Dec 23 2007
FBC turns two
Actually, it was on the 19th that I stumbled home half in the bag after a Christmas party and set up a blogger account, and the rest, as they say, is history. And so this is the anniversary post, the one post per year where I get toot my own horn.
Well, there was a heck of a lot more action at FBC this year than the first one. My traffic essentially tripled, from 5k the first year to 20k by this year’s end. Undoubtedly, the big story for me this year was the one about the VT secessionist Group, Second Vermont Republic, having ties to white supremacist organizations, originally broke by Rowley at VT Secession, catapulted by Odum at GMD, and then instigated and taunted by me (they weren’t threatening my job, so I had lots of fun provoking ‘em). Needless to say, the story did have legs, and SVR is merely a punchline now and essentially a one-man organization consisting of not-a-racist-but-very-comfortable-around-racists Thomas Naylor. FBC got a mention in a Seven Days article about it here.
My storyabout the Peter Welch meeting with some angry and vocal antwar activists seemed to get some attention as well, taking up some space in an article in the Times Argus as well as getting me on the radio with Steve West in Brattleboro. FBC also got another mention recently in 7D with the iBrattleboro blog/libel brouhaha. So, all in all, not a bad year for media attention for some pissy little no-name blog. Ok, end of the horn-tootin’.
Other notables, as far as the most interesting Google hit that brought people here, nothing has even come close to topping last year’s “Asian tradition + marriage + eating poop”. The blog still lives a rather schizophrenic existence, with about 1/4 of the traffic coming from people who come here for spaghetti westerns and more than likely don’t read anything else, a little more than a 1/4 of regular readers, and then everyone else. Lots of people still come here for “Sam Harris quotes”, although I don’t think I quoted him at all this year.
So what’s up for year three of FBC? Well, I mentioned earlier about revamping the site to a magazine style format, but I’ve changed my mind on that. Unless I’m writing five or six posts a day, it would seem rather pointless. If I can get rid of the terminal case of the lazies, I’m still hoping to get “A Fistful of Pasta” up and running, my site devoted exclusively to Spaghetti Westerns. But other than that, it’s just going to be more of the same ol’ same ‘ol, which has more or less worked for me so far.
Anyways, it’s been a real hoot, and will continue to be, undoubtedly. Thank you to all of those who have continued to keep coming back for your regular dose of inane ratings. Oh, as I was looking for a picture of a stupid birthday cake, I came across this picture of a squirrel with big balls, which is much more funny, dontcha think ? Here’s to year three!
Posts
Happy b’day!!!!Looking forward to more great stories in the year ahead.
Many happy returns of the day!
Two years old? In "human" years, that makes this blog, like, a wizened survivor from a forgotten epoch long, long ago. [;-)]
Two things, then back to patting you on the back:
"The blog still lives a rather schizophrenic existence"
Schizophrenic? In what way? Is it misperceiving reality? Does it suffer from hallucinations? Does it have severe delusions?
I’d like to take this opportunity to remind us all that using phrases like "this/that is schizophrenic" or "that’s so schizophrenic" is shoddy communication because:
1. You’re using the wrong mental illness as a metaphor; it would be more correct to use dissociative identity disorder to reflect the fact that the thing you’re writing about has "multiple personalities", as it were.
2. There aren’t many (any?) chronic illnesses that warrant use as a metaphor. Can you imagine writing something like…
- The blog still lives a rather diabetic existence.
- The blog still lives a rather asthmatic existence.
- The blog still lives an existence rather like HIV/AIDS.
It’s the symptom that might warrant use as a metaphor, not the illness.
3. When an illness still results in stigmatization of people who have it, use of the illness as a metaphor reinforces the stigma. I’m sure most of us who say that "this is schizophrenic"/"that is schizophrenic" would never dream of making a person with schizophrenia feel ashamed or excluded because of the illness. Unfortunately, by using the illness metaphorically, that’s exactly what we’re reinforcing.
The good news is that, as people get more enlightened, stigma goes away. For example, just a generation or two ago, a diagnosis of cancer used to be a shameful thing for families. Hard to imagine that now, right?
"I’m still hoping to get "A Fistful of Pasta" up and running."
Awesome, can’t wait! Now do us all a holiday favor and go register the fershlugginer domain, already! (Hint: It’s still available as of 2 minutes ago…)
Ya know, considering I just got an "A" in Abnormal Psych, I probably should have been more sensitive to that. But, to my credit, this blog does misperceive reality from time to time, although DID would indeed be a more appropriate "diagnosis’ for the blog. And of course, there’s nothing in my implication that implies a stigma, at least from my intention.
But I know where you’re coming from, Nate, point duly noted. Thanks.
And thanks to you other well-wishers, too.
> not-a-racist-but-very-comfortable-around-racists Thomas Naylor.Best description yet of that nutball. Well put.
I just checked, and "afistfulofpasta" dot com is still available. JD?
Yeah, I currently own "fistfulofpasta.com’ but I should probably scoop that up, too.