I think it speaks volumes about the end of 'blog mania'. Folks like you (and me) have been writing online for so long that we'll probably always do so in one form or another. But the drudgery of providing daily updates for an audience of one or two has become - well drudgery. The A-list folks have even been migrating into communities of scale like boingboing and slashdot out of creative neccessity. You may have a sharp wit, but every day of the year forever? That's a lot of wit. The Z-list folks are facing so much content competition that they're lucky to get one or two visitors a day.

That's OK. I turned my weblog into a dating site, a weather site, a reference library, a photo library, a 'hotornot', an events calendar, yada yada. There *is* life after blog. :-)

I'm sort of in agreement with Mike.

Although I generally blog for myself, rather than the visitors, it IS nice to know someone, somwhere is reading and (hopefully) enjoying.

The fact there are 'A' and 'Z' list bloggers saddens me. As does the rise in 'professional' bloggers, whose blogging existence is all about how much ad revenue they can generate - I assume when the ad revenues dry up, so will their blogging. Which is sort of missing the whole point of blogging, in my eyes.

For me, dealing with the daily drudge of comment spam, the twats that constantly report me to my host because they consider my content objectionable and the stalkers (really!) recently have all added to my decision to stop for a while.

But like others, I have the bug and I'll be back again. Having blogged since 1998 in one form or another, it's just too much of a temptation to stay away for long.