I know I have been remiss in my duties as a blogger and my general commitment to the blogosphere. But as a whole, it is not too bad considering the result of the “average life of a blog” search on Google.  According to Caslon Analytics, 

Several studies indicate that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month, depending on whose figures you choose to believe) and that few are regularly updated. 

The ‘average blog’ thus has the lifespan of a fruitfly. One cruel reader of this page commented that the average blog also has the intelligence of a fly.

The Perseus report noted above indicates that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, “representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned”. 



Jeffrey Henning of Perseus sniffed that

“Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.”

Perseus claimed that the average duration of the remaining 1.63 million abandoned blogs was 126 days, with some 132,000 blogs being abandoned after a year or more. The oldest abandoned blog surveyed had been maintained for 923 days.

That said, I should be proud that I have lasted over a year and over 100 entries. The fact remains that now my life is just sort of life. I’m here living, I’m doing fun stuff sometimes, I’m getting frustrated sometimes, but it is not THAT different from life in West Lafayette, or Los Angeles. I go to work, I do dishes, I do laundry, I watch a little TV (very little), I eat, I sleep, and so on. How exciting is it to say, “I went to bed at 12:42 am last night and, as usual, my alarm went off at 6:00 am. Gosh I was tired.”

I could whine about Japan as you often hear the expats who have been here too long complain profusely about Japan, the Japanese, and life in general. When you suggest it is time to leave, they state, “Gosh, I could never live in the US again.” Okaaaaayyyy.

This week I had big plans to write, and get everyone updated. Monday night I had to study for class on Tuesday, and Tuesday I had class. A general lethargy set in, that turned in to a cold. But I will keep this up, and might even double post tonight if I get my notes and pictures from last weekend pulled together.

I just wanted to note that my blog is now over 1 year old and I posted my 100th entry sometime near the one year anniversary.

Wow.

100 entries, 1 year. That is an average of 3.65 days between entries. That doesn’t seem right. As I suspected, the blog has changed over time. At first I concentrated on the shock of being in Japan, and then the trials and tribulations of settling in to my place. I had a full year of matsuri to report on, and the seasons to experience. I mixed in a couple of vacations.

So now what? I assume I’ll continue to find amusement in Japan and I’ll report on it. Plus, folks always like vacation pictures, so I’ll include those as well. I like the blog as a tool to communicate with friends and family, so I’ll continue to update it as best I can.

I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been in the States and have been able to communicate directly with folks. Provided swine flu doesn’t change my plans, I am soon on my way back to Japan, ready for interesting reportage.

As you probably can tell, I’ve done a serious overhaul of the blog. It has taken a ton of time and it is still not done. Features includes:

I still have to do a number of things, like center all the images from 2008, and add the photo content categorization to entries with interesting photographs. I need to customize my favicon as well, but that will come over time.

Let me know what you think. I have positive feelings about it. I really like the random header art. Just keep clicking refresh. More are queued to be edited as well.

Thanks for reading!

I felt like my blog looked very 1992. The header was flat, I was widget-less, and the format was generally boring. When I started the blog almost a year ago, I just wanted to get going and didn’t really think that much about the style.

I recently updated my software, and it allowed me to update my template as well. I’ve spiced up the format a little bit by adding some sidebar content and creating a gradient in the big red blob. Still, there are things I’d like to change that I haven’t been able to yet. I’ll keep working on it though and see what happens. There may be a few more changes coming along – depending on how my practice blog works out.

I liked the grayed out sidebar from before. What happened to that?