The Variety Bucket: The best of, err, Best Off Ground...

So now that the blog is back in action, I thought I might test out a bit of a new concept: writing pieces light on hard-hitting sports opinion and heavy on, well, just about anything.

I'm not promising anything like JR's jockstrap write-up, that is clearly in a league of its own. But you will see a bit about the world of blogging, exciting news about my foray into the world of sports writing (here's one I prepared earlier) and maybe even a couple of odd stories I find lingering out there in the wide world of sport.

It'd also be nice to enter the world of linking some great stuff from other blogs, but we'll see how we go with this piece first.

I guess I'll start by joining the queue of bloggers praising Google Analytics. I've been on it since the start of July and it has been a revelation.

The tool helps you find out what sites are sending links your way, what country your hits are coming from and other bits of useless information you probably didn't need to know but it's cool to know anyway.

The stat I enjoy the most is all about which posts are being read and which ones aren't. So I figured I'd run through which ones you guys, the readers, have been reading.

Thanks in large part to the fantastic online hoops community, basketball dominates the top ten.

The South Dragons' import saga was a major discussion point earlier in the year (and some would argue it still is,) so it's no surprise to see my take on that issue rack up the most hits.

Coming in second is my initial digestion of the review, with some comparisons to football's Crawford Report. Back then I was screaming out "leadership!" at the top of my lungs. Nothing has changed.

The first AFL piece in the line-up has become synonomys with a Google search of "AFL expansion." (Or the second page of it at least!)

And it seems there were quite a few people sharing my frustration toward the AFL's grand final ticketing farce. Not that it mattered, I never ended up getting tickets to the big game.

As for football, well, the round ball game surprisingly doesn't feature in the top ten. But the highest ranked piece appears to be well ahead of its time.

The plight of the Phoenix (Wellington Phoenix, that is) has been big news in recent weeks, but here I was back in April (this blog's first piece) standing up for the Kiwi battlers. Now that they're a success story, everyone seems to be showing them some love.

So there you have it. Let me know your thoughts, even if that involves giving me a list of my worst posts, by dropping a comment or using the all-new "reactions" bar just below.