Ghenghis: I’m Addicted

[Call the library police ...]


A Rush In Reaching Readers
By CHRIS BIGELOW
Hartford Courant
February 25 2007

I'll admit it: I don't think I can stop. I'm addicted to blogging.

I started just after the 2004 election by posting depressing diaries on Daily Kos. I quickly found that on a site with tens of thousands of bloggers, it was almost impossible to rise above the constant din. My posts about what a jerk W. was went straight out into the ether, never to be seen again. So much for being a national pundit.

I decided to start my own blog, this time exclusively dedicated to Connecticut's local political scene, titled, originally enough, "Connecticut Local Politics." In a fit of weird humor, I picked a terrible pun, Genghis Conn, as my user name. State-level political blogs were still pretty rare, and Connecticut's blogosphere barely existed. Without really thinking about it, I filled a niche.

Not that the blog was an instant success; far from it. Still, despite getting only a handful of visitors per day, I started obsessively checking traffic statistics and got a little thrill whenever someone viewed the site. They're reading it, I thought. I wonder if they like that 700-word post about Naugatuck's mayoral election? Maybe they'll comment! I watched intently, but the few readers who did exist rarely said anything, unless they felt the need to tell me what an idiot I was. That started happening a lot.

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