When I was a little kid and did not know what they were, I used to refer to them as “throat poo,” because, unfortunately, that’s what they smell like. I, too, was a “smoosher.”

Oh well, so much for our existential hopes. We had a tiny splinter of the world’s attention for a minute there, but now, once again, we might as well be shouting up a drainpipe.

There are now so many blogs competing for our attention that many of us have cut back on blog visits. Conversely, because there are more blogs out there, some folks are looking for blogs that address their own special interests.

The number of visits to my blog went down for a while but has crept back up, mostly from Google searches that stay for zero time to read my posts. Must be speed readers…

My blog’s eclectic nature probably catches a lot of different sorts of individuals doing Google searches but fails to interest them any further.

Such such is life…

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

Type “throat pellets” into Google and you’ll see my post is somewhere in the top 10-20 search results.

Kevin

You had tonsil stones? Ewwwwwww. I’ve never even heard of tonsil stones, but they sound revolting.

Along with every other human being my age, I had my tonsils taken out, a remedy universally applied in the early 1960′s for the slightest infirmity. A cough or two, a scratchy throat, any existential malaise whatsoever, and willy nilly, under the knife you went.

Like you, I have noticed a baffling slump in attendance. Perhaps the method of data-gathering has been altered. Or perhaps we suck.

Lots of readers? I appreciate the kind remark, but my numbers have been down for the past six weeks. At first I thought this was the typical end-of-summer slump, but the slump has continued uncomfortably far into September, which makes me think I’ve truly lost some readership. I used to average about 350 unique visits per day, but lately am at around 250-270. Of that number, only a couple dozen or so visits come from regulars, I think; the rest are random Google hits as people search for porn with the word “hairy” in the search phrase, and find my blog instead.

One strange thing: a long while back, my brother David sent me a link about tonsilloliths, aka tonsil stones. I slapped a post up about that, and have had a couple dozen hits per day ever since. I had no idea that so many people were interested in those things, but a lot of folks type “throat pellets” into Google and find my article. Then again, I recall wondering what the hell they were whenever I spat them out, so maybe these folks aren’t all freaks.

And on that fragrant note,

Kevin