Since the turn of the year I’ve been on my most prolific output here probably ever. This will be my 140th post since January 1st and if you add up the amount of post from the last 3 months of last year, it wouldn’t come close…

I don’t even know why I’ve been this busy here, maybe it’s to do with the increased readership, it’s almost like I have to churn out something, even if it’s just a little link now and then, or maybe I’m finding more interesting things, or stuff I find interesting at least. The prolonged break over the Christmas period was a good way to recharge the batteries, plus upgrading to WordPress 1.5 helped breathe some life into me as it forced me to make this place look a little closer to the way I’d like it…

Speaking of this place, one of these days I’d love to import the old entries from versions 3, 4 & 5… Though I’d have to do it all by hand over a weekend as they were hand coded in the first place all those years ago (dating back to October 2000), so if your aggregator goes wild one weekend, that’s probably why. Consider it a heads up.

Seeing as we are currently watching the series finale of “The Bachelorette,” it has to be said that the “star” Jen Schefft is a real drama queen… I mean, she’s constantly bubbling about who to pick, Jerry or John-Paul.

I understand that it’s a difficult, life-changing decision and everything, but repeating it every five seconds is just overkill, and after 105 minutes of it, I’m ready to slap her… It’s really pathetic, and now I know why I hate reality TV.

But who will she pick? I don’t particularly care to be honest, but it will probably be John-Paul… The worst part is that even though the decision is “live,” we saw parts of tonight’s episode in the season preview at the end of last year, so she’s had a good 3, possibly 4 months to think it over… GAH!

EDIT (10:38pm): HOLY CRAP! She chose neither… Talk about a swerve and a half… Damn TV, constantly keeping us hanging on for more…And there is 20 minutes to go. What drama is left?

A former sports minister at Westminster has accused Scottish football fans of trying to hijack the naming of a footbridge at the new Wembley stadium. Ol’ Slim Jim is a legend for his display of skill at Wembley in 1967, shame Tony Banks is a bad sport…

This comes via Michael Hanscom, and it’s an interesting view on the various levels of the “blogosphere.”

Extrapolating some work I did last year, only about 20,000 blogs (a mere 0.4% of all active blogs) have a sizeable audience (more than 10 regular visitors and more than 150 hits per average day), and readership in a typical day is only a little more than three million people, each spending an average of about 20 minutes flitting among 15 blog pages.

Using Shirky’s Power Law, and adding in RSS subscriptions to the hit count totals, that would break today’s blogosphere audience down roughly as follows:

	Total Hits/Day	Average Hits/Day per Blog	Minimum Hits/Day per Blog	Average Aggregate Reader Attention/Day per Blog
100 A-list bloggers	15 million	150,000	15,000	1700 hrs
2,000 B-list bloggers	5 million	2,500	1,000	62 hrs
18,000 C-list bloggers	9 million	500	150	13 hrs
80,000 up-and-coming bloggers	8 million	100	50	2.5 hrs
5 million remaining active bloggers	15 million	3	0	-

Judging by my stats, I’m flitting between low end B-List Blogging and high end C-List Blogging, which is kinda cool when I think about it, and following the redirection of the Paris Hilton address book pages, I was an A-List Blogger for a few days last week, but that doesn’t count for much on the grand scheme of things… And Simon Dodson brought up a good point in a MSN conversation today:

Returned – s: so when u on cnn ?
Gregor Smith: never
Gregor Smith: the closest i’ve been to being on cnn is being in the cnn center in atlanta :P
Returned – s: alot of my personal friends
Returned – s: ones i see IRL
Returned – s: really dig your blog
Returned – s: they mention it to me a few times just in general speech
Gregor Smith: cool
Returned – s: arrr //slaps
Gregor Smith: i’m still surprised anyone reads it :P it’s really not much different ot stuff you can find elsewhere
Returned – s: i feel the same way
Returned – s: but they come
Returned – s: & enjoy
Returned – s: neat huh !
Gregor Smith: true…
Gregor Smith: it’s the old “if you dont want people to read it then why write” kinda argument
Returned – s: my thoery is ” i did not ask you to read it ” if ya nahwahmean
Gregor Smith: maybe my dreams of being like kottke arent too far away :P
Returned – s: i sometimes wonder where blogging will lead to .. and its kinda mainstream now but blogs like ours .. semi pro are established and look legit ya knows!
Returned – s: you learn over time wat to write and wat not to write
Gregor Smith: yeah
Gregor Smith: thanks to this blogs.salon.com/0002007/categories/blogsBlogging/2005/01/04.html#a1004 i’ve deduced i’m a borderline b or c list blogger (dependding on the day)
Returned – s: neat

It’s all about what you know to write and what not to write…

The winners and losers of the 77th Annual Academy Awards. OK, I was wrong about The Aviator winning everything else, but Jamie Foxx winning Best Actor was no surprise at all…

Instead of doing a running commentry on the 77th Annual Academy Awards I’m just going to point out a few things…

Firstly, Renée Zellweger and Drew Barrymore are much better as blondes, seriously! I’m not even kidding…

Secondly, Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows (pictured right)… He looks like Kid from Kid n’ Play in Class Act… Don’t get me wrong, I like the Counting Crows, but how in god’s name did that guy ever get to screw Jennifer Aniston AND Courtney Cox in the same calendar year??? Answer me that and you’re a smarter man (or woman) than me…

Thirdly, Beyoncé… ENOUGH ALREADY! Is she the only singer available tonight or something?

I’ll leave it at that, it’s obvious Jamie Foxx is going to win Best Actor and The Aviator will win everything else… If not then I’ll be very surprised and it’s kinda sad when the funniest part of the night (thus far) was Pepsi’s “Spartacus” advert.

FIFA is expected to use a football containing a microchip as part of new goal-line technology. The game’s governing body has agreed to the experiment in a bid to end controversies over goal-line decisions.

GeoURL comes back online in 2.0 beta form just as most people had given up on it. All we need is LocalFeeds to come back so we can rock this bitch like it’s 2003!

I come here with a very special offer for anyone willing to take it, it’s something Erika suggested a few weeks ago and I believe it’s a great deal… Basically we’re slashing (SLASHING!) the price of hosting for people via this here ol’ weblog.

As it says at the side, we’re offering a pretty sweet hosting deal for a low, low price… To put it in perspective, our lowest hosting package costs a little bit more and doesn’t come with half the storage space this deal has, plus you don’t get MySQL databases neither, perfect for blogging so that’s why the offer is coming from here…

Here’s what you’re getting:

• Linux Server
• cPanel Control Panel
• Free Setup
• 1 Hosted Domain
• 5 Sub-Domains
• 200mb Storage Space
• 2GB Data Transfer
• 10 POP3 Email Accounts
• 10 FTP Accounts
• 2 MySQL Databases
• MySQL4/phpMyAdmin
• PHP 4.3x, Perl 5.8x
• AND EVEN MORE!

If you’re even remotely interested, why not click on through…

Fred Durst has had his SideKick hacked too, and it ain’t a pretty sight. Seeing Fred Durst bone some chick was extremely low on my list of things to see… Accept it as not safe for work.

Ever wonder what Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” would sound like if it was mashed up with Huey Lewis & The News’ “The Power of Love”? Well wonder no more… Cause it would probably sound a little like this.

Now that’s rock n’ roll folks!

Since I can’t possibly beat Jason Kottke, I’ll join him in the great big digital begging bowl…

Yes, I’ll be your blog whore if you pay me enough*, so what you waiting for? Think how many kitty and doggy pictures I could post if I was a full time blogger, I’ll burn up the blogosphere when every day turns into “A Day In The Life” series, if only you’ll let me! Imagine the possibilites!

LET ME LIVE A DREAM!

You know you want to…

enough = $50 million

I’m not really serious btw, but any donations would be greatly appreciated and donated to a charitable cause of your choice

Firefox 1.0.1 is now readily available. So get it while it’s hot and/or steamy… This is a security and stability update so not much in the way of new feautures.

Want to get paid $100,000 a year for watching The Dukes of Hazzard? You might be able to drive the General Lee too! “Just the good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm, beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law, since the day they was born…”

Word on the street is Flickr has been bought lock, stock and barrel by Yahoo! First Bloglines is sold to Ask Jeeves, now Flickr to Yahoo! What good ideas are left? [via]