Site meter gone wacko

It’s gone from counting thousands a day to zero.  Can’t find anyone at home.

Rolled over 255,000

Yesterday at some point my site meter logged 255,000 hits. It would be nice if that meant everyone read something, but they don't. Some of those are "pings" sort of like waving from an airplane instead of stopping by to chat. I think someone fell asleep, staying 14 hours 38 mins 8 secs. I mean, I'm fascinating, but no one would read this blog for close to 15 hours. Just like the economy and employment, my stats are down. Here's the October 2007 to October 2008 chart.



The low point June is understandable. I was out of the country or ill for almost two weeks and didn't blog. And then everyone else was on vacation in July and August and not checking in. In January, the high point, I was still doing Thursday Thirteen and the Poetry sites fairly regularly. Those are sort of participation blogs, where bloggers visit each other and leave comments, but after awhile I just had nothing to say to 13 favorite movies, or game shows, or 13 favorite photos of my babies. And the time I wrote 13 things about illegal immigration, well, I got some really unhappy readers who said they didn't want to read anything political--ever. Then came the run up to the election, and even my close friends and relatives were voting for Obama, so they sure dropped me. Now I'm digging through government and non-profit acronyms that are costing us millions, so that bores people too.

One thing I've noticed about statistics is that if you leave a comment, even anonymously, the next reader is more likely to spend more time, or leave a comment. I do that myself. It's a bit more like a conversation. That's also how I find new blogs to read. I read a blogger I like, look at the comments, then track back to that person. It's really easy. Click on comment, when the window comes up, type something, then go down and poke that little button for anonymous (or leave your initials if you think I know you), then publish, or submit, or what ever they call it. Or you can create a blogger dot com account with any name you choose but not actually have a blog. You'd just be a niche in the wall of cyberspace that goes no where.

Don't give up your day job

Recently I switched my opening page from Dell(?) to Google, after trying RR for awhile. I'm happy with the Google page because it seems a bit more straightforward, not so dependent on pop culture, and it's easy to select the news source from its list. I was viewing Business Week looking for information on the recent government bailouts, but found their series of videos less than satisfactory. When the cable networks put up the talking heads, I think they've been vetted a bit, but these people need a good haircut, some decent make-up, and a little work with a voice coach. Back to reading the news for me. Let's see what Congress will do. Will the Democrats rather have the economy go to hell in a handbasket thinking they will win the election like they tried to sabotage the war effort?

Yesterday, SiteMeter was wacko again, don't know if anyone else noticed. And Blogger was posting constant error messages. I suppose some may be after affects of the storms. This threw my TTLB way off again, careening like a sunken polar bear on melting ice.

I made another pot of homemade cream of tomato soup and shared it with my son who couldn't believe I hadn't added any sugar--it's quite sweet.