This just in: FiendishPlot is not banned in China.

This does not mean, however, that anyone from The People's Republic of China has ever checked the site out, that I can tell. Hong Kong, yes. Taiwan, yes. China? Nope.

But they could! If anyone wanted to. Because I'm not banned.

How do I know? I checked here. It's very cool. So this means I am not as subversive as Google.

I was feeling a little depressed about that -- I mean, I'm a fire-breathing liberal type! I brake for feminists! I don't heart totalitarian, authoritarian or otherwise -arian regimes! I have been known to say that Jiang Zemin is a weenie! (OK, I've never said that, but -- hey! There it is!) I threw up all over Guangzhou after choosing poorly at a deli in Hong Kong! I used the bathroom on the train from Guangzhou even when it was stopped at the station, in flagrant disregard of the rules and regulations! (Why is it against the rules, you ask? Because it's just a hole that goes straight onto the tracks. Now you know.) I attended a June 4 memorial rally in Victoria Park in Hong Kong! I don't like clothes with a Mandarin collar! None of my books are little and red! I'm dangerous, I tell you, dangerous!

But I checked, and The Portadown News isn't banned there either. So that made me feel better. Hey Newton -- who do you think can get banned first?

Site statistics are cool. That's how I could tell that I probably haven't had any visitors from China. I have, however, had several visitors from the UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the US. I can see where all of those are coming from -- The Portadown News links to me, which is where I get the British Isles hits, most likely. Thanks, Newton! I know people in Hong Kong and Japan and Australia and such, so that could be the source of those hits.

Then there are the other ones. I've had hits from all the continents except Antarctica (Thank you, lone visitor from South Africa! I owe you one.) I've been checked out by all of Scandinavia -- yes, even Iceland -- which is just tremendously cool. I'm guessing the Danish last name has something to do with that. All of the places that I visited when I lived in Asia -- Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia -- have returned the favor, which is nice. (Hmm, maybe that's why no one from China has stopped by -- I didn't get a chance to vacation there when I lived in Hong Kong, and the few day trips I took were either for work or ill-fated, like the food-poisoning trip. And the countries I missed in SE Asia -- Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma/Myanmar -- are also AWOL from my hit list.) Most of Europe is represented, from the big boys like Germany and France to the little guys like Lithuania and Andorra. Brazil and Argentina have checked in for South America. How much of that is because of the Brazilian Bikini Wax story, I wonder? (That, by the way, is far and away what gets hit the most by search engines. Bizarre)

It's all very cool. I'm beginning to see why Mahir, the "I Kiss You" guy from Turkey, put out a plea for places to stay.

Now, just what sort of link whorage/gratuitous mention do I have to do to get an Antarctica hit? Have I mentioned my penguin fetish? That should count for something....