Inside-Baseball

Bewilderment happens.

I can track some of my stats here at Tell Me a Story. Things like:

• How many people drop in for a visit each day – today, as of 9AM, 105. Yesterday there were a total of 273 guests. Last month? 8,428. And they list my all time total. 579,997 have come by since I began this blog of blathering on Thanksgiving weekend of 2011.
• My most read/viewed posts of the day (Autumn is Coming), week (60 Happens), month (Wut Up?) and all time (Not Without Talent)
• Traffic sources – how readers come upon me, where they hail from. Most folks find me on Shoutyface and Google+ but I get a fair amount of action from the sites who list me on their blogrolls or give me an occasional plug, like No More Mister Nice Blog, Crooks and Liars, Random Braindroppings of a Carolina Parrothead and Infidel753.
• Audience – country of origin.

This last one audience/countries of origin is, lately, thoroughly baffling me.

I get that a lot of visitors are just spammers looking for comment sections where they can dump their loads of steamy dross. I’ve whinged on about this before...a couple times. Here’s the thing though – I almost never get spam comments anymore BUT, at the same time, I'm seeing odd seeming influxes.

Periodically I’m swamped with Russians. Dunno where in Russia – no comments from them. Not even a speck of spammage. Given the news – hackers, bots and nefarious tinkers – well, I wonder. Maybe I should post a big banner at the top proclaiming NO STATE SECRETS HERE.

I rilly don’t understand. While I occasionally wax on about U.S. political heinousosity,
Tell Me a Story will never, EVER be confused with The Nation, Feministing, Think Progress or The Washington Post. My political commentary is purely of the informed, sane yet colorful personal rant variety. Do they come for my elaborate (and, I gotta admit, talented) use of inventive swears, slaps, derision and general cheap shots?

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of hits from Italy. Vietnam has just begun showing up and the Ukraine too. Also  “Unknown Region.” There ain’t NOwhere on the planet that’s unknown anymore. ‘the fuck?! WHERE is this Unknown Region – who are they? Dammit, I wanna know!

I understand why I get hits from Germany – I have friends and family there. Same for France and the UK.

I guess my puzzlement all comes down to this – why do people read me?