Chelsea Handler's face helps my blog

Back on January 27 of this year, I wrote a blog post speculating that Chelsea Handler had some work done on her face. First, I would like to pat myself on the back for being early to that party. There has been a lot of speculation in more recent history that the host of "Chelsea Lately" has had some plastic surgery or other cosmetic procedure. At the time I wrote about it, I found almost nothing about it on the magical internet.

Since then, there has been much more virtual ink devoted to the topic. People are clearly Googling terms such as "Chelsea Handler plastic surgery" because it's driven a tremendous number of people to this very blog--particularly lately (pun intended). I've included a before and after picture here, although it was difficult to find a recent picture of her (the "after" is on the left). I'm not sure this shows the contrast well, but it was the best I could do.

Here's where I'm going to break out some stats, which will perhaps bore some of you, but hopefully my fellow statistics nerds will hang in with me.

In the past month, 43 percent of all of the traffic to my blog has been to the Chelsea Handler blog post. That's a lot. The amount of traffic coming to my site from search engines has made a dramatic upturn; in September, more than 58 percent of all visitors arrived at the site via search engine (the other options are direct traffic and from a referring site, such as Facebook). In August, just 17 percent of the traffic came from search engines. That's a 41 percent shift, people. The Chelsea post has 36 comments on it, 16 of which were written in September.

So, Chelsea Handler, whatever it is that you've done to your face, I thank you for it. And no matter what you look like, I love your show.

Black and gold...and gray

I have always had a knack for spotting cute old people. I like to refer to this talent as my "graydar." A few weeks ago, my graydar was working overtime at the Steelers home opener. I lucked upon these two wonderful oldies from my seat.No doubt these two are listing to Bill Hillgrove call the play-by-play on Steelers radio with their cute little headphones. My only concern: I could not determine if the oldie in the Polamalu jersey (hot!) was of the Mamaw or Pop-pop variety. Androgynous old people are tricky!

Separated at birth?

As I watched President Obama's address to Congress last week, I was reminded of a thought that I had during the 2008 presidential campaign: Joe Biden looks like Sam the Eagle from the Muppets. I think that a big part of the similarity is the tufts of hair (or feathers, in the case of Sam) over the ears.

I love that Mr. Biden wore a tie in "Sam the Eagle Blue" for the address. Well played, Joe.

He's fallen and he can't get up

This might be the cutest puppy ever. The poor little thing can't figure out how to get up!

More Steelers Stuff

It's September, people. That means regular season football is right around the corner. I have some more Steelers stuff to share with you because:

1. I love Steelers stuff.

2. There is a lot of Steelers stuff in Pittsburgh. Go figure.

The truck below is the sweetest ride I've seen in quite awhile (I took the photo while stopped at a red light next this fine piece of machinery). This custom paint job clearly made a big improvement to this beater. They obviously ran out of room for the "H" in "burgh," though. Bummer. Or maybe they don't know how to spell. I'd say the latter is just as likely a possibility. Did I mention lately that the Pittsburgh Steelers are the only NFL team with six Super Bowl wins? Six. Count 'em.

I'm pretty sure the NFL will slap team logos on any product that will cough up the licensing dough, but this one still made me giggle a little. The most interesting feature of this razor: it actually contains no blades. The hairs on your face become so intimidated by the Steelers logo, they jump right out. Very effective.

This fine piece of artwork below was created by my good friend and talented artist Dan Hart. If you'd like to have a poster of your very own, please visit http://www.danhartdesign.com/ for his contact information.