Poor Richard’s Almanac

Buy this blog. February 10, 2011

Our friend Ben is sure I’m not the only person in the blogosphere whose ears perked up to read that AOL had bought The Huffington Post this week for $315 million. But I just might have been the only person who asked, “Is that all?” When multi-billion-dollar acquisitions fill the business columns daily, $315 million seemed, frankly, rather paltry for one of the most popular blogs of all time.

Naturally, this made me fantasize about selling our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, to the highest bidder. But Silence Dogood quickly brought me back down to earth. “Ben, only three of us write this blog. We write about whatever interests or amuses us, and though sometimes the subject is topical, more often it’s about my battles with stinkbugs or your visits with Ben Franklin or Richard’s coin collection. Who’s going to pay to buy that?!” Oh.

Silence followed with a one-two punch: “Would you really want to sell off our blog and stop writing it, anyway?” She reminded me of the “Red Green Show” episode we watched this past weekend where Red’s nerdy nephew Harold tries to interest a mainstream network in picking up the show for national distribution. As the parody goes on, not only are Red’s usual subject matter and language censored and changed to appeal to a wider audience, but a hot babe is brought in to replace his frumpy wife Bernice and a cool hunk replaces Harold himself. We were waiting for Red to be the next to go, but fortunately the real Harold returned and said that he hadn’t been able to get any networks interested in the show before that happened. 

Hmmm, good point. We do love writing our blog! And I still haven’t given up hope for a book deal or, say (hint, hint) a MacArthur Fellowship coming out of it. I guess we don’t want to sell it, after all. But if somebody’s out there with $315 million in chump change, do let us know. Our friend Ben would be very happy to talk to you!