October 9, 2019 - 26 - "Fanboys in High Places"

Readers this past week, by country.

Reader Stats

    Sometimes, when I'm struggling with a post, I’ll take a break from writing and look at my blog stats.  It’s a cool way to procrastinate, I mean get little insights into my readership.

    And when I say readership, I mean Michael and Cynthia.  (Thanks hon’!  Thanks Cynthia!)

     The Blogger Stats section has all sorts of fascinating information about website hits.  There are graphs about the times of day when most people read.  (Depends a lot on when I actually post something.)  I can really skew these numbers by posting late in the day.  This forces people to check back multiple times.  

    I can tell what browsers visitors are using.  (Primarily Chrome.)   And the stats show  what countries readers are in.  This is the most interesting information to me.  

Tuning In From...

      Unsurprisingly, most of my readers are in the United States.  When Michael is in Mexico, however, my blog-appreciation indicators go up there exponentially.  Coincidence?  Well...no.

     I like seeing new countries pop up on the list.  I have a pretty steady fan base in Portugal.  And by ‘fan base’ I mean I usually get one hit per day from Portugal.  How cool is that?  Someone in Portugal is reading 'Deep Thoughts'!
  
     Thank you, person-checking-in-from-Portugal!  That is so sweet of you!  We visited Portugal once and had a great time.  The Portuguese people are so warm and kind…even when we didn’t know how to put our rental car in reverse and blocked traffic in half of Lisbon.  But that’s a story for another day.  Anyway, thank you for reading!  

     What was I talking about?  Now I'm thinking about how pretty Sentra is...

Back in the USSR

     Oh yeah.  Blog stats.  I get hits from all over the world.  You know...from time to time.  But I have seen a sudden uptick from Russia.  

     I’m not talking big numbers.  (One.)  I’m not talking a big time frame.  (A week.)  I’m not saying it has to be someone in high office.  (But it could be Putin.)  

 I mean, who’s to say it’s not?  Here is some evidence practically proving my theory:    
   a) It's a hit from Russia and Putin lives in Russia.  (Yes, it's true that the Russian    population is around 144.5 million.  But it is also true that he is one of them.)

   b) I’m pretty sure Putin can read.  (So, if he can read...chances are he's reading something.  Is it that big of a stretch to think he’s reading my stuff?)

   c) He speaks some English.  (…but not perfectly, which makes it likely he’d want to bone-up on slang and common-usage, which my blog happens to be full of. ) 

   d) He seems to be working on expanding his empire in our direction.  (Obviously he’d want to get to know his future serfs from this part of the world.)

   e) Running the world, skewing foreign elections, playing puppeteer to his fellow leaders…these things are stressful.  Anyone in his situation would surely want some down-time.  He probably found the blog because of the name…but found out it was meant to be ironic and stayed for the laughs.  

     I can practically hear the hearty Russian chuckles and guffaws from here. 

This could easily be a photo of dignitaries sharing my blog with Putin.  
Here you see him saying:  
‘Ya, I know thees blog!  That American voman ees funny. 
I like eeet when she ees talking about her cat, ya.
…but vat is theees thing called, how you say;  'pie’?

---

     Why, you might ask, would I want some crazed autocrat to read my blog?  

     Valid question.  (I probably need to see someone about this.)  I think it's more that when I imagined someone tuning in from Russia, he was the first person I thought of.

    Then I thought:  Huh... Putin's my 'fanboy'.  This struck me as hilarious.   And, yeah, that's the whole premise of this post.


---

      Anyhow, thank you to all of my readers!  It means the world to me to know I’m not (entirely) talking to myself.  I appreciate you all.  (Extra shout-out to all you fun-seeking dictators!  Thanks Vlad.  Can I call you Vlad? *)

---

"I dwell in possibility..."

-Emily Dickinson

---

"Dictators are ludicrous characters, and, you know, in my career and in my life, I've always enjoyed sort of inhabiting these ludicrous, larger-than-life characters that somehow exist in the real world."  -

-Sacha Baron Cohen

---

"Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels."  -Hugo Chavez (just saying...they could also have an interest in random amusing thoughts)

---

* If I get offed by the KGB we'll know this is an unappreciated breach of protocol,