August 13, 2010

I'm Going To Be Bad Now

Some things that popped into my head about blogs, since that's a topic currently making the rounds again.

One thing of which is the blog post that talks about how much you love your spouse and all. Hold onto your seat - but I think that's really pretty cool. You surprised? Too bad. I saw one recently themed around a birthday and it was really nice to read. Seriously cool and nicely done. But you know what - and this is not about that blog, but a few others - by about the 25th post where you tell us how much you love your spouse and all, I start to feel like I'm intruding. I can't read it any more. I get it. It's not that I'm not happy for you and all, y'know, I am - but... it probably stopped being my business 22 posts ago. Just sayin'.

I'm really not going to play the "I'm posting here so I can get you to come read my blog" game. After all these years I pretty much recognize it when I see it. So far nothing like that has happened here, but it probably will at some point. If you read, I'm happy about that, truly. If I read, it's for a reason. Maybe I like what you write, or how you write, or I know you and like you. I don't post so you'll check me out - AND THEN STOP POSTING WHEN YOU DON'T BECOME A REGULAR. Jesus, yeah? Don't play it. That's why it has literally been years since I used any kind of "who's coming here" feature or app, or count hits.

Earl was talking about splitting up subjects into varied blogs and the consensus there was pretty much "include it all in one" and I have to say that probably makes the most sense. What I need to do is edit myself better. A lot - lot - of my posts are self-serving bits of tripe. And since I believe you should remember you have people reading and the "I blog just for meeeeee" is really a load of crap at the end of the day it's probably about time I put my money where my mouth has been all this time, and quit being such an "h" word.

Regarding the bit about the "you visit me I visit you" stuff, I hesitated about showing that "follower" app on here. I think it's kind of odd and that's why I changed it to "friends" instead of "followers." But the real reason it's down there is because I'm probably not going to make a link list of other blogs, and unless I finally go use a feed reader like 99.999% of the world is, I'd like to just click down there to get to your blog. Then again since a lot of the blogs I read aren't on Blogger that probably won't work will it? Oh well. Guess I'll have to set up a reader thing. I have no idea how, as I've always just used my links. Gawd...

Politics in Washington and in state houses all around the country is now driven by dogma. Every issue now seems to be life and death along a strict and narrow checklist. In the effort to have politics become more transparent and responsive to "the people" we have created an atmosphere where compromise and pragmatism are bad words, and the people who say these words are run out of town on a rail. I never thought I'd say this - but I'm starting to miss the smoke filled rooms. At least then we didn't have to listen for our code words so we knew when to clap.

And the reason that last part is in there is because political blogs are just so much shit anymore.

10 comments:

Verdant Earl said...

I held out on the feed reader thing for a long time, but it's been great for me. I went with Google Reader. It's easy and in a few minutes I was up and running. But I'm sure the other feed readers out there are easy breezy beautiful too.

Verdant Earl said...

And I've been thinking about getting rid of my followers thingy. Only because I don't know any of the people that are showing on the top page besides Sybil Law. They don't comment on my blog nor do I visit theirs, so I'm not sure what they are doing "following" me. But I get guilty for not reciprocating anyway. When I make some layout changes later this month, it probably is gonna go.

Petunia said...

I somehow managed to follow you twice, once from blogger and once from wordpress (switched to the latter and haven't completely figured it out yet). Not sure how to fix it, oops. Apparently I like your writing times two!

I'm also a fan of Google Reader. Very easy to use.

Gino said...

i limit my political blog reading to one, maybe two.

they all say the same things, parroting the talking points that somebody else has handed to them, while i prefer an exchange of ideas an opinions instead.

i like to see something different fom time to time. a different thought process.

and i think you should blog more about food.

RW said...

lol...

sybil law said...

Google reader really is easy as hell. Just set up a gmail account (and gmail rocks) and the rest is simple.
My stat thing broke a while ago, and we all know I am the ultimate suck when it comes to even trying to make my blog look pretty, so...
I am the ultimate suck at all that stuff. The only real thing I pay attention to on your blog are your words, and I pretty much always enjoy those, so, yay!

flask said...

ha! it "hasn't happened here yet"? this blog is -what- three posts old?

i followed you here from the other one. came in there by accident and was all, like, the guy can string together a sentence nicely, which makes me happy.

i read nearly all the blogs i read in reader, and only click through if i'm commenting, which isn't all that often.

i mean, with the blogs i read, i don't have a lot of time to make comments but if i'm reading you, i'm reading every blasted post you make.

in terms of read-mine-and-i'll read-yours (and odd twist on show-me-yours-and-i'll-show-you-mine), periodically i learn that someone whose blog i read is following along with mine, which tickles me half to death but the reason i read blogs is that people are interesting.

the reason i write one is that i like to tell stories (even if nobody is listening) and since brain damage left me without a reliable memory, it's a handy resource for me.

it's like i used to tell my students: i won't pretend that i don't care if you like me, but it's not my job for you to like me. it's a nice bonus if that happens, but it's not my job.

RW said...

I am especially grateful for anyone who follows the crap I write.

Thanks!

Kaye Waller said...

Reading blogs, for me, is kind of like visiting with friends. A feedreader is like a phone call--I'd rather drop by. That's why I spend my morning coffee hour clicking new posts shown on my blog list.

Dave2 said...

I don't even know how the "Google Friend Connect" thing works. I guess if that's what's needed to show my friendship to somebody, we're both out of luck!