A look at February

Warning! It has come to my attention that this sort of post is utterly shameless and potentially damaging to the blogging community! If you are considering writing a blog of your own and may be threatened instead of inspired by my *awesome* stats then please, save yourself and flee before it is too late!

With that out of the way, we can move on to the recap of the past Februarys (Februaries? wow, spellcheck likes that one) that I have been writing. See here for the recap of Januarys (Januaries?) past.

February 2009

6 posts and 50 views! That’s double what I had in January. I knew I would start out very slowly. I didn’t advertise my site or join any blog communities right away. I was curious about how a blog following would grow organically. I just continued to comment on the blogs that I followed, but included my link. (This is probably one of the best ways to get readers that are interested in you and what you have to say. Just saying, “hey, I have a blog!” may get you hits, but it probably won’t lead to worthwhile conversations.)

2 of which were about arena… man I was trying hard to do something right, anything right, in the arena. Failed miserably at it, but we had some fun.

Remember when you could get saved to a completed raid? The GM attempted to sympathize with a smilie face. I just lost out on my only chance at tier for the week and you smile at me? /rage

But that’s OK, because I got my pants the next week.

This is also when I really got to see firsthand how gear does not equal skill.

February 2010

19 posts with a little over 11,000 page views.

I opened with a little post about the meaning of names in games.

Highlights include:

• a truly wonderful (if not slightly obnoxious) WoW-related musical piece (If you raided Ulduar it will bring back memories. Or flashbacks.)
• an email conversation with Dark/Soth that I shamelessly stole to be a post (yes, we still have these even if he’s not playing WoW any longer)
• a look at some guild drama that weighed heavily on me
• a plea to officers to step the fuck up because a raiding guild should, ya know, raid and stuff
• a review of the patch notes and data mining that introduced the new adult model for Anduin. I wasn’t paying attention when I was there last on Arioch pelting his dad with a BB gun, but is the more mature Anduin flagged for PvP now?
• a surprising reminder that my second max-level character ever was actually on the Alliance side!
• dungeon fail, same shit different places.

February 2011

One single, solitary post about difficulty in games. For that month I either had 1500 dedicated readers or a handful of you spammed the refresh each day looking for more content. Sorry for the bad spot I was in there!

February 2012

We are no longer in a bad place and are back in action! I didn’t make a resolution or anything this year to get back into the community here, but it certainly seems to have worked out that way. Last month I put out 20 posts and I see another 4 drafts that I started. (Never fails, all the ideas come running at once.) While I’m no where near my previous viewership, I am rebuilding with a new circle of people, many of whom are also bloggers, and we’re growing together.

There were a handful of posts introducing my new banner art (which should be hopefully cycling through each day you visit. Unless you read via a feedreader and then you’re missing out on the random art work!)

Top posts for the month were Pussy Plate (yes, I did start getting some more… interesting search queries) and my participation in the Sixth meme.

As I’m getting back in to the enjoyment of the game I’ve shared my obsession with obtaining Swift Lovebirds,  trials with my paladin, failure on my hunter, progress on my warrior.

As my enjoyment increases, so does my ability to nail down things that are bothering me, like my lack of interest in heroic raiding. (I’m not bothered that I don’t want to raid heroics, I’m bothered that the people around me assume that we should be raiding heroics.)

I also introduced a blog filler series – and now I have too much content to use it!

So to all my long-time readers – thank you. Your comments and discussions (even when we don’t agree) are what make this worth publishing in a public venue instead of storing my rants and dreams in a dusty corner of my computer.

To all my new readers – thank you. I hope that you join in the conversations and get to know all of us here.

For those that are considering making the leap to joining our elite ranks as a blogger (bahahahaha! OK, I couldn’t say that with a straight face), jump right in – the more, the merrier and we look forward to meeting you.