If I'd had some foresight, I would've charged each of you a penny per visit.

Because then I'd have a million pennies.  This tiny academic blog managed to sucker 1,000,000 pairs of eyes to stare at it for (on average) 1 minute and 45 seconds a pop.  That is some kind of accomplishment.  I mean that literally: I don't know what kind of an accomplishment it is.  But I do know that I never had to stoop to the shameless tactics of relentless self-promotion espoused by hacks who want to draw attention to themselves despite having nothing to say.  (Not that I have that much to say: I've merely been saying nothing regularly for awhile now.)

UPDATE.  If McCain sent you here, I urge you to 1) scroll down the right sidebar and tell me the number you see there, 2) consider what it means that he knows more about my traffic than I do, and 3) know that I've already dispatched the man more soundly than I can by responding to some petty traffic dispute.

Comments

[Vance Maverick]

Are you saying you'd have a million pennies, or you've had 100 million visits? (And how do they know how long I keep looking after the HTTP GET?) Bethatasitmay, congratulations!

[Ahistoricality]

We love your blogging, but we don't come for the math....

[SEK]

Well, if every one of my million or so visitors coughed up a penny for the privilege, I'd have a . . . wait a minute, that makes no sense. Gah. To the editor!

[JPool]

I'm not going to google for it right now, but I feel confident in saying that decimal places have been a problem before.

Still 10,000 imaginary dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Congrats.

[SEK]

There has, but I can't find it either. That said, this was less of a "math problem" and more "plain stupid" on my part. Dollars aren't pennies. I should know that!

[P.T. Smith]

It's okay SEK, you're not the only one who has a problem with decimal places.
http://boingboing.net/2009/03/19/verizon-doesnt-under.html

[Justin]

Well, Michael Bérubé's site says he's had 8 million visitors. One eighth as awesome as Bérubé ain't nothing to sneeze at.

[Adam Roberts]

My penny is in the post to you. Of course, it's a British penny, but I'm assuming that's legal tender in the States.

[left coast rebel]

If anything, your sidebar tells me that you have far too much crap and clutter on your site. Yes, crap and clutter

[SEK]

Left Coast Rebel:

If anything, your sidebar tells me that you have far too much crap and clutter on your site.

Some of us find the books we read, journals we subscribe to, and articles we've marked for future reference important. So, you might dislike my site design, but at least there's nothing on my sidebar that informs the world I'm a tool, like, say ...

Networking is the key to successful blogging, contact me to promote your site.

Because actually, the key to "successful blogging," by which I mean "building an audience on the strength of the quality of your work," isn't networking so much as "building an audience on the strength of the quality of your work." You are, however, welcome to disagree and slag my site design.

P.T.:

It's okay SEK, you're not the only one who has a problem with decimal places.

That's why I prefer to keep the stakes small. (I up 'em a bit and the IRS is likely to catch on.)

Justin:

One eighth as awesome as Bérubé ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Would that I had his job/salary! (Do you think he'd offer 'em to me if asked nicely-like?)

Adam:

My penny is in the post to you. Of course, it's a British penny, but I'm assuming that's legal tender in the States.

By the time it arrives, I might be able to buy some foreclosed something with it, so I hope you weren't kidding ...

[Joe]

All you get is a little attention. No pennies for you! Congratulations on your million hits, even if I disagree with you.

[William Teach]

OK, I scrolled down the sidebar, and actually clicked on Sitemeter, and find that it says 981,577 (when I accessed it at 10:37pm). Not a million.

However, you're almost there, so, pre-congratulations.

[SEK]

I think y'all are missing my point a bit: I don't check my site stats. I happened to notice them the other day when a thread extended all the way down there, but I didn't bother to click and don't actually care about the discrepancy because, frankly, I'm more concerned with the quality of my audience than the number of people who arrive mistakenly in search of breasts (as McCain encourages). (It'd be different, I suppose, if I monetized the site, but as it stands, the only money I make here is when I convince someone that what I'm reading or writing about is worth their while.)

That said, I accept your congratulations on my meaningless milestone in the spirit they were offered.

[Stogie]

You couldn't dispatch McCain with a howitzer, numb nuts. Acephalous, doesn't that mean water on the brain? Well that would explain your blog content.

[Deirdre Ewing]

Congratulations. You should concern yourself with your traffic levels. It's nice to know your writings are popular. I wish I could get that many people to pay attention to me.

Mccain's got a great blog, and he's not a hack with nothing to say. I think he's got a point that your attack on him wasn't rational or serious. He's being attacked by a lot of people, and while yours is mild here, a lot of the attacks are pretty horrible and unfair, and I detect a level of ugliness in your reaction to Mccain's friendly reposte.

You haven't dispatched Mccain. There's no need to think in those terms, anyway. If you happen to get th ebetter of someone in an argument, that doesn't make you the dominant one. We are above that as a species. Mccain's done real, bona fide journalism lately. He's just putting his POV out there. Don't let your success be marred by ugliness.

[Michael Bérubé]

Acephalous, doesn't that mean water on the brain?

No, no, my good man. It means "from the head," from the original Latin, "a" (from, away from) and "cephalus" (head).

One eighth as awesome as Bérubé ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Would that I had his job/salary! (Do you think he'd offer 'em to me if asked nicely-like?)

Hey, I envy me. But we can't discuss this until you get your eight-millionth visitor.

[zaugg]

Assphalous? what kind of blog name is that?

[SEK]

But we can't discuss this until you get your eight-millionth visitor.

Would you cut it in half if I pretended to like Delillo?

You couldn't dispatch McCain with a howitzer, numb nuts.

The gun wasn't mine, but it went off nonetheless.

You should concern yourself with your traffic levels.

No, you really shouldn't. People who do don't write anything interesting, or mistake exercises in X-treme narcissism for substantive content.

Assphalous? what kind of blog name is that?

What is it with conservatives and that particular non-pun?

[Adam Roberts]

To be clear: this is an excellent, excellent blog. I'm proud to be part of the million. So much so, maybe I'll post an extra ha'penny to go with my original penny. Or maybe a farthing (don't want to get carried away, after all).

[Galtonian]

Scott: Loved your spoof of Stacy's Thompson wannabeism. Absolutely hilarious (and crushing). Stacy ham-fistedly invokes Thompson in every other post or so, but the best approximation he can manage of Thompson's style is to put up a post about speeding every time he drives somewhere. You will surely appreciate Stacy's most recent misadventure as the world's most obessive Hunter S. Thompson fan:

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/10/08/colorado-gonzo-widow-mulls-fre

And Stogie (aka Gary)? Scott did indeed "dispatch" your confederate. His Thompson piece was more neutron bomb than howitzer, however: elegantly tidy, but overwhelmingly effective.