Blogging Nonsense
Now relegated to Blogblivion...Sunday, November 27, 2005
A Yummy Food Meme
If just thinking about food doesn’t nauseate you at this point in the weekend, anyway. LOL. Here’s an either/or, which do you like better meme...I’ve bolded my preferences.
01. CHEESE or CHOCOLATE?
02. BLUEBERRIES or STRAWBERRIES?
03. COFFEE or TEA?
04. CORN MUFFIN or ENGLISH MUFFIN?
05. PANCAKES or FRENCH TOAST?
06. YOGURT or CREAM CHEESE?
07. RICE or PASTA?
08. CAKE or PIE?
09. GROUND BEEF or GROUND TURKEY?
10. HOT DOGS or HAMBURGERS?
11. JELLY or MARMALADE?
12. AMERICAN CHEESE or SWISS CHEESE?
13. DIET SODA or NO SODA?
14. LEMONADE or ICED TEA?
15. CHERRIES or GRAPES?
16. CHOCOLATE QUIK or STRAWBERRY QUIK?
17. WAFFLES or PANCAKES?
18. WHITE BREAD or WHOLE-GRAIN/WHEAT BREAD?
19. PEAS or CARROTS?
20. PUDDING or FRUIT-FLAVORED GELATIN?
21. COLD CEREAL or HOT CEREAL?
22. KETCHUP or MUSTARD?
23. MUSTARD or MAYONNAISE?
24. MAYONNAISE or KETCHUP?
25. BLACK OLIVES or GREEN OLIVES?
26. ONION or GARLIC?
27. PLAIN BARBECUE or BARBECUE WITH SAUCE?
28. SCRAMBLED EGGS or FRIED EGGS?
29. EGGS or EGG REPLACEMENTS?
30. MEAT or VEGETABLES?
31. CHINESE TAKE-OUT or PIZZA?
32. SUSHI or DELI SANDWICH?
33. WHITE CLAM CHOWDER or RED CLAM CHOWDER?
34. KEY LIME PIE or LEMON MERANGUE PIE?
35. PIE & ICE CREAM or CAKE & ICE CREAM?
36. WHIPPED CREAM or CAKE FROSTING?
37. HONEY or MAPLE SYRUP?
From Fat Lady Walking.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
200,000 Watch
As I type this, we are at 197,272 hits. That puts us in “200,000 watch” territory, as those 2728 hits can add up might fast.
Cool, eh? And that doesn’t count the combined 150,000 or so hits we had on our original blogs.
So is there a prize for the 200,000th hit referrer? Sure! Assuming you’re not something lame like “unknown,” maybe we’ll mention you in a followup post. How’s that for cool? Not.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
What Is A Blog Carnival?
I am cross-posting this from the new Carnival of the Capitalists blog, which is about to go live and supplant the old CotC pages, even while still under construction. I’m not sure I’ve yet seen a better explanation of blog carnivals:
A carnival is a regular collection of links to blog posts, often on a particular topic or area of interest.
Usually someone different hosts each time, with the carnival traveling from blog to blog. Usually the posts included are self-submitted by the authors. Usually the interval for editions of a particular carnival is weekly.
Much of blogging is about being seen; getting links and thus readers. Being in carnivals is a way of getting extra links, and presumably some number of additional readers seeing at least one post. Call it a form of viral self-promotion.
For the readers, it’s the inverse. You have a chance to see posts on blogs you might not otherwise have read. Generally the spirit of carnivals is to enter a particularly good post, so in many cases you are seeing the better work of that author and get an idea whether to add them to your regular reads. A carnival is an easy way to explore and break out of a rut of reading the same blogs all the time. It can also be a way to learn about a topic, or to keep up on what’s currently being said “out there.”
For the host, it can be a lot of work. Most carnivals, in traditional open spirit, do not limit the number of entries included, filtering out mainly what is off-topic or, increasingly lately, spam. However, it is a chance to be noticed and to self-promote, more so than merely being an entrant linked by the carnival. It generates a burst of traffic that can be a real rush to witness. Depending how flexible the format of a carnival, it can be your chance to put your own stamp on it, “show ‘em how it’s done.”
Sunday, November 13, 2005
*sniff* *sniff* They grow up so fast…
Happy Blogiversary to Paul Burgess, our handsome blog-grandson, whose post commemorating the occasion is proof of why he should, indeed, be blogging and why we very much hope he will be for a long, long time.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Thoughts On Pajamas Media
I left this as a comment to this post over at BuzzMachine, and since it was so post-like I thought I ought to cross-pollinate the blogosphere with my thoughts. Here’s what I had to say about Pajamas Media, in which we have decided not to participate, after our initial enthusiasm and visions of tens or even hundreds of dollars blog income per month:
I was excited by the original PJ concept. I grew more skeptical over time, and what it ended up being bore limited resemblance to the plan as presented to me in one of the early NDA invitations. Change isn’t automatically bad, as things sometimes don’t work out as expected or prove viable, but it looked too different, and lost the main incentive it had for many of us: shared revenue and clout for distributed advertising across many small blogs.
I had pictured it as a way to sell blog advertising to mass marketers; companies that rely on saturation. Thus the possibility in my mind that hundreds or thousands of blogs might all display the same ad for, say, Coca-Cola, when no blog except maybe the very largest would ever get an advertiser of that size, with that spending power. I perceived it as a way for a blogger whose ads might not even be worth $10 a month through BlogAds, where they wouldn’t even talk to people that size anymore anyhow and were a chronic source of poor loading of some blogs that did have BlogAds, to perhaps dip a bucket in the ad ocean and come up with, say, 50 clams where the alternative might have been lucky if it’s 10. Bonus if sometimes quality writing on small name blogs could be syndicated alongside writing from larger blogs.
TPTB behind PJ were perhaps more excited about the content angle, and walked away from the distributed advertising (in whatever form they had envisioned it that may or may not have resembled my perception of what the proposed) on smaller blogs as technically onerous. Which I could see it possibly being. I could also see it being killed by inside the box thinking or desires of monetary backers. Oh well.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Speaking of Good Questions…
Dean asks who your choice is of most fascinating person of the 2oth century.
He puts forth Tesla. Definitely a selection I can get behind. How about you? Lenin? Hitler? Stalin? Churchill? Einstein? Spears? Rand?
The comments are fascinating and worth a thorough read. However, I would take exception with the idea that we need a Lincoln in the 21st Century. At least not if you include any of the bad with the presumed good.
What’s In Your First aid Kit?
As I was pulling off the bandage on my right big toe, in the shower where I stepped before remembering it, I was thinking about the need to update and improve my first aid kit. Thus a feedback/discussion post was inspired. Comment away please.
Years ago, I bought a premade Johnson & Johnson “Camping First Aid Kit.” At the time, I was going camping for 11 days, driving to a family reunion in PEI, then driving around Nova Scotia. One grandfather was born in Northam, PEI and the other in Kentville, NS.
The kit remains, less some expired stuff I’ve tossed. It includes an instant cold pack, light stick, latex gloves, tweezers, scissors, adhesive tape, antiseptic wipes, burn cream, gauze roll, large and regular Band-Aids, and gauze pads. It also had small packs of Tylenol and Immodium, and possibly other stuff I am forgetting. I’ve added more Band-Aids, a roll of adhesive tape, and my tin of Rawleigh Antiseptic Salve. That more as a convenient place to keep the stuff together and easily findable than anything, since it’s become a household first aid kit.
I’ve been contemplating what one would add to it to improve it, so the little “oops” things around the house, especially with kids, are not only covered, but also the appropriate items are together. Or more generally, in a “kit” or not, what one would be sure to have in the house for first aid.
What do you think? What items are must haves for home first aid?
How about for a portable first aid kit that would go in a car, or indeed, camping?
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Spamming the Ecosystem
I was looking at the lowest ranked area of the blogosphere Ecosystem and was amazed to see there are over 41,000 blogs now listed. Last I looked, it was somewhere just north of 12,000. Wow!
Then I looked more closely. It seems most of them are spam. Speaking of things to say “doh” about. Doh! It also seems an awful lot of them are URLs for feeds, not for blogs as such. What’s up with that?
So either someone has way too much time on their hands or employs overly cheap labor, or it’s as easy to add blogs in automated fashion to the Ecosystem as it is to create new BlogSpot blogs. Not good. I wonder where all this is leading us.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Dive Into The Acidman Dead Pool
Velocidude, sometimes known in these parts as that sick bastard, has lived up to his reputation and come up with a great, creative sick, demented way of blogitalizing on Acidman’s purported pending death. He certainly looks like, say, a cancer patient on his way out.
We’ll miss Acidman terribly, and would prefer he didn’t have to go, or want to go to whatever degree that may be the case, if any. However, an Acidman Dead Pool couldn’t be a more fitting tribute. Why don’t I come up with these brilliant tasteless ideas?
So head on over and put your predictive powers of pure guesswork on display. The prize is, well, nothing. Or possibly it’s a slightly… soiled… can of beef stew; not sure exactly, but nothing sounds like the better option of the two.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
A Worthy Tool
Dollars and Vasectomies
We recently had a brief, entirely fact-free discussion, speculating on how much vasectomies might cost. Thus the idea of asking those who have had one.
So guys… how much did yours cost, and was it covered by insurance? Feel free to comment anonymously.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
In Time For Halloween…
Via Rob Sama
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Here and not here, back but not back.
I’m on Jay’s computer, for just long enough to look around the blogs a bit and write this. Sadie’s napping so I’m indulging in a bit of online speedreading. Makes a nice break from trying to find places to put all of our various belongings.
Nothing much new here, really, from where I sit. The pregnancy is going swimmingly so far, with baby pronounced “fabulous,” my bp so normal that she took it twice because she didn’t believe it, and a weight gain so far of nothing. My energy level is back up a bit just in time to put the new place together, and with my computer still without a home it’s been really easy to stay offline even with the DSL back.
And you know what? It’ll probably stay that way.
I’ll set the computer back up, sure. But I have no intention of going back to blogging more than very occasionally, if at all, once that happens.
I discovered something really wild and strange in this period of disconnection: I like my offline life. Better than my online life. And I have a sneaking suspicion that my sudden and glorious blood pressure control owes more than a little to playing with Sadie instead of reading yet another bloggy argument based on [insert insane premise of your choice]. An hour of browsing, I’ve found, makes me pissy and mean all day. It reminds me, actually, of the way I felt when I’d worked retail too long.
Blogging has been very, very good to me. I just don’t want to do it anymore. So I’m not going to.
If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Greetings Gilmore Googlers and Fellow Fans
Rory Gilmore sex boat
Kind of cool to have them mentioning the blogosphere on the show, eh?
While you’re here, feel free to have a look around. Click the top title for the current main page, or click a category on the left. I recommend clicking baby pictures, personally, but your mileage may vary.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Sadie
It’s funny. I mention Sadie so often, you’d think we’d be a page one Google hit for Sadie, not bottom of page four. Perhaps linking Sadie with Sadie pictures regularly will help.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Google Blog Search Feeling Underfed
When I heard about Google Blog Search, my first thought was to wonder how they would find all the blogs to include.
Sure enough, we are not included.
Looking at their About page, there is a FAQ, and items 5 and 6 address the matter. You have to ping an updating service, which we do, though weblogs.com has been wonky about accepting pings lately, and now blogrolling.com has joined them in that fine endeavor.
You also have to have a working site feed.
Oops.
In Firefox (you are using Firefox, right?), near the lower left there is an orange and white icon if a site has a working feed. For instance, PoliBlog has it. That lets you add a “live bookmark.”
Note the lack of one if you’re on our site.
Oops.
Yeah, so, we’ve been totally ignoring that failure on the part of our blogging software, since we don’t really have much of an understanding of or appreciation for the whole “feeds” thing.
We also have been meaning to update our Expression Engine to a newer release Real Soon Now. So my hope is that said update will make the feeds EE so prominently “includes” (note the links near the top of our right column) as a feature work.
If not? Help me Obi-Readers… you’re my only hope.
Anyone know how to make this fecal cuss work?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Third Anniversary Carnival of the Vanities
A few months before I started blogging, just over a year before there was Carnival of the Capitalists, there was CotC’s inspiration, the original blog carnival: Carnival of the Vanities.
Today the third anniversary CotV is up. Wow! Naturally Silflay Hraka is hosting the anniversary edition.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Public Service Announcement
Have you noticed that Outside The Beltway comes up looking as if it hasn’t updated since changing hosts? If you get the wrong version of the page, it looks like this:
The correct version of the page most recently looks like this:
Apparently there are DNS propagation problems, and the blog as it stood on the old host is still there, coming up if the DNS information is old. Deb has never gotten the new page since the change. I was getting the new page, but started getting the old one some of the time. Weird.
Anyway, if you want to be sure you are getting the latest James Joyner fix, you can go direct to the IP address, using http://205.234.131.166 rather than http://outsidethebeltway.com to get to his blog.
Update:
Attempting the irony of adding this to today’s Beltway Traffic Jam.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
For Useful Carnival Knowledge
Free Money Finance has an interesting analysis regarding blog carnival hosting and participation, with suggestions for how hosts and entrants can optimize the experience. It’s a relatively long post, but you’ll probably find it worth your time if you are interested in such things.
I had never realized that Monday was such a boost to carnival traffic. Carnival of the Capitalists was one of the first such things after the original Carnival of the Vanities, and we chose Monday for a few reasons unrelated to expectations about traffic.
First, it wouldn’t conflict with Wednesday, which was CotV’s day. Now there are so many carnivals that several might occur the same day of the week. Of course, “Monday” was only to be the official “edition” date, and the CotC could actually be online during the weekend. The wider window we originally envisioned has narrowed to no earlier than late Sunday afternoon, and usually late Sunday night or relatively early Monday morning.
Second, it corresponded with the business week, essentially arming the reader at the start of the week with a “magazine” of business and economic “articles” from the week just ended.
Third, it gave the host the weekend to do the bulk of the work involved. Which is good, as the thing has grown to significant size. I didn’t count how many made it into the lastest CotC, but the more than sixty e-mails received for the 8/22/05 edition is a record turnout.
I have no idea why other carnivals chose one day rather than another, but that’s what we were thinking almost two years ago.
I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist.
Here’s a rather amusing anti-SUV screed from our dear Mr. Sullivan. Normally I wouldn’t note this, as I find it a bit over the top, but since having a child myself I’ve become more and more frustrated with the vehicular requirements inherent in thing in the current regulatory environment. What he suggests is impossible: you can no longer just pack your kids into the back seat and make do, unless you’ve taken care to space your children in such a way that your collection of carseats and boosters fits neatly. I long for simpler days, myself. Any desire I had for a large vehicle has evaporated now that I live in this weird paradise of narrow roads and bad parking. I felt compelled to point out, though, that there are valid reasons for driving such a thing. But I hardly think that driving an SUV, no matter your reason, qualifies you as a traitor.
More blogging than you can shake a stethoscope at:
Grand Rounds 48 is up at straightfromthedoc.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Accurate Nomenclature Can Be Fun
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve seen it a lot lately and been thinking of mentioning it again. This sentence quoted from an e-mailer to Glenn reminded me:
Please issue a correction in your next blog.
My first thought went something like “you might have to wait a long time for Glenn to start a new blog!”
Come on people. A ”blog“ is a type of web site, generally composed and posted to using some kind of blogging tool (as opposed to hand coding). A blog is composed of ”posts,” for which a good synonym is ”entries.” They usually go in reverse chronological order, are readily identifiable as to date and time posted, are attributed to an author, and each has a permalink.
Again, blog, a noun, means a web site of a particular type that contains blog posts or entries.
Blog, a verb, means the act of creating posts or entries and publishing them to a blog.
Post, a noun, means an individual entry to a blog.
Entry, a noun, means an individual entry to a blog.
Post, a verb, means to publish an entry, or a post, to a blog.
The following two sentences mean the same thing:
“I haven’t posted today.”
“I haven’t blogged today.”
The following two sentences do not mean the same thing:
“I started a post today.”
“I started a blog today.”
When I see someone use “blog” as a noun substituting for “post” or “entry,” I cringe, and I think “newbie.” Possibly even to the internet, almost as much as to blogging. Or else someone who cares not to learn and use correct terminology, even if they are somehow finding blogging success and longevity. Or else someone who is not a blogger at all, and has not learned the term, as is a possibility with Glenn’s heckler. Which isn’t so bad, as the garbled nomenclature only bothers me when I see bloggers using it.
Perhaps sadly, I find it more grating than gratuitous “it’s” or “you’re,” or failure to use pique or queue where peek or cue won’t do.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Don’t you hate it when…
One day you’re all blog-chatty, and you post and post and have ideas left over...then the next day you have no idea what they were and aren’t really motivated to say anything about anything at all?*
Me, too.
*Amusingly, this apathy doesn’t extend to the point where one neglects to complain about it, but that’s part of the fun, no? 
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Also…
The 46th edition of Grand Rounds is up over at Parallel Universes.
BFL blogroll updated
Yeah, I know. It’d been like a month. Sorry about that. Blogrolling sucks and I’ve been a bit busy over here. Should be correct now, though. If you find a problem, let me know.
For that matter, if you are on or should be on our blogroll and there’s a problem (wrong link or no link) shoot me an e-mail, ‘eh?
And will somebody please freaking comment, even just to tell me I’m an asshole? I’m starting to feel like a blog leper over here.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Goto Statement
We may be boring, but if you’re looking for stuff to read, Jen is blogging up a storm today as part of the Blogathon. You never know what she’ll say next.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Happy Birthday
To blogger Chuck Simmins. Let’s not be stingy with our birthday wishes.
Update:
Ah, I see now that he posted a pre-announcement the other day, as it’s his big Five Oh. He reflects on what he’d do differently, looking back, and hopes to follow with a post about what he’s glad he did. Sounds to me like worthy blog fodder for anyone older than, say, twenty or so. I could go on and on. At least about the parts I’d willingly discuss or remember.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Nomenclature
Question for Jen, or whoever wants to answer it:
What would be the female variants of the names “Owen” and “Lucas”?
Just idly wondering…
Break Time
There’s something about the news the last couple of days that’s just put me straight over the edge. Has the whole world gone mad? And the ‘sphere crazier than usual in response?
Of course they have. It is, indeed, that part of the summer.
I had a laundry list of items making me blow steam right out the top of my head, since the pressure has become too much to vent through my ears, but why recount it? Your list will be slightly different, anyway, and it is the larger phenomenon I find more interesting.
In any case, I am Taking A Break. It’s hard enough being pregnant and chasing a now-mostly-walking 10 month old around without having to think about the rest of this crap, too. I mean, the idiots in the government and the enemy idiots overseas and the idiots in the media and all of the other idiots on my list at the moment will still be there when I get back, yes? And really, I find it much easier to gestate when I’m less focused on exactly what kind of fucked-up world I’ll be introducing the poor child to. Probably help keep the blood pressure in range as well. Bonus.
See you when the dog days are over.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Grand Rounds
The forty-fourth edition is up at Pharyngula.