At the end of August last year, Blogging The Boys hit an accumulated 16 million page views since December 2005, when BTB went live on SB Nation. At the end of this month, we'll hit 27 million total page views, which means that in a season in which the Cowboys went 6-10 and the lockout wiped out a significant part of the offseason, we notched 11 million page views.
Those numbers show that we are a vibrant and growing community. We have about 9,000 members who have signed up for BTB, and more are joining every day. Each day, the community changes a little bit, as we welcome new members to the blog and as new voices start commenting and posting FanPosts and Fanshots. And as we're becoming bigger, I'd like to ask both the newbies and the old hands to brush up on the community guidelines page. BTB, like any other blog, has its own rules, guidelines and accepted behavior and adhering to them will save a lot of confusion and misunderstandings down the road.
Last year, we put up a very similar post to this one, titled "16 Million Page Views Later, One Simple Question". The question in that post was "How did you come to join Blogging The Boys?". This year, we'll ask an equally simple but much more important question (although you're free to answer last year's question as well, of course):
What is your game-day ritual when you watch the Cowboys?
Immediately after the 2009 win against the then undefeated Saints, long-time BTB-member ImpactNate put up a FanPost in which he asked the very same question:
We all have our own superstitions and rituals on game day. Be they spells, chants, potions or magic shrouds, they're part of our game day routine that MUST be adhered to come hell or high water. After all, you don't want to be the one who causes a loss by sitting on the wrong end of the couch or putting on the wrong gear or consuming the wrong beverage, right? But this was a huge game, so we had to scout ourselves, we had to change it up and bring out the big guns. We needed to break the fire glass on the "magic jersey" and will this team on with some voodoo of our own.
So BTB nation? What [is] your special voodoo? Let's hear your story.
Granted, some of us may have to rethink their game-day rituals after last season, because it's pretty clear that they weren't very effective. But as fans, we all know that we have a direct influence on the game, and that even the smallest deviations from established protocol can have immediate and unforeseen consequences.
When I write my posts, I often wear a Cowboys cap. It aids my thinking process, of that there is no doubt whatsoever. It is a very plain, no nonsense cap. White. A blue Cowboys Star on the front. Nothing else. No embroidery, no additional colors, no nothing. I bought the cap midway through last season (as I had to discard my Cowboys hoodie that had lost its mojo), and I swear that every time I put it on, the Cowboys scored shortly thereafter. Many people scoff at the notion that our choice of attire, behavioral pattern or something else can influence game outcomes a couple of thousand miles away. I laugh at their ignorance.
But I have to use my cap judiciously. I cannot simply wear it all the time, as it would lose its ability to influence the outcome of the game. So it is only at critical junctures that I put on the cap. Sometimes, it didn't have the desired effect. I blame myself for using the cap improperly in those situations, of course. Just you wait and see, my cap will make a difference this season.
What is your game-day ritual?