Wotchoo lookin' for?

My blog's become extremely popular in the Google searches over the last two-three months, the most popular searches being "beautiful in my eyes", "empirical proof", and "haldi milk", in that order. Sundry searches for cures for hypochodriasis, a place to stay in San Francisco, the OotP movie (including one for "injuries in the harry potter and the order of the phoenix movie"!) and Uncle Chipps have also brought a lot of visitors to my blog. The funniest so far, in my opinion, have been "my friends call me a feminist", "cars for family of five", and "one quality to pass on ur kid." I mean, seriously, my blog giving advice on child-rearing?

These searches have also helped me correct a lot of spellings on my blog too. Had you noticed, for example, that for the first year of its existence, the word 'idiosyncrasies' was spelled incorrectly in the 'About Me' section?

I am particularly intrigued, however, by this morning's visitor's search: "explain how to open a email". Most people I know figure out the email bit before they learn to search for things online. This person obviously did it the other way round. Good for him/her!

Announcement of the day

I usually don't announce the additions of any widgets, but leave it to y'all to discover them. However, this time round I suppose I feel the need to do so.

I've added an Article list to the left, right below the Blogs I Read section (which needs a major overhaul!). I'm going to put links to any interesting articles I come across there instead of dedicating one-line entries to them. If I feel the need to add a commentary to any article, I may do so, but I don't see that happening too often, do you?

Of course, this probably means my frequency of posting is going to drop sharply, but you'll just have to swallow the lump forming in your throat and live with it.

Also, I don't think Bloglines or Google Reader will catch updates happening to the list (yes, I do get to know when you use these; yay Statcounter!), so you'll probably just have to check every time you visit.

To start off the list, I've put up two articles. One is fairly outdated, but talks about Ganguly, so you should read it. The second is about a cause very close to my heart, and a person very dear to me - Anuja Gupta of RAHI Foundation and her work against child sexual abuse and incest. Read it, please.

Also, to know more about RAHI Foundation, you could visit their site, or even the Wikipedia entry I created for them. (Yers, I know, I'm very kewl.)

Who are you please?

My blog's going global.

My friend Ziggy is very fond of mentioning how I never appreciate anything. Well, I'm here to prove her wrong. I appreciate Statcounter a great deal. It tells me how many people are visiting my blog, how they got there, how many times they've visited it, where they're located, and even what browser they use. I've had visitors using various versions of MSIE and Firefox, as well people using Netscape (I had no idea that was still in existence - I started my journey on the World Wide Web using that some eight odd years ago), Safari and Opera (I had never even heard of these last two mentioned).

You can, incidentally, see how many visits my blog has had if you scroll down and look at the pretty pink counter near the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

So anyway, like I said, Statcounter also tells me how a particular visitor got to my blog. For instance, if someone comes through from the link in Ziggy's latest blog entry, the referring link would show her blog. Now, when it says "No referring link", it means (and I have read and re-read Statcounter's FAQ section to clarify this), it means that the visitor either typed in the address of my blog in the address bar, or has my blog saved in his/her Favourites/Bookmarks/whatever your browser happens to call them. Now, in recent months, I've been visited at irregular intervals by someone in Germany, who I like to call The German (yes, I know, I'm very creative - for all you know, it's a Russian who just happens to live in Germany). According to my source, The German tends to visit my blog either from Ziggy's profile or, since her latest entry, directly from her blog.

In recent weeks, however, people from all round the world have been visiting my blog, and all these visitors seem to have "No referring link". I've had visitors from different parts of the US, Canberra, Aukland, and Norway. And all of them seem to know the address to my blog. I do realize that this sudden influx could be due to the fact that I've been posting a bit in the Blogger groups, but not all - the dates don't add up. Also, since there have been returning visits I assume they've liked something in here to bring them back.

See, here's the deal. I have very low self-esteem. And I'm a very curious person. So if you like this place, tell me. Well, if you don't like it, tell me in that case too, but be nice about it, OK? Use constructive criticism, please? And if you don't want to tell me what you think about my Meandering thoughts, at least tell me who you are. I want to know!

I've been called a spy already. Don't go there.