Radio Shack

Every now and then I'll get an e-mail with some questions and, since I don't get many of these e-mails, I feel obliged to answer them. A recent question was: "why don't you write more in your blog." I wasn't sure if this meant in terms of consistency, or simply length, but on both bases I found myself surprised. I'll be honest, I write my damn entries and sometimes I don't want to read them. It's why I stopped blogging for a long while: it loses its novelty and sometimes you find yourself forcing out entries because you think that's what readers want. Maybe it is, but with the wealth of information disseminated on the interweb, I'll be the first to admit there are better ways to spend time than reading my blog. Basically, then, I'm going to continue to write when the mood strikes me and force out some garbage periodically as well. As you might have been able to tell I was alluding to there, increased readership is a double-edged sword (more readers, more pressure to write and maybe even write well). We pride ourselves on integrity over here at Awkward Backhair (yes, it's true there is only me, but it sounds better when you use words like we, as opposed to Wii, something much more popular than my blog) and that is why I refuse to use keywords and post pics of boobies just to up my readership. Besides, I manage to get enough bizarre hits here without actually trying to.

Actually that's really what got me set to throw down textually at the moment. I do have an ip tracker on my blog, but I contend that is mostly so that I can block ip addresses when I notice I am being spammed in my comment section. In reality, these robots are a little too clever and will always find a way to spam. But one of my favorite features on the tracker is the referring url. Oftentimes this will be a google search that mistakenly brings up my blog. I mean, hell, the same thing happens to me and I end up reading a bunch of random blogs as a result. I have to tell you, though, I have no idea why some of these people were searching for the things they were, and why it is my site was a top search result. That said, a few of the more amusing (albeit not always PG) searches include the following: buttholes, crotch on coffee, tap foot restroom, not another boy band, shit the bed synonym (which I thought read "syndrome" and had me chuckling), can you get aids from anal sex, things to do in a public bathroom, and youtube backhair.

The last was my personal favorite. I liked it so much I had to do the same google search myself. The top result was of little surprise, a hairy beast of a man being shorn, but then it had me on a youtube crawl that dealt with funny commercials. I have to admit, I am a sucker for such things, and mostly to see the commercials for other countries. Plus, there are those commercials that simply end up being banned. Still, if you're planning a vacation, you'll want to take this flight, check yourself in at this hotel, and maybe stop in at this bar. In general, beer commercials do seem to come up pretty clutch, and allegedly, this was the finest of 2006? That question mark is intentional. For some reason I tend to get a lot of hits from the Netherlands and, I'm not gonna lie, that makes me happy. I'm guessing that English is spoken fairly widely there, even though the official language is Dutch, but just in case, here is a reminder to learn English. I really only did that to include one last shitty commercial link.

Instead of watching any of those, however, I suggest reading this (I've got to find another word to link to). The article is authored by close chum the Quabbin Qountry Querier. Sure I've referenced him before, and he's one of the few sites I link to, but a little extra publicity can never hurt. For some it might be a bit lengthy, but it's also a lot more articulate and insightful than anything you'll read here, or probably most places for that matter.

Some will note that I have succumb to a profile picture. There is a lot to be said for even relative anonymity but, after much (whole minutes) deliberation, I decided to put one up. In the end I chose to do so as part of a social experiment to see if random readership increases or decreases as a result of posting my picture. That's not actually true, but it would have been a neat idea since lots of opinions are formed based on name and physical appearance. So it goes.