A Million Hits?

Damn. I was told there'd be strippers.


So I sez to him, I sez, “No, I ordered a hickory Daiquiri, doc”…

Oh. Hi there.

Didn’t see you come in.

So it turns out this blog passed a million hits some time ago. My old counter -- abandoned for the sultrier, statuesquer, stiletto-heelier Statcounter after the first year -- got me to over 200K, and Statcounter tells me that under its regime, I’m way over 800K.

So I did the maths.

And then I went "Whoa..."

And being as how I don’t belong to any Blogger Sodality

“A social group organized to achieve particular goals.

A social group based on shared interest or voluntary participation.”

Also

“A form of the Church universal expressed in specialized, task oriented form as opposed to the Church in its local, diocesan form."

And

“A non-kin group organized for a specific purpose (economic, cultural, or other), and frequently spanning villages or towns.”

Lovely word, isn’t it?

Anyway, since I was raised feral by blogwolves in the Busse Woods Forest Preserve and don’t belong to any such a thing as that, I lack certain social graces and do not know what the folkways and traditions covering such a matter may be, only that if I break them I’m sure something dire and welt-producing will happen.

So I had to fall back on consulting that crappy Dissonant-Level Bloggers Manual -- “The Collected Saying of Judge Roy Blog and the Law West of the dKos” – which, as I'm sure you know all know by now, Liberal Central Command issues to all Lefty bloggers (along with a hefty check from George Soros) once you make it past the one-year mark.

Well the manual seems to have been translated from the original Czech by a Korean technical writer while his hot German girlfriend talked dirty in his ear, but here, in daring violation of the Protocols of the Elders of Huffington, I will publicly reveal the Secret Rules governing the Procedures for the Millionth Hit:

In opportunity its millionth concussion, Ordinance certifies the attachment of it, remind it go down to crack rooms and it pretends stationed, nature surprises itself in a party, which from hit COUNT Monsieurs small letters of receivable from customer her (such pleasant work in one lace and for each office have really emandbeduerfnis these small make to hold Homo sapien details of the ceremony of workplace that living together to it lead inevitably) in the Obstruktion under some threadcake arid of Walgreens with side a Spam umbilicus, (if whether forgot in, it that will play connected in a speed), or into some threadcake this terrific of iversion of the rums of this baker's shop of compression of the Block of an author vertigem induzido immediately, that deeply you not to rub know attached two adjectives per week. which it induces and the characteristic will make, speech them autumn in small quantity it is inconvenient to be like that and it is profound and it spreads out.

Which, being a kind of helpless suitor of Lady Lingua’s affections, I got myself good and Rosetta-stoned and painstakingly reverse engineered into this more user-friendly version:

On the occasion of your one millionth hit, The Rules decree that you post it, celebrate it, go down to the break room and pretend to be surprised at the Hitcount Party the tiny ladies from Accounts Receivable have put together (they do such nice work on a shoestring, and every office really does need someone to handle the small, vital, human details of workplace ritual such ecosystems makes inevitable), choke down some dry Walgreens threadcake with a side of spam (if they forgot and had to throw it together in a hurry), or some of that terrific rum upsidedown threadcake from that Swedish bakery (if they like you enough to have planned sufficiently ahead), make a sweaty, uncomfortable little speech and thence fall into the grasp of a vertigo-induced writer’s block so profound you won’t be able to rub two adjectives together for weeks.

So I have done my million, eaten my cake (The Accounts Receivable ladies went top-shelf and got a most excellent assortment of stollen from Dinkel's. Got me all misty-eyed, it did) and made my sweaty little speech. And have given myself a long, quiet, contemplative "ohmmm" of a moment to ride and enjoy and be genuinely awestruck and grateful at the cool strangeness that, even excluding hitching a ride on the occasional “hot lesbian three-way sombrero dance” Google search, and even factoring in the periodic visits from non-carbon-based life forms, so many, many people have found their way down that long WPA cobblestone road far off the main highway and over the footbridge to castle driftglass and my Little Shop of Humors.

And finally I must be off into the heart of the city in search of the beast that is searching for me. Because having had more than a little experience with the phenomenon, I know that somewhere out there, a 1,000 pounds of smelly, gristly writer’s-block is waiting to land on my chest with both feet, and whisper “Who do you think you are? Don’t you realize there is no future for the lone blogger? Don’t you realize no one wants to read anything longer than three sentences? Don’t you realize how many other, better writers there are? Don’t you realize how many people are watching?” in my ear.

He is an old acquaintance of mine, and like Frank Miller in “High Noon”,

I know he’s a’comin’.

And the sooner me and him square off and have it out, the better.