You Had To Send The Wrecking Crew After Me
Woo!

What a day yesterday.

I found out around noon my time that a regular Bucketeer, the lovely and talented Geordie, was a naughty monkey and posted a link to yesterday's post in a discussion thread over at big giant rockstar blog the Daily Kos. For those of you who don't know, let me put it in perspective for you: the resultant upswing in new and curious readers that Kos gets from the link provided by me in this paragraph will be noticed the same way a giant universe-sucking black hole notices... I don't know, something really small and space-y. I was never very good at astrology.

What I'm saying is that the relationship (however brief and tenuous) between your ole beloved Bucket and something the size and scope of Kos can probably be best described as parasitic. And I don't even get to be one of those cool parasites either, like a leech or a tapeworm. I'm so small by comparison that the best analogy would be a single head louse. Not a colony, not an infestation, just one that maybe fell out of a flying bird, enjoyed a brief second of nirvana in either the scalp or pubic area of a brand-new host only to get itched away almost immediately.

The net effect of the Kos exposure, then, was negligible for those good people but a big-time one-off surge in readership and exposure for me.

While I thank Geordie for the public display of affection (and would reciprocate here if I had a blog address to link to, which I don't), I'm sort of ambivalent about these sorts of things. It's not unlike the Great Tbogg Link Event of 2005: I'm very happy for the increased visibility, while at the same time, I can't help thinking "What?! Visitors now?! Wait wait, give me a chance to clean this shit-hole up before people come nosing around!" but then it's too late because someone's already sat on the open-face peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich you had left on the couch for safe-keeping.

Because I'm on a metaphorical roll, it's also not unlike stepping into the shower, singing some of the John Tesh songs you've made up words to at the top of your voice, maybe lingering a little bit while washing the bits and pieces only to step out of the shower to find 50 people you've never met before waiting for you. Just for the record, I'd like to say I enjoy the brisk, invigorating feel of an unusually cold shower; it's normally much bigger, honest.

And there, I think I've demonstrated two points with the above paragraph: 1) Please, if you're going to stay (and I encourage you to do so, for the low-low introductory price of No-Charge-But-I-Won't-Say-No-To-A-Donation) don't judge me solely by the most recent posts and 2) although yesterday's post was pseudo-political, this blog is more about teh phunny than it is about teh impeach-the-president.

If the revolution does come, I'll be the one in the back-ish of the column holding the rubber chicken. Just thought we should get that out there.

If you're looking for serious-minded political discussion, my God, have you come to the wrong place. In fact, if you're looking for serious-minded anything I can think of about... oh, say, EVERYWHERE else that you'd be better off.

On the other hand, if Star Wars references and the occasional Hasselhoff picture are more your speed, you're in the right place.

As a final way to emphasize the normal direction the Bucket takes on most social commentary, if it weren't for this little happy distraction, my topic today was going to be about the story of the dancer who was fired from a show because he boobs magically grew too big.

Ah, boobies. And now you know the level of the room.

Putting all this together--and since it's become a horrendous Pops-centric orgy of self-referential me-porn anyway--after the Tbogg thing, I posted a picture of my Sitemeter graph to illustrate the dramatic influx that day. Let me now share with you something a little more long-term, my YEARLY Sitemeter graph:

Now, if you look closely at the difference between January and February of this year, you may notice something. I'll give you a second. Got it? What did you immediately think of?

It was Wile E. Coyote, wasn't it? Right off the cliff. I knew I never should have looked down.

I try to tell myself that it's because February only has 28 days, so we should expect to see some drop-off but uh... even I have to admit that the drop might be indicative of some kind of change.

What I'm saying, Kos-inspired visitors, is OH GOD PLEEEEEEAAASE STAAAAAY! PLEEAAAASE! I SO don't want to kill myself! I really really don't! Look, I can do George Bush material! You saw it yesterday! If I look I can find that funny, funny collage of pictures where his various facial expressions are compared to a chimpanzee! That would be good, right? Would you stay then? Would you? Say you would.

Impeach! Impeach! Impeach!

I love you all. I know it's early, but I mean it. I do.

I'm so very lonely.

Last thing: at the end of each post, I sign off with a rating on "the Narcissus Scale" named for the character in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in a pond. It is for that reason I avoid all bodies of water. Anyway, the scale (on a 0-10 basis) measures the extent to which the content of a post reflects (ha ha) a self-absorbed nobody-else-but-me-could-possibly-give-a-shit-about-this nature. Zero is selfless dissemination of information for the public good with no regard for self-aggrandizement; it has never been reached (or even really approached). Ten means all of you should have stopped reading several paragraphs ago and now you will never get this time back.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0


As if there were any doubt.


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 8:55 AM