I’ve done it. I’ve missed a day. For twenty seven days in a row, I have put up a post a day (I’m trying to do a hundred in a row), and yesterday I didn’t. I’m sure most of you think this is not big deal, but it is. You see, the government made me do it. They shut me down. They broke my stride. They took away my mojo. They messed with the flow of my chi.
You don’t want to mess with the flow of my chi!
I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist. I just don’t think people are smart enough. So I’m trying not to read anything into the fact that, after a week of criticising the government, our power was cut yesterday. Not just for few hours. For the day.
We’re kind of set up for things like this round here. The development of infrastructure failed to keep up with the economy, and so, a few years ago, we were introduced to the idea of “load shedding”. When there isn’t enough power to go round, different zones are cut off on a rotating schedule. It’s not great, but it’s not the end of the world, and it does mean that we all know where the candles are, and have gas cookers to make coffee with.
Our house looked like this. Except that there were two small, curious children in it. It wasn’t romantic. We’re not insured.
What we can’t do is put up posts on WordPress. And yesterday was no load shedding. The power was out for hours. But fear not. It’s unspeakably early on Monday morning, and the power is back on. So I’m just going to pretend that it’s Sunday. Which means I don’t really have to put up a proper post anyway. Just a sort of status update (for those of you who may never have been here before, I’m trying to do a hundred posts in a hundred days, and get 60 000 views while doing it. Snort).
So what then, is my status? I’ve done 27 posts. Without government intervention, I should have done 28. And I’m still getting pretty close to exactly half the views I need. I think it might be time to edit all of my previous posts and pretend I was always trying to get 30 000 views.
I did, however, learn something last week (don’t worry, It didn’t hurt). I thought it would be fun to write about some of our more outlandish political shenanigans. It wasn’t. For two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to keep things short and sharp. But I found that the so-called short, sharp stories needed so much background that they started to feel more like lectures. And I’m not doing this in the hope of boring anyone. Secondly, if you look too closely at those sorts of stories they stop looking like shenanigans and instead become tragic or infuriating or both.
Political shenanigans made me sad.
In the middle of the week, I took a break from politics and wrote about how my daughter was stealing gravel. That made me happier. So this week I’m going back to stuff that makes me happy. Hope to see you there. In the mean-time, here’s today’s vote;
23thorns 
I liked the political posts but I’m withholding my vote from these options.
I’m not sure your daily posting is good for my mental health, though. Last night I actually dreamed I popped over to SA for a bbq with you and Tracy. At least you didn’t serve me one of those hideous smiley things…
If I’ve started messing with your sleep patterns, whatever you do don’t play the video clips from the tortoise blog!
Yeh, I skipped em. Too much, with my breakfast cuppa at 7.30. 😉
Glad to see that there were 14 other votes that delight in schadenfreude Mr 23Thorns! ;). A “power outage” eh? I guess we can allow you the benefit of the doubt, but just this once sir! We, ourselves, have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous power companies here in Tasmania. We produce “clean green water” power but it is the most expensive power in Australia, most of it is shipped STRAIGHT to the mainland, do not pass go, do NOT collect any reduction in your power bill because you produce clean green electricity for the benefit of those lazy bollock mainlanders who are going to feel SO smug because they chose “green power” at our expense…sigh…maybe you are right about politics? It makes me sad too :(. You mentioned potatoes in one of your earlier replies. You can’t go wrong with a potato Mr 23Thorns. You also can’t go wrong with any other staple food (aside from anything containing the dreaded “gluten” which is now officially satans food) so thats about a weeks worth of posts alone. I must say we did miss you out here in the blogosphere. We kept checking for your posts. Steve is now officially reading your blog along with me and Steve doesn’t do “read” so you have truly managed to do something this week, if nothing else. You got a non-reading Englishman who would rather watch horror movies on the telly to read your posts. Your work here…is DONE! See you tomorrow. Hopefully there is a post about fungus. Or food. Or you could combine the two and do a post about mushrooms on toast…but you had BETTER make sure that toast is gluten free sonny Jim! 😉
You don’t even need to wait for tomorrow- I caught up this morning. But I do rather fear that today’s post isn’t necessarily for you. Although it does have a potato in it. And an onion. And is certified gluten free. Unless beerr has gluten in it.
I once ate more than my fair share of meaty comestibles and am more than amply qualified to vet and respect todays post…
I noticed you missing! You set yourself a public target which is never easy to live up to. I think if I thought I had to I would freeze or write something rushed. At least in some parts of the world you made it and it wasn’t your fault!
Yep. I snuck through on a technicality.
Oh the poor puppy.. But keep writing….
🙂
Didn’t see option 4 for the poll –
“Write whatever you feel like writing that day – I’ll read it!”
That’s the plan. But I like to give my readers the illusion of power. It stops them from rioting and burning down schools.
😀
You are still doing wayyyy better than I am. Great job 23 t!
Thanks
Oh drat. I see I am outnumbered on really enjoying the informative political posts – especially the one about the defaced art – that give me insights into what it’s like living in South Africa. Hope you keep them in anyway, despite what the majority might think. They give another angle.
I might throw another one or two in down the line. but never four in a row again!
I get that with the posting every day. I did that for a month I think?? Then when I stopped doing it so regularly, i got writers block. Then I thought aragh what am I going to write about. Sociopath had gone awol, and i was running out of material. I get chuffed with stats too, its quite sad. But I found that when I hadn’t posted for a week, for some reason I looked at the stats and it was nearly 3,000 hits that day and 1400 readers….. how does that work?
So, of course from that I became really confused. Was I posting too much? I really have no idea…. perhaps it was a fluke? Its gone down now to around 2,500 hits a day, which is alright I guess, as I have been writing for 3 months. its my thought for the day – should I just post once a week? Maybe that would be better, I have no clue!! 🙂
Here on the west coast of Canada it is still one hour before midnight. So from where I sit, you met your commitment.
Yeeehah. I’m still on the horse!
You like to make things difficult for us to answer your poll don’t you. Well, just for that, I ticked #2. I would have preferred to tick one that said: “Yes. The people on CNN aren’t as smart as you, nor do they make it as entertaining.”
It’s funny you should mention government intervention, I was wondering if something untoward had happened when you missed a day. No, seriously, I kid you not 😐
Nope. We’re all still fine out here. Just a little disorientated after watching our kids spend the entire day playing outside.
… in my time zone, you missed nothing. Perfect score, as always!
God bless geography!