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Blogoversary answers

What about all those OTHER blogs you do?

Let’s milk this seventh blogoversary gig: in response to questions I get about blogging all of the time, both in person and online, I decided to answer some of them.

Why do you blog?

I’ve noted that I was inspired by my friend Fred Hembeck. Beyond that, though, there was stuff happening in the world and in my life that seemed to be worthy of noting, if only because they were important to me.

Some people write letters to the editor. I have, but I’m not very diligent about it. Some people write to members of Congress. Ditto. What I realized that I can do is write something in a blog, then send THAT to a member of Congress. And I have, a few times. Plus the piece stays out there is in the blogoverse.

But mostly, it was so I could maintain a modicum of sanity.

What was your goal in blogging?

Initially, I had only two.

When my daughter was born in March of 2004, I said that I would keep a journal about/for her. But early on, that fell apart. So having the blog would be my public commitment to fulfill my promise. And I have written about her EVERY MONTH without fail, on the 26th, since I started this.

The other was to write the JEOPARDY! story so I didn’t have to repeat it all the time. The folks at J!-ARCHIVE have linked to those.

Why do you blog about THAT?

Because it interests me. I’ve said before that I write the blog, first and foremost, for me.

There’s a noted TV writer named Ken Levine (MASH, Frasier). Some people complain when he blogs about baseball; Ken’s an announcer for the Seattle Mariners and has served in the same capacity for other teams. What he (or his followers) usually say is something snarky such as, “For what you’re paying, you shouldn’t complain.”

I’m not one who does snark well. It’s not that I don’t feel snarky sometimes, but rather it seems to come off as mean-spirited. But my sentiment’s about the same.

If I write about sports or TV or politics or do a quiz, and you’re not interested, that’s fine; almost certainly, tomorrow will be something else. If I altered the eclectic balance and listen to other voices, my self-censoring would probably paralyze me from scribing anything at all. And writing this, as much as anything, is inertia. It is better FOR ME to write a quiz that you don’t like – but I do, because I usually learn something about me – than not to.

Quizzes are also quicker and easier. If I have written a blog post that’s taken two hours to put together, then I need something to cleanse my intellectual palate that I can do in 20 minutes or so.

Why don’t you link to anyone else?

Well, it had something to do with visual clutter. But I kind of do anyway. My old blog, which I stopped posting to when I got this one, is the place where I keep track of all the blogs I follow or want to refer to, and still update occasionally when I have time.

What about all those OTHER blogs you do?

They’ve all, directly or indirectly, evolved from the first. When my then-work colleague came back from a conference and said, “We need to have a blog!”, I was her firmest supporter because I had started my own only three weeks earlier; it became so. Subsequently, everyone was going to do a post once a week each, but that’s devolved to me writing something thrice a week unless I have an intern to do so. The good thing is that it’s become part of the job description.

I’m on the board of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, and since I can’t get to most of the midday events, I started that blog. I’m our office’s representative to the NY State Data Center, and at the spring meeting in 2007, someone suggested a blog, and I began Data Detectives in May of that year, probably the second favorite of my own blogs. Michael Huber of the Times Union, the Albany newspaper, I’d known for years, and he started nagging me to blog there; after blowing him off for about a year, I started Information without the Bun in January 2008.

I also participate in other people’s blogs. ABC Wednesday, which Denise Nesbitt, started about five years ago, I stumbled upon only sometime in 2009; seems longer. Huber invited me to participate in Getting There, about local transportation, in October 2011. Finally, I was doing the Flashmob Fridays comic book thing, but that, alas, is defunct.

How do you keep up with so many blogs?

Forced labor.

So there it is. 2,570 straight days of blogging. I’ve pretty much decided that when I get to 10 years, I’ll back off to thrice a week. But that’ll be 2015, and if all those apocalyptic forecasts come true, I won’t have to worry about that anyway.

Embracing the blogging technology

To this day, I still write my blog in Blogger, then copy and paste in WordPress, because I’m too tired/lazy/dense to figure out how to size pictures in WP.

One of the dumbest things I ever did regarding this blog was starting it in May. That’s because there are three multi-day meetings I have to attend during the year, and two of them are in May. One is my work staff training, which in 2005 was in Lake Placid. It’s only a couple of hours from my house, but it’s in the mountains.

The reason I remember this so well was that I would rush from a work session to the public library to post a blog post. If memory serves – and, increasingly, it does not – Blogger didn’t have a mechanism in 2005 whereby one could schedule a post for the next day. (And if it did, I hadn’t figured it out yet.)

It also took me weeks to figure out how to put graphics in my blog. I had READ the manual, but I just didn’t get it, until I finally did. Now, to this day, I still write my blog in Blogger, then copy and paste in WordPress, because I’m too tired/lazy/dense to figure out how to size pictures in WP, and it also serves as a backup to my primary blog. The reason I work ahead in my blog is that if/when Blogger breaks down, as it did last year around this time, it doesn’t totally screw me up.

When I started my blog in the Times Union a few years later, I remember wanting to use a picture of Dudley Do-Right and compare it with then NYS Governor Eliot Spitzer. The cartoon graphic was HUGE, larger than the page I was writing on. I had to get the administrator to fix it. Now I just write THOSE pieces in Blogger as well.

I write all of that to say that there may be some low-content days this month. This is not because I can’t think of anything to write; it’s because I don’t have time to write it. On the other hand, I DO have some significant revelation this month.

Blogoversary Number Seven

I doubt I ever mentioned this here, but I loved Russell Baker.

I was reading the comments for Ken Levine’s sixth blogoversary about five months ago when I came across this:

“Russell Baker, in my opinion, the best columnist ever to adorn a newspaper, once said that he became a columnist with the thought that now he had the freedom to disgorge the contents of his brain. After three weeks of columns, he realized that he had already disgorged the entire contents of his brain.”

I doubt I ever mentioned this here, but I loved Russell Baker. I used to follow his column in the New York Times religiously. I’ve read at least three of his books; Growing Up, one of his autobiographies, was one of my favorite tomes for a long time. I still own it, so I probably should reread it, but probably won’t.

Anyway, I disgorged the contents of my brain six years and 49 weeks ago, and yet I’m STILL writing this blog. Some people just don’t know when to quit. As a buddy of mine, who’s been blogging about as long as I, but not quite as proficiently, stated recently, “Yeah, but you’re a tad, shall we say OCD on the whole blog thing, Rog.” Well, maybe. I’ve been known to be writing three weeks ahead, when the muse strikes, to make up for those weeks when I write almost nothing. At least I stopped multiple blog posts per day.

The one thing I did this year that made sense was to get this blog on Networked Blogs, which allows automatic tweets, and (I think) Facebook posts to be generated. I think social media is fine – just don’t sign me up for Farmville or the like, because I WILL block it – but I just don’t have the time to actively use them much. Writing the blog every day is a lot easier/more interesting to me than promoting it.

Happy blogoversary to moi.

And because I always need a song to celebrate just about everything, here is 7 and 7 Is by Love, featuring Arthur Lee.

Expect more navel-gazing throughout the month.

April Rambling: Ads about Rape, and Media

“To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience.”

In response to her strong poem, Reflector Babe, Amy at Sharp Little Pencil received a link from Anna at HyperCRYPTIcal. It is to a UK ad considered the most shocking ad ever? Rape campaign aimed at teens to be shown. It’s sexually explicit (no ‘bits’ are shown), but it is powerful. This could not air in the US, I’m fairly certain, but the problem it addresses is very much an issue here.

What the New Sgt Pepper Cover Tells Us About Modern Britain.

And speaking of the UK, How news coverage evolves. Imagine how the Guardian “might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper’s front-page headline, through a social media discussion, and finally to an unexpected conclusion.”

Goldie Hawn recalls an unpleasant encounter with a famous cartoonist.

Sex’s first revolution. The author of “The Origins of Sex” explains how the ’60s – the 1760s – changed our views of lust, adultery, and homosexuality

“ALEC is accustomed to hiding its agenda and its legislation behind closed doors. At secretive conferences and over e-mail chains the public never sees, the organization allows its corporate donors to manufacture bills and then send them to be passed in state legislatures without the public ever knowing about their origin. But these ALEC staffers can’t hide who they are, and what they do for an organization that harms almost every area of American life.” And now, corporate America is jumping off the ALEC ship, and ALEC Retreats, Sort Of, though its vision of pre-empting EPA coal ash regulations passed the House this month.

For China’s driving test, be ready for almost anything: “There are questions on the proper way to carry an injured person in a coma (sideways, head down), the best way to stanch the bleeding from a major artery, and how to put out a passenger on fire (hint: do not throw sand on the victim).”

SamuraiFrog’s 30 Favorite John Williams Pieces (and Then Some).

50 minutes of songwriter-math teacher Tom Lehrer doing a live show in Copenhagen in 1968. Includes that smash hit Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

Thought the Monkees were a faux band? Wait until you read about Gary Lewis & the Playboys. I was always a sucker for the song Jill, for no discernible reason.

Jaquandor launched yet another series, this one called the ‘A to Z Challenge’ and he decided to “give it a Fantasy and Science Fiction turn,” as is his wont. (I love the word ‘wont’.) So each entry in this series will take its inspiration from something or someone from F&SF, that starts with the respective letter of the day.

Original pitch-reel for the Muppet Show is delightfully bonkers. Plus, the much more recent Kermit’s Party.

To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience. BTW, the author in question has seen this piece.

Pop culture’s Rosetta Stone. A company known for its memorable full-page comic book ads continues to influence graphic design today.

Robert Crumb: Interview by Paul Gravett

Two actors turned 75 this month and I missed them. So here are Jack Nicholson: Unpublished Photos of an Actor on the Brink from LIFE magazine, 1969, and the website of George Takei.

Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, finally off the daily schedule after 8 years, 4 months. This means, if I keep this up for another year and a half, I can pass him!
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GOOGLE ALERTS

What could Archie Andrews possibly have meant?

Long-time Exploring and Special Programs volunteer and advocate, Roger Green, was presented the 2012 Silver Beaver Award during the Council Court of Recognition Dinner held at Base Camp on Saturday, March 31.

Everything about Roger is designed to impress and attract attention, from his demeanor to his augments to his actions. While he’s naturally piss-poor at stealth or shutting the hell up…

For The Right Price: Roger is willing to render practically any service he’s capable of, provided that he is adequately compensated. He’s not the type to turn his back on his current employer(s), but whatever’s required of him, he’ll do it.

The cartoon is from an e-mail; original source unknown to me.

Bellowing about Blogger

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

Even though this blog is in WordPress, most of the other blogs I write or co-write are on Blogger. I stayed in Old Blogger as long as possible – when I briefly switched, about two months ago, I admit to being a tad confused, and switched back almost immediately – but now, all the blogs have the New Blogger board.

My intern at work was having fits. For everything she wrote, there were no page breaks. So I finally sat down and actually looked at the post settings, on the right of the screen. The bottom button gives one the option to either add page breaks – tiresome and tedious, and the default setting – or Press ENTER for line breaks, which is what I had always done. It was my major problem besides the Post Settings box seeming to jump to the left and right, opposite whatever direction I pointed the cursor; still annoying. But not enough to mention. But that Send Feedback button in the bottom right of the screen – is there any way to get RID OF IT?

Oh, and someone else was having difficulty I was not, which was getting to the editing page of the posts.

So I was humored by the fact that SamuraiFrog was complaining that people were complaining about Blogger; terribly meta. I was amused because I hadn’t seen any complaints at that point. THEN Ken Levine expressed his displease with Blogger (and Facebook, and rightly so); I did, though, solved one of his frustrations, and he thanked me in the comments. Dustbury cites Roberta X’s disdain. Demeur got so ticked off that he gave Blogger the middle finger and started a WordPress blog.

I do understand the ire. My complaint with the new Blogger is not that it’s new. It’s the fact that it’s new and largely unimproved, with changes that were not at all intuitive.

Something that REALLY annoys me on the Internet are those lists where you have to click on a dozen or more pages to get to “the Answer”. One of them Jaquandor pointed to, the ranking of Stephen King’s books. At least the slideshow goes five books at a time, but there seems to be no book at all in 2nd place.

Now this a good and proper thing to do. That Texts from Hillary page has hung it up.

“As far as memes go – it has gone as far as it can go. Is it really possible to top a submission from the Secretary herself? No. But then when you get to text with her in real life – it’s just over. At least for us. But we have no doubt it will live on with all of you on the Internet.”