My own dose of Mussar

I've been blogging for almost six years now, and no one knows more than I do that the quality and focus (and schedule!) of the writing tends to be rather uneven. It's always nice to see comments because it shows that some people out there are actually reading. There are tricky things about blogging into the abyss, as it were, because it's hard to tell who's coming to visit and what people are interested in reading. There are days where I get page views but am unsure what people are looking at. And for a while, there's been a strange quirk in Blogger that causes automatic back-links to me whenever I (or a reader) clicks on a post from my blogroll, which unfortunately (and to my continuing embarrassment) causes it to look like I'm spamming people randomly when really I'm just reading their posts. (Anyone who can help me disable this will get many karma points from me. Pleasepleaseplease.)

Once in a blue moon I'll get a lot of visitors over a few days, and that's fun. And sometimes comments I leave on other blogs help cultivate a slightly wider readership. (Remember that winter I guest posted on Dovbear? Yeah, I'm not surprised). Over the years, I've gradually started to find my voice as less of a political blogger, and more of a muser/raconteur. I appreciate the loyal readers I have because I know exactly how eclectic my writings are, seeing as how they rocket back and forth between history, politics, and increasingly, Judaism-- not just "Jewishness" but actual Torah. If big boys like Dovbear and FailedMessiah are the Kings of the Judeosphere I see myself as a member of the extremely petty nobility.

But lest I ever get too full of myself, I have the trusty Blogger stats system to keep my big head in check. For instance, did you know Blogger can track all your referring URLs? My top ten referrals were:

1- Dovbear, who will do just fine without another backlink
4- A martial arts forum discussing the ancient art of Abir, Warrior Fraud
5- Jackb, from back when he still had a blogroll

And the rest appear to be spam sites. Go team!

Hang on, there's more! There's an Audience section, too. Sweet. Now I can see where my adoring public comes from.

Apparently I'm slightly big in Brazil. No clue why.

Ok, now according to Blogger, my top audience country is the US (no surprise), followed by the UK, Germany, Canada, and... Japan?


Then the Netherlands...

Then Russia...

And then Israel?

*Scowl*

Hey Israel, get with the program! I read your blogs! What happened to mutually beneficial agreements?

Seriously, this past month I got more visitors from Pakistan than I did from Israel.

That sound you hear is my head exploding.

How is that even possible? The only post I ever wrote on Pakistan was about how ridiculous its government acted after "discovering" that Bin Laden had been hanging out there for ten years. I've been complaining about Israel off and on since I started this silly thing. When I first started blogging, the majority of my posts were about Israel. (Remember the time I made fun of your currency, Israel? Why no love?)

Whatever, that's fine. Let's finish by looking at the top keywords that bring people to my corner of the internet. What pearls of wisdom are you, my great audience, seeking that you only seem to be able to find here?

That stupid wrinkly dog picture gets more interest than me.

Lame.