Forever A Fangirl

Gawker and BloodCopy - A Marriage Made in Advertising Heaven or Hell?

"The blogging empire is temporarily welcoming a new site into its fold that’s written and paid for by HBO to promote the network’s noir vampire drama, True Blood. And the word “advertisement” won’t appear anywhere in the project’s vicinity."

I'm gonna say it. 

Wowsa.

I've been blogging in the "sponsored post" arena since November 2007, and there has not been one minute that it has not been controversial. Initially and I was late to the party by at least 18 months, all sponsored posting was baaaad. Only bad people with bad intentions did paid blogging without the blog post itself screaming "I'm an advert!!! She's getting money to write this!"

I admit I had not thought through what the ethical implications were to writing short blog posts which pushed products. I didn't think it was doing any harm as I talked about what I thought of the product or simply talked about the product in the days where I was assigned work that if I turned it down I would get no further work.

That company literally did not care what I wrote. They simply wanted me to insert a link. So for example, if I had to write about a diet supplement I would talk of the dangers of dieting and if you ever did use a product like "X" do so only under your doctor's care.

Frankly, I was glad when that company told me to choose them or another another company to work for.  The other other company told me to work for whomever I pleased. Guess who I chose?  At the same time, in fact years before, Google was getting very agitated because companies that had bloggers share their opinions about products got free "Google" juice when a "do follow" link was used in the post. That means, to make it very simple, that the company pushing a product was in direct competition with Google's Adsense when it came to search engine results that Internet users would get.

Huge no-no in the land of GOOG. Again, I totally had no idea that what I was doing was in violation of Google search engine rules. They stripped me of PageRank which is a metric which is considered to be a short-hand way of telling the world what your blog is worth.

Since 11/2007, I've made over $4000 doing paid blogging some with "do follow" links and here now only with "nofollow" links. There are no ads on this blog that violate Google's policy. I only very occasionally write adverts here and all of them have a big honking in-post badge saying I got paid, along with the non-Google juice producing nofollow links. I might add that I'm offered many posts per pay for decent money but the advertisers do not want me to disclose that I'm writing an advert. So I never write them. For one, I'm acutely aware that I'm being used (for my Page Rank! I feel so dirty!). They want to take advantage of my PageRank so they get sweeter link juice--for about a week--because that's when Google will strip me of my PageRank and if I have anything to say about that, it's not going to happen. I know better now.

If you read an ad on this blog you'll know it's an ad. And this is important, too: I hand-pick all my ads. As I said, I turn down money each day--and that's really painful, believe me. But I'm preserving my PageRank and my integrity.That's the other part of Gawker's experiment (their wording) that I find intriguing. Will they too lose PageRank? One would think that the Blood Copy ads will be in violation of Google's rules. I know I'm staying tuned in order to see what happens when one of the big guys does what the little guys got crushed for.

 

Lastly, Gawker is utilizing paid blogging to advertise one of my favourite shows. I have to be honest. I'm excited about this. I'm interested to see how it plays out, yes and I'm curious to hear what kind of reception the advertising gets from various fronts but most importantly from the consumer because friends, despite being told as we grew up that the Hokey-Pokey was what "it" is all about, that is simply not true. In this great land of consumers what it is all about is selling stuff, the more stuff the better. The ways of selling are changing at a dizzying rate. With newspapers, magazines, and television losing ground in the advertising wars, those that want to sell stuff need to be willing to experiment with a variety of venues. That's what it's all about, folks.

From: Gawker VP says sponsored posts will bring in majority of revenue one day

Entries from the blog, BloodCopy, will appear as cross-posts in the mix of Gawker Media’s eight verticals, which include Gizmodo, Kotaku, and the flagship. They’ll be set off by a border and labeled as BloodCopy posts but otherwise indistinguishable from editorial content — except that the blog is written by an undead, bloodsucking ghoul.

“With vampires, we thought we could be a little looser with the disclosure and create some disbelief,” Chris Batty, Gawker’s vice president of sales and marketing, told me yesterday, dismissing critics of the advertorial as “humorless.” He also made a bold prediction that surprised me so much I made sure to confirm I’d heard correctly:

 “If we’re around in three or four years,” Batty said, “the majority of our advertising revenue will be in sponsored posts like this.”

       

Lake Stuff, Computer Stuff, Weather, and a Shred Of Sanity

Still here at Maple Lake. Spouse and son went into Haliburton today in search of a replacement optical mouse that got damaged in the transport between home and here. To clarify we have a notebook, a media laptop and just the one desktop--a gaming computer which son partially purchased himself. There really is no one here son's age to hang out with so he helps with the slew of upkeep and does gaming, swimming, and reading. Anyway I find using laptop to be hard on my shoulders toI am glad to use his desktop when he's not to get the essentials done--though I must admit, I'm really not in the mood to blog. As timing would have it Google chose to raise my PageRank from a ZERO to a 4* which directly translates into more work and better pay and it's really tough to let it slip by. The weather has been not great at all but when it does turn nice, I'm taking a few days off from paid blogging. I just have to for the thin shred on sanity that remains.. Oh, one really good computer-related thing is that we are able to get lots of television shows so we --or I more accurately, caught up with the second to last episode of Dr. Who last night. Even though the guys had seen it they obliged me by watching it with me. The final episode has aired in the UK so is available too. I'm sure we'll hit that before the weekend. And this is without downloading anything. Younger son is very squeaky clean about such things--so the Feds arresting teenage girls for downloading Emo music must have made an impression. :p

A collage piece from The Art Hive on the other side of the lake.

Still much fixing up to do here in the cottage. My cousin is kind of a germaphobe and she won't even come in past the porch--which really is extreme--but I understand because I'm a clutterphobe. I need things organized to further reinforce my "control freak" label. I must say it's getting there-- indoors anyway. ;) * not this blog which had it's PageRank reduced from "4" to ZERO last November then raised to a "2" a few months ago.

WebShotsPro Does Not Care About Customers*

*This is an unsponsored blog post reflecting my personal opinion about WebShotPros.com paid screenshot service.

As you'll see from reading the correspondence (below) I've had over the past couple of days, WebShotsPro, the company that for a fee is supposed to provide screenshots for the company for which I do paid blogging is falling down on the job and has been for weeks. Within IZEA's "Social Spark" from which my work originates, are screen shots of my blogs. These screenshots help to give potential sponsors a look at what I can offer as well as offering other bloggers a chance to know me better.

WebShotsPro is supposed to provide updated screenshots of every blog we have in the Social Spark/IZEA system. But they never have for me and for many other people. Instead, I have a screenshot with an entirely different design for this blog (my winter design) and nothing, or the IZEA brand logo for two more, and yet another months-outdated one for another.

For example: if WebShotsPro.com were providing the services that they've been contracted to do and functioning correctly, my blogs would look like this (they remove Java and other script "for security reasons," according to their website):

and this

instead of this:

There's nothing wrong with the "Sparky" logo--except it's not mine. It's representing the entire face of hundreds or even thouasnds of Social Spark Blogs due to WebShotPros inability or unwillingness to do what they are being paid for. Because WebShotPros won't or can't do their job I'm just another generic face in a more-crowded-every day pack of blogs.

C. McCrackan <cyn.city@gmail.com>
to"webshotspro@gmail.com" <webshotspro@gmail.com>,

Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:57 PM
Subject: Screen Shots way out of date/not updating at all/not showing at all


Hello!

Edit for personal details/ referred me to you as the screen shots you are providing them are terribly out of date and frankly, terrible-looking. Since my work depends on these screen shots to be accurate representations of my websites, I am asking you to please check what on your end is preventing my website screen shots from being updated or in 2 cases, from appearing at all.

Just FYI, there are hundreds of people having the same issue.

Thank you, CM

http://www.cyncity.typepad.com
http://theloveumake.com
http://maplelakeontario.com
http://www.cynthialeigh.net

Reply:

FromWebShotsPro <webshotspro@gmail.com>
to" C.M." cyn.city@gmail.com

Date Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 7:45 PM
Subject Re: Screen Shots way out of date/not updating at all/not showing at all


We will review the database to get these updated.

Thanks
Steve

WebShotsPro Admins
http://www.webshotspro.com

------

There was no change--and no update WebShotsPro on progress--if there was any.

I've gone to their site and manually plugged in my blog's addresses and updated them myself but to no avail--and other bloggers are reporting having the same issues, too.

Though it may seem I'm impatient, I waited weeks for the problem to be addressed before starting to advocate for a fix.

Hello,

I take from the lack of change that there is some kind of problem either on your end, IZEA's end, or both?

I have to be honest and say I am highly frustrated...

I depend on my blogs to be updated as advertisers screen me based on what they see.
I also told a board full of people that you were taking care of this.
And it hasn't happened...

I've told everyone that is having an issue with their blog screenshot not updating or never being made in the first place to contact you personally.

I have manually updated all my blogs at your site countless times and nothing is reflected with the the IZEA/Social Spark system...

CM

WebShotsPro? In my opinion, their company name would be better called WebShotsCon.

Johnny Depp, Stat Counter, and Search

I'm a dedicated blogger. For the 3 or 4 posts you see here in a day, there may be another 6 on my other blogs.

Part of being a dedicated blogger is examining your search results.There are many ways to do this; I use both the one built into TypePad for this blog and an off-site one, StatCounter, to get more detailed results.

The results that I can view include what search terms people used to find my blog, what are the most popular search terms by count, most popular posts, where people came from geographically, what browser they used and much more. And that's just what I get for free! Yeah, they rock.

They also help me be better at what I do (which is write--pay attention!) because by using their services, by crunching the visitor data about Cyn City between both TypePad and  StatCounter I know what is bringing people to my blog. Do I want more people to visit? Absolutely!

"Edward Scissorhands" Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder

The first time I really paid attention to Depp.

So what do I do? Mostly more of the things I'm doing right though I am always adjusting a couple of things that I haven't gotten "right" yet. I reference prior posts, especially if these posts are either popular of I'd like to try and make them that way (for a time anyway--long time is best) whenever I can.

TypePad, would you please hurry up and offer a widget that I can activate which I can use to add the links to my similar previous posts at the end of this post, for example? Thank you!

I also followed up on a subject that is not unfamiliar here, Johnny Depp.

I'd happened to write a little post of JD today because I just found out he's finally marrying the mother of his children in June. Hearty congrats to them and their young children.

That's lovely, but it's also good for my blog and hence, good for me because (you may need to sit down for this) I'm not the only Johnny Depp fan-girl. Ooooh, no. There are plenty of people out there who dig Johnny's mad acting skillz and they do a search, see my blog pop up and click over here. I always try to  reward viewers with new/different photographs, in this case of Johnny Depp, just in case they don't see what their looking for in a post--though I encourage anyone/everyone that enjoys Johnny him to click this: Over 100 blog entries on Cyn City featuring Johnny Depp which is a link to lots of stories/photos of JD, his co-stars, and more of JD and bride-to-be, Vanessa Paradis.

*****This is not a paid piece.

Mommy Blogs, Splogs, and Paid Blogging

Recently I wrote a post, What's A Mommy Blogger? (Part One), with the intention of writing a follow-up post after I'd looked more closely at what exactly puts a blogger into the category of "mommy blogger."

What I found is that the most basic thing that defines a mommy blogger is that she is a mother with children under the age of 18, who blogs. That's about it in terms of anything unifying because there is, as Kayley Frye might say, a vasty universe of bloggers who hang the tag "mommy blogger" on themselves. There are some mommy bloggers, in my completely unscientific samplings, who have accepted that for now their lives consist mostly of caring for their kids and writing about it online. A bonus is interacting with other bloggers helps them keep a handle on their sanity (half kidding, folks).

However, most mommy bloggers in the world of selling your blog/yourself online seem very much okay with telling tales of their wee ones, uh, wee, publishing page after page of every milestone their children reach and with that material they venture forth to make money mostly by doing reviews of the many clothes, supplies, toys and so forth that growing children use.

But very few mommy bloggers despite their unrelenting efforts, are like the most famous of all, dooce.

Dooce (rhymes with puce) was documenting mommyhood whilst her daughter was still in the womb and despite the fact that four years into mommy blogging, her child has shown herself to be no more interesting, smart, or attractive than any other kid whose visage is exploited on the web, dooce the mommy blogger has been able to carve herself out a name and she remains in the top 100 of all blogs on the Internet. Kudos to her for doing so because as a "premium blogger," she makes a living from her blog.

Dooce got a real boost from the start of her blogging career by being one of the first publicized cases of a person getting fired by her employer for keeping a blog and mentioning work topics on the blog. She garnered national attention for doing so and pretty much picked up the ball and ran with it.

Last time I looked a month or two ago, dooce was still writing a monthly letter to her daughter whose age she ticks off in months (more blog posts is the result) even though the child is moving towards kindergarten age. I understand how dooce is in the mommy blogger category because not only does she write often about her feelings about being a mom and the minutia of the daily life of a mom but her audience is vast and comprised of many mothers as well.

One thing I will give dooce props for is that her website does not look like a splog (spam blog). All splogs including Mommy blogger-type splogs, are as ugly as they sound, though mommy blogger splogs are filled to overflowing with blinking ads and far more baby themes and colours than should ever be allowed anywhere. It's quite apparent that theses self-declared mommy blogs are only marginally about motherhood and exist in fact, to sell stuff. Now before I get yelled at for being a hypocrite about selling stuff on my blog, please type "mommy blog" then "splog" in your search engine and then take some time to look at what I'm talking about. I'm not linking to any splog-like or wholely splog blogs because, well, think about it.

As a person who has entered the sometimes blog-for-pay world, I'm exposed to many self-described mommy blogs, just as I am to so-called SEO blogs, self-proclaimed tech blogs, cooking blogs, contest blogs, and so forth. Essentially, a blogger can give her/himself a label and whether or not s/he is qualified to present her/himself to the world as a [insert label here] blogger s/he does, and further s/he makes money for doing so.

Interestingly, I came across quite a number of blogs that though I reached them through the "mommy blog" network, when reading their mommy blogs I clicked their links to their other half dozen or dozen blogs(!) and they were "authorities" on myriad topics!

I couldn't help but wonder how ever they find the time in the day to be a mommy blogger as well as an expert in travel, photography, web design, SEO, cooking, ect. I mean do they, unlike me, get 48-hours each day rendering them capable of producing consistent quality blog material on just about any subject?

The short answer of course, is no.

In their zeal or less charitably, their quest for big-blogging bucks, both mom and non-mom bloggers have ventured forth to become all things to all people and in doing so have diluted the quality of their blogs--though they may in fact be moderately successful financially whist doing so. Still, when I clicked to the blogs of these "experts" on everything including parenthood, I often had to scroll through all manner of advertising for everything baby before I came to actual blog entries which often took the form of a few sentences that appear to have been rendered by someone whose native language is not English. There is simply very little of substance on some blogs except the advertising. If one looks into the background a bit of said bloggers as they brightly urge you to do, they often do have six, eight, twelve blogs all running at once--and hey, more power to them if that's their goal. No one is forcing people to read blogs, good or bad.

I have to wonder however, can a  mommy blogger or any blogger for that matter, find a unique voice for every blog they write, a fresh perspective? Or are they simply churning out words to fill space so they can fill more space on their blog with advertising?

Google Love Gone Bad: Zero Ranked--My Blog is "Dead"

"Paid blog posts isn't the true reason they got penalized. Anything that competed with Google's Adsense got them penalized. It comes down to the fact that Google owns that ranking system and is now using it to leverage their own products." source

I'd been reading for years about how competitive the wild frontier of the Internet was but I never paid close attention to exactly how wild it was before plunging into the world of "getting paid to write about about the things I love."

Oh sure, I knew on a superficial level about page visits to Cyn City, about the difference between a "unique" hit (person browsing and "landing" on my site's page) and about how that same person having been counted for landing on my page, isn't counted for returning to my page on that date. She could come back a dozen times that day but in the world of "link juice" she was here but once. Hence the differentiation between hits or "pageviews" and "unique pageviews." If you are lost that's okay because I'm not delving much further. One could teach courses on this and related topics. Not kidding.

So when the (less) Great (than we thought) Google PageRank Smackdown happened late last year I literally did not know what hit me. Those that know the business however, knew to keep their finger on the the pulse of The Man, Matt Cutts, who made the decision that resulted in me reacting thusly: Google Love Gone Bad (Part III). His blog is the Google Unofficial blog,

Catching up, as I have invested embarrassingly long hours doing, has helped me somewhat in understanding what went down and why. But more than reading on my own, the guidance of others whom I'm not going to name/link to until I'm sure that my linking to them won't hurt them if they still retain a visible PageRank and especially a kind-hearted soul with the most awesome work title ever, Senior VP & Chief Futurist (for a tech company that you would recognize).

Said kind-hearted soul has now released verifiable information that "the claims that (Cyn City is) unable to pass link juice have been definitively proven false."

In short, the PageRank of ZERO that Google has forever* assigned this blog is in fact cosmetic only--but there's no way I can claim to have a higher rank as I can't prove it.

*The only way to get my PageRank "back" is to go to GOOG on bended knee, admit my wrongdoing, and delete all links that go somewhere someone can potentially profit. It does not matter if I got paid for the link or not. GOOG believes ALL the links emanating from Cyn City are "inorganic" and links such as those will come up via Google's own page ranking system and that, in GOOG's opinion is unnatural and cheating.

It's completely okay however, because GOOG makes the rules. Yes, Google's AdSense advertising pollutes the Internet everywhere you go and worse, when you do a search, Google places it's paid advertisements on the top of the search with such small disclosure that a non-savvy searcher could easily mistake the Google advertising for an "organic" search result.

Example: I typed "travel site." These are the Google results:

View this photo

Google's official motto is "Do No Evil" and it is an excellent choice for a motto. After all, if you've lowered the bar so much that you will only Not Do Evil things then you've got lots of room to do say, Really Not Nice things or even Very Bad things. As long as they are not EVIL per se, all in Googleland is good. 

Optimize This

I'm beginning to feel very discouraged with what the blogosphere is turning into for me.

Unless a blog is strictly a "doesn't care about driving traffic-to-itself-type" blog-- a personal journal with no ulterior motives other than to express themselves to any size audience--or no audience. Does anyone blog for that reason anymore? Or is it all about networking? Eyeballs landing on your pages, long-tailed posts, keywords, popular search terms, SEO, SERPs. All this business-stuff. Can't I just write? For pay or not? Apparently only if I don't care whether anyone reads what I've written.

Blogs that are interested in making money are looking cluttered with traffic-monitoring widgets. It makes my head spin thinking about what I should leave in, take out. With the predicted de-indexing this blog will cease to exist for most of the blogosphere so I'm trying to get good content up here. And be particular about my widgets. Sadly, the one I find most "clickable" is the one that I'll probably not be approved for and I'll have to take it down.

The very people who I was going to for information about what to do--"reading" is more accurate--with some commenting back and forth--are saying we have to strap ourselves in for this sea change with their mantra being write more good content. They say this and  then add, "There's a lot of bad blog content out there." Well hell. I don't try to write bad content. Why click publish? Unless it is paid, is their response. Why bother to work on a paid post when the people paying--the advertisers--don't care what you write? The answer is simple. I care what I write. Me. That's who I write for even if it's paid content. I don't always do as good job as I'd like but why do I try to write something decent when I have a link elsewhere? Maybe so the reader will consider clicking the link. Maybe the advertiser doesn't care but the content on my blog is reflective of me.

I suppose after this rant what I'm really realizing is that many of so-called/self-styled experts are winging it almost as much as I am. This leads me to believe both that some of them know a lot less than what I was giving them credit for and conversely, sometimes I know more of some aspects of blogging than I'd realized. I suppose the sheer act of producing material for this blog has given me that. Experience. And with that, practical knowledge. And I should trust while being open to new information that I can implement it--or not--based my opinion of what's best. I've been busily doing every thing I can as I perceive the big G about to execute the final blow to Cyn City. But in truth it feels like little of it will matter. Content is King. That much I agree with. The rest--no matter who is saying it-- ultimately doesn't count for much.

The Geek Factor

Found at Tina's blog

The word geek sure has taken on new connotations over the years. I can't imagine a scenario nowadays where unless one is a "dysfunctional geek," that there would be any offence taken if one were to be labelled a geek.
Generally, a geek is smart--that hasn't really changed but "geek" also used to mean  that  one lacked social skills. Though some geeks may lack social skills there are just so darn many people into techie stuff which pretty much put me into the the "geek" category by default--that there's no real stigma in relating better to some software or to people through a screen as there was when small clusters of geeks hung out together, shunned or mercilessly teased simply because they existed.

Back in high school I knew kids-- boys especially, who wore pocket protectors and too-short pants and hair (it was the late 70's-- short hair was out). If they had skin problems they usually went unchecked, and given that my high school was overrun with backwoods Connecticut kids the handful of smart people were the focus of much derision. (Except as I recall, "Brian" who was smart, cute, and blonde--and went on to an Ivy League school to become a MD).

I'm glad that's changed and former "geeks" are entitled to have the last laugh. It's a good thing IMO, that most geeks have enough company either online or off, so they are no longer cast out.

As for me, I aspire to be more geeky at least in terms of getting  more Internet savvy. I'm not nor will I ever be gamer--I've never liked games--even cards--so that ought to keep me out of the hardcore geek groups but I love Science Fiction and Fantasy and I would absolutely go to a Science Fiction based convention (a "Con")  but unlike a lot of people I probably wouldn't dress up as my favourite Science fiction/fantasy character. So despite the little icon above I don't think I rank as a "total geek"--I'm more an aspire-to-be geek.

I am taking on building my own webpage. I have some domain names--but I've narrowed it to one...and now I have a host but I don't want to rush in and I need to continue reading and be armed with as much information as I can...I'm sure there'll be moments when I'm feeling like tearing my hair out but I have faith that it'll turn out. I think that's something I've always had--a very steadfast belief that I can do it--whatever "it" is.

Fifteen Minutes Of Fame

Welp, my 15 minutes of fame are now over.

It was fantastic while it lasted but now it's back to no publicity-induced sky-high hits. <sigh>

 

Blogging wasn't a commonly known thing even as recently as 2003, when I put together the Cyn City blog. Though I saw references in mainstream publications to "weblogging" there was invariably a sentence afterward explaining what that was. On a personal level, I had difficulty explaining what I was doing and in fact, was in no hurry to give up the level of anonymity that non-Interent, non blog-savvy folks provided.

That's all changed now. It seems with my family fully online, including my children, whatever is said on here may as well be said with everyone sitting in the room. Now we just need everyone to have their own blog so it doesn't feel like a one-sided conversation. :)

I did get to a sort of burned-out on blogging period--though at most maybe a week went by between postings.

Since July of this year my TypePad Blog has been monetized in my ongoing effort to augment the paltry most generous full disability check from the US government (my heart broke and they can't put it back together again).

(To the person who childed me that paid blog posts are not "real blogging," I urge you to expand your definition of blogging as between every paid post there is at least one un-paid post--often more--and photographs--which I've always used plentifully-- "don't count" as paid posts. As is often said, if you don't like it, scroll past or click away.)

I was rather chagrined however that out of the four years of posts TypePad could've chosen from they picked two paid posts --plus a post which supposedly showcased a photograph I took but though I credited the shot and used it as it's creator asked, it was referred to as " a snapshot of my life" in the blurb. I am truly grateful however that one out of the four links led to my actual work, though sadly I had un-listed it form public view as they are summer sphotgraphs.

Does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm not. Much. :p This is actually pretty frakking funny, now that I'm really thinking on it. (I was too excited before to give this stuff much thought.) So...this is how life works. The ebbing, the flowing. It's all good.

My blog's sister

Today is Vox's first anniversary since the official launch.  What's the best experience you've had on Vox in the past year?

I've only been posting on Vox since November 6, 2006 so I can't speak about the whole past year.

I will say I cannot say enough good things about Six Apart, the parent of Vox. I just love the company to pieces and the love has been consistent since I went in search of a blog host and mistakenly thought Movable Type and TypePad were the same. They have I believe, about the same relationship that Vox and TypePad have--they are related but are different in significant ways.

Vox is very good at encouraging neighbourliness and that's been a really good experience. It's quite unlike TypePad where one is just kind of "out there." TypePad is much more for the lone blogger and this blog has turned into my monetized blog with the only people I know by name that read it being my dad,  brother, and  blogfriend Dan. Sometimes spouse does, but not often.

I was just reading through the "Home"" page (I think) that Vox had around 70,000 members a year ago. I wonder how many it has now? I realize that there are abandoned blogs aplenty but even so it seems that people are just streaming in like it's Disneyland or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So the best experience, eh? I have until 11/06/07 before it's officially a year for me so I'll name my best first year experience then. Thanks for asking, though.

P.S. One quibble. When is TypePad going to learn how not to want to spellcheck Vox into "cox"? I giggle ever time that happens. And, when is Vox going to learn how to spell TypePad?

Holy...Vox has learned--it had to be within the last week--how to spell TypePad!

I'm frakking impressed!!!

Shameless

http://crom74.vox.com/library/post/a-...

quote/It's Tuesday and I am bored, so here you go... I propose a best VOX member contest - with categories. Why? See my first sentence. The Contest*: You will vote on your favourite HOOD member for each of several categories. You will do this by Private Messaging me. I will then compile the votes and we.../end quote

How wrong is it that I want to vote for myself in one of these categories? lol.

1. 1.Best Damn Blogger Ever
2. 2.Best Comments                                                                                             
3. 3.Most Reliable
4. 4.Most Influential
5. 5.Best Pictures/Video/Books/Etc...(media)
6. Most Humouristic(sic) Blogger
7. Best Stalker (for those of you into that, I know there are some)
8. Most likely to Blog until the Nets is no more
9. Most likely to fizzle out before long
10. Just Because...

Which category do you want to get my vote for?

If you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine.

This is all hypothetical, of course.

I already know pretty much who goes where.

That's why I want the one category.

Yes.

As I was reminded many times growing up and in the years since, I am indeed Shameless.--Cyn

I'm up to Oct 13...

...in catching up with the neighbourhood.

Hope you all are well. :) :) :)

Went on what will probably be one of the last nice evening walks before it gets too cold for me to consider it "nice" Nice is when I can go after evening lap swimming with wet hair and not freeze my @*&%#@! off, lol.

/EDIT. It's nice again. It's actually balmy! I swam in my brand new Speedo tonight. Noy sexy but  I got it half price and it is functional! See:

Back --------------------------------------------------> Cobalt Blue Stream Splice.

Didn't quite know what went where on the suit so I just pulled it on and it all fell into place. :)

All 'Ya Need Is Love...And An Internet Connection

Well, over the weekend it happened again. Two more bloggers "came out," declaring their not-completely-secret love and the male half of the couple flew over a thousand miles to move in with his lady-love. Both of these folks are in my neighbourhood at Vox. They've spent great gobs of time together due to one another's willingness to fly back & forth (and to flexibility in work schedules).

All that know them are very, very happy for them. Sadly, she's experienced a couple of deaths of close friends in a short period of time and many of us felt very badly for her--though thought highly of him when he dropped everything and flew to her side in her time of grief. I hope it works for them. She 's quite beautiful, outspoken, bright, a world traveller, an artist and furniture maker. He's not conventionally handsome, outspoken, bright, very quirky, hugely into music and his little dog, Rudy.

Tip of the day

Especially when you are copying and pasting text from other sources, if you happen to have the "&"  (and) symbol as part of your text make sure you  write out "&amp" not just "&".

If you only write out "&" you may well throw off  the display of your page and your blog will look quite funky.

I only realized this today though I think various support people have tried to tell me so over the years. It just did not sink in like it should have.

I can now say with an air of semi-assurance that now I "get it."

In other news, my 15 y.o. son  (the gifted one) :) just today realized that "P.O." means post office, as in post office box.

Though it may be a cliche, one can indeed learn something new every day-- 'ya  just need to be listening for it.

Ranting Away

The hardest part of writing online adverts isn't what I'd expected it to be.

It's not the writing of adverts that is kicking my butt. Usually they almost write themselves. ( Hold your comments here folks-- they are getting what they are paying for.)

No, what's making me rack my brains is trying to come up with fresh original content at a minimum of every other post for the non-advert posts.

One would think that it would be rather easy to just pick something and blather on about it for a couple paragraphs and call it a post and believe me, in the past month I've visited probably a hundred blogs and lots of people are writing about nothing. These people are not necessarily bad writers, they just have "random" ramblings about whatever pops into their heads.

Can I just say one thing? If I read that someone is writing about their " random ramblings" I'm going to immediately click to a new page, I don't care how highly touted the blog is. If you cannot come up with something more original to call your blog than Fluffy's Random Ramblings  then I don't want to read whatever else you've got to say.

Next rant I'll tell you why I would like to hunt down have some really strong words with the originator of the phrase "mommy blog."

I'd like to introduce you...

... to two of my blog friends. One, MedQuest: My Life as a Middle-Aged Med Student,
is written by my brother who is currently out in Mesa, Arizona in his first year of med school. My brother is smart and funny though he does have the same genetics as I and therefore can be blunt, some would say even a bit abrasive at times. It's my opinion that the smart and funny aspects sort of counterbalance the other traits. Regardless, I'm looking forward to following along as he makes his way along the path to becoming an Osteopath. This is his first real blog and I hope med school leaves him a bit of time to keep writing.

Probably the friendliest blogger I know at Vox is at Dwelling Melville. My blogging friend is a unique woman who is not only pursing a Masters degree in Conservation Biology but also houses rescued animals, does pet behaviour/guardian counseling, and treats injured wildlife.

Her affinity for nature and it's creatures is very admirable and her blog is warm in tone, entertaining, and highly educational.

Both blogs are well worth a visit. Perhaps I'll see you there.

Trippin' To Ohio

OHIO.beth

Because I am a "try this new thingie (Internet app)" nut,  I have linked (click Beth's face) my new  Google Picasa photo album from my weekend that was.

I've known Beth since were were on a big forum back in 2003. I've loved her nearly that long. The short of it is kindred spirits/never met 'till now. (Example: We were both booted off said forum for speaking our minds--not in a nasty, troll kind of way, either, though we were treated as such. Boo to that place. We have both moved on.)

It was her birthday and her darling, hunky spouse pulled out all the stops with a multi-day celebration for and of her.

I was very happy/lucky to have been a part of it--it was so fun. I don't usually like parties for grown-ups but this was different 'cos most everyone was somehow connected with Beth--so it gave a springboard of commonality. Very fun, funny, goofy/bright folks--my type exactly.

Hmmm

Lessee.
I pay TypePad $9.00 a month, mostly to host my photographs ("albums"). Today however, I discover that the maximum size allowed for photos in the albums has been scaled back to only 800 pixels but that at Vox I can go a big as I want--for free. So I post here, copy to TypePad (which is encouraged) and I can display bigger pics on my TypePad blog.

Two other reasons to keep the TypePad blog: sentimentality. I've kept it since 2003 and I can hotlink elsewhere but I can hotlink up to 800 pixels in size for free from multiple host sites. So, really the only reason I'm keepin' my TypePad blog is for about three readers. Hmm.
When I have about 3 extra minutes to think I'm gonna have to rethink this set-up. It will not however include creating another blog.
Of that I'm sure.

Lake Michigan

04.02.07

Northwest Chicago

Northside

Blogs* I've read today

Blogs* I've read today have left me wondering if what I've read was posted by someone who is...

Smart. Creative. Fun. Funny. Unique. Brave. Odd. Quirky. Fearless. Fascinating. Beautiful.

Jealous. Spiteful. Vindictive. Petty. Dishonest. Delusional. Irrational. Backstabbing. Misogynistic. Bat-shit Crazy.

*When I refer to Blogs, I am alluding to TypePad, MySpace & VOX . The bloggers are probably no one anyone knows as I went off on vast degrees of separation (a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, etc.) to avoid that.

I'll add too that I find the term "BFF" dumb and further, I believe its usage makes the user sound like he/she is...dumb.

Also, never again do I want to hear the phrase "baby daddy." I realize this is my own fault for succumbing to gossip blogs (though last night I heard it used in parody on The Daily Show).

Please oh please, stop with the cutesification of American English.

            

                             

Just as Everybody Poops, hypothetically Everyone with an computer & 'Net access can keep a blog.      

Trying MySpace Code at VOX/TypePad

Slightly annoyed, just hit the wrong key on my newish keyboard and the page posted-- before I saved--gak!

I'm in a study group for Straighten Up Shampoo and Straighten Up Conditioner--both of which no one's heard of as they haven't been on the market yet.

Tried both for the first time today. My hair, which is slightly wavy, long, & thick seems stringy.

Yay.

Critiquing Mena & Ben's New Child

                               

As my dim memory seems to recall, a few months back TypePad (developers Mena & Ben Trott & Co.)  offered me as the renter of a TypePad weblog, a chance to preview their new endeavor, yet another blogging system. At the time, I didn't think much other than it could be interesting as I am always on the lookout for new and better. Who isn't? :D

I didn't realize that it was/is free too, as I hadn't done much more than register my intent.
I've come to know not to underestimate the TypePad people. I signed on to TypePad over three years ago (blog years I believe, are somewhat similar to "dog years")  as a newbie blogger knowing that some of the people behind Movable Type put TypePad together for those of us that are far less enamoured of writing our own code.

TypePad, a paid blog, has been a good fit for me. It has tremendous customer service and has gradually added a number of things that I'd felt were missing--spellcheck, more fluidity of use--but alas, no smilies!

So to the new blog. It's free. It's aimed at the "I'm too old for MySpace" crowd. It's still in it's infancy but it's got the stamp of Mena & Ben on it.

Better than TypePad in a couple ways so far: FREE stock photos,  FREE hosting of your own photos, gorgeous templates (backgrounds) and pithy, sort of Zen-like pop-up messages if something goes clunk (like you hit a button and didn't get what you wanted--when that happened just the once so far to me--I just hit the button again--getting what I wanted).


VOX is meant to be a private/ family & friends-type blog (or not--your choice).
It's  MySpace without the glitter and music player but with lots of other goodies. So far, I've said ah about twice as much as ugh--a good start.

                               

                                The photographs on this blog are mine unless otherwise ID'd (like, "My son took this") or if not ID'd, are publicity shots/stock photos.

I'm browsing the VOX stock photo collection right now. I put in "dog" as a search term and there were plenty of results.
The two above showed up twice--along with about a dozen others.
Pretty cute pooch, No?

 

And here are a couple for "bikini."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Not bad. Was trying to gauge how

"adult" VOX is. Stock photos seem to have a nice PG-13-ish feel ( though I am far, far, far from 13).                                                                                                                                                                     

One more. I'm sooo good at time wasting. Let's see...dog, bikini, (this is like free association) let's see how diverse we can be. First "woman":

Uh-oh, a bunch of skinny white women. Some in couples but generic just the same. Maybe that's why they are called "stock." Try again. "fat woman." Huh. One photo in a bikini, one in Amish clothing, neither of whom has a face. Then lots of skinny, white women and some examples of heathful food.                                                                                                                                                                      

                               

                               

 

Well, free photos are good. A tiny attempt at
being comprehensive is ...something that could improve.
There is so much that comprises VOX (it has a spell checker--even ahem, TypePad didn't have that for some time--and they still don't have smilies (bah).
Must go attend to my other blogs very briefly...more later.

Oh crud, the spell checker is having troubling spelling.

(cross-posted from Vox)

The Hero Machine Revisited

This afternoon I started fixing up some of my ancient posts. It's 2:45 a.m. now & I am calling it a night.
I started this because I'd been skimming through my "Stats" section here at TypePad and I saw that folks were linking to some pretty dated entries. Ia while back I'd put the oldest of the old entries on disc and deleted them from TypePad in an effort to conserve space.

In another attempt to not have to pay more rent here, some time ago I used Photobucket to host some of the photos posted here. At that time, Photobucket asked very little from the user of their bandwidth but they caught on to the notion that that was no way to make a living so they changed the rules and with the exception of a few important snaps, I abandoned Photobucket, letting them delete what they were hosting for me.

So to the blog... as I clicked through months of posts I noticed that in place of the original photographs or graphics there was instead nice little ads for Photobucket which looked cheesy IMO, and in some cases had pretty well destroyed the basic content of some posts. So that all brings me to checking my Stats here --which I hadn't done for at least 6 months until the last week or so. I saw lots of "hits" from 2004 and when I clicked some entries they looked like crap. So I had to fix 'em.

Housekeeping I suppose, but tedious it surely is. So it got very late and I broke for tonight but before doing so I clicked one last link--yes, I was getting rid of dead links too--and I went to ugo.com which last time I'd visited many moons ago consisted pretty much of the http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heromachine/classic.asp "Hero Machine." Now they've expanded quite a bit--though I'm still most impressed with the device that lets one be a superhero, if only in her own mind.

Daily Dose Of Imagery

You must check out this site. You want to know what the streets of downtown Toronto look like through this photographer's incredible eye? The subject matter is eclectic, yet very often familiar-- seen through his unique "lens."

Team Jesus

I thought this was a farked-up week due to the unbelievable and self-serving tripe that's been bandied about concerning the late Ronald Reagan. He "ended the Cold War"? For f*cks sake. Read your history. He happened to be the occupant of the White House when the inevitable end of the USSR took place.

Look, Ronnie may have been a "good Christian man." It seems there are many of that ilk that are responsible for a lot of sh*t. But the "best president of the second half of the 20th Century" and other laudatory remarks make me want to retch.
RR was a friendly, jovial man. He was an ok prez, a lousy father--by all accounts, a middle-of-the-road actor, a wannabe cowboy, henpecked to the extreme ("Mommy" anyone? :shudder:), and lazy (he kept the shortest White House work schedule that anyone can recall).
These are the hallmarks of a "great man"?!?
What are we supposed to say when someone truly great dies?

So in ending this mondo bizarro week, I start flipping through my Kinja log--check it out--there are a couple of shiny new additions--and Anil Dashes Links directs me to this little gem:

Son of Sam blog

Serial killer "Son of Sam"'s blog.
And like a rubber-necker driving past a highway pile-up, I click the link and there he is in all his Christian glory.

I love Christianity. I really do. Where else can one be anything from President of the United States to a serial killer and y'all are on the same playing field trying to win one for Team Jesus?

Who's Been Reading My Blog?

It's always informative, often amusing, and sometimes appalling to check the search phrases folks use to land at my blog.
Clicking over to the hit counter to view the last twenty results, I find that...
... it seems the Rance Blog mania is dying down. Guess that's good. :shrug:

However, Sopranos mania still reigns supreme with five searchers ending up at my page in this several hour period.
This would be good, but these people are often looking for the "Dr. Melfi rape scene" that occurred several seasons ago. Why they'd think I'd have pics of it is anyone's guess. I've not mentioned it until now.

"The highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive." This is a line from the song Born To Run by the god known as Bruce Springsteen.

Guys, girls, get to know Springsteen, okay? Your life will be better if you do. In the Sopranos, when Christopher answered Tony's query about why Chris was late and Chris uttered this line, it was funny in a multi-layered way.
Springsteen's almost life-long sidekick, Steve Van Zant, was shown in the scene, in the character of Silvio--so that was amusing. Springsteen came out of Asbury Park, New Jersey (Jersey is where the Sopranos is set), so the line was a nod to that, and it was just amusing that Christopher was being a smartass. Do you get it now? Kids, it's good that you care enough to try to figure out what the hell Christopher meant when he said that. Really.

"A & F" Christmas Catalog? Golly, are you that desperate for semi-nude piccies? There's plenty of pr0n on the Internet, doesn't it make you feel kinda, I don't know LIKE A BIG LOSER cruising for last Christmas's Abercrombie and Fitch catalog? And speaking of being A BIG LOSER, the winner and all time champion for that title goes to anyone looking for naked photos of children. You are sick twists. It grosses me out that you've *touched* my blog. Get the hell away from me and stay the f*ck away from kids. Get. Help. Now.

Mall phobia. Just say no to malls. Seriously. They are evil. If you can't say no then take Klonopin like I do. (I say"no" anyway though--don't feel bad if you can't.)

Women who think too much. Yup. Guilty. What do you want to know--how to think less? Or maybe how to dumb down your lady? Sorry, no tips here.

Reagan's Reaction to Kent State? Erm, lessee, I think he was president of the Screen Actors Guild at the time and a conservative--so he probably supported Nixon. Just a guess. Reagan wasn't prez until 1980. Time flies, doesn't it? Edit: Oopsie, he was governer of California in 1970 (at the time of the Kent State Murders).

Alanis (at the) Juno Awards-- Pervs again. She was NOT naked. She wore a bodysuit--a thick-looking one at that, but it had naughty bits sewn on it. She was protesting all the brouhaha over the Janet Jackson Nipplegate thing from the Superbowl. It's a very unsexy pic, but you are welcome to take a look.

Prehistoric Whales and the Steward of Gondor are cool, 'cos I dig both. And Michael Rovner border topography1???? I think you made a wrong turn somewhere.
Maybe something to do with the Mars Rover post I did a while back?

Allbritton Back In Iraq

Inspired by Vanessa's "B'lote of the Day": I had to note this for it's (unintentionally) droll irony.

If journalists are captured, there needs to be some time to allow the negotiations to work, and also, no one knows what story the journalists have told their captors. If they say they are Canadian, and it’s all over the news that they’re Americans, it will go very badly for them.

~Chris Allbriton in his blog, Back to Iraq 3.0
Originally from:
http://www.dashes.com/links/
chris allbritton is back in iraq

Allbritton blog quote in full:

This is not to engender sympathy for me specifically but to increase your understanding of how journalists have to work here. You can’t just call up a source — unless you know them well. And even then, there’s a good chance the phone won’t work. The threat of capture or worse is very real. Two Japanese journalists were killed yesterday trying to do their job. An NBC crew was captured in Fallujah earlier this week but — mercifully — released unharmed. There are a lot of kidnappings and detention going on that aren’t reported for very valid reasons: If journalists are captured, there needs to be some time to allow the negotiations to work, and also, no one knows what story the journalists have told their captors. If they say they are Canadian, and it’s all over the news that they’re Americans, it will go very badly for them.

Full blog post here

The Buzz On 'Rance'

EDIT: See, I told you.
Heh. The blog world is so easy to manipulate, see Exhibit A in yellow below. Good thing I don't use my awesome powers to wreak more havoc (kidding!)
Also, I never wrote about pierced labia--I only quoted Mark Morford--which I don't do much anymore because it appears his editors or maybe the pending lawsuit, has taken away his gonads
bite.

Who is Rance, you ask? It's a common question if one is to believe the buzz being generated by his blog presence.

I came across Rance quite by accident. I check my visitor statistics, and one day last year, there he was. Often when a new visitor with a personal blog pops up, I pop over to his/her blog to check it out. Call it curiosity--possibly it's just a sort of courtesy.

What I found at Rance's then brand-new blog, was a person claiming to be a entertainment insider, a celebrity who pleaded that he only wanted to be anonymous in order to blog about his deep, dark feelings about the biz.

He proclaimed discomfort when word got around at teenage blog places like Live Journal and he was besieged via his comments section, by Dawson's Creek-type fans fervently hoping he was IRL (in real life) "the cute one."
I was somewhat intrigued, but had no desire to get caught in the crush of fan-boys and girls.

Rance sometimes went a week between entries. My interest waned. He used the now ubiquitous blogger tactic of threatening to quit because this wasn't what he had hoped it would be.
At that time, I thought blogging was a noble endeavor ("Writing is good!") and I encouraged him via a comment or two to hang in there and find his groove. Others encouraged him as well, though there were some "disbelievers" who questioned his celebrity status by making unflattering comments.
Despite the naysayers, "Rance" decided to give it another try and the tone of his blog lightened somewhat.

What vexed me is that Rance was all about Rance...and Rance's feelings and Rance and celeb gossip and more Rance. This is a real problem because Rance is not the best writer--by far. He can't spell or doesn't spell-check and he writes the way an actor of possibly average intellect writes--as opposed to how say, a writer would write.

To sum up, Rance bored me and I stopped visiting his blog even as it was becoming apparent that I was one of the more mature readers he had. When he was picking and choosing whom to address by name, mine was starting to show up.

I figured Rance was well on his way to managing his blog and had lots of adoring fans in case he felt the need for another "detour," so I deleted my link to his blog and stopped visiting.
Until a few days ago.
When I checked my visitor stats, I saw his address as the origin of several visits. Curious, I clicked over there and came up with his old posts and my comments.
His newer fans are going through his old stuff--clicking links. And now that this article has come out--there'll be a few more hits from the fan boys and girls. And maybe the people from :cough:overrated:cough: Boing Boing who are actually spending real time trying to figure out who this person is.

Oh yeah, out of the guesses of "who" Rance is--Owen Wilson sounds right in terms of not seeming very bright and so does Affleck.
He is not Clooney or Carrey. Both men have more smarts than that and I really don't think they would hide behind a blog.
Just my 2 centavos.
-----------------------------
Hollywood Mystery Man 'Rance' Has Internet Abuzz

Thu May 27, 2004 09:48 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He skewers Hollywood and the cult of celebrity on an anonymous Web log that has spawned a cult following. He claims to be an A-list actor, writing under a pseudonym, but admits he may not be believed.

Who, exactly, is "Rance?"

Could he really be, as some believe, Owen Wilson, Ben Affleck, Jim Carrey or even George Clooney?

The answer may perhaps be found somewhere in the entries on his Weblog -- or "blog" -- which applies a trenchant wit and jaundiced insider's eye in chronicling the life of a Hollywood celebrity. Then again, it could all be a hoax.

Though Rance granted an interview with Reuters, he responded to questions only via email, using pseudonymous dead-end accounts for both himself and the reporter and never offering a glimpse into his real identity.

Asked if he was, in fact, a well-known actor, he responded: "Or a well-known actress perhaps. Just not Donald Trump."

In the blog's first-ever post last December, Rance introduced himself this way: "Suffice it to say I know what its like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries."

Rance's blog has since spawned a furious guessing game on the Internet and beyond, becoming a regular topic at Hollywood parties.

Xeni Jardin, a writer on the "Boing-Boing" blog, recently told her readers that Rance was rumored to be "Starsky and Hutch" star Owen Wilson, a claim that the actor's publicist has denied.

BEN AFFLECK? GEORGE CLOONEY? JIM CARREY?

The anonymous editor of Hollywood gossip site Defamer suggests it could be Ben Affleck -- a conjecture built around the supposed link between a cryptic quiz on Rance's blog and an Affleck tattoo.

Others have surmised that Rance is Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Benicio Del Toro or Luke Wilson, Owen's brother. And one of Rance's readers recently sent him a comment that read simply: "You are, in fact, Matthew Perry. Game on?"

Meanwhile, a Defamer reader tried to unmask Rance by researching the term "Captain Hoof," which appears in the Web address. She came to the conclusion that he was a San Francisco man who worked at an ad agency and once ran a Web site with a similar name -- possibly dedicated to an imaginary horse.

The man, who no longer works for the agency, could not be contacted for this story.

For his part, Rance offers the electronic equivalent of a shrug to the endless chatter about his identity, saying that it was never his intention to play hide-and-seek with the world...

Rance said he set up the Web site on a whim with help from a computer-savvy friend, seeing it as a "really good way to bitch about my job" without suffering any career repercussions. He chose the name "Rance" as a pun on "rants."

The diverse themes of the Web log revolve around pitch meetings and parties, the machinations of Hollywood at work and play and its fascination with sex and celebrity...

Am I A Blog Addict? Are You?

I started blogging in September, 2003 after leaving a forum in which I kept a personal journal. Though personal, it was not private. A number of forum members read it and responded to it as I did to theirs.
I knew I had a small situation on my hands when, after I left the forum, I started a blog that night.
Writing was (is) cathartic and the response from my readers validated that I was writing something worth reading. A win/win situation, right?
I'm not so sure.
When one compares blogging behaviour with that of any other avocational activity, clearly the amount of time I spent and still spend on my blog(s) is more than "normal."

My favourite blogger is "quitting" her blog in less than two months. When she started the blog it was with the condition that it exist for exactly one year. In that time she's built up a large, faithful and adoring audience because she's an ace observer and interpreter of life and she deftly manages to get her astute observations written into her blog for all to enjoy. She is also PDF (pretty damn funny).
Right now, some readers of her blog are expressing "blog withdrawal anxiety," despite being given plenty of time to "adjust" to the upcoming termination.
I would venture to say that almost, if not all of her readers are blog writers themselves, so it's with an insider's perspective that they protest and attempt to sway her into "staying."
These people are passionate about blogging. They've come to feel that she is someone they "know."
And yet they don't know her--they know what she chooses to write of herself. Big difference.
One of the allures of blogging is that one can be whomever he or she pleases and the audience, unless they know you IRL (in real life--off line) will not necessarily know.

To expound upon the obvious, blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, thus the bar has yet to be set for what constitutes "normal" blogging behavior.
It seems that our blogging "compulsions" reach further out--to other bloggers--and in some way our blogging selves merge with the blogging selves of others.
To the uninitiated this may seem bizarre.

As for me, I now have four blogs. This one is the "primary" blog. I started a second in an attempt to examine deep, dark thoughts that I didn't want to share with the 150 (give or take) people that click over here each day.
Because photography is a rediscovered love, I started a photoblog at a site that is purely for that purpose. I had been (and still will be) inserting photos into my other blogs, but this one is different in that its is purely for photoblogging, for the amateur on up.

I started yet another blog recently, unique in form from the rest. It's an audio blog and I find it to be the most helpful in sorting through life issues. So far, only one person has listened to it. If no one but me listens to it, that's okay because I can go back and hear in my voice and the thoughts and feelings that I was having in that moment.
Me talking to me, as bizarre as that sounds has been a form of therapy that I could never have anticipated.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The article below does a fairly decent job of examining some of the extremes, though most of us in the blogging community might not judge some of the bloggers in the piece quite so harshly. (The bloggers themselves have opinions ranging from complete agreement that blogging is a problem for them, to the opposite opinion).

For Some, the Blogging Never Stops
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: May 27, 2004

TO celebrate four years of marriage, Richard Wiggins and his wife, Judy Matthews, recently spent a week in Key West, Fla. Early on the morning of their anniversary, Ms. Matthews heard her husband get up and go into the bathroom. He stayed there for a long time.

"I didn't hear any water running, so I wondered what was going on," Ms. Matthews said. When she knocked on the door, she found him seated with his laptop balanced on his knees, typing into his Web log, a collection of observations about the technical world, over a wireless link.

Blogging is a pastime for many, even a livelihood for a few. For some, it becomes an obsession. Such bloggers often feel compelled to write several times daily and feel anxious if they don't keep up. As they spend more time hunkered over their computers, they neglect family, friends and jobs. They blog at home, at work and on the road. They blog openly or sometimes, like Mr. Wiggins, quietly so as not to call attention to their habit.

"It seems as if his laptop is glued to his legs 24/7," Ms. Matthews said of her husband.

The number of bloggers has grown quickly, thanks to sites like blogger.com, which makes it easy to set up a blog. Technorati, a blog-tracking service, has counted some 2.5 million blogs...

Of course, most of those millions are abandoned or, at best, maintained infrequently...

... A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research's estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs.

Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers like Mr. Wiggins are having conversations largely with themselves.

...that does not seem to bother him.

"I'm just getting something off my chest," he said.

Nor is he deterred by the fact that he toils for hours at a time on his blog for no money...

Perhaps a chronically small audience is a blessing. For it seems that the more popular a blog becomes, the more some bloggers feel the need to post....

Where some frequent bloggers might label themselves merely ardent, (one blogger) is more realistic. "I wouldn't call it dedicated, I would call it a problem," he said. "If this were beer, I'd be an alcoholic."

This blogger, who lives in Hollywood and works as a scheduler in the entertainment industry, said blogging began to feel like an addiction when he noticed that he would rather be with his computer than with his girlfriend - for technical reasons...

Describing the rush he gets from what he called "the fix" provided by his blog he says, "The pleasure response is twofold," he said. "You can have instant gratification; you're going to hear about something really good or bad instantly. And if I feel like I've written something good, it's enjoyable to go back and read it."

And, he said, "like most addictions, those feelings go away quickly. So I have to do it again and again."

...for some people blogging has supplanted e-mail as a way to procrastinate at work.

People ... who devote much of their free time to the care and feeding of their own blogs and posting to other blogs, do so largely because it makes them feel productive even if it is not a paying job...

... "The Web's illusion of immortality is sometimes more attractive than actual cash..." .

Jocelyn Wang, a 27-year-old marketing manager in Los Angeles, started her blog, a chronicle of whatever happens to pop into her head (www.jozjozjoz.com), 18 months ago as an outlet for boredom.

Now she spends at least four hours a day posting to her blog and reading other blogs. Ms. Wang's online journal is now her life. And the people she has met through the blog are a large part of her core of friends.

"There is no real separation in my life," she said...

"Sometimes (though) you get really particular with the kind of link you want, so you search a little more, then a little more, then you want to see what other people are saying about that link you chose," he said. "And before you know it, some real time has passed."

Others find they are distracted to the point of neglectfulness. Tom Lewis, 35, a project manager for a software firm in western Massachusetts who has a photo blog (tomdog.buzznet.com/user), has occasionally shown up "considerably late" for events and has put off more than a few work-related calls to tend to his blog.

Mr. Jarvis characterizes the blogging way of life as a routine rather than an obsession. "It's a habit," he said. "What you're really doing is telling people about something that they might find interesting. When that becomes part of your life, when you start thinking in blog, it becomes part of you."

The constant search for bloggable moments is what led Gregor J. Rothfuss, a programmer in Zurich, to blog to the point of near-despair. Bored by his job, Mr. Rothfuss, 27, started a blog that focused on technical topics...

For months, Mr. Rothfuss said, he blogged at work, at home, late into the night, day in and day out until it all became a blur - all the while knowing, he added, "that no one was necessarily reading it, except for myself."

When traffic to the blog, greg.abstract.ch started to rise, he began devoting half a day every day and much of the weekend to it. Mr. Rothfuss said he has few memories of that period in his life aside from the compulsive blogging...

He still has the blog, but posts to it just twice a week, he said, "as opposed to twice an hour." He feels healthier now. "It's part of what I do now, it's not what I do," he said.

Suffering from a similar form of "blog fatigue," Bill Barol, a freelance writer in Santa Monica, Calif., simply stopped altogether after four years of nearly constant blogging.

"It was starting to feel like work, and it was never supposed to be a job," Mr. Barol said. "It was supposed to be an anti-job."

Even with some 200 visitors to his blog each day, he has not posted to his blog since returning from a month of travel.

Still, Mr. Barol said, he does not rule out a return to blogging someday.

"There is this seductive thing that happens, this kind of snowball-rolling-down-a-hill thing, where the sheer momentum of several years' posting becomes very keenly felt," he said. "And the absence of posting feels like - I don't know, laziness or something."

Tim Gnatek contributed reporting for this article.

Missing

Here I've been thinking that my blog buddies--all of them-- have been taking a rather long break.
Today, I got suspicious and used my "regular" link to Vanessa's weblog and lo and behold, she recounts that she's miffed that Kinja is not (or has not been) functional of late.
Gadzooks!
Turns out everyone's been writing but because I trusted bad Kinja to pull up my favourite blogs each time a new post was published with one-click ease, taking the "effort" out of visiting blogs, and hasn't been doing it's job...grrr. Guess I'll search for people manually like in the old days. :sigh:

New Blog

I started an audio blog today--for FREE!

If nothing else, listening to how awful I sound will help me clean up my speaking voice--at least the one I use when talking to myself. I must have said "um" a hundred times in the five-minute clip that one is given each time one records.
Must remember during pauses to say nothing.

The audio blog is to remain private.
Not going to do the poor-me thing because I love "here," but I can't say what I think/feel about a number of things.
And that's my own fault, as I've freely shared this address.
Everyone needs a private spot and though this is my personal spot it's a long way from private.

That lasted a long time.
Is that sarcasm dripping over there?

I :Heart: The Sun (Personal)

I'm really busy with off-line life, atm. We had a kickass great sunny/windy day today. I rode my (zinc yellow, not red) pony car  with her top down , to McHenry County (near Wisconsin's border with Illinois--sort-of) to visit my friend and get to my hair cut. Actually, driving from here to there and back (again)--then around some more--I can  honestly say I worked on a little patch of "tan"' on my arm. I :heart: the sun--as we all should (in a sun-block and hat wearin' kind of way). I've not had much on-line time of late, because of the Comcast cable connection plus the "D-Link" router and our two XP'd Dell computers not playing nicely together. This meant dealing with much funkiness from both desktops, plus off-line commitments--fun, work, & generic stuff-'ya-hafta-do, and it's given me time to ponder. (Don't worry, I didn't "think too much," as I'm a woman and that might lead to depression .) Anyway, I'm thinking that the Internet can be quite a candy store and having our fix unavailable...was an interesting period--definate up & downsides. I haven't been in writing mode--so I'm going to post some pics instead--a Pic of the Day will go up...I have a couple of nice ones to share.

Stupid Angry Canajun's Big Six

The Big Six

I'm dedicating this to a friend of mine acquaintance irksome mosquito-like blog-stalker.

Some days, Life confuses me for a martini. I end up shaken, not stirred. Today is one of those days. So much material, so little motivation (yawn), so few brain cells with active synapses. But enough about me. What are the absolute essentials to reaching the heights of blog fame? Naturally you look to a stupid angry canajun to solve this burning question:

1. Emphasize that you're a moron. There are so many ways to do this. Don't limit yourself to multiple fonts of hideous colours on garish backgrounds.

I take great pride in being considered a moron. It's a talent that I come by naturally. That, and cutting and pasting.

2. Apologize profusely if you miss posting for an entire hour. Oh my gord. The blogworld barely existed while you were gone. What were you thinking? Apologies don't feed the bulldog, mister.

Eh, feck it. There's a really great blog over at Live Dead Journals elsewhere. Go read it.

3. Post every scary email you receive because gord knows no one would send an urban legend to the one who runs the blogworld.

I haven't really received any scary email, but I'm sure I will now. And I'll be sure to post it.

4. RaNdom caPitaliZation is the key to issuing coded messages to the Mothership. Communication is vital in these end times.

Guilty, but only because I can't tty[pe to save my skin.

5. Tell us you're giving up blogging. Tell us regularly. Oh my gord. The blogworld won't function if you quit.

Okay, so I was feeling really frustrated with a stalker-type and I may have once or twice expressed my ahem, discouragement. But I'm all over that now. Really.

6. Wax vitriolic about any blogger who is older/younger/more educated/less educated/richer/poorer/taller/shorter/uglier than you. Don't waSte keYstroKes commenting on the concepts. Cut straight to the heart of the matter – the very things that define blogging.

Vitriolic is a kind of strong word...okay so I've complained about this psycho-stalker person, who still thinks that everything I write is about "it" when in fact, I am only right now referring to it. No, I'm not. That would be vitriolic.

Anil Dash Rocks

Anil Dashes links are cool. Here are two from today. He usually has five or ten a day.

blogging while trapped in the subway

Mars rocks once 'water drenched'

The rocks are being studied intensively by Opportunity
Nasa says its Mars rover Opportunity has shown unequivocally that the Red Planet had the right conditions to support life some time in its history.
The rover has revealed the rocks at its landing site were once in contact with substantial amounts of liquid water.

"These rocks were modified in liquid water and may have been precipitated in water," said scientist Steve Squyres.

Between The Lines

Last night (or more accurately this morning, as I keep a vampire's sleeping schedule) I spent several hours perusing the archives of a blogger whom I've only known of for a few months.
In that time, I've read of her continuing emotional and financial recovery from the dissolution of a relationship of nearly a decade.
The writer has not detailed what happened that caused the relationship to founder, so in hopes of gaining perspective I went searching though her blog's archives to get some background.

One sentence.

That's what she wrote initially and for some time thereafter of the break up.
What she did write of in a rather profuse manner was of virtually drowning in food and drink--an attempt she later acknowledged, at getting though this bleak time. Her writing during this post break-up period to be charitable, was unremarkable. She alluded to having often been either hung over or drunk when making some of the entries so this sums up the why of it pretty neatly.

The writer I know of--the writer of the present--is easily among the best of the bloggers I've read. Her writing is of a caliber far beyond that of many scribes who are regularly published in books or magazines.

So in reading of those dark days, I was rather surprised that despite having had so much material for her blog, that she used none of it. Only months later did she write in an overt way about how much she didn't reveal of herself--ever.
This acknowledgment came within an entry that mentioned the emails she'd received in the previous months. Some of her readers made allusions to her being a "party girl," while others looked deeper, connected the dots, and saw that she was in great pain.

Thankfully, the writer seems to be past the worst of her recovery from becoming single again.
Having waded through so much of her documentation of her life, I feel I "know" her better. She seems more vulnerable--there's less bravado (though her kind of bravado must be read to be appreciated). I know more of what she wants me to know.
Though I lack her sharp writing skills, we do have in common a desire to not document the depths of our psyches and only apologetically do we offer the mundane details of our lives. Sometimes I wonder if I'm shortchanging myself by not exploring my feelings in more depth. I've come to the conclusion that what I write is within my comfort zone.
And I strongly concur with the writer--one only reveals as much as they wish--the blank spaces are for the reader to fill in.

(A Thank You) To "Broad" and Lakkris

I just spent some time catching up on some favourite blogger's posts, commenting here and there.
One entry in particular resonated with me. Broad At Bat wrote of how she grew up feeling as if it wasn't her place to burden others with her feelings. She grew up in a stoic Scottish family (same as me--at least we behaved as if we were fully Scottish) except for her mother, who was the martyr. Ditto here. She wrote of how much of the child she used to be--the one that always waited for someone to ask how she was (she never volunteered) the one who believed if no one asked, then they didn't care--how much of that child she still carries with her.

It's so very true. Our families are the first place we learn to communicate. Many families don't do such a great job of it so on through the generations these peculiar ways of communicating get passed. "Broad" commented too that her perceptions were filtered through her own perspective--they weren't necessarily precisely factual.
But our perceptions are our reality, until someone/thing helps us to realize that they may be faulty or slightly distorted.

"Broad" struck a strong chord with me, not so much about my current relationship with my family of origin or even the family I've made, but with some of the on-line community with whom I associate. Not only have I been colouring situations with my own lenses but I've been reacting out of proportion to the situations.

I don't think I would have been as willing to see the parallels between Broad's blog entry and my recent web-based struggles if it weren't for four words that a friend left in my comment section. "Shouldn't you just be?" was his query in response to my hand wringing about (perceived) on-line dilemmas.
Very simple words, which cut right to the heart of the matter and snapped me to attention, opening up my mind to other possibilities. So to Broad at Bat who I only recently discovered, and to lakkris whom I believe to be one of the most balanced, sensible individuals I've ever had the honour of calling friend, thank you both for the reality check.

Fat Pixels and Unique Visitors

Been fretting about my "overages" in bandwidth and disc space usage here at TypePad. They have me projected to go over the bandwidth by 22% this month! I'm already up to almost 40% of my disc space too.
I spent hours last night/this morning taking down photos and saving them on Cd-R's and deleting photo albums. Most important is taking down each pic individually and shrinking the size of the pixels. Fat pixels is/are the root of my disc space problem but until I found the software editor I'm using as of 2 weeks ago, I didn't have the resources to do anything about it and still have presentable photos.

This is so time-consuming. I feel guilty not tending to other tasks and I'm tired 'cause I'm obsessing about getting the TypePad numbers down.

This is all petty stuff I know--in the larger picture--but my life is full of smaller pictures--
like a major debate going on at Urban75 about starting a womens forum. I know it can work. I saw it work very well at another forum and since Urban75 is so testosterone-charged it would be a relief to have a women's space. But no, a huge argument broke out--and these people have a different style of disagreeing. They basically just tell you to fuck off and I know it's not really personal, but still... I don't know why I give a shit, actually.

Another crappy on-line thing is that a blogger I just discovered--totally wonderful writer, poet, sensitive, music-loving, thinking person--is quitting blogging.
Phooey!

I think I need to vacate this chair and do some yoga.

"Mommy" Rant

Here's what those in the profession would call an "issue," one that I probably shouldn't be ruminating on in my blog. I love being a mom, but I hate to be solely defined as one. I won't even click on blogs with "mommy" or some other derivation in their title. I just think it's the most unsexy, boring-sounding moniker for ones blog--plus it implies a kind of cliquishness. If you are a mommy, come join. Meh! I'm a mommy, right, but f*ck, I'm a woman, a trained clinical counselor, a Canadian, a wife, sister, daughter, an amateur photographer, a blog junkie, a reader, a writer, a swimmer, a practitioner of yoga... But the "mommy" blogs--just their titles make me want to 'url. Sure your kiddies are important to you--as they should be--but to define yourself by the fact that you can reproduce? All my mommy issues come bubbling up and the feminist in me cringes. EDIT: As usual, my timing is impeccable (insert heavy sarcasm). I read one of the best blog entries ever today, and it's by a new mom.

Blog keeping

Just spent a few hours going through all my previous posts looking for dead links, rexxed piccies, and bad sentence structure.
Found a little of everything.

Those "in the know" say that bloggers should check their entire blogs periodically, so who am I to argue?
I link with enough frequency and get linked to as well (no pretenses--most come from search engines), that I'd hate to think I was pissing people off when they click over here and find a whole lot of nothing.

Anyone reading this is most likely a blogger so I would guess that I'm belaboring the obvious when I say there's a lot of upkeep for those at all invested in their blog.
This thing is an extension of me. I attempt to look presentable when I go out, so my blog should as well.

As I went through my older posts I realized that my blog started off as more of a journal and has morphed into a photo/journal/link entity.
I think this is happening for at least two reasons. First, my involvement in photography and photographic manipulation has grown quite a bit. If I had to pick a reason I'd say that Heather Champ has a lot to do with it. While her photoblog reflects her excellent eye, The Mirror Project (also hers) is a simply brilliant idea that helps photo-taking types remember to bring their cameras with them when going anywhere "just in case" the right opportunity arises.
My blog/journal/website has changed too, because I don't have the desire at this time to chronicle my daily feelings. There's a lot going on besides my little life and mostly it's a whole lot more compelling.

So back to my blog and the time I spend on it. I feel an obligation to keep it fresh. Stuff does comes up in my off-line life, just like in everyone else's and I'll neglect it a wee bit, but truth be told I'm probably as serious about it as I would be if I were getting paid. Maybe more so, as it is a labour of love.

BURIED LEAD

Not everyone is able or even wants to post frequently and I understand that (I suspect these people lead far more interesting lives than me), but I'd like anyone who I have removed from my links column to know that this is usually done if you stop posting for around a week. Because it's important to me that when readers click they get something fresh, I'll temporarily take down a link if a blogger takes a hiatus from their blog. I've done this a couple of times and then I forgot to put the link back up. It's not personal, I just have a sieve-like brain.

I'm grateful for every "unique" click to this page. I take none of it for granted. Perhaps I should lighten up, but I'm not ready to yet.

Signing off...

--Cyn

The Sum Of Our Parts

For a number of reasons I am rather particular about with whom I choose to communicate. These reasons may not stand up to what is most honourable, emotionally healthy, or parent-approved, as I can be as mixed-up as the next person. I have an awareness of most of my "issues," but not all. When trouble brews in real life or on-line though, I can be fairly certain that one or more of my issues will be brought to the fore. It's rather humbling to face ones shortcomings, even more so to state them publicly, so I shan't go on at length. I am insecure, vain, reactionary/hot tempered, and have a large, fragile ego. When I bump heads with another female with similar characteristics there tends to be major warfare, hence I rarely associate with women like me.  There was a time that I worked mightily to banish these traits. Ultimately I achieved only temporary success. I came of age in the eastern U.S. in the 1970's. The first half of that decade was essentially an extension of the  60's--same war, same president, pretty much the same vibe in the counter-culture as there'd been in the late 1960's. The Woodstock festival is a good, short-hand way to illustrate the counter-culture stereotypes of the late 1960's. One of the prevailing themes of the original Woodstock was "be mellow, love your neighbour, peace out, man." I strove to embrace these values as the country moved into the 1980's and I moved from my teens in Connecticut into adulthood in southern California. I embraced them for as long as my contrary nature would allow, then I gradually began allowing the above-mentioned traits to show their ugly visages. Alas, we are not "traits;" we are the sum of our parts. Oftentimes, on-line traits tend to bubble up to the surface and overshadow the person as a whole. This is mostly due to the limits of the medium. So the point of this post? I'm not entirely sure. I think it has to do with getting in a snit over who did what to whom, feelings getting hurt, ongoing vindictiveness and a desire to have it be over. To rise above the morass and go on to things that matter.

The Blorgy-meister speaks

...and he wants to hear from you!

Living In An Insulated World

This is more than a "pet peeve," it is a major (blog-related) annoyance. I just went to read a post that was rated highly on a post-rating site.

I clicked over to the post and I cannot make out any of the frelling, tiny type.
Is this because the person who wrote it is fortunate enough to be typing on a big-ass screen with big-ass settings?!
If so, bully for him/her, but unless you take us "unfortunates" into consideration, we won't--can't-- read your posts.

And pul-eeze, I know I can change my settings, but why would I when 95% of the pages read just fine?
Elitists. Phooey!

AndrewBlog: Making a Good Blog for Dummies

AndrewBlog: Making a Good Blog for Dummies

Stumbled across this blog entry in the early morning hours while I was consuming info about the Bloggie nominees. This one is nominated for Best Weblog Entry About A Weblog...or something.
It's good--would've loved to have had it as a guideline 4 months ago when I started blogging, but it's got relevant info for any on-line writer.

Bloggies/Belle De Jour

I stayed up 'till 3 a.m. this morning perusing almost all the nominees for the Bloggies.
I regret the loss of sleep but not the info. I gathered whilst doing so.

If nothing else, the Bloggies awards have served to bring attention to some blogs/journals/websites that one might not come across otherwise. Mea culpa on my premature assessment of their worth.

I was familiar with perhaps a half dozen of the Bloggies nominees. Recently however, I went through the blogs/journal/websites list and removed the ones that though possessing some merit, were not compelling enough for me to wedge into my reading/responding schedule.
After spending several hours perusing the Bloggies website, I'll again be redoing my reading list, though adding to it this time.

*Belle De Jour,* the recent winner of best blog "overall" in the UK, was one of those culled. In reading the Bloggies nominee list, I see that her journal is again in the running for the "best of."

Belle de Jour. "De Jour" means "of the day," no? Therefore her journal means "popular girl of the day?"
Apt title.

A few weeks ago, after reading of her UK win, I decided to check her out. I read some of her past posts as well as keeping up with the current ones for a week or so.

She's nothing special. Oh okay, she's a prostitute who writes about engaging in the life of a prostitute and she can string a sentence together (which puts her in the upper 20% of journals in the blogosphere).
But is her blog "the best" in the UK?
Erm, no.
Emphatically no.

Belle sells her body and writes about it.
It's porn.
What's the big deal? There's porn everywhere on the Internet.

I think the big deal is that the majority of Internet users are men and men have elevated Belle, a journal that at best is "good," to exalted status, because they get off on it.

In my heart of hearts, I don't think most women want to read about the techniques of fisting, that Belle is quite happy to offer. My reaction to the word, never mind contemplating the act, is slight nausea and recollections of what a child's head moving through the same space feels like.

I'm not a prude when it comes to porn. At one time I was a member of a forum with a large porn base because I was curious about the "Titty Board." And porn has an allure to it, most definitely. I was drawn to the porn pages for about 2 months but predictably, the novelty wore off after seeing the same themes repeated again and again--and done none-too-creatively, I might add. I lost interest.

Belle De Jour is a porn writer who just happens to live a pornographic life. She is much like a blogosphere version of a reality show. She is a flavour of the moment, not "32 flavours and then some."

She too, will either grow weary of it, or all but her hard-core (no pun intended) fans will.

Until then, all of you that would rather spend time reading about "fisting" than anything Sarsaparilla Vanessa writes, more power to 'ya. When you get bored with Belle though, consider reading some real writing.