I say briefly: Best! Useful information. Good job guys.

Well, no one said I'd never do it, but I wish they had, because I've just done it: 200 posts! Two hundred pauses on the path of this wondrous journey we call life to reflect, record and romanticize all the slow news that's fit to ignore. Two hundred pauses to find some space and give form to the jabbering voices in my head.

Yep, two hundred pauses and what would I change? Nothin'... although, actually, as I've noted before I kind of wish I'd used the name Slow News Day, not Commas on the Path. I take pride in enjoying the things that I enjoy, regardless of what others may think, and judging by how often the phrase crops up in response to my posts, it would seem to be a nice little summary of the content found hereon. Commas, by contrast, has no real significance beyond some vague allusion to my love of punctuation, and was really just plucked from the ether as I sat staring blankly at the sign-up screen asking me to name this new blog thing. But Commas it was, and Commas it is.

Another decision I might have made differently was choosing Blogspot over other sites, such as WordPress. Maybe it's just the green grass on the other domain, but WordPress has always seemed to have a more powerful feature set and a more refined aesthetic as well. It's also not called 'blogspot', which is a name I've never liked. 'Blog' is an unappealing word, for a start, and 'blogspot' has a novelty, buzzword feel to it that I've never been comfortable with. It's also the sort of word I can imagine Beavis and Butthead sniggering at. "Dude, you wouldn't know a blogspot from a bunghole. Heh, heh. Heh. You said blogspot." WordPress, by contrast, has a satisfying authenticity to it and sounds more concerned with publishing than being a lifestyle accessory for the now generation. And it also doesn't hurt that WordPress uses the names of jazz giants for their application codenames, starting out with my favourite, the great Charles Mingus; the anniversary of whose birth it is today, incidentally. Mingus (1.2), Duke (2.0), Ella (2.1), Coltrane (2.7)... not since Apple's cats has there been so cool a series of codenames! But back in those ancient days of 2005, Blogger was the big kid in the sandpit — making all the noise and getting all the attention — so Blogspot it was, and Blogspot it is.

I also wish I'd heaped a little less on my plate and started just the one blog instead of three. You can always filter content using tags, and as it's grown increasingly difficult to generate content for even one blog, The Catablog and My Type of Blog have ended up looking a little neglected. Having just the one, however, would have meant I didn't get to use the other two titles, of which I'm quite fond.

But that's enough words, let's look at Commas by the numbers...

62,626
Total number of words

313
Average number of words per post

1928
Greatest number of words for one post

13
Least number of words for one post

1307
Total number of comments (of which 539 were made by me)

7
Average comments per post

54
Greatest number of comments for one post

340
Days taken to write first 100 posts

937
Days taken to write second 100 posts

And if you're not into numbers, then how about a graph?!


This graph shows my rate of posting, month-to-month, and includes significant events that give context to the results. I started off wanting to include a graph as a joke, but it actually led to some interesting observations, including:

– My peak productivity was in the lead-up to the birth of my first child. This makes sense as I had plenty to say and, relatively speaking, plenty of time in which to say it. But the urge to write does not cry louder than a newborn child, and pretty soon the numbers started to fall.
– As noted in the figures above, my second hundred posts took almost three times as long to write as the first. In the graph you can see how early the 100th post arrived, and how soon after my output fell to the lower levels it's hovered around ever since.
– I had the pleasure of being made redundant twice in six months during 2007, first in May, then again in November. The perils of working for small studios during difficult economic times. My output rose marginally after the first redundancy, but crashed to absolute nothing for two straight months after the second. Not even during the Long Dark of ADSL churning had I failed to post anything at all! Kate's unhelpful conclusion was that I must have been doing all my writing at work.
– My output picked up once again in the lead up to the birth of my second child. Not to the same extent as the first time round as, although there was again plenty to say, the parenting cliché is true and there was no longer any time to say it. :)
– That said, time didn't seem to be a problem prior to the arrival of my third child — iPhone 3G — as my output rose to its highest level in almost two years! Didn't last long though, as I soon discovered the iPhone's suitability for watching TV, and what little spare time I had for writing was drowned beneath a torrent of television. Glory, I've watched a lot of TV in the past year. Lucky I don't have a graph charting that, because it would be frightening. But like a box of Krispy Kremes all to yourself, the euphoria of untold bounty can quickly turn to regret as the consequences of excess begin to take effect. And so, slowly, one day at a time, I've managed to get things under control, and the humble pages of a book or a notepad have now rejoined me as companions during my daily commute. Phew.

So there you go. Hope that wasn't all too self-indulgent, and if it was, I'd have hoped you'd come to expect that by now. Thanks for walking with me, and I look forward to seeing you on the path again soon. Cheerio. :)

UPDATE
Oh, if you're wondering about the significance of the title to this post, it's not some fiendishly clever pun-laden wordplay of the kind I typically write, it's simply my favourite bit of comment spam from the many I've received over the years. I say briefly: Best!