Silence Of The Rants

I’ve learned in my life that the less one makes declarative statements, the less one looks foolish in retrospect. With that said, I am posting this to say my thanks to those who have supported this site and to say fare thee well.

This is complicated, but I will do my best to explain. I have been writing this site since 2004 and I have always done so knowing that it would be something that is personal, humorous, unique, and completely non-commercial. I have had periods of prolific content, periods of hiatus, periods of anger, periods of comedy. I have written some pieces that I think are quite profound and others that are banal and sophomoric. I have traversed the gambit.

However, what I haven’t been able to do and what I feel I will never be able to do is make impact. Making waves is easy, but making true impact doesn’t appear to be in my portfolio. For a number of years, this meant very little as I was working from home, was married to an absentee wife, and had oodles of time to … well … rant. That was then.

Now, I am remarried and have a son. Given the choice, I spend my time with them over this site any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Moreover, I have a taxing job which allows no time for such indulgences as this site. This leaves the time that I sleep. For more than two years, nearly every post you see here (including this one) has been written in lieu of sleep. Frankly, I just don’t have it in me anymore.

When I posted this poll, I expected the result I received. There are a couple people out there who are kind enough to follow my prattle and I will always feel good about that. However, for the literally hundreds of hits to this poll, a mere ten people were motivated to click an answer (the eleventh vote for “I don’t know” was me testing the poll). Nine out of ten voted for me to stay around, and again I cannot thank you enough for that. However, that is an answer in of itself as to my overall impact.

To gather a larger view of the daily activity on this site, I used the StatCounter analytics to show me what drives people here. Of the last 500, the majority linked here because of this image:

245 of 500. So, my biggest audience is looking for porn. Second largest in the search terms, a paltry 56 of 500:

Both images were in the same article. I wrote a satirical article about banning letters of the alphabet which was prompted by a lawsuit against a WWII memorial in the middle of a desert that consisted of a cross. I had hoped my crafting of this satire would have impacted people more for the content than for the understandable obsession with cleavage and strange obsession with the anarchy symbol.

Anyway, the more I type my lamenting farewell, the less I sleep. So, I will now say my thanks and be on my way.

To Doug Ross: I am not sure exactly how to properly thank you. There has been no one source of reference to my site than yours. I still have trouble figuring out why someone with your readership would even take notice. The traffic to this site would have been a fraction of what it has been if not for your attention. Many heartfelt thanks.

To Maine Now And Then: Rarely in life has someone had such kind words and encouragement for me. I am humbled, sir. Thank you.

To HeadMuscle: Few writers exist with your talents. I’m sorry I don’t have the wherewithal to forge forward with the Intolerance Party. I am still tinkering with ideas on The Example and will let you know if I make any salient headway. I thank you for your support, attention, and other refinements.

To all my other friends and family who have supported me in this endeavor over the years: thanks for indulging me. I promise to talk about something else next time we have dinner together.

Perhaps this situation will change and I will find reason or motivation to return. Until then, I leave this site active as an archive and will entertain any requests to take over the domain. It’s been fun.