An Assessment of The Anthony Show, Thus Far

It's a Lenten Friday,
and I want a Bistro Burger!

Wow. We've completed a full month's worth of The Anthony Show. We've learned a lot about Anthony and his The Anthony Show, and not just how broadly we like to employ the pronoun "we."

I don't think it's too early to examine some of the accomplishments of The Anthony Show. Here are some highlights:

• I've posted on every weekday since I started, fulfilling my Lenten pledge to do so (unlike the pledge I made to not eat like Walter Hudson)
• I came up with a permanent name and secured the URL
• I recorded a few podcasts
• I posted some of the posts I said I would post in a previous post regarding future posts that I posted the week after the very first post
• I've recorded some very curious stats, which I'll discuss in further detail below
• I haven't be sued yet

Just so you don't think I'm patting myself on the back, I'm also aware of my shortcomings, blog-wise:

• I didn't blog about everything I'd wished to have blogged about by now
• I would been happier if I'd recorded more podcasts
• I still hate lots of people, places, and things
• I didn't receive a jillion dollars from some venture-capital-funded site that was impressed with my blogging, not to mention the cut of my jib

I still haven't decided on a theme/gimmick for my blog. I was hoping that by now the theme would poke its way through the blogger birth canal, but just like Son of The Anthony Show was on his date of birth, it's still stuck, so we might have to yank it out and hope that the forceps-marks on its cheeks fade away as quickly as the ones on my son did.

On the other hand...
...I have a feeling that this blog is simply shaping up to be just about me.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT
I was really hoping to go that gimmick route, because that's the quick way to get a book deal. During my free moments at Barnes & Noble, when I'm following my kids into the children's section — assuming they don't stop in the Lego section, like what the hell is a bookstore selling toys for, anyway? — my eyes will always be drawn toward a table with books that were adapted from popular, of-the-moment blogs.

You know what I'm talking about: the I Can Has My Dad Says White People Like section.

Unfortunately for my hopes of blogger-book income, I've been all over the place in terms of the subject matter. This can make it hard to develop an audience because the person who wants to read about my adventures in baking might not be interested in my views on the TV show COPS. If you happen to know me, you might find my tales interesting because, well, you know me, but that could also work against me because you'll fire up The Anthony Show and go, "Sheeeet, he's talking about when he broke his tooth at the gynecologist's office again? I only heard that story five friggin' times already!"

So instead of being a niche, I'd have to work on developing my "personal brand," whatever the hell that is. So I guess this is what The Anthony Show is, right now. There's still plenty of time for it to evolve.

ABOUT THOSE STATS
So anyway, Blogger has this tab for "Stats." I've signed up for Sitemeter as well, but I've viewed the Stats According to Blogger, and I've found a few interesting tidbits:

That map is shaded green according to where my traffic is coming from. The dark green United States is no surprise, but you'll notice a few additional countries in light green. Here's the list of countries, ranked by page views:

United States	914
United Kingdom	32
Hungary	19
Singapore	10
Iran	8
Philippines	5
United Arab Emirates	4
Canada	4
China	4
Indonesia	4

If you asked me which country would be ranked third, my first response would be, "There are people in more than two countries who read this thing?" My next 236 responses would be variations of "Not Hungary." I'd forgotten that Hungary was still a country. I thought it went the way of extinct country names like Burma and Yugoslavia and East Pakistan and Dacia.

(I actually have a story about a Hungarian woman I met, and whom I didn't know was Hungarian when I first met her. What difference does that make, you ask? When I finally post about it, you'll learn!)

Viva la The Anthony Show revolucion! (Sorry, I don't know Persian.)

More surprising (in a way) than Hungary's appearance on this list is the fact that The Anthony Show has garnered eight page views in Iran. When they finally bring about regime change over there, I'd like to think that The Anthony Show provided part of the spark. Perhaps my woeful tale about wearing orthotics will push the Persians over the edge into full-on revolution.

THE ANTICIPATION MUST BE KILLING OR AT LEAST MAIMING YOU
So now let's look at some of the things I expect to be blogging about in the future. Several of these bullet points are from my previous list.

• A continuation of the story about the first time I got drunk
• More dumb stuff I've been responsible for
• Other fistfights that I've been part of
• More works of writing that I never finished, or even started
• What happened at 7-Eleven that time
• How I discovered the magic in "magic" mushrooms
• Reviews of fashion blogs
• Discussions of famous and once-famous people who died young
• The Unknown Comic and his brief influence on my comedy
• More tales from my days as a custodian while in high school
• The time we almost burned down the woods in our neighborhood
• A discussion of the greatness that is Sam Cooke
• Part 2 of my rant about Facebook ads
• More things that I need to buy but have put off buying because of an increasingly dire lack of funds
• My relationship with seafood
• More complaints about more people I haven't personally met
• Something about books and movies I have read and seen, and also about books and movies I have neither read nor seen
• Extremely detailed reviews of episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants
• A discussion on videogame consoles and how I made one of the worst decisions of my entire life
• More lists (like this one!) for when I get stuck on what to write about
• More podcasts, and maybe even a video podcast

Day-am, that's a lot of stuff to talk about. Expect to see many of those subjects remaining on my next State of The Anthony Show update. Until then, keep enjoying the blog! And tell 183 of your friends about it!