Numbers

Yesterday was a momentous day. You know how it's so cool when the car odometer turns over a really big number? Well, this week my Sitemeter went over 100,000.

Which would be kind of impressive, except I've been blogging for almost four years.

Yes, that's right, folks. Back in the stone age when I started blogging on my TRS-80, there was practically no one in the blogosphere. Well, except for early adopters like dooce, finslippy, Jen Lancaster, Melissa Summers, and the Daily Kos.

And now look how crowded the blogosphere has become. According to Technorati, every day the blogosphere (I swear that's the last time I use that word) welcomes 175,000 new blogs. And over 1.6 million posts per day.

It's like a Ponzi scheme of egomaniacal blathering. And yet, even with all this new competition, my hits continue to go up.

Yes, even without the steroid effect BlogExplosion produced when I joined in 2006 (and which completely jacked up my hits what with their Rent-My-Blog and Battle of the Blogs and all the other ways they've devised to get people to visit) more and more of you came by.

And of course, there are the people who are here for Christina Aguileras's butt crack, grotesque acrylic nails, shower dildos, and transvestite giraffes.

But you come. I mean, check out my numbers!

Oh, I know we're not supposed to talk about our hit counts. The same way we don't talk about our weight, bra size, and age, we don't talk about how many hits we get.

Well, "we" don't. But I do. Because basically, I have no shame.

So here you go: 178, 38DDD, and 51. But those numbers are just the beginning of my lack of boundaries! Check out these numbers:

On the last Monday of April, 2008, I had 173 hits.
On the last Monday of April, 2007, I had 74.
On the last Monday of April, 2006, I had 129. (Those are probably BlogExplosion hits.)
On the last Monday of April, 2005? I had four.

Now, am I impressed that it has taken me three years to go from four hits to 173? Of course not. Do I expect you to be impressed? No. But think about it. In the entire month of April, 2005, I got 167 hits. Now I get that in a day. This month I've had over 4,500 visitors.

These aren't "Woot! If I put ads on my blog, I'll sit back and watch the money roll in!" numbers.

But somehow it makes me really happy that I sit here typing in my drivel, and about a hundred and fifty of you show up every day to check it out.

So anyway, thank you. You are wonderful. And you have fabulous taste in on-line "literature." So let me know whether you'd like me to come up with something different--maybe pictures of Angelina's tattoos? Men who wear toenail polish? Just let me know. I've already admitted that I have no boundaries. I'm frank. I'm fearless. I like to think I'm funny. And when it comes to attracting readers? I'm a whore.