Magic Jewball

The fool is me, as you recall. I forgot my Blogoversary. But as promised, here’s the celebratory post. Play along with me and pretend it’s the 19th, okely dokely?

Calculating the stats from my second year was tougher than my first. That’s because I had to subtract last year’s from this year’s. Math is hard! And why didn’t I have enough foresight to start my blog on a January 1st? But no matter, I still have my calculator out from doing my taxes (bake sale ingredients are tax-deductible, right?), I might as well get some more use out of it.

So! Let’s get to it.
Posts: 386 total/233 this year
Comments: 3,845 total/1,744 this year
Post with the most comments: And It Makes Me Wonder. And I’m so proud of that one because it was a discussion rather than just a bunch of comments. I love you people!
Top 5 Countries: US, Canada, Great Britain, France, Australia
Top 5 US States: New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Florida
Most popular search term: “roger federer jewish” – same as last year. (And he still isn’t.)
Most hotlinked picture: Bleeding Gums Murphy

As I said, this isn’t as exciting as my first blogoversary but I like to think I’ve matured. And by matured I mean that I don’t tinker with my design every weekend. The first year of the blog was really eventful, this year was more settled which I think led to more interesting posts. This is kind of like the way artists always say in interviews, “this is our best album ever! Our entire careers have led up to this point.” Yes, right. But I do actually think that not leading a wild and crazy life facilitated more thoughtful posts. Also, I think there was more “me” in the blog than before. That can’t be good.

Changes in my own life have caused the blog to be less religiously oriented but it still, I hope, has that Jewish inflection. But to bring some more of that back, and because I learned how to use the forms application, I’ve put in place a means to submit Jew & A questions without having to e-mail me (it’s in the sidebar under Pages in case you forget where this link is). People don’t like to e-mail. I understand this. You can be totally anonymous via form and submit questions whenever the thought occurs to you. Unless you’re not near a computer and then you’re just stuck. If it’s something private, I can even just e-mail you back. But then you actually have to send me your e-mail address. Sucks, I know.

I think one of the primary reasons this blog exists is that I’m the only Jew a lot of people know. That’s weird in New York but I have a lot of friends in those other states. Wisconsin even, did you see? They have more Wal-Marts in some places than Jewish people and those folks still watch Seinfeld and Sex and the City and they want to know what a bris is or why matzah tastes so stale even when it’s fresh.

If you don’t remember Jew & A, and it’s been a while, there’s a new category for it so you can just have a look at the old ones by clicking on that in the sidebar. Oh, and I’ve tweaked my sidebar to mostly make one blogroll and streamline some things. And I’ve updated David Nalbandian but that’s just because I knew guests were coming so I thought I’d clean up. Because a blogoversary isn’t just a time of reflection, it’s a time to look forward. I read that on a greeting card, I feel sure.

Lastly but not leastly, I want to thank all of you, for reading, for commenting, for e-mailing things you didn’t want to comment on publicly, for linking, for being Facebook fans, for giving to my charities, and for being pretty much the best readers in the whole world. Yes, I have scientific proof of that, I just choose not to display it. Just know that J-Ball would be nothing without you!

By the way, I lied. I downloaded a Firefox plug-in and spent two hours to get my new form just right. You knew I’d never change, didn’t you?

Like most white people, I can rap this entire song. I learned it from my Filipino suitemate in college.
Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock – It Takes Two