I navel gazed the other day at trends for my blog.  What could be a more wonderfully narcissistic way to end a year of narcissistic blogging? And yes, I did this in April when I had a full year of blogging under my belt, but I am now moving to the calendar year.

The posts that got the most hits (biased by those posts that had a break and are thus measured differently than those sans break):

1. Hogwarts Houses from July 2009.  JK is still more popular than ever, and references to her work get attention.
2. Lost League Draft: pushed to the top by the need for players to reload to find who got drafted as the draft went along.
3. Transport Debate.  Discussion spawned by Big Bang Theory about coolest form of transport. 
4. Mila Oh Tribute.  Mila had a lot of friends in Montreal and on the net.
5. Ranking Star Wars.  George Lucas's contribution will always lead to more hits.  Will need to think about trilogies in the new year.
6. Resources in Afghanistan.  Funny thing is this post about an article about lots of minerals in Afghanistan got picked up by right wing bloggers.  Very confusing.
7. Devil Replies.  Lots of folks enjoyed this re-posting of a mock letter by Satan to Pat Robertson after Pat blamed the Haitian disasters on a past dealw tih the devil.
8. You Know You Have Made It.  Re-posting of a video where the Simpsons mock McGill and mock the whole idea of being the Harvard of Canada or the something of something.
9. Lost Fantasy Game.  More lost game stuff.

Top Ten Countries Visiting My Blog:  the big surprise would be Hungary at #5 but I have a pal at Central European University so she may be bumping up the stats.  Given how little I talk about Brazil or anything in Latin America, I am surprised but pleased about the hits coming from Brazil.

1. Canada
2. US
3. UK
4. Australia
5. Hungary
6. Spain
7. India
8. Germany
9. Brazil
10. France

Sources:

1. Direct--folks who put in saideman.blogspot.com
2. Google: no surprise.
3. Blogger: no surprise since it hosts the site.
4. Facebook: no surprise since I link frequently from my FB status.
5. Twitter: I have increasingly tweeted links to the blog.
6. My home page
7. Poli Sci Rumor Mill: I am one of the few folks on this site that self-identify.
8. Drezner.foreignpolicy.com.  Dan Drezner has one of the most popular IR scholar sites on the web and has a somewhat similar sensibility (Zombies), so when he links to me, it boosts my hits a lot.
9. Jacob Levy.  Colleague at McGill who is prominent political theorist.  We have in common ... geekery.
10. Chowhound.  Entirely due to Mila Oh's wide circle of friends.
11. Bing.  Another search engine.

 Non-Saideman search words:  My favorite is number ten. 

1. Hogwarts houses
2. Lost
3. Superhero city banned in Utah
4. Ranking Star Wars Movies
5. Quebec bill 101
6. List of Obsolete items
7. Worst American generals
8. Patriotic Militia of Quebec
9. South Africa World Cup Aftermath
10. Cheesy Quotes

Most Comments on non-Lost related Posts:

1. Canada Might Have Undercurrent of Anti-Americanism 9
2. Another Crisis Excuse 7
3. Confused About GOP Strategy 6
4. Threats and Responses 6
5. Sucking Up is Sucking More  5
6. Civil War Revisited 5

It has been a fun year of spewing.  I did run out of energy and ideas towards the end of the year (hence heaps of lists about the year).  With the repeal of DADT and the end of Lost, I am not sure what I will have to Spew about in 2011.  To be sure, the world remains an interesting place and I will aim to think a bit more (and remove the typos more) as I post about IR, civil-military relations, ethnic conflict and pop culture in the new year.  As always, I am open to suggestions.

Happy holidays and safe travels.