How the hell do I manage this? Why the hell do I even do this?
Here's a little irregularly scheduled gut check for Len Speaks. Sparked largely by the major increase in readership here over the past twelve months. It's time to think about the folks who venture here. The Sitemeter at the bottom of every page gives me a wonderful way to analyze the daily circulation.
Truth be told, there are about 65 regular or semi-regular readers. I know who you are because your location of access rarely changes. If you come here from a work e-mail address, that server is what comes across Sitemeter. You might work in New York, but your company server is in Connecticut. Ding, Connecticut gets credit for the readership.
If you live someplace on Long Island and you access through Optimum On-Line, the location of readership will be most likely the business address where you send your cable bill every month. The same goes for any broadband service. So, if you're thinking that I can actually tell that you're reading this while using your laptop on the toilet, well, I can't get that specific. At least not yet.
Now, the real spikes to Len Speaks have come as a result of Google searches. I can see that because Sitemeter shows me what folks have searched. I now realize that people are doing exactly what I sometimes do when there is time to kill. I will think about somebody buried in my past and wonder what happened to them. You type their name into Google and voila. Instant update, provided the person is still alive and not in jail.
So, that's what a lot of gremlins are doing. On a daily basis, I get at least four or five hits from people googling "Jonathan Goldsmith." Who? Oh, for Pete's sake, don't get me started again. It's that dopey Dos Equus guy and the mere mention in today's piece will get me another few hits a day. The world's fascination with this dude is astounding and pathetic all at once.
There is one interesting sidelight to the incessant Googling of this clown. One such search came for the always-dreaded-to-see "doj.gov." That would be the Department of Justice for those not up on their governmental alphabet. Hmmmm. Is somebody there Googling me or him? They clearly typed his name into the search box. Just what have you done, Jonathan Goldsmith?
Imagine my surprise when I noticed three different people showing up at Len Speaks because they typed in the name of my pediatrician, Dr. Fiegoli. What are the odds of that?
Think about my horror when I realize that one reader from Brooklyn, New York has come back to this site multiple times to read the same article I wrote about my teachers in high school. And their initial Google search was for "Miss Kass," my tenth-grade world history teacher. I wonder now if this is Miss Kass herself. And, if it is, I wasn't very kind. But, heck, if you're egotistical enough to do a Google search on your own name, you're going to have to live with the results no matter how insulting they might be.
Digging down deeper into the same entry on my high school teachers, I remembered that I sort of intimated the possible sexual orientation of one certain English instructor. I started to immediately worry that, if Miss Kass is Googling herself, the same could be done by this other teacher. And what if she still, decades later, is not out of the closet? Or wasn't even in amongst the winter coats to begin with? Hmmm, she didn't seem to be the litigious type when I took her in the tenth grade. But, who knows how the subsequent decades have soured her?
Uh oh.
Now I've written even snarkier stuff here and I hold my breath when the location "Washington DC" shows up on Sitemeter. Gulp. I start to obsess on whether I will be able to use my laptop in a concentration camp so I can, at the very least, keep writing even snarkier comments for this blog on a daily basis.
Yep, I look at Sitemeter all the time because I love to know how you got here. Maybe I should be worried more about how I got there.
Dinner last night: Polish sausage at the Dodger game.
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