This is, like, my fourth blog posting and I must admit I don’t know a lot about the game of getting noticed. No one has noticed me so far. My blog doesn’t show up in Google searches, and really, why should it. There is nothing remarkable to be read here. And not very much of the unremarkable to capture the attention of Google’s roaming spiders and bots.

The blogosphere overflows with compelling writing, diverse subject matter and inventive communication techniques. There are over 100 million blogs, according to Technorati, and surveys show your average blogger is pretty educated. Oh, yeah, I don’t show up in Technorati searches either, though my virus protection program indicated someone thought enough of my presence to slip me a Trojan horse while I was exploring the site.

There are not only a lot of blogs, there are a lot of prolific bloggers. “The sad truth is the more content you produce the more page views you get,” according to blogging evangelist Duncan Riley. He also once said that no one will visit pages that have ads on them. Riley was wrong about that, but right about the sadder truth.

I don’t really care about any of this. I’m not trying to build an audience, make a statement or earn a buck.

My master plan is to blog infrequently for an audience of one.

And I established forever in the ’80s my total lack of the entrepreneurial gene when I wrote one of the first computer programs for running a fantasy baseball league and limited its free use to a small group of friends. Even when I took it to the web a few years later it was limited, free and unknown, by design.

That’s probably a good thing, because as Riley points out:

“If you want to get rich quick, don’t even bother. There is no such thing as get rich quick. I know everyone goes out there and sells ‘make money from blogging.’ It’s rubbish.”

No money. No fame. Probably not much intellectual satisfaction. I get that by belittling Glenn Beck from my living room couch. So what’s in it for me? Well, now I have some writing clips to show when trying to convince potential employers to end my extended sabbatical from the workplace. I’m talking to you, Firedoglake.

And I have an activity to help me battle my growing addiction to Malcolm in the Middle reruns.

But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

In this age of lists, I want to be on one. And this list doesn’t appear to offer advice that I can, or am willing to, make use of.

So, I’m gonna try this.

Frances Fragos Townsend.

There. I’ve done it. I’ve mentioned the name of a former homeland security adviser to former president George W. Bush. When I searched Google blogs for a monthly mention of her name only 17 links appeared. I want to be Number 18.

I don’t need to be Number 1. It’s not just about me, you know. I’ll be waiting for the chant to go up. “We’re Number 18. We’re Number 18.”

Instant recognition in the marketplace of ideas.

Update: Two weeks later, this blog entry turned up as the ninth entry listed out of 240 on a Google search for mentions of Frances Fragos Townsend during the past month. She seems to have become more popular. I would like to think I helped.