Why blog II
Den Beste is having, well, not exactly growing pains: As he points out, he owns his server, so many of the traffic issues that occasionally take down other sites (like all of us at BlogSpot.com) don't affect him. Call it a blog's midlife crisis, I guess: His site has grown so popular that other blogs now ask to be linked from his, to share the attention his writing justly commands. And because he is a generous man, this issue causes him some conflict. You can't link to everybody.

It must be rather like being the fastest gun in the west, being called out on the street by countless wanna-be gunslingers.

For the record: I have not asked anyone to link back to my blog -- at least, I don't remember doing so. Nor do I ever intend to. I'm flattered that people do, of course, but I'm not in this to watch my page counter roll over. I'm pleased to observe many of the same people returning regularly (Hi, y'all!), which is reward enough.