My InBox is chock full of interesting reader questions about things I’ve been up to here on EV. Although I’m planning to answer each e-mail individually, some of the questions – and answers – may be of interest to others, so I thought I’d share them here. Once again, if you’re disinterested in the “business end of blogging,” scroll past this post. I won’t mind. Really.

• 1. “What’s the deal with the featured site? What’s it for, and is it daily, weekly, what?”

  I wanted to start featuring a specific site to draw attention to blogs I’ve recently added to my ever-growing blogroll. By putting it at the top of the page, rather than mentioning it in a post that will scroll down as the day goes by, I’m hoping to make it easy for you to find out what blogs I’ve added and check them out yourselves. I’ve been rotating the featured site on a daily basis; however, beginning on Monday I’m going to rotate them weekly instead. That gives EV readers more time to check out the featured blog, and to hopefully add it to their own lists of regular reads.

• 2. “How do I get my blog featured?”

  Well, that’s kind of like asking how do you get added to my blogroll, and the answer is quite simply that I have to enjoy reading your blog enough to want to do it at least every other day, and to recommend that others do the same as well. You do not have to add me to your roll, nor do you have to be a top referrer to get there. Just update regularly, write interesting stuff, check your grammar and spelling, and see the FAQ page. You’re also welcome to send me an e-mail with a link to your blog.

• 3. “I sent you an e-mail. Why haven’t you responded?”

  One possible answer is that I suck. I’m awful. I’m a self-centered, horrible person who ignores those who are nice enough to take time to write. Another possible answer is that I’m swamped with e-mail right now; earlier this week some asshole ran over my dog, Pal, and I’ve been depressed about it; and Hubby is home on vacation so I’ve only been able to squeeze in a few minutes here and there to keep in touch with folks. I’ll get caught up soon. I promise.

• 4. “What’s the deal on listing your referrers? It says it’s the Top 10, but one day you listed only 9. And how often do you update the list?

  The answer to the first question should be obvious: I am so bad with numbers that I couldn’t count the number of openings in a paper bag without using my fingres. That’s why I blog instead of doing something productive. As for updating the list, I check the referrers in the morning and evening, and I ignore it the rest of the time.

  I only include blogs on the list, and I define a “blog” as a non-commercial site consisting of dated, regular updates posted in a reverse-chronological order and which uses hyper-links to connect itself to other locations. The list is there to honor those who’ve been kind enough to send me traffic, but if it becomes a source of contention I’ll yank the sucker down.

• 5. “Why aren’t you doing ‘Tracking Terrorists’ entries anymore?

  I am, but not here and not in the same format. My terrorist news is being posted at The Command Post: GWOT page, and every two weeks I’m posting a “Winds of War” entry at Winds of Change (with the next one coming out on Monday).

• 6. “What kind of blog are you running? Is it a news blog, a politics blog, a vanity/diary-style blog or a war blog?”

  Hell if I know. I post whatever interests me. Since I have a wide variety of interests, there are a wide variety of topics covered.

• 7. “Was that really you singing the “Me and Bobby P.” song? How drunk were you?”

  Yes, indeed it was. To make matters worse, while I had indeed had too many martinis when writing the lyrics, I was stone-cold sober at the time that I recorded the song. Now you know why I didn’t pursue a singing career. ‘Nuff said.

• 8. “You used to break your blog roll down into different categories. It was a lot shorter then. Now that it’s getting so long, it’s getting hard to find blogs on it. Do you have any plans to break it down into categories again?

  As a matter of fact, I do. Right now, there are a combination of political blogs, funny blogs, diary-style blogs, techie blogs, and blogs that – like EV – can’t really be categorized. At some point, I plan to separate the categories again. But first, I have to think up some witty headings. Oh, and set up a separate e-mail account for those who feel like bitching about the category their blog is listed under.

• 9. “I’m going to be in Hawai’i on a vacation soon. Can I stay with you?

  At my house, with my kids and my Hubby and the endless stream of chaos and clutter that constitutes My Venomous Life? Hell no. But I do know a few decent bars in the area. So, I’m sure we can make arrangements to get together at one and hang out as long as you’re buying.

• 10. “Do you really drink martinis as often and in such large quantities as you indicate?

  No. I sometimes drink wine or champagne. I wouldn’t have to do any of that if it weren’t for answering stupid questions like this one. So consider yourself an “enabler” and send me a bottle of vodka. Or wine. Or champagne… Californian, not French, of course.