Incredible news for my “Merrimints” fans!

Several months ago, I posted an article about “Merrimints,” a delicious mint candy that was made until the 1970s and then disappeared. But due to the overwhelming demand for these delicious mints, several companies have recreated them. The article I posted also contained a recipe to make them yourself (not my own!)

So I have two pieces of good news for my followers who found this blog because of my Merrimints article.

The first thing is that out of close to 500 articles that exist on this blog (which has only existed for 6 months, and I’m going to write an anniversary post after this one), the Merrimints article is my third most popular post of all time! Here are the stats that show its placement among my 7 most popular articles (a few of the articles shown in the list are not articles but static pages from my header that get lots of views)

merrimints_stats
Screenshot showing 3rd place placement of Merrimints article (the “1st placer” is just my homepage). Click to make larger.

The Merrimints article is also almost always among the list of Most Popular Posts that appears in the sidebar.

I had no idea these candies were so popular, and am astounded by the continued popularity of my little article I wrote on a whim. I feel humbled by that, and appreciate all of you who reposted or shared this article on food sites, Pinterest and elsewhere. Thank you guys so much. ❤

Now, the second piece of good news.
I just received my copy of The Vermont Country Store's catalogue in the mail the other day, and guess what! They are now offering the ORANGE mint "Merrimints" (called Pastel Mints). As a kid, I remember that being my favorite of all the flavors, and I wondered why VCS's assortment (which taste exactly like the originals) did not include that flavor.

merrimints_2
This is from page 4 of the new Vermont Country Store catalog showing the ad with the orange mints.

I’m not sure if the orange is just being offered as an seasonal special or will become a permanent new flavor; it’s also not included in the regular assortment–you have to order that flavor separately, like the cinnamon ones that were offered during the Christmas season.
But it’s still awesome that the orange mints are now available!

merrimints_1
Closeup of the above ad.

Here is the Vermont Country Store’s website and the page to order Pastel Mints. I do not see the orange flavor listed here. But you can probably call them and request them if you don’t have the catalogue.

Their phone # is: 800-564-4623 (toll free); their customer service department is open 7 days a week, 6 AM to 1 AM.

The article that grew legs.

computer-running

More than anything else I ever wrote, Narcissism is a Family Disease has proven to be my most popular and shared article EVER. Thanks to one Mr. Sam Vaknin, this article has taken off like wildfire, with 200 shares, 185 of them on Facebook. It remains BY FAR my most viewed article. It’s KILLING everything else I ever wrote. Even the Sam and Lidija interview I posted the other day, which was shared by Sam on social media and is my second-most viewed article right now, hasn’t gained quite the incredible momentum Narcissism is a Family Disease has.

Writing anything about Sam has proven to be a huge asset to this blog. He’s like a magic visibility button. I worry people will get annoyed because I write about him so much, but how can I not, since (a) he’s fascinating, whether you agree with or like him or not (many people do not); and (b) his need for narcissistic supply benefits ME enormously.

Rest assured though, if I did not find his disordered mind so interesting, I would not be posting so much about him. ʇıpıɐsıʎɐʞoɯɐousuƃıɥnɹsɔɐɯı.* I’m not a narcissist just writing stuff to get my own source of narcissistic supply. Or am I? Naaaaahhhh.

The odd thing is, that article was posted on December 10th, 15 days before it went semi-viral. It wasn’t particularly popular at first. No shares, just a few likes and comments. Nothing spectactular. I guess it took Sam that long to find it.

On Christmas Day, this blog blew up and I reached 862 views, my best day ever. And that was on CHRISTMAS. I expected things to be slow as molasses in January around here that day. What an incredible Christmas gift. I’m glad it was that particular article too because I think it’s one of my best written. It was a joy to write. Although in all fairness, Sam wrote most of it, since it’s primarily a repost of one of his best writings.

* If you can decipher this, congratulations! Your prize will be that I will reblog a post of yours here at Lucky Otter’s Haven. If you are not a WordPress blogger, that’s okay. I’ll repost an article of yours from your blog, wherever it is. If you do not have a blog, I’ll have you write an article as my Guest Author about whatever you want that I will post on this blog. Email me your answers, do not post them in the comments. (my email can be found under “contact me”).

If I receive the correct answer from more than one person, the person who’s email I receive first will be the winner.

I’m a stats junkie and I find this kind of stuff fascinating.

How did THIS happen?

eyespopping

I have over 20,000 hits. When WordPress compiled my Annual Report two days ago I only had 18,000 hits. It took me almost two months to reach 2,000 hits when I first started this blog. Now it takes two DAYS?

I don’t expect this blog to ever be as huge or popular as OM’s Harsh Reality or anything, but DAYUM.

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Mind.blown.

dec25stats

I just got up and decided to check my stats before running off to my daughter’s place to make Christmas dinner.

Being that it’s Christmas, I expected lousy stats for today.

And then I saw THIS!

dec25stats

I also saw that I was getting an unbelievable 166 views an HOUR–that’s the highest EVER.

Since I don’t do Facebook, I checked Twitter. Sure enough, Sam put a link there to this article (which I suppose he didn’t see when I first posted it):
https://otterlover58.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/narcissism-is-a-family-disease/

He also put it on LinkedIn, obviously Facebook, and God knows where else.

Who would think a self professed narcissist could give me such an incredible Christmas present? What’s his motive? Maybe he’s returning the favor for me posting those two videos of his yesterday, Idk…?

Who cares what the motive is though. This is in-f*cking-credible.

I’m sorry if I seem like I’m bragging. I don’t believe this. Somebody pinch me.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thanks again, Sam. Would you like green eggs and ham?

samiam

The spike in my stats has not let up. My views today were almost as high as yesterday’s.

thankssam

I was informed by a commenter I’ve never seen before that Sam has been pimping my blog again (one article in particular) all over social media again (mostly Facebook–said article has been shared 84 or more times).

Honestly, I didn’t think Sam had anything to do with the rising stats this time, because it was another article I thought was getting all the views (one that probably wouldn’t be of interest to him). I thought wrong. Well, that other article was getting a lot of views too.
I checked Sam’s Twitter timeline (I don’t do Facebook), and sure enough, this “informer” was correct.

I don’t care if Sam’s a narcissist, a malignant narcissist, a wannabe, or pink and purple polka-dotted with ball bearings in his brain–I’m loving what he’s doing for this blog. I’m sure he’s got his own selfish motives for doing this because he’s a narc, but I don’t care. Sometimes the end is more important than the means.

The funny thing is, this article he seems to like so much is not all that complimentary.

Would Sam like some green eggs and ham?

greeneggsandham

I beat my Best Ever Day!

bestever541

I still can’t figure out exactly what caused the spike in views today (but was due to my blog post from several days ago about malignant narcissism and the supernatural), but I beat my previous Best Ever Day of 541 views (the day Sam Vaknin had that article I wrote about him disseminated all over social media) to 546!

Yay me.

Where is THIS spike coming from!?

statspike

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417 views? My best ever (November 21) was 541. I have about 4 more hours until WP clock switches to tomorrow (mine is set wrong–it’s actually only 3:19 PM here). I wonder if I can beat that 541…????

I’m not sure where the spike is coming from though. I know which articleit’s this one.
It’s had a ton of Facebook shares. It’s also coming up on page ONE of Google! Is it going VIRAL?
But who is doing it? I doubt it’s Sam again. He doesn’t write about this kind of stuff.

The mystery of the day. I WILL solve this puzzle.

And if it’s someone reading this, fess up!

My Top Ten articles of all time

I know I made a similar post about a month ago, but here’s the updated version of my ten most popular articles over the entire time this blog has existed. (“My Story” is actually not an article, but a page of links in my header).

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Click on table to enlarge.

The mystery: solved

mystery

I came home today to find another huge increase in my view count, but couldn’t immediately figure out why. The last time this happened was when Sam Vaknin visited my blog and linked one of my earlier articles about him all over social media (Twitter and Facebook). There were no new comments from him today, so I thought maybe there was some other reason for the abnormally high view count (like maybe being Freshly Pressed! Yeah, right.)

I checked my stats and did see there were 3 views from Macedonia, which is where Sam lives. So it had to be him–after all, how many people from Macedonia are visiting my blog? I checked “referrers” and saw some ridiculously high number of Facebook shares. Still, when I clicked on the Facebook link, it only took me to my own FB page. I had to find out where all those views were coming from!

Finally, I went to Twitter and looked at Sam’s profile–and sure enough, he’d linked to this article today, just as he promised a few days ago in his last comment. Because of this, I also have 12 new followers. Narcissist or not, the man does keep his promises. Thanks, Sam!