Except for the juggernaut of "Pornography" and another strong showing by John Leary, the top ten is comprised entirely of flashes from the September 15 issue. And for the second month in a row, the five fat men are gone, but Landon retains a spot with "Starfish."
We've re-activated SmokeLong News after a two-year hiatus. Joining staffers Kelly Spitzer, Thomas White, and me will be super-bloggers Myfanwy Collins, Katrina Denza, and Matt Bell. Check it out!
Applications are open now for the 2008 Fish Fellowship. There is no application fee, and the prize is $500 for a one-year "residency" as a writer for SmokeLong. The full announcement and details for entry are at http://smokelong.com/features/102407.asp.
And, once again, I'm incredibly late in posting stats for last month. Almond moves not only back into the top spot, but into the 2 spot as well. The man's a powerhouse. And if y'all haven't checked out his latest yet, (Not That You Asked) is worth the cover price for the piece on Vonnegut alone.
On a personal note, my tardiness is largely due to having been hitting the bricks to find a new gig after my contract at Microsoft ended. And I'm really excited to have accepted a position at the largest architectural firm in Seattle. Very, very cool place, and I can't wait to get to work there.
Bleah. We dropped back below 200,000 page views for the quarter, and fell off by 9.67%. This appears to be a summer trend. Last summer's issue saw a 17% drop in page views, and the fall issue then jumped by over 20%. Hopefully, we'll see a similar jump for the issue just published.
Posting this REALLY late this time around, and only doing stories this time, because I've been (and continue to be) absolutely slammed at work. Only one story not rated in July cracked the top ten this time around, but boy did the top ten move itself around a lot. Welcome, Elizabeth Ellen, to numero uno.
And, to appease Don once again, some personal news: in the building I'm working in now, they do a lot of shipping, and there's a massive scale just outside my door. When we were checking out the building a couple months ago, many of us walked across it. I weighed in at 195. Since cutting Coke almost entirely out of my diet due to kidney stones, I've noticed that my stomach looks flatter (not flat, mind you, but not so Buddha-like). Sure enough, I just walked across the scale and it came up 185. Yay, me!
And, since Don kvetched about not enough personal stuff on the blog, here's a pic of me celebrating my 41st birthday last month at a barbecue with friends from SurvivorBlows. (Fortunately, this pic is after the hot tub, or it could serve as an illustration for Jeff Landon's piece.)
Currently
reading
:
Eventide
By
Kent Haruf
Release date: 03 May, 2005
Just realized that I'm incredibly late with this. Almond's back on top again, probably because linkage to Amato from the front page went away on the 15th when the new issue went live. Speaking of Almond, I'm reading the galley of his next book right now, and there's an essay in there about Vonnegut that's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
And, since 
Issue Sixteen (live from 3/15/07-6/14/07)