If this blog were a plant, it'd be a perennial

Experts say 50% of businesses fail within the first year. I should know, my "Abercrombie & Your mom" T-shirt business never made it to the mark... those eBay buyers are cutthroat.


I imagine the same stat pertains to blogs. Take my friend Jeris, who started a blog about a year ago. The introductory post was titled "Just one more thing to neglect." At least he was being frank--three post and three months later, his blog gave up the ghost.

A blogger's life is tough. Regularly coming up with new content and hoping we don't have any typos is the bane of our existence. We're avid expressionists flooding the Inernet with amateur writing and Ads by Google that nobody clicks on. With no reward but the comments left by our readers, we regularly have to look deep within ourselves to find a reason to keep posting.

That being said, please join me in celebrating this blogs one year anniversary. It's hard to believe, but rockmitchell.blogspot.com began on March 12, 2008. Since that date I've offended several family members and friends, had articles published in two newspapers, and made a little over 3 bucks with the Google Ads in my sidebar.

You're probably aware of the Sitemeter thing at the bottom of this blog. It not only keeps track of the number of visitors, but it also keeps tabs on where visitors come from, as well as what search words they may have used to end up here.

My most popular article, overall, is Rubber cement boogers vs. cell phones in school. It's most often stumbled upon by people from Ivy League schools Googling something like "effect of cell phones on education." Those poor saps sure hit a dead end when they arrive.

My most popular international article is Mistaken for something great. For some reason, people from South America and Eastern Europe love to search for "fubu boots." All they get, though, is an article about how much I suck at basketball.

My most popular article with the country folk is Big hunting trucks don't scare me. It's usually dudes from the bible belt or the deep south that are using search words like "I wanna see big trucks," or "cool elk hunting stickers."

The same experts that say 50% of businesses fail within the first year also say 90% of them fail within the first five years. Don't get your hopes up, oh faithful readers.