The end?

I have decided to, in political campaign-speak, "suspend" this blog.

It has been years since I regularly actually wrote blog posts--almost all I've been doing is posting links to news articles, with the occasional cartoon (created by others), or photo thrown in. Even my Semi-random thought posts have petered out. My average daily readership has dropped to a single digit, and even the minimal amount of work I've been putting in just doesn't seem to be worth it.

So, after 11+ years, 4,003 posts and 145,515 visitors, I am quitting. Since I don't like to say never, I'm not saying I will never start this up again--as I've gotten older there have been changes in my life, and there will certainly be more in the future. Maybe I will start to enjoy writing again. But for the foreseeable future, I doubt it.

I am going to leave the blog up, if for no other reason than I like to use my blogroll to see what has been updated recently.

One more thing: I have a Plat du jour scheduled for election day. So maybe that will actually be the end.

Today's tiny news round-up

Due to the my watching the Olympics, my posts are going to sparse and small for the next couple weeks.

Good News

• NJ Police Chief Suspended, Demoted For Email Advocating Racial Profiling

Bad News

• Hot Springs Store Owner Asks Lesbian Couple to Stop Holding Hands

I'm baaaack!

No, I'm not dead. Or finished with my glob. I was just traveling. I went to Belgium, and then Las Vegas for the Burlesque Hall of Fame festival. Now I'm back in New York, and I will resume normal blogging.

Blogging break

As I did in November, this week I am minimizing my time on the computer, so I can continue cleaning up my office. I won't be posting much, if anything.

But I'll be back next week.

10 years! 10 whole years?

Other than posting links to stuff I find interesting or amusing, I seldom really blog any more. I guess that's why I failed to notice that my glob was 10 years old on Thursday.

I'm still alive

I'm just on vacation in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. Don't expect to see much here until at least the 27th.

Semi-random thoughts

• I sign few of the online petitions that I am presented with, because most of them are addressed to people who couldn't care less what the general public thinks about what they are doing. Almost all the ones that I do sign are addressed to businesses. But even some of those fail to gain my support. For instance, I got one addressed to a bank which asks that it absolve a co-signer of a loan from his responsibility to pay it, because the primary debtor died. No. Not even though this was a student loan, and the student was his daughter. He was not just "helping his daughter" take out the loan--he promised to pay off the loan if she didn't, for whatever reason. It makes no difference that federal student loans are forgiven in such circumstances. He made a deal, he has to stick to it. 
• It's amazing how many of my entertainer friends had pictures with Joan Rivers to post. 
• I got some spam titled, "Would you sleep with a Married Woman?" Of course I would. I sleep with my wife every night.
• I'm flabbergasted by the recent jump in readers of my glob from Japan and New Zealand. I haven't written anything about either country. 

130,000 visitors!

Thanks for paying a visit!

Glob anniversary

Today is the ninth anniversary of this blog. As of this writing it's had 129,892 visitors! If people keep visiting, I'll keep posting.

3,000 posts!

I see that yesterday's was my 3,000th post. I don't really write much of anything any more, but people do seem to keep reading. So I'll keep posting my headlines and license plates and anything else that catches my fancy but doesn't take me very much time. Thanks for sticking around.

Oh, Canada!

I have had a counter by country on my blog since September, 2011. Today Canada surpassed 1,000 different visitors--the first foreign country to reach this number.

At the rate it's going, the United Kingdom will be next, maybe early in 2016.

Semi-random thoughts

• When did "USC" start referring to the University of South Carolina and not the University of Southern California?
• My glob just passed 125,000 visitors. Thank you for reading it.
• The post office sent me back a piece of an envelope I had mailed--most likely one of my estimated tax payments. All I got was the empty end with my return address on it. I was afraid that I'd be hit with a late payment charge, but both of my checks got to the tax people just fine. 

Happy anniversary to my glob!

Today is the eighth anniversary of this blog. As of this writing it's had 120,728 visitors! I must be doing something right.

Semi-random thoughts

• I'm beginning to think that "ex-dominatrix" describes a significant percentage of the women in New York City.
• At the writing of this all the continents save Antarctica are represented on my recent visitors map.
• I'm always amused to get e-mails that start off "Dear [FirstName]."

Semi-random thoughts

• I did not name my blog after the bowling team in this TV show: ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ Historic Reunion on ‘Hot in Cleveland’. And I sort of doubt they named the team after my blog.
• My college basketball team, the Wisconsin Badgers, just got upset in their opening game of the national championship tournament. My choice, when this kind of thing happens, is either to want revenge, hoping that their opponents lose badly in their next game, or hoping that their opponents keep winning, showing we lost to a superior team. Since I don't think Mississippi is a superior team (we lost because we shot very poorly), this time I'll go for revenge. 
• The Tonight Show will be returning to New York. For many years I was a pretty regular viewer, even more so after I got my first VCR in 1976, so I didn't have to stay up until 1 am to see the whole thing. I always thought it lost something when it moved to California. The big name guests stayed pretty much the same, but the lesser-known ones changed. Instead of witty Broadway actors we got television actors whose main attraction was how good they looked (Here's a dirty little secret: a lot of Broadway actors, including those in the chorus, are not all that good-looking--heavy stage make-up, and the fact that there are no close-ups, lets them get away with it).
  
  It will be interesting to see if Fallon can bring back the old vibe. I've seen his show a few times, and he might be able to do it.

Semi-random thoughts

• My wife and I were relieved to find out that Hurricane Sandy caused no significant damage to the complex in NJ that provides the bulk of our income. They had emergency generators to power the sump pumps that kept the boiler rooms safe, unlike during Irene.
• I notice that I recently went past 2,500 posts here.
• I wish there were a way of filtering out comments from non-New Yorkers on NY Times articles about the city--especially articles about local apartments. Most of these people have absolutely no idea about how things work here.

Semi-random thoughts

• There's something wrong with the way we do daylight savings time. In the spring, we skip 2am to 3am, but in the fall we repeat 1am to 2am. Shouldn't we be doing the same hour both times?
• My glob just got its first visitor from Kenya.
• Sometimes things really do go my way. My bi-annual renewal of my registration as a lawyer is due shortly, and I found myself 2 credits short of the requirement for mandatory continuing legal education. I saw my local bar association is giving a 3 credit class next Tuesday, when I have nothing scheduled. I resigned myself to paying the fee and schlepping down there. Then today I got a notice from the NY State Bar Association that they are giving a 2 credit class next Thursday, when I also have nothing scheduled. It's free, and I can take it via webinar.

Semi-random thoughts

• I just noticed that I've passed the 7th anniversary of this blog.
• My monthly health insurance premium now exceeds my mortgage payment! 
• The software that categorizes news stories is confused about recalls. Stories on product recalls are appearing in my political news summaries. 
• A couple of my friends had their Facebook accounts hacked. They appeared to be posting recommendations for a weight loss drug, saying things like "I've lost 20lbs. in 3 weeks!" Ironically, both of them are dancers. If either of them lost 20lbs. she'd be on death's door.  All of their Facebook friends know this, so the ads are totally ineffectual. 

Yay, me!

This blog received its 100,000th visitor yesterday.

Another interruption

I'm watching the Olympics, so I'm not going to be posting much the next two weeks.