Welcome, my friends, to the 37th Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers. It's been twenty-six weeks since I last inflicted myself on you, and it has taken me this long to recover from the pain of writing so many haikus.
A lot has happened in the last six months, so I decided to take a look at all of the previous carnivals. What I found in the link data was pretty interesting. I had expected there to be a core group of pretty regular contributors, and a few not-so-regulars, but that turned out to be wrong. Our little network already follows a power law, just like the blogosphere at large! There are a few folks with a large number of posts, and a very large number (82) with only a single link in the mix.
A side benefit of counting up these links as the ability to rank each blogs place in our little network. For example, my 20 previous links put Smadanek in a 4-way tie for 20th place of 202 linked blogs. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, Im sure youre all dying to see where your blogs placed in this little unannounced competition, but you will have to wait. We have company! Peter of Mano a Vino Montclair, where wine is the order of the day, joins us for the first time. Peter presents a wealth of useful information, and submitted his post on Favorite Wines Under $10. We'll have to hook Peter up with Mr. Bingley, who has also been known to enjoy a glass of wine or two.
Next up is Noreen Braman of Roderama, whose first carnival visit was just last week. Noreen's two links put her in a pack with 15 other blogs in 105th place, and this little story about a snake sleeping with a hamster will definitely move her up in the standings.
Jay Lassiter and Anonymous B. Nowhere, in the first of five ties this week, sit in 90th place. Jay tells us about his experiences with the military's social support network, and wants to ensure that the government continues to take care of veterans, while A.B.N. laments the loss of a friend.
El Zorro Viejo, coming in at 68, expounds on what he sees as the shortcomings of intelligent design. Meanwhile, MyManMisterC (63rd) comments on the whole Oprah-vs.-James-Frey-thing.
In 58th place, we have Virtual Memories with our first double entry of the week. On the political front, you can read about the Palestinian election; if that doesnt float your boat, then try this little piece about a trip to the movies. [VM was down at press time. Hopefully itll be back up by the time you all read this. Ed]
Our next guest is Tom Wright of the Wright Wing, holding down 53rd position, with his take on new-fangled school security measures.
Before getting into the top 50, Id like to share a little useless trivia with you. In my sick obsession with numbers, analysis, statistics, etc, I found it necessary to break down the links by top-level domain. No surprises here, but .com has everyone else beat by a wide margin: I think the three trailers here (.gov, .edu, and .us) slipped past my screening process.
| .com | 176 |
| .net | 13 |
| .org | 8 |
| .gov | 2 |
| .edu | 2 |
| .us | 1 |
Oooh! This one's cool. Check out Dmitri's
photo selection for the week. (49
th place, by the way).
Nordette Adams (44)
shares her thoughts on bloggers getting paid, and why she wont use BlogIt to do so. And gumbo, too tell the Soup Lady.
Riss is in 41
st place, and
apparently likes big butts, but not the music on her iPod.
Dojo Mojo must have figured out I was doing a rankings thing. Currently ranked 36
th, he would like to share three posts to move up ten spots.
1. Its
Hudson Restaurant Week (sounds like a good deal).
2.
Jersey City is broke, and increasing taxes (in Jersey? I cant believe
that would happen).
3. There's
a new novel out about a JC girl. Inspiration to start a book club.
Furey (26)
deals with drunks. Lifes like that when you work in bars.
Our next contributor, Thurman Hart, is a little hard to rank. I started this out as ranking the blogs, and not the authors, but his record bears mention here. First 26
thplace Tammany on the Hudson
notes that Jersey City is trying to get tough on developers, then 24
th place Xpatriated Texan
gets on Ann Coulter's case for making a dumb remark that could be taken as a threat to a Supreme Court justice. I dont know how he keeps up his writing pace, but the combined ranking of these two blogs in the Carnivals would place Thurman in 3
rd place overall.
And now, the top 20, starting with Bob at the Rix Mix, where the subject is
art and what it means to be an artist.
Janet, at number 16, is getting by this week with
celebrity reality shows. I watched the previews for one of these, and I just dont get it.
Ah, we have another tie, this time between the Contratian and Tata for 14
th position. But not for long; we have
Mormon baby names (who would name their girl Abcde?),
farewell to Mario, and
a way to turn any website into porn from the contrary one, while Tata
isn't happy about rumors concerning medical care for veterans.
In 12
th place, we find both Shamrocketship and Parkway Rest Stop. The latest from the ship:
baby son turning 13! Meanwhile, operatives from the house by the parkway ran into
Howard Dean at the Newark Airport.
More useless trivia: 71 sites linked in the Carnival were hosted by Blogger. Nine were hosted by TypePad, and the remaining 107 had their own domain names. And now that the trivia is over, here are the top 10.
Tied for 9
th, Suzette (now back at
Bob the Corgi!) and Roberto (of DynamoBuzz). Bob's
not doing too well, and needs to wear a silly hat to get better. According to Roberto,
Jon's not doing too well either, and NJ bloggers need to make sure he feels their love to get things right.
Steven Hart at The Opinion Mill has a lock on 8
th place, and
reviews Orson Scott Card's essay in support of Intelligent Design.
Sharon's not in the center; she's nearly at the top of New Jersey life in 6
th place. She wants us to
drop Tom Kean, Jr's name, and just call him Junior.
Media in Trouble sees a
bizarro world in which Matt and Katie go out of their way to make Republicans look good and Democrats look bad, then adds some thoughts on
spying. His prolific posting ties him for 3
rdplace with our founder, Enlighten New Jersey. The gang at Enlighten notes that
New Jersey is a Financial Basket Case.
Our number two is a lady who writes prolifically, intelligently, and beautifully: Fausta. In the first 35 Carnivals, she's been linked 39 times! In her latest, she abandons the usual deep analysis of foreign affairs in the Spanish-language press to give us a
boy in a skirt.
So who is number one? Post your guesses in the comments. I will reveal
the complete top-20 list sometime late tonight.
Thats all folks. Next week, the Carnival will be hosted by
Philomathean.
