I was looking through my site’s set of stats.  Truthfully, I’ve never been one to stress or obsess with how many or how few visits this blog gets.  Originally, the whole thing was restricted to those who registered and I only let family and close friends do that.  It was my way of keeping everyone up to date with what ever was happening with me.  In other words is was a place to share what my kids were doing and the latest pictures of them.  Then some friends asked why didn’t I just use FaceBook so I did and the blog collected cyberdust.  Then stuff happened to me or I saw something in the real world or online that I wanted to say something about and I thought why not put it on that space GoDaddy was auto-renewing as a favor to me every year.  Then my good friend Tee Morris practically dragged me kicking and screaming to Twitter.  And then I found neat plug-ins that could tie it all together if I were so inclined.  Then a Twitter friend, Odin1eye, who I’ve come to trust and admire talked about the increase of visits his little corner was getting and I went looking for another plug-in for that and here we are.  I can see how many visits the place of mine gets.

It’s right there on my Dashboard whenever I happen to stop by myself to create a new post from a PC (not often.  Go ahead and check for yourself), whenever a new comment is waiting my approval (that happens even less) or when I check for updates to WordPress or one of the plug-ins installed.  But I was looking at the stats and say it tracked what searches led people here. Nearly all of them had to do with the game Word with Friends which speaks more to the popularity of the game than my blog but that’s cool anyway.  What caught my attention where some really odd ones.

Personally, I think the slip of YA into more adult themes stems from today’s adults putting into stories topics *They* themselves wish they were allowed access to when they were kids. The same is happening in music and television. It’s a classic case of “Slippery Slope”.

At the risk of sounding old fashioned. Scratch that. I want to sound old fashioned. When did that become a negative thing? I’m glad I was given a chance to be a kid and enjoy kid things. Sex wasn’t a topic or interest because it was totally unknown. Girls had cooties and boys were gross and so simple a set of thoughts as those kept the two far enough apart that no one explored possibilities. Kids were teased, there existed bullies, not everyone got a Valentine’s card and life was an ABC afterschool special.

The excuse that it’s ok to be part of the “exposure” because kids are seeing already anyway misses the point that they are seeing it anyway in part because others before decided to expose them.

A real life example happened to me while treating my girls (5,7) to lunch at Friendly’s. Over at a nearby table an adult couple and some kids were eating when she dropped an F bomb. My head shot up and over to them. He apologized while she seemed lost as to why he apologized. To her it was just another word kids hear all the time anyway (her words, not mine).

So by that argument it’s suddenly ok, acceptable, if I start swearing or now let them read books, and watch movies containing the same?

My answer is no but what’s yours?

In an effort to likely bore even more people I’m going to give Digg.com a try.  Though I’d never consider myself a writer that doesn’t mean I don’t want as many people as possible to read and, more importantly, comment on the things I try to share.  Many have blogged or tweeted why they write or maintain a blog.  Though the reasons vary, one common point was the desire to share with others.  In fact the more the merrier, right?

So here we go.  If you care to follow then add me, ObiOrion, on Digg.com.  Right now I don’t see my own profile when I do a search so it may take a little time to appear.  I’ll update this post when it does.

Also, since I love comments I’ve left the sign blank on purpose.  Let me know here or @Obiorion what you’d like to see on it. Please remember, this is a family program.  I’ll pick the best one.  Sorry, I can’t afford an independent firm to administer this sweepstake.  The winner will forever have a warm, special place in my heart :-)

Thanks and pass it along!

If you’ve been following along here and on Twitter (and who isn’t, right?) you’ll know that I’ve dipped my toes into the world of writing.  Through what can only be described as osmosis I’ve also disturbed the placid surface of podcasting waters.  While nothing I’ve done or am working on is as complex or amazing as the numerous talented people I know and have come to meet thanks to Twitter I do have multiple ideas in my head and a few that I’ve started putting down on “paper”.  As things seem to happen at just the right time there was a recent discussion and great exchange of ideas regarding podcasting that covered a wide array of issue from creation to distribution to increasing listeners.  Just search #podcrit on twitter to see it all.  It’s also a great way to find great people with vast amounts of experience in this space.