if only you could see through my eyes.

I've told you many times that I compile my blog into printed-on-paper books. There are currently 4 of them. Three are outrageously overpriced, but one is priced so low that when I see that not one of you has bought one, it makes me want to tell you all to go fuck off.

But then I remember that none of this is real, that I'm just a brain in a jar and some creature is running experiments on me and poking at me with bits of his lunch.

But for my latest book, I paid an extra $39 for a professional account to get Createspace/Amazon to open my book up to other sellers. Some POD books are only available in limited places, but I thought it would be worth the extra money to see what this would do.

So my book is available through other channels and I did a Google search for "Perfunctorily, Me" to see what I'd find. Which is the title of my book that you haven't bought.

The first surprise is that Jessamyn West mentioned my book on her blog and didn't say that it sucked. But maybe she'd been drinking. After all, she says she read it on the way home, probably in a plane and probably after 3 vodka tonics.

After 3 vodka tonics is how I recommend that everyone read my books. Because that's how I write them, and it helps if we speak the same language.

But then I found my book on Amazon UK and Amazon FR, listed in Pounds and Euros, £4.05 and EUR 6,90 which looks pretty damn cool to someone who never leaves the USA. And even Yen, ￥811.

I just don't understand why more people don't publish as print. I guess you're convinced that online publishing is just as good as print? Where does the Library of Congress store that electronic copy of your blog? Oh, it doesn't. But it would take your paper book and stick it in some box in the corner for future humans to discover and burn for heat.

I'm only bringing this up, AGAIN, because I see that Book Blogger Appreciate Week is coming up. And it made wonder why there isn't a Blog Booker Appreciate Week. And the answer is that there aren't very many blog bookers, or people who (re)publish their blogs as print books. Or even ebooks. Dennie Heye turned some of his blog posts into a book (my book is cheaper), but I don't know of anyone else.

If fact, that reminds me that I need to upload my stuff to feedbooks and have it kindleized.

So how can I convince you to make books? I've told you how cheap it is ...seriously cheap when all you need to buy is the proof copy and pay for shipping, for me, less than $10 total.

I'm not crazy. I know I'm not going to get rich from these books, as evidenced by all of you cheap bastards. Don't any millionaires read this blog?

It's like my CafePress ("buy some effing crap") store. I don't make a penny from those shirts, but it's just awesome when someone thinks they are cool enough to buy.

So, buy my book or don't buy my book. I just can't understand why you all don't want to save all your work in print to put on your shelf and flip through every once in a while and wonder, "What the fuck was I thinking?!!"

I have run out of fucks.

I thought I might still be able to give a fuck about stuff and write about it, but I have no fucks left to give.

Living the online world seems to age us in dog years, or even faster. Bloggers come on the scene and streak across the sky to burn up in the atmosphere all too soon. Well, it really isn't "too soon" because our attention spans are so short and as soon as too large a crowd gathers, we lose interest anyway.

I'm just saying this because I came pretty close to deleting this blog and my twitter this weekend when realized I was out of fucks. I didn't see any in the freezer to thaw. And I looked for a box of instant fucks, but the only one I have needs for me to give a shit and I'm out of shits, too.

As usual, I went looking to pick up some fucks online, from other librarian blogs or just from reading the news. But, still nothing. You all have lots of fucks available, but nothing seems to fit me.

So I'm just saying. If you find that this thing is gone, you shouldn't wonder why.

But don't worry about me, I'm starring a new reality show called, "I Would Put Pants on That" on the Travel Channel where we visit places and things that look like human genitalia and discuss whether we should put pants on it. Our first episode we visit an orchid garden and the Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee (yes, view it from that angle).

"You mind if I show this to everyone in the world?"

I went to a friend's party a while back and took some video and photos. When I got home, I wanted to email him the video, but it was 400mb. I thought about putting it on YouTube, but there were lots of people at that party and lots of children and I don't think everyone wants images of their kids splashed all over the internets.

But that's me. Lots of assholes post everything. That's how we get into trouble. Some other dick tells everyone. Who said, "Hell is other people"? Oh, yeah, that guy.

So I burned a DVD of the party video but I haven't mailed it to him yet. Because I suck.

But that had me thinking about what we share. Voluntarily or involuntarily. What we give and what is taken from us. And right now we're concerned with what we give, our privacy choices. But I'm thinking about what is taken away.

I might want to have a whole batch of little effings one day. And what will I have left to leave to them when I go? 13,000 blogs posts? 22,000 Twitter followers? The internet provides the opportunity for us to redefine our legacy to our children: can your kid inherit your Facebook friends or Twitter followers? What is a list of followers worth? Can Twitter sell the list to companies for targeted advertising? (uh, oh, don't get sidetracked...)

And we've learned recently that all these little fuckers on the web steal whatever they want because copy/paste delivers no consequences. Why should they behave any differently than they do in the real world. When our library is filled with kids, it's inevitable that someone will "lose" a phone.

So how do we protect our internet property?

I know I hate this latest trend, but I don't see any way around it. I hate when I copy something from a site and it carries all this hidden text along with it that I need to delete. Because the web site runs a trackback or automatic attribution script that automatically adds the site info when you copy it. And when I want a small snippet for a blog post, I need to delete that crap because it gets in my way and it breaks my train of thought on what I was trying to say. So it pisses me off.

But I thinking that an automatic attribution script is the way to go from now on. Because if I don't claim my property now, how will I be able to claim a violation later?

I know that people use Creative Commons, but I don't understand what that's supposed to do for me. It doesn't seem like it offers any real protections.

So I just did a search for "automatic attribution script" and found this article explaining Tynt.

Tynt does this for lots of news sites. It adds that script that I hate to remove each time I copy something from a site using it.

So I'm gonna submit this post before I decide to add this script to my blog. I don't know if I really give a fuck. I have so few fucks left to give.

I'm working so fucking hard at the library and just seem to keep falling farther and farther behind. There's the work I need to do, the work I'm asked to do and the work I'd like to do, and the work I'm asked to do almost always takes the top. Then when I really need to do what I need to do, and someone asks me to do something, and I tell them to fuck off, I feel terrible.

I have no fucking time.

Clearly, I have the same amount of time as everyone else, but I can't seem to make it all work like it used to.

I should also mention that Flickr attributes copyright info to photos that are copied, or something, but I didn't really read up on that for this post.

Another mention is that we continue to give our content away (our FB, blog, Twitter posts, photos, videos) just when corporations are moving towards a tiered internet, with pay and free content. Maybe we should begin protecting our content a little better.

I am not Australian...

I just saw that some Australian bloggers are participating in an informal challenge: "30 blog posts in 30 days."

Which isn't a big deal depending on the rules. The meme says 30 posts in 30 days, which could mean all 30 in one day for all I know. That's what Paul Hogan would do.

But one blogger spells out "am going to try to blog everyday for the month of June. any bloggers care to take up the challenge?"

So I don't know. I don't have the willpower to follow any daily schedule. So I'm going with the overall total. I think I can handle that. Any other non-Australians interested?

(Yikes! I just noticed that I haven't published 30 posts in one month since October 2008.)

Hooray! I Lost!

from

Peter W Tobey
Director, Sales & Marketing, Salem Press
ptobey@salempress.com

Greetings.

Salem Press has announced its Library Blog Awards. Awards were given in five categories: General Interest, Academic, Public, School and "Quirky" library blogs. First prize in each category is awarded $500, second prize is $250 and third is $100.

In addition, the judges qualified approximately 80 blogs (out of a field of 400) as "notable." All 400 blogs are included in Salem's blog directories at www.SalemPress.com/blogs. You'll also find discussions of judging criteria there (see Blog Thoughts) and short biographies of the judges.

This is a contest I was not aware of until I was told I might win. There was some mention of a prize, but if I'd known it would be in actual money, I might have cared more. Maybe produce some quality writing, at least temporarily as the judges clicked over to here. But I didn't, in my wildest imagination think that I could win as much as $500 for doing nothing. So now I'm pissed that I didn't win a prize that I didn't know or care about until not winning suddenly convinced me otherwise. I thought I'd get a pen, or a box of remaindered books. But money? Who'da thunk it?

It turns out that this blog is considered a public library blog. And the winners in this category are (remember, not me):

Public Library Blogs

• First place: Agnostic, Maybe
• Second place: Blogging for a Good Book
• Third place: Library Garden

I would congratulate these winners, but I'm petty. Oh, what the hell... Congratulations, Winners of actual American money and not a pen!

But anyway, you can see that there are many blogs that also lost. But this blog received a gold star, which is a way of saying that I'm good enough for any amount of praise that excludes prizes.
Here is the description I sent Salem Press for this blog:

the.effing.librarian is an extremely important library blog. If you don't already know about it, you don't deserve to know. No, you can't go there now, it's too late for you. Don't beg.

That bundle of words alone deserves something. Even a pen would be nice. But I'm going to explore the other losers' blogs and maybe some of them will check out mine.

I don't know what this blog is.

Sometimes I try to explain this blog to others. I use the words "crap" and "library" and "funny," but never in the correct order: funny library crap. So I sort of explain it's about library stuff, or not, that it's sometimes funny, or not.

I'm not much of a salesman.

So I like when I find others who describe my blog for me. I just saw that Miss Julie says my blog, "talks about many of the hot issues in the library world, as well as advocacy and news, but in a completely bitchy and steely way."

It helps when I can see how others see me. Did you ever notice that when you take a picture of yourself in the mirror then view it on your computer, you still need to flip it horizontally to get a better idea of how others see you? Otherwise, you see yourself, but mirror-reversed, and then Evil-Sulu tries to kill you.

So I may never know what this blog is, and maybe I don't want to know. When I was much younger, I was sure I wanted to be a firefighter. I took the firefighter test: I could lift a 125 lb dummy up and onto my shoulder in one smooth clean and jerk motion and then carry it along a 25 ft long, six inch wide beam. I found my way out of a smoke-filled room. I lifted and ran and lifted some more until I didn't want to lift anything heavy ever again. But I never became a firefighter. Years later, I wanted to become a media specialist in a school. I took classes and worked toward my teacher certification and taught in various schools as a substitute teacher. But I never became a media specialist.

I enjoy being the.effing.librarian. But I fear that if I figure out what the.effing.librarian is, and if I try harder to be a better effinglibrarian, then somehow I will lose whatever I have now. So I don't try. I just do. And if that makes sense to you, then I guess I'll keep doing whatever this is. But don't ask me to explain it because I don't know.

Welcome, visitor. You're in good company.

I was reminded today of a TV show that I read about a couple years ago. There was a going to be a new show called Boldly Going Nowhere that was a parody of a Star Trek type show. And when I saw the story I wrote a blog post called, Boldly Going to Court where I threatened to sue Fox Television for stealing my idea for a Star Trek parody. As if no one else had ever gone there before.

Now, what was really funny about that post was that for the next few days, my blog stats showed several visits from an IP address owned by Fox.

And that was hilarious. I couldn't believe that someone in some office at Fox Television was reading my blog because I mentioned them. And threatened a lawsuit. It just freaked me out. And then the show kind of disappeared from the radar. Did my blog scare someone? I doubt it, but that would be awesome if my fake threat caused some executive to push back production of a TV show.

Like most bloggers, I use software to collect stats on how many visitors this blog receives. And like most bloggers, I expected the numbers to be much higher than they really are. I mean, seriously, before you started, didn't you think that 50 or 60 people would visit your blog every day? Sure, you secretly hoped for thousands of visitors, but you're only publishing about 300 words, three times a week, so what did you expect? If you wanted real traffic, you'd just repost news snippets and links to other sites without producing any original content.

And every day or so, I check my stats to see how few of you actually give a shit about what I have to say. And boy, it's depressing. Or at least it was until a couple of years ago when I realized that the internet is a bitch.

There is no guarantee that anything you ever do will be appreciated by anyone. So you've got to just please yourself. Oh, God, did I just quote that Rick Nelson song, "Garden Party"? Hey, it's a good song.

Anyway, one of the main reasons I check stats it so see if any interesting visitors show up. I don't mean that you're not interesting because you are, but I mean interesting like, strange. And I don't mean you're not strange...

So I look for anomalies. Like I've received visits from whitehouse.gov, loc.gov and supremecourt.gov. The Supreme Court visited my blog???? Was that about that thing with Justice Alito? Again?

And today, a visit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And it's not from a google search, but someone went directly to my blog. Wtf? I don't remember posting anything about the weather.

I know some of these places have their own people, like interns, who scour the net looking for blog mentions, so I can see how that might attract a few of these visits, but I don't go around salting my posts with mentions of The United States Supreme Court just so I get a hit.

But maybe I should. Supreme Court. White House. Oprah.

I've never had a visit from number10.gov.uk, but my guess is they're too busy to notice me right now. But maybe next month.

Monday Night is Open Mike Night.

As you know here at The Sapphire Room, I like to give a break to new talent. Well, here are two women who appear to be new to the business, so let's give them a round of applause and welcome them to the big show.

Here are Tales from Library Land and Crazy Library Shit.

That was great. Another round of applause for Tales from Library Land and Crazy Library Shit. I see a big future for these two. Next up, the amazing Lola Falana...

Pour Moi?

I got this email the other day:

"Congratulations. Your blog has been nominated for our Library Blog Awards. In fact, your blog was suggested more than once."

Peter W Tobey
salempress.com

I immediately suspected bullshit. As I can't imagine that any of you would nominate me. Okay, maybe you, but definitely not you. Maybe it was a typo. A lot of people use the name the.effing.librarian. And is this really even a Library Blog?

Anyway, it looks like the contest at Salem Press is for real, and not bullshit:

"So, we've decided to recognize the best efforts in the field. Not only to praise the praise-worthy but also to publicize the good stuff. To that end, we're hosting something we call the Library Blog Awards."

So go and nominate your favorite library blogs. And if you're as crazy about the.effing.librarian as I am, please nominate me a few more times. There will be cash prizes which I will share with no one if I win, but the money will go back into the writing of this blog to keep it the hoopiest place on the twelve internets.

Papa's Got a Brand New Blog.

I realize this has never been a theme-based blog. Themes are useful. Most popular blogs are either about one thing or written by some recognizable name. And yes, some are just news aggregators with minimal commentary... And some are user driven... Alright, shut up already. But most blogs have a singular central theme.

And without a theme, how can you recommend this blog to your friends? Do you just say, it's a funny blog? Because it's only funny about ten percent of the time. Do you say it's a librarian blog? Why the hell would you do that? Who the hell wants to read a librarian blog? No wonder my readership has stagnated, since you people can't even convince your friends to visit.

And since people have never been able to properly label what the.effing.librarian does, I've decided to create a new blog where I can compartmentalize my thoughts into an easily recognizable formula.

It's called Library Horrors. It's about all the horrible crap that happens in libraries. I understand that this sounds like SafeLibraries.org, but it's not like all this bad stuff is a secret.

And follow libraryhorrors on Twitter. If you're into that sort of thing. But I don't think I'll post anything there that isn't already here.

Library blog?

I wish this were a library blog. I wish I could remain focused and refrain from posting about "wieners" and "farts."

But I never wanted to write a library blog. I just want to write about crap that amuses me.

And I'm only a librarian because my skills led me here. If I knew that my talents would make me a good kangaroo poacher or Republican Senator, then that's what I would be.

But I can find shit real good. I'm a searcher and a finder, a hunter-gatherer. I'm good with print and electronic tools and I can present my findings clearly to assist others.

But I'm not organized. So this blog is a mess. And that's why I will never be voted as one of the LISNews Favorite Blogs of the Year.

No, I'm not asking you to nominate me. I tried that in 2007 and you took my Crown of Awesome away for 30 days.

I'm just saying, it ain't gonna happen for me. Just in case you're one of the few who think it should.

An apology:

Walt has a post about blogs (library blogs in particular, since he does periodic surveys and reports his results in the form of print matter that he publishes but that nobody buys - yeah, babe, I share your pain)....

He says that most blogs that go into suspended animation and suddenly reawaken with some message about how the blogger is so sorry for abandoning her post and how she will try harder to make it up, post this message right before the blog succumbs to the terminal illness of slack.

Me, I pretend these bloggers had some really important message, but were thwarted by an ominous branch of the government and given untraceable poisons, their bodies later discovered by cleaning women hired by landlords to go find out what that smell is coming from 2G. Walt finds a direct correlation between the "I'm sorry for not posting; I'll try to do better" message and the imminent death of the blog. I see this message as disinformation spread by those governmental assassins to lead us to believe that all is well, when that poor blogger has already bought it and evacuated herself into her Hello Kitty pajamas.

The other day on Twitter ("blogging for 'tards"), I had this exchange with MLx:

MLx: How NOT To Suck At Blogging http://ff.im/-8HJTt

Me: @MLx this guy takes his blog way too seriously... "sucking" is relative. you only
suck at blogging when you quit doing it. otherwise: WIN.

My point was, either blog or don't blog; any frequency or amount is fine.

It's like when I answer the phone at the Reference Desk in the library and hear this:

Can I ask you a question? Are you ready? Do you think you can help me? I always ask the library first because they always know everything. So are you ready for my question?

MoFo, I was born ready, but now I think I need a nap.

But I guess that's not as bad as the caller who just says, "Anderson, it looks like a B."

And I ask, "Do you need Anderson, it looks like a B's phone number?"

"No, this is a painting of a unicorn wearing a tutu, and it says, Anderson with a B. I think he's famous. So what's that worth?"

The first thing I think is, if he's famous, then you don't have one of his.

I think I hate those calls the most.

Oh, but getting back to the apology. I've been doing this crap pretty consistently for two-and-a-half years now. And I'm sorry for continuing. I'll try harder to stop.

The Effing Librarian blog is now CLOSED.

This blog closed on May 1, 2009, but feel free to read from "all the old crap" or purchase paper copies of my blobogoks*

1. Fame and Fortune and Other F Words
   
2. METAL ASS

*a blobogok is my preferred term for a "blog book." why? because it's a funny word.

you can also find the books on Amazon, but I earn less if you buy from there.. but you can get free shipping if you buy enough, so the choice is yours... you probably need free shipping more than I need the $3.00.

if you need to contact the.effing.librarian, use your noodle and guess my email address... no, that's not it... try harder: use your other noodle...

Attention Whore.

I was telling a friend over the weekend that I had to quit this blog because I have to break up with it. It's like that person you dated that one time who was around all the time, who wouldn't leave you alone, who suffocated you.. The sex was awesome, it was like an open bar, whatever you wanted, appeared in a clean glass with a cherry. But this is the thing, I'm the one one who won't leave you alone.

I'm the one who needs to blog about crap. I'm the one who cries out for the attention.

Even now, as I said I wouldn't blog until I finished editing the book. But here I am, begging for you to read this.

It's like a sickness. Ooh, look what clever thing I wrote today. But once it's in the book, I don't need to see it. Because it's there for good. It's an Internet sickness. So that's why I need to just cut loose from the Internet. Completely. Except for shopping and porn. I'm not that sick.

This was last year's idea for next year, meaning this year.

Yesterday I had the idea that I would try to convince every blogger to make her site unavailable for one day, April 1.

Every year people go out their way to construct bogus stories (did you check your Gmail today?) to have fun with the rest of us. But I thought it would be more fun if all the bloggers chose not to participate. To not post. To not feed. To just ignore it all.

But then I forgot about my great idea until after lunch. And then I turned off my blog for a couple of hours. I went to the Settings and made it restricted to just me:

Your blog is restricted so that only you can read it.
Other visitors to this blog will not be able to read any posts; instead they will get a message stating that this is a private blog.

Now, it's just this blog, so no one noticed (well, one person noticed). But it still looked interesting that whoever visited saw the message, "This blog is open to invited readers only." It would be cooler if it said, "This blog is closed today. Sorry for any inconvenience."

So like I said, maybe next year we'll do this. I would love to see a news story about thousands of blogs taking the day off. Think about it. Tell your friends.

What I learned.

If I learned anything this week, it's that babies are a hot topic. If I want more people to put my blog posts on their Facebook pages, then I need to post more crap about babies.

I would love to have kids, but my imaginary girlfriend doesn't want to ruin her figure by allowing me to crush her tiny body with my superhuman strength. Oh, she'd love imaginary kids to go with our imaginary relationship, but only with someone who won't pulverize her pelvis into dust.

So the.effing.librarian is going to write more about babies. I don't know anything about babies, so I'm going to select random old posts and just substitute the word "baby" for something else, wherever it seems to fit. I'm going to start by taking something from over there where it says, "posts to read if what's up top sucks."

What's in your baby bag?

I have a "baby bag." It's what I take with me when a friend calls for baby help. I like my baby bag: it's like a heavy duty travel baby case, but without the baby.

In its place are these:

6-12 lb. diaper pre-loaded with crap
external baby warmer (a blanket)
anti-bacterial hand sanitizer
Mashed Peas (why do I have so many jars of mashed peas?)
assorted bottles
breast pump screwdriver tool kit
usb thumb drive loaded with pictures of babies
bottled water

All I need is a tube of "butt paste," and I'd be ready for any baby emergency. Except then my baby nerd status would be certified; so in place of the ointment, I'll carry a flask of Jim Beam. I'll just get one out of my "date with George Clooney" bag. Hey, there's butt paste in there, too!

Wow, that worked better than I'd thought! The.effing.librarian is going to be more popular than ever!!

this is me.

I just logged into Twitter and the people I follow all seem to be busy busy busy doing all kinds of stuff. And I realized that I do nothing. If I told you what I did with my free time, how little I actually do with my worthless, pathetic life, you'd rip your the.effing.librarian poster down off your wall and put back the Bobby Sherman poster I'd supplanted (Oh, Bobby, you handsome devil, it's no wonder all the girls are in love with you).

And I posted this "tweet":

the.effing.librarian will be speaking nowhere, has no opening dates, is not busy at all and can be reached almost anytime to do anything.

And that's all I have to say. If I post nothing else, that message said it all. So that's it, I'm done. My blogging life is over.

I mean for today.

Hello, I'm Nobody.

I don't like attention. I don't like being noticed. I like to do what I want and to be left alone while I do it.

So why do I envy those who get all the attention?

I work in a medium-to-large library system, not Hennepin County, MN, large, but pretty big, and sometimes I see that my colleagues are producing professional writing, book reviews, etc., under their own real names, and I wonder why I'm not doing that. Especially now, when I might need some extra ammo to argue to save my job if our library cuts some of our positions. "But I write for LJ," I could cry, and that might keep me in my desk while they toss that other guy who only donates blood and teaches adult learners to read.

I write as the.effing.librarian. What the fuck good is that? Yes, I'm a whiny bitch. That's just the way I was raised, having eight sisters and no brothers. And I don't enjoy writing reviews, I don't have the patience to teach anyone anything, and if I donate blood, I give away some of my irreplaceable midichlorians and lose my jedi powers.

But I think there's something wrong with all this avoidance. Hell, I'm an adult, and at some point I might need to become involved with someone intimately enough to produce other tiny someones. What? "Oh, God, No!" Yes, I heard that. Why does everyone always cry out, Oh, God, No when I mention that I might want to become a parent? And why does my mom shout it the loudest?

I just don't want any problems to come from being the.effing.librarian. It's like when the cops stop me and ask my name and I answer, IZE-COLE (ice cold). And they take my description and add my name to the long list of local gang members.

So I guess you could say the.effing.librarian is in a gang, ...is a gang. I hope our colors are purple and olive because those really bring out my cool winter skin tones.

Real librarians.

So sometimes I go to my Blogger profile and click on the Occupation link to see what other "people" list themselves as librarians. And today, there were 11,100 of us on Blogger. And my first thought was, "Why the hell aren't you all following my blog?" And when I realized it's because I'm a dick, my second thought was, "How can I convince each of these librarians to send me 10 dollars?"

So I'm clicking through the list of 11,100 librarians to see if any single one looks clickable, like if I see one that says, About Me, "Interests include: modeling lingerie, baking pies, the.effing.librarian." ...and has a photo that isn't this guy: (Sorry, John).

And I came across a librarian named "Paige Turner." Now, is that a name for a librarian, or what? I'd like to think that's her real name. But Paige Turner, really?

Anyway, I hope everyone clicks on her link because if that's her real name and she became a librarian in spite of it, well ... can you imagine her growing up? "Oh, Paige Turner, you must love to read books. Ha. Ha."

Personally, I would want to get as far away from books as possible. And I would hate that song by Bob Seger (which is awesome on Live Bullet, which I just remembered I need to get).

So visit Paige's page and if you've never heard the "chicken walks into the library" joke, you can read it here (although I just heard there's a picture book based on the joke - called Book! Book! Book!).

Bloglines hates me.

I don't know what the hell is going on here. Well, first of all, I'm doped up from a recent injury, so I don't know what's going on at all. Yes, go ahead and laugh because I'm in pain. But when I get repaired, I'll accept the award Monster sent me.

First of all, that anyone reads this crap that I write is a testament to our diversity as a profession. Yes, a testament to our diversity. President-elect Obama, feel free to use that in your inauguration speech. A week or so ago, Jessamyn linked here (thank you, yes, I will send you something soon) and my subscriber count went from 477 to 600 in a week.

Woo-hoo! Take that LISNews for not voting me one of the top blogs to read in 2009. I don't need you! Oh, who am I kidding, I can never stay mad at you, LISNews. Come here and give me a hug. Mmmmm. You smell nice. Hey, watch those hands, mister... I'm not that kind of girl. ...Okay, I am that kind of girl.

But then the count drops back down to 458. Now, I'm not crying because that's still a lot of people, or voles or katydids or whatever is out there on the Internets. But seriously, to go from 477 to 600 to 458 in eight days is a wild ride. I bought a bunch of cool stuff from all the new ad revenue I was expecting; now, how am I supposed to feed this panther?

And it seems to be Bloglines' fault. Their count went from 209 to 77. The Google count remained about the same. What this means (I think) is that the older Bloglines users don't dig the.effing.librarian's vibe. They signed in and signed out faster than Roland Burris getting turned away from the Senate. Okay, maybe not that bad; at least they gave me a chance to prove myself. At which I failed.

Anyway, you cool people are still here. That's 458 people who don't think I'm a complete ass. Or do think I'm a complete ass, but like their blogs asseriffic. Anyway, thanks. My computer no longer looks like a green dragon, so it's time for me to take more medicine.