Michael Agger at Slate writes about the financial return on blogging, and his findings validate every blogger’s secret fear: In the grand scheme of things, we ain’t worth shit. Unless, says Technorati, we’re raking in a 100,000 or more unique visitors a month. In which case median annual revenue is roughly (wtf?) $75K+. All I need is for 100,000 of my closest friends to check out my blog once a month, click on a few penile enhancement ads, and I’ll be set. So long Creative Loafing!

But wait–I could continue to blog here @ City Desk with Gawker’s pay model, which pays $6.50 for every thousand page views. I’d have a reason to get dressed in the morning, brush my teeth, shave my uni-brow, etc., etc. I’d feel compelled to offer City Desk readers my best writing, my wittiest quips, my most intimate anecdotes. And based on the page views I’ve earned thus far, I’d make about…$12 every seven days or so. Fuck yea! That’s enough for one pack of cigarettes a week and a dollar-menu item per day!

Disclaimer: Bloggers who are susceptible to reality checks and/or own firearms should avoid reading Agger’s piece at all costs. Mostly to keep from learning how much Perez Hilton makes in a year. (I think Agger may have a typo in his story, but if the number he puts forward–$111,000 per month–is accurate, then Perez Hilton makes over a million dollars a year. A Million Fucking Dollars For Drawing Semen On AP Photos. [Dear god, I haven't asked you for anything since my sophomore year of college when I came down with food poisoning and shit my pants/vomited into my lap in front of all my friends, and I asked you to kill them for laughing at me, but I'm asking you now: Let that stat be a typo.])

Regardless of how much PH makes, I know this: I should have gone to law school.

Last minute addendum: The following arrived in an email from boss-man Erik Wemple (new title: King of the Downers), which he excerpted from a Paul Farhi piece. “Newspapers that were hoping to be rescued by their online ad businesses woke up to a sobering reality in mid-2007. By then, it was becoming clear that online advertising wasn’t growing fast enough to make up for the rapid disappearance of print ads (see “Online Salvation?” December 2007/January 2008). In fact, at the moment, online ads aren’t growing at all. Sales at newspaper Web sites fell 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2008. This may be as ominous a development as the meltdown of print. Online newspaper revenues had grown smartly in every quarter since the Newspaper Association of America began tracking them in 2003. No longer.”

I don’t think I have the stomach to process a lot of the news stories commemorating the fact that it’s been seven years since 9/11—too many of them will be too mawkish, too partisan, or just too much of a reminder of sad information I already know about. But somebody’s come up with a tribute I can get behind: Exploiting Twitter’s hash-tag functionality, Twemes is collecting folks’ Twitter posts of what they were doing when the terrorists attacks occurred. (via)

Me, I was living in San Francisco at the time—home to the Examiner, which produced the best page-one on the attacks, by a mile.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gon,
Now thou art gon, and never must return! —John Milton, Lycidas

(Champlain and Euclid Streets NW, today)

Someone has cannibalized the artfully suspended bike on the corner of Champlain and Euclid Streets NW, removing its wheels. Hey, wheelsets are expensive. If this is your bike, you better come get it before its frame, cryptically locked in mid-air, is all that remains. And if you don’t mind, please leave a note explaining your motivation because I’m going coconuts trying to figure it out.

Photo by Ted Scheinman

OK, I give up. What’s with the bike fixed to the fence at Euclid and Champlain Streets NW? Is it a protest against Christian Science? A demonstration of the little-heralded cantilevering abilities of U-locks? A prank played on a drunk friend? Telllllll meeeeeeeeee.

Outside the Nissan Pavilion at Saturday’s Dave Matthews Band show

Keep it open all day. It’s very useful.

My kitchen, 8:30 a.m.

He may not like art or, apparently, mushrooms, which are not on the Pope’s birthday lunch being served as we type at Cafe Milano. (Hey, Holiness, it’s also a decent place for old dudes like yourself to pick up chicks. Grrrr…) In honor of the Pope’s 81st, we bring you The Last Supper.

Introducing: The Washington City Paper’s (Surely!) 1st Annual Haiku Contest. This time around, three locals competed in five rounds of 5-7-5, on topics ranging from the classic (”Springtime”) to the delicious (”Meat”).

In this, our 1st Annual Haiku Contest Blog Post, we present our contestants, by way of autobiographical haiku.

Tonette Hartman, 55, haiku semi-pro:

Soul like a prism
Learning growing and sharing
Creates reflection

Jonny Goldstein, 40, new media producer:

mussed hair untucked
plays blues harp eyes squinched tight tight
wailing pain joy life

Roosh Valizadeh, 28, Silver Spring, sex and dating blogger:

Quarter life crisis
Found few answers while abroad
In me all along

To the races!

Post your own haiku, autobiographical or otherwise, in the comments.

Photo by william.ward

Some vernal obsessive, no doubt a poignancy fan, has demonstrated his/her enthusiasm for the change of seasons by putting leaves on traffic signs. I saw these ones down by Thompson Boat Center. Any other sightings?

About six weeks ago, I noticed that a card table had somehow ended up in Rock Creek. Every morning I ride past this card table, trying to construct arguments for its poignancy. Is it the symbolic meeting of unstoppable force (creek) and immovable object (card table)? The inevitability of change (creek) versus the transient vanities of man (card table)? The imminent end of the poker craze (card table in creek)?

I’ve decided it’s just poignant, and it’s getting more so every day.