“Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.”
Tagline for Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki. Link is to a nice piece by Kawasaki on how to get a standing ovation (when giving a speech).
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Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs list is based on links from blogs, to blogs, in the last six months. Here’s the top 15:
NewMexiKen comes in at number 40,804, which sounds awful until you realize that 40,804th out of 25.5 million ain’t bad.
At this writing (Wednesday 1PM), with the exception of my one comment, all of the recent comments are from people not related to me. That’s a first!
Every once in awhile NewMexiKen deletes an entry from months back, for example ones I notice with nothing more than a broken link. And there are many that I deleted along the way, some right after I posted them because they just didn’t seem right.
So, when you get right down to it, there have been many more than 7,000 entries in the 29-plus months this blog has been in business. But, two items ago the official count reached 7,000. That seemed like a milestone worth congratulating myself for.
The Cliopatria Awards for history blogs as reported by History News Network:
Here, then, are the winners, short identifications of them, and brief explanations of the judge’s rationale for their decisions:
Best Individual Blog: Mark Grimsley’s Blog Them Out of the Stone Age
“Blog Them Out of the Stone Age is the finest example of the application of a historian’s passion and tradecraft in the new medium of blogging. It combines research, analysis and pedagogy issues with a keen desire to engage with the broader public.”
Mark Grimsley is Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University
Best Group Blog: K. M. Lawson, Jonathan Dresner, and others, at Frog in a Well
“After much thought, the judges chose the Frog in a Well project as a whole, rather than singling out any one of its constituent parts: not only do they feature overlapping personnel and a considerable degree of shared identity and purpose, all have been characterized by diverse contributors, strong historical content and consistently high quality writing. Both individually and as a whole, they represent a great achievement and a model to inspire and challenge in the
future.”K. M. Lawson is a graduate student in history at Harvard; Jonathan Dresner is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. They are joined in Frog in a Well/Japan, Frog in a Well/Korea, and Frog in a Well/China by a number of other professors and students of east Asian studies.
Best New Blog: “PK”’s BibliOdyssey
“BibliOdyssey has only been on-line since September of last year, but has already amassed a significant following for the dramatic and thought-provoking historical images and books featured there. This unusually visual blog by “PK” brings together a wide variety of on-line materials and original scans, and will provide teachers and researchers and hobbyists alike with rich graphic and bibliographic sources.”
“PK” blogs pseudonymously.
…Best Writer: Timothy Burke at Easily Distracted
“Timothy Burke writes strong, clear prose that advances interesting ideas and moves debates in new directions. His energetic and considered writing stands out even in such a competitive category as this one, and reaches out to historians, other academics and non-academics alike with great skill.”
Timothy Burke is Associate Professor of History at Swarthmore.
Not included in NewMexiKen’s excerpt are the awards for best post and best series of posts.
Link found at Political Animal.
I guess he’s blogging himself. At least in Santa Fe County. Bears watching.
Link via Steve Terrell.
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… on this blog will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Language in the “Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005,” signed by the President last week, amended the Communications Act of 1934, so that now:
Whoever — … utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate … communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet … without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person … who receives the communications … shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
NewMexiKen wonders if the commenter’s IP address could be sufficient identification to be a legal defense against the “anonymous” stipulation in this statute.
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34,481 visits to NewMexiKen from 21,097 different IP addresses in December. 104,268 visits total for October, November and December.
For the year 2005, just more than 420,000 visits.
The 49,974 visits last April are still the most in one month.
At The Seattle Times, columnist Danny Westneat bemoans the fact that sex sells.
By tallying clicks on our Web site, we now chart the most read stories in the online edition of The Seattle Times. Software then sorts the tens of thousands of stories for 2005 and ranks them. Not by importance, impact or poetic lyricism, but by which stories compelled the most people to put finger to mouse, click, open and, presumably, read.
Which brings me back to sex with horses. The story last summer about the man who died from a perforated colon while having sex with a horse in Enumclaw was by far the year’s most read article.
What’s more, four more of the year’s 20 most clicked-upon local news stories were about the same horse-sex incident. We don’t publish our Web-traffic numbers, but take it from me — the total readership on these stories was huge.
NewMexiKen has been wondering how to boost readership. That $25 I’ve made this month on ads isn’t really what I’d call life-changing money. The moral of Danny Westneat’s lament seems to be that, on the web, first and foremost, sex sells. Waiting for people to search on Ron Howard’s brother (long-time number one search item at NewMexiKen) isn’t going to generate enough visitors. Maybe it’s time I tried posting nude photos of Ron Howard’s brother.
Seattle Times link via BoingBoing.
“Among the many goals I have for the blog in the coming year, right up there next to spending more time reflecting upon whether chronic self-indulgence is keeping me from focusing on my deeper feelings about myself ….”
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It was on this day in 1823 that the famous poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” was first published. It begins, “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
Fourteen years after its first publication, an editor attributed the poem to a wealthy professor of classical literature named Clement Clarke Moore. In the last few years, new evidence has come out that a Revolutionary War major named Henry Livingston Jr. may have been the actual author of “The Night Before Christmas.” His family has letters describing his recitation of the poem before it was originally published, and literary scholars have found many similarities between his work and “The Night Before Christmas.” He was also three quarters Dutch, and many of the details in the poem, including names of the reindeer, have Dutch origins.
Here’s more on this from NewMexiKen two years ago.
Oops, wrong award.
NewMexiKen actually would like to thank Jess at Life…or something like it for naming NewMexiKen the Best New Mexico Blog among the 2005 /2006 LOSLI Blog Awards (The Golden Thongs).
As long-time readers know, NewMexiKen is always second-guessing the merit of doing this blog. When I’m away — for example, visiting The Sweeties — I particularly realize what a fulltime job I’ve made blogging into. I find it difficult to make even a few entries without many hours at the computer. Then I ask, what’s the point of such an effort? Does anyone care? (Rhetorical questions, folks; answers neither required nor desired.)
So, for me, winning Jess’s award is especially pleasing. Thanks for the encouragement Jess, and congratulations to you for such a fine effort compiling the awards.
And congratulations to all the other winners, too. Be sure to take a look at Jess’s winners, where you will find, I’m certain, many, many worthwhile websites.
The Goooooogle ads have generated more than $9 in as many days. I’ll try not to spend it all in one place. The ads that appear on this, the home page are the most boring. I guess Google gets confused with so many varied topics and just punts. On some of the single entry or category pages though, the ads are kind of interesting.
Which isn’t to say I want you to go browsing around NewMexiKen just to look at the ads. Most visitors to this website do come in via the single entry or category pages.
And, after all, it doesn’t do any good if you just look. You actually have to click on an ad (or two or ten) for anything to happen to my bank account.
Yesterday’s Times has an article on internets addiction (that I’m just getting around to reading today — hmmm). Along with the article they posted 15 Danger Signs for Too Much of a Good Thing. Way too many of them hit home. I’m going to have to get off the internets and get back to Spider Solitaire.
NewMexiKen is having an unusually high number of visits today. The busiest day ever, in fact. I became curious. Is it my superb story-telling about the Kennedy assassination or Christmases past? Is it the wittiness of the “best lines of the day”? What could it be?
Eureka! I have found it!
If you do a Google Search on Good Things About Being an 18-year-old Mayor, the number one pick is NewMexiKen. Which is nice. I’m glad. The strange thing is that my “Good Things About Being an 18-year-old Mayor” is from a Letterman Show Top-Ten and NewMexiKen is number one on Google but Letterman is number two (as this is written).
NewMexiKen has been thinking about adding ads for quite some time and here they are (in the sidebar). Let’s just say it’s an experiment. Whether you click on the ads, that’s completely up to you.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
… but a new website analysis tool reports that NewMexiKen is the 780,081st most popular website in the world. I’m not sure, but I think that is pretty good.
More later after I can analyze the data (and tweak the site to improve my score).
A commenter at Jesus’ General makes an unpleasant threat. What is it about those nasty little IP addresses people don’t understand? Check it out.
I’ve been working on the concept and format for quite a while, but today I am finally unveiling the new NewMexiKen Links Page — “A Page of Links to Some of the Web Sites and Blogs Referred to by NewMexiKen.”
This new page (reached in the future by the button in the sidebar under the random Sweetie photo) is very much going to remain a work in progress, as I am always finding new web sites I like and deciding that others are no longer interesting or useful. This is especially true of blogs. As the lists lengthen or shorten, and the categories come and go, I will have to move things about some I’m sure, but I’ll try and respect your kinetic memory.
I read nearly all of the blogs listed via RSS. I find that’s the only reasonable way to see what’s new at dozens of continually updating sites. I find RSS less useful for newspaper and magazine sites, though most publish much of their content that way. I guess I still like browsing a busy, complex site much in the way one browses through the pages of the dead-tree versions of these publications. Futhermore, these large publications (The Huffington Post and Slate are two web-only publications to which this also applies) publish far too many items to sort through via RSS. Better to glance quickly at a page and see if anything stands out.
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.
In October, 33,917 visitors from 22,770 unique IP addresses looked at 132,451 NewMexiKen pages.
NewMexiKen is busy visiting some of The Sweeties. I’m telling them they should move to New Mexico because we not only have Santa Claus, we also have Santa Fe!
(And, when you think about it, Santa Fe is a fantasy a lot like Santa Claus, only in earth tones.)
Blogging will ebb and flow as computer time not devoted to Dragon Tales permits.
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My blog is worth $27,662.46.
How much is your blog worth?
Based on Tristan Louis’s research into the value of each link to Weblogs, Inc., which was recently purchased by AOL.
Google “NewMexiKen” and you get “about 191,000″ links. Only 113,000 on Yahoo! 92,900 on AllTheWeb. 5,601 on MSN.
Functional Ambivalent writes about sex and his visitor statistics shoot through his mirrored ceiling.
Four search topics are each generating just under five percent of the searches that bring folks to NewMexiKen — largest college stadiums, Louisiana 1927, “iTunes redux,” and Ron Howard’s brother. “iPod user manual” brings in about a percent-and-a-half of the searches; “Omarosa nude” just under one percent.
One of the attractions of moving to WordPress has been easier access to NewMexiKen’s statistics. For example, these are the search strings bringing vistors here during the past few hours:
tiger woods’s alma mater
omarosa, birthdate
omarosa nude
jackie gleason
Tiger Woods’s alma mater
American Indian political or artist/cultural issues
blog julia roberts
popcorn article ny times august 19th, 2005
resell value on indian ford
lyrics to prison wisdom by cuban link
Tiger Woods’s alma mater
wovoka
disney-iwerks drawings
put me in coach by Creedence Clearwater Revival
cheeseburger in waikiki
omarosa naked
DATE OF BIRTH JESSICA CANSECO
“eagle feathers” “stored in”
lisa wells voluptuous
Las Vegas 29th in 2004 Population Estimates
songs about Henry Knox
harold bloom and cormac mccarthy and toni morrison
is there a place named after neil alden armstrong
losing “147 pounds”
Saint-Exup
fred wehba
omarosa
chip douglas
Robert Redford+New Mexico
1979 gasoline prices
used wedding dress
omarosa playboy
NINA VON STAUFFENBERG
famous couple blogs
“william and Mary Indians
Tiger went to Stanford. And will Omarosa ever go away?
NewMexiKen continues to play with the software and design of the weblog formerly known as NewMexiKen. (The Betty Ford Clinic denied my application for treatment.)
For some time I had wanted to migrate from Movable Type (cumbersome) to Word Press (efficient, “free and priceless”). That has been done and — no small thing — the 5,844 permanent links seem to work. There remains the cleanup — developing an attractive design, fixing the remaining conversion bugs. From Blogger to Movable Type to Word Press — NewMexiKen has seen the inside of a lot of software.
So much for my hobby; now yours — cruising the web looking for “a little bit about a lot of things” and photos of The Sweeties. I may see something so fascinating it just demands to be blogged about, but I doubt there will be any resumption of full-time blogging anytime soon.
NewMexiKen began two years ago, August 4, 2003.
More than 5,800 entries later, it’s time to move on.
I’m certain I will miss blogging — miss it a lot — but going at it day-in-and-day-out is no longer rewarding. And, for me, it’s better to stop altogether than it would be to continue by posting entries once in awhile.
Thanks for more than 400,000 visits and nearly 1.5 million page views.
The NewMexiKen archives will be around for awhile.
newmexiken at gmail dot com
NewMexiKen remains a blogging slacker but fortunately Functional Ambivalent has some good stuff here and here.
Sunday’s New York Times had an article — The New Nanny Diaries Are Online — written by the employer. Here — Instructions to the Double: Sorry to Disappoint You — the blogging nanny responds.
Everything NewMexiKen did today related to blogging software turned into a crisis. When all was said and done, the site was right back where I began and I was relieved to do that.
If anyone knows how to migrate to Word Press or some other CMS while maintaining the validity of nearly 5,800 Movable Type links, I’d like to hear from them.
242,764 visits to NewMexiKen in the first six months of 2005; 45,049 in June.
Most visitors arrive at NewMexiKen via Google and Ron Howard’s brother still acounts for more than 4% of the searches.
There were visits from 124 countries during June.
NewMexiKen stumbled across this nice little poem at Random Thoughts:
My daughter’s picture is on “Hot or Not.”
She has a zillion votes.Verdict’s in.
They think she’s hot.She’s not dressed provocatively.
I think it’s her smile.
The twinkle in her eyes.She’s not hot. She’s my baby.
Meanwhile, I feel my fanny turning to cottage cheese.
Not feeling overly hot.
Except when there’s a flash.
Or two.
Remember to take the herbals.
The Mossberg Solution reviews the leading three free blogging services and concludes:
Microsoft’s MSN Spaces did the best job of performing these tasks in a way that was organized and self-explanatory. Yahoo 360 was almost as easy, but it tries to tie in the use of too many other Yahoo services. Blogger.com has a long way to go until it becomes as easy to use as the others.
in the land of humidity (and green…and grandchildren…and grandchildren’s parents), NewMexiKen has returned to the Land of Enchantment.
Give me a day and I’ll see if I can get this blog back in gear.
Or not.
NewMexiKen is taking today off. Last year for May 20 I did all the birthdays and some other good stuff. Take a look.
NewMexiKen knows I’m not the only grandpa blogger, but I’ll wager I’m the only grandpa blogger whose dad makes comments on the blog.
but Norman Mailer blogging is an event.
I think he’s right, by the way. The Newsweek business has the look of a dirty trick. “Let’s see, we take out CBS, then Newsweek …”
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