Havana B. is upset that there doesn't seem to be much commenting on posts going on here, and wonders why that is. Thought that might be worth 100 words or so from your friendly neighborhood killjoy.

You might notice the lack of a central theme to this party. It's not like, say the Weather Underground, where all the hurricane hangers hang, swap insults and can-you-top-this storm stories, and try to beat each other to the latest radar images, all under the aegis of a couple of National Weather Service pied pipers who are presumably getting paid to do this. Nobody else is making money, or cares.

(As an amateur musician, the term "pied piper" has always bugged me. I worry what it was the piper did to get that way. And they never tell me what kind of pie.)

One thing has brought us all here. Greed. Add a touch of fantasy. The ancient Hollywood thought that by some magic, all we have to do is do what we do, and we're all going to get "discovered" and make millions. The lottery tickets of Bloggerville. The chances of discovery are at least theoretically related to numbers of readers, to numbers of hits on your blog. Which means that it takes some measure of self-confidence, or silliness, to invest time and energy in a comment that will draw traffic to somebody else's blog.

And about that traffic. What are there, 15 million bloggers out there? Plus all the other millions doing Web stuff? What are your readership figures like for your blog entries so far? Ten? Thirty? My top so far is 79. Which looks, to me, like it's pretty decent for this site to date. Take all that traffic, put it together, and it might be enough to earn Brenda-behind-the-curtain enough for a latte and bagel at Starbucks. At this rate, 10 million Party Points might get you a five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disk for your Apple IIe. In 2010. (OK, hands up all of you who know what a floppy disk is. Or an Apple IIe.)

I was thinking maybe I needed to change the headers to my blogs. Something that would reflect where most of the traffic is on the Web. "Free XXX ...". No, I don't think I'll go there. I remember too well when I wrote this:

PASSWORD, n. Code string that a computer demands from you so that it can tell from whom it is taking the money. To contain at least 17 characters (next week, 25) from seven different alphabets and three different numbering systems, plus at least one character that you must invent yourself. You will have forgotten your password before you finish writing it down, but it will immediately, unerringly, and forever be known to those who are selling pictures of prepubescent girls mating with horses.

and sent it as part of my .sig in an email to our sysadmin. Guess what my spam was all about for the next two weeks.

No, I'm here primarily to have fun. And perhaps to blow up a few of the more scurrilous myths about science and scientists, for the benefit of the three of you that care. If I make the occasional nickel (my total earnings to date), so much the better, at least I'm not paying for the privilege. And you never know. Some people actually do win the Powerball jackpot. At least that's what they tell me on TV. While they're selling the tickets.

  - O Ceallaigh

Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.