The Return to Blogger

I am back to Blogger after an absence of almost seven years.  Frankly, I didn't have that much to say.  My old blog was basically a mess of self-indulgent garbage, interspersed with the occasional enlightened tract (usually the result of too much drinking).  So, not much has changed.

What HAS changed is the pervasiveness of blogging.  It seems like there is a blog for everyone and everything these days.  What has also changed is the ease of accessing other blogs.  On Blogger, for example, you can just click on the "Next Blog" link at the top and it takes you to (guess what?) the next blog.  I tried this link when I first got started on here again, and it took me to a reasonably insightful blog by a young woman working in mid-town Manhattan. Nice neighbor, I thought.  She probably has intelligent and thoughtful readers who may click over and view mine.  A few days later, I clicked on the "Next Blog" link to visit my neighbor blog, and found myself at a very dark and disturbing German shrine to 80s death metal.  I never knew you could do THAT with weinerschnitzel!  Once I scrubbed my eyes out with Ajax, I came to the realization that the "Next Blog" button takes you to a RANDOM blog, and not the same one each time.  There goes the neighborhood.

I thought it might be fun to click the "Next Blog" button a few times and jot down a few notes about what I find.  I've opened a new tab in my trusty Chrome browser, so off we go to explore the neighborhood as it is currently configured.

#1-Killer Bee 89.3.  Terrific.  A radio station playing "today's best music" (likely a very short playlist).  I worked in radio for eleven years starting when I was 15, and have continued to keep tabs on it ever since, so I know a thing or two about this.  Any station that far down the FM dial is either A) a public radio station, B) a public access station, C) a college station, or D) a pirate out of some guy's basement apartment.  My guess here is D).  It's not a blog so much as a site for a station that apparently no one listens to.  The construct of the site is not terrible, I have to admit.  The streaming feature indicates right now that there are two listeners.  In other words, the dj and me.  Given the hideous Katy Perry song cracking across my speakers right now, that number will very soon be down by one.  Let's move on, shall we?

#2-Welcome to Tabbed Browsing (Subtitled: This is a snail who wish to be somebody).  Ooooooookay.  Evidently, a very sad, homesick, gay fellow's blog.  I have absolutely nothing against the sad, the homesick, or the gay, or even the sad, homesick and gay. I do have something against melodramatic whining. I am trying to envision a circumstance that would make me want to visit regularly to read things such as the following, in the most recent post: "Been to here and there for a month plus now. Saw a lot and exposed to a kind of life that I never knew I could fit in few years back. But to tell the truth, my life is not bad. At least I am looking for every tomorrow to come. There might not be sunshine tomorrow but to know there are people around you to walk through it with you is enough. More than enough I shall say. And here I declare, 5 countries, one month, camera, start....now."  

Yeah. I am not making this up. I wish I was. Also, the blogger describes himself in his profile as "sporty". Unless you are a Mazda...who DOES that?

I think we are done here. One more visit.

#3-Alias Pail. An electronica musician. This is like shooting fish in a barrel for someone trying to write humorously. Let me just do a little direct copy and paste of this charming little blog, and it will do all the work for me.

"back from the blogworld deadlands. consulting with utanapishtim and hunting for the boxthorn, i came up empty handed. but serious: blog time has shrunk, the master distraction, the important piece of procrastination in a stacked pancake of delicious duties, this once weekly blog has become a petrified tree."

There's also a link to "favorite anime of the moment".  Oh, and here's the dude who writes it:

I wore that same outfit to church last Christmas!

I don't want to come across as nasty, close-minded, or intolerant, though, let's face it, we all have shades of that in our personalities, even if it is not politically-correct to let any of it to the surface in this day and age.  I am a huge free-speech advocate, and am proud to live in a place where people are able to publish whatever freaky stuff they want.  As a matter of fact, I'd encourage you to visit these neighbor blogs of mine, which is why I included links to them.  However, as someone with a background in literacy education, I'd offer this advice to anyone thinking of writing for their own blog.  CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE!  If you didn't care what other people think, you wouldn't be putting your blog on the Internet.

Oh, and one more thing...ditch the sound effects that play when someone logs on to your page.  I hate that.