Happy New Years Eve

Today ends my first year as a blogger. A time to take stock, count up, and reflect on all the joys and sorrows of the year, and look forward to the next year.

First, let's go by the numbers. I am closing on 260 posts, and at the time I'm writing it has been viewed 3,015 times. While the vast majority of these viewers have been from the good ol' USA (2,244), we've also saw a steady stream of occasional viewers and semi-regular followers from Denmark (363), Germany (59), Jolly Ol' (53), Russia (51), Canada (43), Slovenia (26), the Netherlands (12), Australia (11), and China (8). Along the way, I looked into sports, politics, religion, and the stupid nature of humanity. I kept track of "uncommon" animal sightings ( tally as of right now: 62 deer, 19 rabbits, 8 fox, 7 bats, 7 raccoons, 5 groundhogs, 4 black (or as Tina says, "Mexican") squirrels, 2 opossums, 2 meadowlarks, 1 each pheasant, longhorn steers, and 2 unidentified weasel-like creatures.

I explored the woodland and waters near home, and took journeys to Toledo and Cincinnati that were far more exciting than just saying "we went to Toledo and Cincinnati" can express. And people actually read some of this stuff. Here are the top ten posts by view this year:

#10 - Time Machine week 33- Lorne Greene and Ringo; That's The Way I like It at #1.
#9- TM week 23- my look at the R&RHOF nominees, the side story of dropping frozen rats with cardboard wings into Guam, and Run Joey Run at #1.
#8-TM week 31- the Thanksgiving episode, with Batdorf and Rodney and KC and the Sunshine Band at #1 again.
#7- TM week 35- the Fly Away story, and Christmas.
#6-The Time Machine Christmas Special. My own mashing together of the Cashbox and Billboard year end charts.
#5- TM week 19- What "tush" means in Texican, and Falling In Love at #1.
#4- TM week 29- the wrap up of my best songs of the seventies, and the "Superstar" controversy that followed.
#3- The Day Of Judgement According To wecanknow.com- Combine decent scholarship with Dan Brown on steroids and you get that the world will end in October of next year.
#2- TM week 30- Neil Young says "Turn up the barn"; Fly Robin Fly at #1.
annnnnd #1 by a Vaaaaaaaast margin:
#1 What Government Is For- where my attempt to denounce tyranny of the minority evolved into World War III between creationists and atheists.

Among the most fun posts were my "who's dumber" columns. Here's my personal top ten of idiocy:
#10 New York city councilman Michael Wolfensohn putting a lemonade stand out of business because they hadn't spent in access of a million bucks to purchase a vendor's licence. Typical democratic support of small Business.
#9-5 guys on the Kankakee river who couldn't manage to hang onto 1 oar with ten hands and end up drifting and lost until the cops saved them from themselves.
#8- Cleveland proving themselves a sports Mecca yet again when a drunken Browns fan tackled and knocked down an 8-yr-old boy in a Jets jersey and ran away. And they wonder what's wrong with the Cavs, Browns, and Tribe.
#7- The attorney for Brett Favre's picture recipient Jenn Sterger claiming they presented more than enough evidence to get the NFL to punish Favre- though apparently that evidence was not enough to get him to file charges in an ACTUAL court o' law.
#6- the many amusing e-mails I've received from Nigerian scammers, especially the acronym-filled notice from the "FBI".
#5- the delightful Helen Thomas rising up off her stone-age ass and telling the Jews to move out of Israel. The living (or at least well preserved) symbol of all that is good in liberal media.
#4- a combo entry for the Westboro Baptist "church" with their campaign against good taste and common sense at funerals, and the Dove World Outreach Center and their threatened Koran-burning. Congratulations for setting the world's perception of Christianity back 3,000 years. Who needs Michael Neadow when you got these guys?
#3- The women in New Jersey who went to a back alley "doctor" to have their butts augmented with a mixture that proved to be less Botox and more industrial grade caulk. I would think this would be more the line of depends undergarments than plastic surgery.
#2- the governor in Russia who believes he was abducted by aliens, and the member of the state Duma who wants an investigation into what he may have told the aliens. You can't make this stuff up.
Annnnd finally:
#1- the robber who dressed up in fake tits and clown pants, walked into several businesses, finally robbed the first bank he went into (when the second bank told him they couldn't accept a robbery note written on a deposit slip from the first bank), blew the dye pack up all over himself, and was apprehended by cops sitting in a car that he tried to car jack (but failed when the owner fled with the keys). Was there ever a doubt?

Do I have any resolutions? Like Bob G., I resolved years ago to make no more resolutions, and have kept it ever since. But there are things I'd like to see.

I'd like to see a world where a traitor who puts innocents in danger for his own self-glorification (read: Julian Ass ange) is treated as a traitor, and not a hero by left wing bozos like Michael Moore and dipshit bureaucrats like the lady at the UN who's concerned about his free speech rights.

I'd like to see the African-American community spend less time persecuting cops who are forced to arrest/chase/shoot lazy amoral thugs, and more time taking their young people to task for wasting their lives in such a way.

I'd like to see an education system that stopped fighting over money, stopped playing politics with their union, stopped worrying how our kids compare to those in the EU, and started caring whether the kids are actually learning.

I'd like to see a government that ceased believing that every partisan battle was all or nothing and started working at compromises that put the good of the people back at the paramount position that they are SUPPOSED to be in.

I'd like to see my daughter wake up one morning realizing that she is wasting the best years of her life avoiding education, and settle down and study at least enough to get her stinkin' learner's permit.

And finally, I'd like to see us all safe and sound here next year. May God bless and keep you all.