Left: This lovely photo of Elizabeth Kucinich accounts for the highest number of image searches I have had on one single photo; I had over 500 in one day, and the total number now reaches into the thousands. Ohhh, to be a tall, stunning, winsome, British redhead!!! (Oh, and there's Dennis, too.)~*~
Happy Birthday to DEAD AIR!!! It's my BLOGGIVERSARY!
Amazingly, this blog is now a whole year old. It's a terrifying thought.
A year ago, after my very first post, I actually decided blogging was a waste of time (maybe it is?) and didn't post again for three weeks. Then I slammed my car into an SUV on Laurens Road, was somewhat shaken up, and wanted to write about it. I realized: this is why people blog. Later, I saw Valerie Bertinelli on TV, complaining about being fat, and wanted to say something about that, too.
That was it, I was hooked.
Yes, it starts out small at first. (The first one's always free!) I can't say when I crossed the line into addiction, but it happened. Of course it did. It always has.
OFFICIAL BLOG STATISTICS--as of this minute:
VISITS
Total 75,558
Average Per Day 321
Average Visit Length 2:17
Last Hour 8
Today 124
This Week 2,247
PAGE VIEWS
Total 109,224
Average Per Day 436
Average Per Visit 1.4
Last Hour 11
Today 172
This Week 3,051
Plus 413 visitors before joining Site Meter on July 28, 2007
~*~
Keep in mind that I didn't count stats until July 28th, because I didn't know how. (The "413" figure was the number of profile-views I had accumulated up to that date.) The true numbers are undoubtedly higher, since I only started counting stats during my first major flame war. I knew people were reading, because they were posting. Otherwise, might not have occurred to me to count--but I was curious.And curse those nasty stats! It's worse than the bathroom scale--AVOID, AVOID! (Victoria Marinelli has sworn it off!!) For awhile, I was filled with raging jealousy for the Big Bloggers, until I had my first astronomically-popular post (by my standards, anyway) on April 22nd of this year. My post titled "On having a black name"--went through the stratosphere (approx 25,000 hits, total, and still coming in) and was linked on Big Blogs like MetaFilter and Jezebel. And in the process, I was spooked bigtime. I received numerous strange, semi-romantic emails ("You are a very well-preserved 50-year-old, or is that an old photo?") and heard from various bizarre sub-categories of rightwingnuts. My spam filter was overloaded with winning lottery tickets from Sierra Leone and offers to buy furniture. I even heard from an ex-coworker I never liked, assuring me that my name isn't THAT black! (accompanied by at least a dozen disconcerting correspondents demanding to know just what my name really is--and not in a good way!) ...they all came out of the woodwork. Yow!
Is THIS what internet-fame is really like? Ick.
And so, I have backed off the numbers obsession. The first step is admitting you have a problem!
~*~
I first named this blog after a four-hour Grateful Dead-oriented radio show titled UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR (and yes, sister and brother Deadheads, I have heard from the mysterious Uncle Dave!)--a necessary spiritually-centering exercise and crucial repetition of my week. (Note: DEAD AIR SPACE is also the name of Radiohead's official blog, which I didn't realize at the time.) DEAD AIR technically refers to a radio broadcast that has gone "dead"--or, one could say, DEAD AIR means one is "broadcasting nothing"--which I think describes a whole lot of Blogdonia. Thus, the name reflects my low expectations for the blog. I was afraid I wouldn't have anything to say, and I would therefore ALSO be "broadcasting nothing."
In addition, at the time I was reading Robert (Uma's dad) Thurman's translation of the TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, so that cinched the deal.
I like the alliteration of Daisy's Dead Air (just like Uncle Dave), and I think an identifiable motif makes a blog more memorable. I love stealies, so that made it an easy decision. And besides that, once I got the name into my head, I simply couldn't think of any others. I don't think I could change my blog name at this stage of the game.
Thanks for visiting and reading. If you lurk (and I can SEE that some of yall DO! Don't fib to me!)--how about saying hello, just this once? (On the other hand, if you lurk primarily because you hate me, please forget I asked.)
We'll see what the next year brings. I never expected it to last this long.