Saturday Meta 02/16/08

Well, we just got edged out in Diesel’s Caption Contest this week.  But we did carry the Australian vote, so that’s something.  Alas, we did not win a new shiny trinket for our side bar.

Also, we’re in danger of falling off the Top 30 list at Humor-Blogs.com.  The new scoring system now gives equal weight to review score and how many people have clicked on the Humor-Blogs.com widget on our sidebar to visit the site and we’ve been slowly slipping down the leaderboard ever since.  Our 66 review score isn’t holding up, so we need those clicks.   So if you’re not clicking, start.  And you if you have been clicking, click harder.  Grunt a little while you do it.

Keep rockin’ the Failure.

Saturday Meta 01/26/08

We were number one over at Humor Blogs for a brief period of time. Thursday morning to be precise. Sure, the scoring system over there was on the fritz, but we made it to the top of the mountain anyway, and when the rules of math were no longer in effect so that should count for something.

If you want us to get back to Number One, remember to click on the humor-blogs link either on our sidebar, or below one of our posts, every day you come here. And if you’re FuelMyBlog member, give us a fuel while you’re here.

Speaking of our sidebar, you may have noticed the new Main Renal Players section over there. Just part of our attempts to liven the place up a bit for our readers.

Oh yeah… how do you like the new title banner?

Saturday Meta 01/05/08

Good news for Huey Lewis and the News fans… Diesel won his bet with elasticwaistbandlady over at The Smiling Infidel.  Huey is now officially an unappreciated genius.  Now the elasticwaistbandlady owes us a year’s worth of devotion to Huey and the News. Thanks to all from the Renal Failure ranks who voted.

For those looking for help on participating in our Renal Failure Character Art Contest, check this site out: UGO’s Hero Machine. That’s how I made this representation of Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat’s fair and lovely Irish wife Marlie…

Yeah… Bernie really likes it when she dresses all Celtic for him.

Saturday Meta 12/22/07

We went over 20,000 hits on Thursday.  Give it up for round numbers, for they are easy to use as arbitrary benchmarks.

We’ve got entries to our eternal Renal Failure Character Art Contest. Pope Terry has provided two entries for our amusement.

First is Anonymous Doug… give him a click to take in his full-sized splendor…

And then there’s our first ever Psycho Dave entry…

So for the first time a while, we get to give out Pony Points! How precious and valuable are Pony Points? They’re so precious and valuable that they are unredeemable anywhere! Even better, they’re non-quantifiable.

Remember, this contest is eternal so feel free to send in your entries whenever. But sooner is better.

And if you haven’t voted for Huey yet, do it already.   It’s not like I’m asking you to give money to cancer kids, this is serious.

Saturday Meta 12/15/07

We’ve been slipping on the Humor-blogs.com leaderboard lately. We were down as low as 16th this week. Just a click a day on that Humor-blogs.com link under Popularity Contests will keep us safely in the Top Ten, and may just possibly send us to Number One. There’s always new challengers popping up over there at Humor-Blogs, and we need your help to let them all know that this is Renal Country.

Looks like we’ve got a lot of new readers to Renal Failure (we’re averaging about 100 day at least), so now is a good time to mention our eternal Renal Failure Character Art Contest again. We want our readership to email us artistic representations of our illustrious cast of characters, which now include Samurai Cathy.

Email your entries to:

At this time, let’s open the floor to our readers with a question regarding this upcoming Saturnalia season (which Christmas stole most of their shit from): Which Renal Failure character would you most want to be under the mistletoe with? And let’s not all rush to say me; that’s the easy way out of this question.

Saturday Meta 12/1/07

We’d like to thank our readers for sticking with us during the our National Novel Writing Month break, and hoped that you enjoyed catching up on some past posts that you may have missed. And to make sure this month wasn’t wasted, I did hit the requisite for 50,000 words in 30 days (with just over seven hours to spare), making this a successful NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row.

See, I have a nice image file saying I’m a winner.  They don’t just give those out to anyone.  No, you don’t get to read the novel.  No, I’m not telling you what it’s about.  Yes, I’ll probably save it to a disk, bring that disk to my neighbor’s porch, and set it on fire.   I’m done writing awful literary dreck and now I’m back to writing the quality dreck of Renal Failure.

Ironically we had our biggest day ever in regards to hits on Renal Failure during this break. We had 431 hits on November 20, coinciding with our post echoing Diesel’s call for Huey Lewis to be on classic rock radio. So we’ve learned that Huey Lewis = more readers.

We’ve been able to stay in the Top 10 over at humor-blogs.com despite the best efforts of those who killed Norman Mailer. And to stay there we need our readers to click the Humor-Blogs.com banner over on the sidebar every day that they visit here. Those clicks help our referral rating and sends us further up the leaderboard.

And for all you FuelMyBlog people, keep on fueling us. And if you’re not a member of FuelMyBlog, join today. It’s free and they’re good eggs over there.

Saturday Meta 10/13/07

It’s been a big week for Renal Failure. First, we’re in the Top Ten over at Humor-Blogs.com, which means our readers have been extra good about clicking the Humor-Blogs.com link under “Popularity Contests.” So thanks to all of you for taking the precious seconds to click that for us and send us up the leaderboard. Plus we’re getting a lot of attention from over there because we’re in queue for a review, which will help our overall score a lot. And we’re part of their front page feed as well.

Also, Renal Failure won the Caption Contest over at the FuelMyBlog blog. I will be getting a random item from some guy named Kevin’s cupboard, and I won’t know what it is until it gets here. Now if only we could win the Caption Contests over at Diesel’s place…

It was a big week for hits, so let me tell our new readers about the ever-continuing Renal Failure Character Art Contest. Renal Failure is looking for artistic representations of our illustrious cast of characters. See here for our past entries by readers. You give us an entry, we give you pony points. And everyone loves pony points.

Send your image file entries to…

And if you feel like dressing up as your favorite Renal Failure character, send us pics of that too.

Now go outside. It’s Saturday.

Saturday Meta 09/22/07

Answering the call from last week, nursemyra has sent in an entry for Mikka in our everlasting Renal Failure Character Art Contest.

We’re not sure what it means (Aussies tend to be a quirky bunch), but at least someone thought enough of Mikka to send something in.

Also Renal Failure just went over 10,000 hits since we’ve been on WordPress.  Is that pretty good for being around for less than nine months?

Do us a solid and click on the Humor Blogs link in our sidebar when you visit here. We’re slipping on the Humor Blogs leaderboard. The clicks and reviews make up the Humor Blogs composite score, so while we can’t depend on a review from them anytime soon we can at least get the clicks to boost us. And who knows, maybe you’ll find some funny blogs over there after you’ve gotten your Renal Failure fill.

Saturday Meta 09/08/07

Sad news from our blogroll.  First, MyJosephBlog is on indefinite hiatus and is probably done for good.  His last post explains things better than we ever could, but Renal Failure hopes he overcomes everything that ails him.

Also, nursemyra over at the Gimcrack Hospital lost the person she loves most to cancer.  Send all your good wishes her way.

Saturday meta 09/01/07

New month… new banner comprised of images from our Character Art contest.  This one uses the Bernie the cat entry from Daniella, my own Avonia the Wiccan Pimp entry, and nursemyra’s Ninja Vicki/Little Red Riding Hood from a French comic book entry.

Just a reminder: Anyone who still wants to send in something to the Renal Failure Character Art archives, please send it to renalfailure (at) gmail (dot) com. We could always use more pictures of our illustrious cast.

And if you feel like helping out Renal Failure without doing much of anything, click on the Humor Blogs link on the sidebar under “Popularity Contests.”  Send us to the top of the charts.  And also, sign up for Fuelmyblog and fuel Renal Failure, because the social dominance of Renal Failure depends on you the reader.  Spread the Failure!