Christmas is over, New Year’s fast approaching, and that means one thing here at the Big Bad Blog: it’s time to count down our top five posts of the year.

5: Feeding Baby

You may see a wee bit of Maggie-content here in the top five this year. Apparently we here in the Topp household were not the only ones to get excited about the prospect of a little Topp.

Karen spent most of the year pregnant, and we both read (voraciously) whatever we could find regarding pregnancy and newborn babies. When I learned that the baby could taste what Karen was eating while pregnant, and that this would influence her food choices later in life … well, I had to write about it, and let the whole of the Internet know.

4: Little Buddha

The only entry in the photoblog section of the blog — which is too often neglected in favour of using Flickr — is the post Little Buddha.

I was on a work trip in Sofia, Bulgaria, and staying in a little apartment. In the apartment was a tiny statue of a Buddha. My mind immediately jumped to the idea of a self-portrait, in a yoga pose, with the Buddha balanced on me.

I’m not sure why I do not get more creative photographic ideas. But when I do get such an idea, they tend to be pulled off well. I love this photo, and am quite happy that it made the top five of the year:

3: Heartbeat/Drumroll, please

These were actually number three and four on the list, neck-and-neck, but I have decided to combine them here, as they are so similar in nature.

In Heartbeat, I announced to the world that Karen was pregnant. In Drumroll, please … I announced to the world that the baby was a girl.

In both instances, there was much rejoicing.

2: Party Briefing: The Conservatives

There was an election in the UK earlier this year, and in the run-up I did some background reading on the three major parties, and shared my findings (and opinions) with the Internet at large.

The article on the Conservative party was far and away the most popular of the three, garnering over ten times the number of views for either the Liberal Democrats or the Labour party.

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we do not know what to make of this. Can hits to our little blog help to predict election outcomes? Or were many of those who voted Tory less sure of how to cast their votes than those who voted for Labour or the Lib Dems, and spent more time researching the party?

While a single election is surely not statistically significant, we here at the Big Bad Blog like to believe that we can see into the future.

1: Tattoos: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Once again, the top post of the year at the Big Bad Blog has far outstripped the others on the list in terms of views. While it certainly cannot compare to last year’s number one, which still holds down all our blog records, this look at lovely and hideous tattoos has simply generated steady traffic since being posted in March — as opposed to the sudden spike generated by the Marshmallow Man that had me worried that the site might go down.

To be fair, most morning coffees are unusual. However, this morning we are being more unusual by not being so unusual.

Huh?

Previously on the Big Bad Blog …

… we last had home Internet on October first.

We then moved out of our old home and into our new home.
We had a baby.
We got pooped on.

The last two things above are related.

We waited for Sky to bring us the Internet.
We waited some more.
We waited even longer.
I grew a beard. Rumour has it that we waited so long for Internet that I was invited to join ZZ Top.

That last rumour is clearly untrue — I would have said yes.

And now the Internet is back on, and so are we.

Things might be a bit lazy at the Big Bad Blog this month. We’re still in a new place with a new baby, and there are relatives on their way. Oh, my. But we’re back.

And we prove it with a traditional Morning Coffee closing — a webcomic. This morning, we present something from Savage Chickens!

Do not check your eyes. The Big Bad Blog is updated.

Also, do not get used to it. We are still on temporary hiatus, but have now reached the “occasional update will occur” portion of our hiatus.

We do not have much time for an update this evening, but feel that an introduction is in order.

Hence we present to you Margaret Rose Topp, known as “Maggie”. Maggie escaped from her mother eight days ago, at 3:08 in the afternoon, weighing 6.3 pounds upon her escape. Immediately following her scape, she evacuated her bowels upon her father.

Maggie’s first week has been enjoyable and exciting. High on poop, low on sleep.

There are many stories that will be filtering out in the coming weeks for your enjoyment and entertainment, there is only time today to let you all know that we are all healthy and happy.

And tired.

Not in general. Just for me.

When there are big things happening in your life, it makes it difficult to come up with the little things to blog about. An assumption has been made — in my head, anyways — that nobody cares about the packing of boxes and change of address forms that are being filled in the Topp household these days.

There is also a perception that while you enjoy it when a post has a number in the title, you might not want such a post each and every day.

The trouble is that, while these things keep my mind racing, they are also crowding out other things. I mean, I wrote about wrestling in gravy this week. Hardly the work of somebody with their own ideas flooding their mind.

All this has me looking forward to October’s planned break from blogging — that’s right, we’ll be taking a break. Not complete radio silence, but a break from the schedule and predictability of the blog until we can settle on something new.

But more on this next week. Because there is a plan.

Tonight?

I just hope you enjoyed your filler.