Scarlet badges for the Meridian, Part II; or, WWTD?

Some time ago in this post, I drew my readers' attention to some various "tools" I'd added to good ol' Blog Meridian. The astute visitor will note that I've steadily added others since that January post, and it's the purpose of this post to point you in the direction of some of the more intriguing ones.
Though I'm sticking with the "Scarlet badges" image for this post, I do confess that, as I was adding yet something else this morning, a word Thoreau disdainfully uses in Walden came to mind: "geegaws" (a variant spelling of "gewgaws," I just now learned). You can't even say it without sneering at least a little. And so there I was, wanting not just to find out yet more about my readers but wanting to do a little more in the way of increasing this blog's readership, and thinking the whole time, What Would Thoreau Do?
Well. Thoreau would have made a wonderful blogger--how else to read Walden's epigraph, "I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up," except as a call to blog? But the geegaws--the counters, the Geo-loc map, the various ranking thingies I've linked to--what would he make of them? There's no doubt Thoreau wanted to be read, but I don't think he would have been much preoccupied with wondering just who was reading him and how they were finding him. That's where he and I part ways. He wants each to find his own way; I'm glad you have found your way to this blog. I call my preoccupation "curiosity;" others, less kind, would join the writer of Ecclesiastes in calling it "vanity." Walden or the Bible; either way, I am forced to confront my motives for these newest geegaws.
My justification is that I enjoy this thing and derive much pleasure from tinkering with it to make it a more pleasant and informative place to visit for my readers and more useful for me. Those seem harmless enough reasons to me.
First geegaw: Some of you may be wondering what I look like, and so I've posted a picture in my profile. I hope that that satisfies your curiosity.
TrueFresco offers a nifty free referrers service which lists how people have found this site in the past 24 hours. Referrer.org provides a permanent list of referrers. So, yeah--the services are somewhat redundant. But that "somewhat" is my justification for keeping them.
As you've noticed, I've been using Technorati's tags for my posts for a while now. They do bring readers who might not otherwise visit; they also lead you to blogs you might not otherwise find.
If you're curious how your blog ranks relative to others as regards # of hits, have a look at my " . . . But who's counting?" section.
Finally, if you're in search of other blogs to read besides the ones I've linked to, have a look at the Link2Blogs column down at the bottom-right. I've been browsing there today; there's a good bit of chaff that gets listed there, but I've found some wheat worth a few minutes of your time, and maybe even worth your linking to them.
In surveying this list, I have to say that my desire for geegaws is about sated. I now can find out pretty much everything I want to know about my visitors; new visitors are finding their way here; and I seem to be keeping the old ones. All I have to do now is keep writing the occasional decent post.
Whether you're a regular reader or just passing through, thanks for coming by. I hope you've found something here interesting enough to merit a return.

Technorati tags:
Thoreau, Weblogs