On the day I turned 30, I woke up prematurely around 5:30 in the morning. It was a Saturday as I recall, and for whatever reason I couldn't fall back asleep, so I sat in my comfy plaid chair in the living room and downloaded birthday music. One of my favorites was a tune by the Arrogant Worms called, ever so justly, "The Happy Happy Birthday Song." The lyrics are high-larious and worth googling but I think the gist of the song can be summed up with this verse:So let's drink to your fading health
And hope you don't remind yourself
The chance of finding fame and wealth
Decrease with every year.
My blog turns one year old today, and while I can't say it's helped me find fame, much less wealth for that matter, I have to say it's been a pretty good year. Through the miracle of modern blogology I've shared my worthless opinion on everything from sitting in a doctor's waiting room to pretentiously faux French restaurants to adorning our cars with those silly magnetic ribbons to a run-in with a bear. I've talked about far-away places and up-close places. Readers of my blog have suffered through my cantankerous opinions, a couple illnesses and most recently parenting.
I have evolved as a blogger. My first posts averaged about 150 words a piece and were basically just short blurbs about whatever thought ran through my head at the time. After reading other blogs I found that I enjoyed other people's writings more if they gave me more to read. As my sister once put it, short entries don't satiate one's voyeuristic tendencies quite enough. Now, I've run into some blogs that I think are too wordy for me, so I like to keep my entries such that they don't go beyond my childlike attention span. I now average around 900 words per entry.
I've also learned that blogs come and go with greater frequency than Atlanta nightclubs or cheap Mexican restaurants. For instance I used to link to fatasianbaby.com who has since gone belly-up. Well, I assume she didn't go belly-up, but once some of her family members found out about her online rants, she put the kibosh on her blog. Sad. This blogger has packed up and moved to a different corner of cyberspace twice now just since I started reading her a few months ago for similar reasons. The Soap in My Mouth blog referenced in my blogroll also mysteriously has disappeared. Where have all the bloggers gone . . . long time passing?
Lately I've been considering adding a podcast to my list of bloggy things. The only person I link to who does one is blackgayblogger.com and I have to confess that I don't listen regularly. I did listen to a few which I found interesting, but I just can't commit to listening to podcasts on a regular basis. I don't seek them out, probably because most of my cyber-time wasting is done at work, and somehow I think the bosslady would frown on me spending the corporate bandwidth listening to someone else's self-aggrandizing mp3s. But I truly am considering doing one of my own, so if you have any tips about podcasting you want to throw my way, please don't hesitate to do so.
I am proud to say that within the past year I have yet to litter my site with advertisements and frankly I don't foresee doing so anytime in the future. I even thought about coming up with a qualifier of no ads on your site in order for me to list you in my blogroll. So far I've opted not to impose such harsh restrictions not because I don't find cyber-commercials annoying -- I do -- but because some of my favorite reads have ads on their sites.
One site I find enjoyable is theendisnow.com, but I warn you that he's added personal ads to his site, such that when you visit the advertiser checks out the location of your internet provider and flashes up photos of local whores singles. And let me tell you there are some ugly-ass singles in my area. I guess I also don't understand the whole ad thing, especially when it comes to personal ads. Has anyone ever thought to themselves Gee, that guy who writes Nappy Diatribe sure is funny; I think I'll cruise for some tail.
Before I let you go, I have to share something else I've learned about blogging. I think I remember someone else mentioning this in one of their write-ups: Just because someone's family doesn't mean they care if you have a blog. This goes doubly for friends and coworkers. Personally, if I found out one of my friends had a blog, I would dive into that with reckless abandon on a daily basis, but whenever I tell people I write an online journal, they look at me like I just told them I have an extensive phonebook collection. I've quit trying to get people to read my stuff and instead just count on the fact that I'm basically writing for an array of faceless strangers.
Oh yeh, Peaster's mom, too. If you want to know why my wife and I call her that, click here.
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