2000th Post

Gosh. This is the 2000th post on Frugal Bastard. To think that I started it back on the 30th of March 2004 and it's been going for six and a half years. I'd say that the style has changed over time - First post. Just over 71,000 visits later and what have people received for their money? Not much, really.

Why did I start Frugal Bastard? Well, I guess I'm a bit of a mouth on a stick and if I have something to say I like to say it. Blogger gives me a mouthpiece to shout to the world. It's just a case of 'Is anyone listening?' Perhaps I've become more spiteful during my time as a blogger but I also realise that you have to be careful what you put in print as it stays there, on the Internet, in some form or other for eternity.

You may wonder where the name comes from. The guys at my previous job noted that I was tight when it came to spending money. One of my colleagues referred to me as a frugal bastard and I thought that that sounded like a great name for a Website. And the nickname has stuck. Some things never change.

My first experience with blogging I called Japan/Korea Blog and that's had some 84,000 visits which isn't too bad considering that it's only 36 posts in total. Not sure when I started that as all of the posts were published on in March of 2004 so that they appeared to read as a diary of my first trip to Japan and Korea. I uploaded scanned photos to a storage facility on the Web as Blogger didn't even have storage back then.

Blogger has become much easier to use. Nowadays you don't have to know much about HTML to link to a news story or other article on the Web whereas when I started it was quite important to know. The storage of photos, as mentioned, has become much more user friendly (still not quite as good as Facebook). The autosave feature has saved a post on more than one occasion.

Why do I continue to do blog? Well, I get a kick out of people commenting on what I have to say and the feedback is great. Gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling. I've met some great people through blogging even though I've never met them in person. There is a community feel about it. Those that blog are similar to me (Ed - poor bastards). There aren't too many that I follow from my early days that are still blogging though which is a bit of a shame. Man, did I have some material to read in the old days (Ed - old days? It was only six and a bit years ago!). If someone has something interesting to say and you comment (be nice people) then it is easy to make friends. If not, just move onto the next blog. There are plenty of bloggers out there with things worth listening to.

Thank you to all of my readers. There can't be many of you that have stuck around for all of this time.

Updating The Blog Roll

I read a few blogs about the place. Some people blog daily, some frequently, some regularly, some rarely and others have fallen by the wayside. On the right hand side of my blog page I have a Blogroll. It's a list of all of the blogs that I regularly follow and it has certainly become dated. Several blogs are no longer and there are new ones that deserve to be added. To make my blog relevant in relation to what I'm currently doing I went to the trouble of updating the Blogroll. Please don't confuse it with bogroll. There's a marked difference.

New blogs that I follow include:

Double-Half of One Ten without ham - Bit of a zany German girl, my age, who visited Australia and blogs in English.
Sudeep's Blog - Indian guy living in the States, I believe, who likes to report on the latest technology worldwide and relevant technical articles and how they relate to India.
Life in Rural Thailand - Antipodean and family living in rural Thailand. It's a very different way of life to what we've become accustomed to in the West.
The Rejected Webcomic - Comic strip character who always face rejection. Based on someone's particular life experience?!
Rich and Gem Have Gone Travellin' - Lovely lass, who was our receptionist for a few months, and her boyfriend from Old Blighty who are travelling the globe. Needs to update a bit more.

Strange Feeling In The Blog World

Yesterday was a bit weird. For the first time I met somewhere that I have only contacted through my blog. She was a university student looking for Korean lessons and my wife offered to teach her. So, she came around for a lesson, my wife set up the meeting place not me, and that was that. It was really strange as I haven't met anyone in this fashion previously. I would like to attend a bloggers' convention one day and meet a few fellow bloggers, especially the locals.

Behind The Scenes At The Blog

Just checking the sitemeter to see where Annette is from and I thought I had narrowed it down when I noticed a few other items.

Technorati gives me a blog authority of 9 and a ranking of 680,524.

I made it to another list of 50 Unique Names For Blogs.

Apparently I'm ranked 202nd in Australia for Noisiest Bloggers in Oz. And Staypuff is at no. 140. Got some catching up to do.

There's a lot that happens behind the scenes. Actually.

Couple More Blogs On The Scene

Sense & Sensibility is authored by Tanzeela from Singapore. I met her and her husband on a plane when heading to Korea in 2001. I've kept in touch with her hubby since - we were both involved in IT.

Ramblings of a Welsh Bird is written by one of my cousins. Obviously she wants to keep herself a bit anonymous so I won't give her away. Haven't seen her since 1994. In Wales in fact.