Geeze People! 600 miles an hour!

For the love of Pete! Airplanes fly between 500 and 600 miles an hour! I already Googled it; won the argument and put it to bed people!

So stop searching it already! Out of 20 searches on my blog 13 were for "how fast do airplanes fly" or some variation there of. We've settle dit now people. You have been enlightened and your life is complete.

Of all the things I have blogged in (almost) a year, that's the one that gets me traffic. A domestic dispute that was settled by Google. In-credible!

I guess it's all the international visitors trying to figure out how long their flight would be if they were coming to TP my front yard. I have added to my international appeal, you know! I am now scoring visits from such exotic lands as Ireland, New Zealand and Malaysia! Granted it's only been one at a time but hey! I'm out there.

My French pal showed up for a little bit a few weeks ago but I think they're still mad at me for making such a poor attempt at an accent. Did I mention that Egypt showed up on my radar? Think they would flee with flaming hair if I did the Watusi on video? I haven't figured out how to offend the Irish and the Australians yet because that would involve more Guinness than my little body can hold so they might just have to stay fans for a while.

I did laugh when I saw a visit from Great Britain. Think they might be mad at me for my Charles and Harry snipe?

The only international I'm a little worried about is the Iranian who stayed for a record 26 minutes and 37 seconds. Something tells me the Homeland Security Spies are going to be monitoring my posts for a while. The thing is that Iranian friend only visited 2 pages. What two posts could take you a half hour to read? I know I'm chatty sometimes (case in point) but a half an hour?!

Anyway, I've just destroyed a full minute of your life with my nonsense so you may feel free to join the internationals in TP-ing the yard. Times are tough. I'll take donations to my grocery budget anytime!

Dear French Visitor,

(This is going to be quick tonight because we are into day five of this headache that will only be controlled by Excedrine and vast gallons of coffee.)

Dear French Visitor,

Who are you?! You stalk me - I mean pop by every time a post goes up so I have to think you might be getting e-mail alerts. And while I appreciate your readership - BIG TIME! - because you make me feel important what with creating an international following and all, I'm just curious as to who you are!

BTW! OC, I know you stalk me too and while yes, you are international, you really count as family now because I "see" you all the time. But this isn't about you although if my French friend decides to respond in his or her native tongue I may need your services. That is if you even speak French. Hey! This isn't about you!

Dear French Visitor,

Or person who routes their searches through France to throw the government spies off your trail. Wow! You're even cooler now! I feel like maybe you might be Matt Damon as Jason Bourne? Ooooh! How awesome would that be? I should put on dark glasses and buy a disposable phone just in case you finally decide to contact me. I can sing the Mission Impossible theme. Does that qualify me to join your spy ring? Ooo! And if it helps I can kill stuff with my thumbs (bugs mostly) and pick things up with my toes! Hey, I'm a mom. We run out of available body parts sometimes!

Dear French Visitor,

It was nice knowing you before I went off the deep end and drove you away with my sideways tirades and outlandish ramblings. I like the word "outlandish." Don't you France? I bet you guys use it to describe the American loonies (aka me) all the time, don't you? "You zimplee must see zis bogg-aire! She is zee most outland-ISH pairSON I 'ave ever seen!"

And if you hadn't run at the spy bit I'm pretty sure my hideous (another fun word) phonetic depiction of your accent just threw the shoe at my head. Well, enjoy your wine and cheese. I was hoping for a airline ticket so that I could come ramble to you in person but who invites a psycho to their house?

Au Revoir (and that's probably spelled wrong too!)

Call me Cardinal Sinner.

No the next picture will not be me in a big red hat. I'm about to commit the blogger's cardinal sin. I'm about to blog about blogging. Ok, so it's not a sin and a lot of people do it but I don't really like to unless my brain is just shorting out which I'm pretty sure you all recognize that it is doing so right now. But I digress.

I love all these fun little tracker things you can add to your page - most completely unobtrusively. They tell you where people are coming from, what server or browser they are using, the keywords they used to find you, how many people are stopping by, how long they stay, how often (if at all) they come back and probably a ton of stuff that I don't even understand yet. But this is one of those double edged swords that we all encounter.

Now it becomes a pissing contest to see whose blog draws the most traffic. It turns into that evil demon on your shoulder whispering, "You're a failure. Your numbers are lousy. You're wasting your time." And it slowly drives you insane until you are rambling like an old man in his slippers on the baby food aisle. Or like me right now. In my slippers. At my computer. With ketchup on my shirt.

But see I've given up on the numbers. If you find me and you like me (which of course you will because I'm charming like that), you'll come back. And if you don't as long as I don't dwell on the numbers I really won't know, now will I? So the numbers are out for me.

I love to see where people are coming from and of course the keywords are almost always good for a laugh. Now as for where people are coming from...For The Zoo, I have all but 8 states. That's right! I have managed to draw at least one visitor from 42 of the 50 states. Thank you Sissy and Jen for rocking Arkansas's numbers; B for rocking North Carolina, and Nut for kickin' Florida. Hey! I'd give the rest of you shout outs but you haven't made your personal state dark green yet. Oh yeah! And Tena you get credit for Cali.

So now let's take a peek at this particular site shall we. The Bowl...The Bowl...right! We have 40 out of the 50 states. What blows my mind here is for all the crap I gave New Jersey last week, they have yet to phone in. Just one more reason I think we should just chop them off and let them float. Them and their big rat balloon. The only thing saving them is that they know how to make things smell like maple syrup.

What I really want to know is what Montana has against me! Not a single visitor to either of the sites. I have nothing against Big Sky! I prefer the wide open spaces. Maybe that's why they don't come by - is it too crowded here? Estonia! Latvia! But no Montana.

Anyway, the keywords this week were kind of dull so I won't go into those. But I would like to know who Stefanie Wigen is and why I'm supposed to be celebrating her birthday. Well, I would love to stay and share all of the missing states with you but I have to go see what is holding up the robots on the Webmaster tool. Apparently 7 of them have been jailed and I have to go free them. Just call me Cardinal Big Weld.