I am an expert on possums, but the UAE has ruined my fun with their pervy possum searches; as a result it's been nearly a year since I blogged possums.
Vince's theory is that perverts in Dubai mistakenly believe that 'possum' is slang for something else, something vulgar and/or pornographic- all I know is that my Arabian web traffic has all but ceased since I stopped blogging about possums.

Occasionally, Vince provides me with some truly useful data:

"Hey man, there are people out there who are finding you by Googling something called 'whalanol'. I'm pretty certain that there is no such thing as whalanol. What are they looking for?"

Investment opportunities, I tell him.

"Boss," asks Vince," have you recently asked someone out? Like on a date?"

How did he know that? Sometimes I think Vince is a Thetan Scientologist secret agent and he is using Sara's E-Meter to read my mind.

"Well, I see a few visits from local addresses and the referring search engine phrase was your full name. The last time I saw a flurry of hits searching your name was right after you asked Lenore in accounting if she'd like to have lunch. Don't you know that chicks will Google you? "

Fuckin' Thetan mind-reader.
He's right though. I did ask someone out recently, and she did Google me. According to Vince, she 'out-clicked' from my blog at 11:43 Sunday night.
Monday morning I got an email from her, sent at 11:47 pm Sunday: "I am busy for the next seventeen years or so, but thanks for asking, have a nice life..."

Vince also tells me, " Last night, between 9:36 and 10:45 , three web-surfers from three different U.S. states (FL, NY, MA) Googled 'baseballs float' and all three were directed to your blog. I'll bet you don't even know if baseballs float or not, yet the Intertube makes you out to be some sort of floating balls expert. Furthermore, in Malaysia you are the only source of info on 'MacDonald's (sic) Big Mac Specifications' - you are the only one who knows of McD's secret bovine eugenics program. Is this more whalanol?"

Uh, er...were any of the visitors female? Are they single?

Vince gives me a look of compassionate pity.

"What do I look like, a mind reader? I can't tell their gender or relationship status from their internet statistics. Sara is the one who does installations. Ask her."

I am afraid to tell Vince that, yes, he does look like a mind-reader and that I suspect him of being a telepathic Scientologist spy. If he is, then he is already aware of my suspicions.
Dealing with telepaths is a headache.

Vince continues,"Dude, here is an idea: why don't you just ask Sara out? She's kinda cute and I know she likes you."

She does? Really?

"Um-hm. She does. You two are, ah, how to say this?...you are both the same height, for one thing- and you both think the E-Meter is cow manure...she has even read your blog and she still likes you- the only real problem is that she's a bit nervous about dating a client- you are technically her boss, y'know? "

Well. I can fix that.

After lunch, I sat down and wrote Sara an email:

Dear Sara,
I just wanted to thank you for your great work over the last three years and let you know that you are fired. Friday is your last day at CB&F Inc.
Would you like to have dinner with me on Saturday night?
Sincerely,
Allan


When I told Vince what I had done, he stared at me in slack-jawed disbelief.

"Man, not only have you just doubled my workload, but you have also proven yourself to be the most clueless motherfucker to ever shit behind two shoes."

Mind-reader!

Vince's observations were cut short by a sudden explosion of shattering glass- something heavy smashed through the one-way mirror that serves as my office window. We both looked down.
Amid the shards of glass was Sara's vintage Mathison E-Meter. There was a note attached to it with a piece of twine. I untied it and read it- it was a print-out of my email to her. At the bottom, Sara had written a message in red felt-tip marker:

"You bastard! Sometime, somewhere when you least expect it, I will show up in the middle of the night. Then we will talk about this. Until then, I suggest you sleep with one eye open."

Hot Damn! She said "Yes!"