Readers of this blog continually surprise me

Sure, the comments often come as a surprise, as do the places people come here from. But today, someone used search terms that about floored me: "Eugene Robinson is an idiot."

Naturally, this is true, but it also is the title of this post, which I wrote shortly after the massacre at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. As some of you may recall, Charlie Hebdo is a French satire weekly that used to publish lots of cartoons mocking radical Islamists. They don't anymore, because the guys who drew the cartoons as well as the guys who thought it was a good idea to publish those cartoons all got killed that day.

It never hurts to tell Islamists to fuck off. So, Islamists, fuck off:

No, really. Fuck off, Islamists. Come by sometime to get your 72 virgins or whatever you think is waiting for you. Fascinating to me that someone used those search terms to find the blog. Pretty specific, really.

Readers send me funny shit

And occasionally, depending upon how often they read, they send me funny shit that really fits me. Like this:

Any questions?

Readers do the nicest things

You never know what to expect from the readers of a blog. Yesterday, I received a package that was a gift from a reader who, having read this post, apparently felt sorry for me. The reader sent me a ski mask. It is green, which happens to be my favorite color. It looks like this:

Don't ask how I took that picture.

Chapter the umpty-umpth, in which our Fearless Blogger finds validation

I went to happy hour with a couple guys I know today. Yeah, I went back to work afterward and billed for some sloppy coding, but that's not the point here. One of they guys invited friends from elsewhere, one of whom was a young woman who sat next to me. We talked. She, apparently, used to work a lot at the agency for which I was working when this blog was begun. She obviously had read this post, because the following conversation ensued:

Her: There was this blog that gave one of our project managers the nickname Death, and we . . .

Me: That was no "this blog." That was my blog.

Her: Oh my God! That was you!? Because after that, anytime he said something we didn't like we'd say, "Shut up, Death."

Nice to know someone is reading.