Read My Lips - the blog

Terry:
I think you have put in a lot of work on these blogs.
Some of it is a bit lengthy for me, but that is me, and not the general reading individual.
Did you get my photos and picture of the ground dobber?
I ask is if any one knew why he dug the hole?
I had tremedous response from that email.
Curiousity or interest in seeing what the trivial answer is?
I don't know.
I know I am tired of hearing the depressing news of today and look for refreshing new looks and ideas about subjects that I don't have to make a moral decision about. Should I feel this way or that way about a particular subject.
Or, react a certain way, to show my intelligence or ignorance, whichever is the case.
I just like to be me. Whatever the situation.
I think you do a great job about bringing information to your blogs that are interesting and different. I don't know why more folks don't send input. Maybe, they don't have time or not inclined to. I read your blogs everyday if they are not too long, but I seldom make a comment, because that requires a concerted effort on my part and I have other things going on or that I am thinking about.
I don't think you are wasting your time, just like I didn't think the ground dobber was wasting its time diggin a hole in the dirt.
Later, Frank

It takes some time. I put up the first daily updates nearly three years ago; it took almost a year to get comments installed (I was doing purely manual coding then) and another year to get up to the heady level of one comment for every two posts. (The 0.5 has since grown to 1.6, which is still not inspiring, but then, I'm not what you'd call popular.)

Yo, Tiger...don't get discouraged! I only found your blog 3 weeks ago, and it's now a daily read. I'll be better about commenting from now on.

And Charles is lying...he's actually very popular!

Wow, I have a daily reader. Just knowing there is one out is the highlight of my day! And I agree, Charles has a good blog and I am sure he has a good share of readers too. I check him out regularly for that Oklahoma viewpoint. I liked yours too, and blogrolled you, in case you had not noticed.

I do have to agree that I too read far more posts than I comment on. In fact, there are far more than I think are worthy of linking to than I do actually link to, but if I have to leave a bit of exploring the blogroll for my readers.

[tongue firmly planted in cheek]

You can look at it like I do. That being that the lack of comments means that you are so cosmically correct in everything you say that the lowly readers have no choice but to nod silently in agreement. Since everything you say is scripture, there is no point to comment.

I've found that thinking about things this way tends to increases one's blogging self-worth and helps to dull the pain of post after post of the little "Comments" tag being followed by that all too empty "(0)".

Anyway, keep at it. You (and me) may be shouting into an empty void created by the jetwash of such luminaries of the blogosphere as InstaPundit, but I am of the belief that if you manage to shout loud enough someone, somewhere will notice. Even if it is just some retired Japanese guy who keeps typing the URL wrong.

Gosh, that was the chuckle I needed in an otherwise severely bleak day. Thank you!

What's this? Another Glen Roseian blogger? What's next for this town -- broadband? A Somervell Co. BloggerBash? I reckon we could hold it on my front porch.

I just today found your place from CG's comments, where you mentioned the (incredibly lousy) Burger King in our fair city. Now I'll be checking in regularly.

FWIW, after a little more than one full year of wasting my time and everybody else's with my joint, I'm at a .7 ratio on the Comment-O-Meter. I suspect that half of those are my wife and I talking to each other. My obsession with comments and refers and stats lasted about six months, and then the realization dawned on me that no, the WSJ wasn't going to give me a mid-six-figure salary and make me their lead editorialist. So now I just have fun with it. I suspect that I'll get more involved with my blog again in the future, but right now, it ain't the time or the place. I doubt that experience is terribly unique, either.

One thing I'll say by way of advice is, as a Texas blogger, I'd like to see more local color at your place. I find the blogs I read most often definitely give you a sense of place: CG, Andrea Harris, Ken Goldstein, Fred First, Ken Layne, Colby Cosh -- they might hit the major topics of the day, but I also get a feeling for where they're at and how it affects their corner of the world. Honestly, anyone can aggregate the News of the World and make pithy informed comments on it, and some people do that most excellently and get tons of traffic with it. However, I might click the ol' Instapundit link a couple of times a week, while I check the ones listed above (and about 20 others) a couple of times a day. There -- that and $1.84 will get you cup of coffee at the Starbucks in Albertson's.

PS The burgers at the Rio Grande Grill are the best I've found around here. Roger knows his way around a bbq pit, too. [this is an unpaid promotion]

Yes, I actually knew you were from the area when I found your post about our third-world phone company. You will actually see I linked you on that post.

I agree with you on Rio Grande Grill, except for those days when I feel like having a really greasy one, then I go to Ikie's. I used to really like DQ until I moved here, and this one has worse food than even BK.