Sitting around HQ the other day, I realized we have no rules here. Given that the internet itself is synonymous with having no hard and fast rules, applying any rigidity to a blog is really a fool's pursuit.
So that would be Rule #1 of our No Rules Policy; No Fool's Pursuits Allowed.
Rule #2 is No Net Police Allowed, Nor Wanted, Nor Welcome. I so dislike people who think they're carrying a badge and wielding some authority as to what belongs and what does not. I've said some pretty rude things to board moderators over the years who are bound and determined to patrol their boards/forums like Wackenhut Guards. "No Lifer" is the term immediately coming to mind when I encounter these types. I refer not to the Wackenhuts, but rather martinet moderators.
I'm working on a Rule #3 right now. Maybe I'll just make it No Spitting On Floor. Used to be you'd see signs forbidding such behavior years and years ago, which always suggested to me that
in some places it was perfectly fine to spit on the floor.It's a first cousin to No Dumping Here. Does that mean dumping Over There is allowed?
One forum visited often by local media people, past and present, has a moderator who spanks those who stray off topic. He's also placed a filter in his software keyed to automatically bust you for using a handful of words, none of which are among the famous seven you can never say on television. Expletives here and there spice things up. "Sentence enhancers" can make an idea jump off of a page at you. Judicious use of certain words is a skill not all possess.
I've been wired for roughly 12 years now, which is a good bit longer than many. Yes, I know, a guy my age knows nothing about computers or the internet, right? "Road apples!" as my good buddy Scott Perkins used to say. It's unimportant to list all I do know. If you'd like to think otherwise, please feel free to underestimate me.
As noted in a previous post, being underestimated can, in time, be a very powerful tool to have at your disposal. Underestimating an individual helps only one person, the person you underestimated.
What's on my mind this time around is the blog and what it is.
By definition, it's a log, a journal. It's a listing of one's personal observations, experiences, likes, dislikes, grumbles, gripes, bitches, and moans.Thanks for noticing, I do indeed offer my fair share of all of the aforementioned. Happy to not let you down. We aim to to please. If you don't see what you're looking for, beat it, we probably don't have it.
I had a blog several years ago, it was homemade. I wrote some simple HTML tags to create a page, put it on that "free" space so graciously given me by my then ISP, and would often make a post or two. It was not interactive, mostly because I then lacked the skill to write code to make it so at the time. Now that I have the skill, who needs it?
Blogger.com has made life so much easier. Anyone who reads a blog has internet access, and with that you are but a few mouse clicks away from having a blog of your own. Yes! You, too, can have a blog.
One of the best ways to get yourself a widely read blog right away is to enable the option which allows readers to post a response to whatever it is you said. That way malcontents who have nothing better to do than sit at a keypad and complain can heave rocks at you without you knowing who they are.
Having that suite in The Hotel Anonymous sure gives some people stones, including those they can throw.
Get evicted from that suite, and the stones just go away.
What I've done here, simply, is made life easy for everyone. You're so very welcome.
Disabling the "allow comments" option makes me sleep better, rest easier, and live a fuller and richer life. (I'm still waiting for it to make me run faster and jump higher, like a certain sneaker used to do.) Not having to worry about who it was that called me, oh, arrogant, let's say, is one less thing on my plate of concern for the day. Good. Less stress, more life.
I write this because several have suggested that they'd like to leave a comment after visiting. That's terrific! Those who've told me that are precisely the people I'd love to hear from. But,
wait, I already have heard from them.They ain't the only people out there reading this blog.
If you're a blogger with a dash of savvy, you have software on your blog to track visitors by ISP, by IP number, by their location, and also by the page that brought them to your page, when they visited and how long they stayed. Oh, and you can see what they viewed first and last on your blog. The only thing you don't know is their name, street address, the last book they read, and what's in their MP3 player at the moment.
So, you say, what in hell good is this info? Other than it being a curiosity, a novelty to see where your readers are and how they got to you, it does offer a safeguard in the event that some brave soul holed up in The Hotel Anonymous makes seriously nasty comments.
Armed with their IP number, you can report them to their ISP. Ostensibly, providers don't want that type customer, so they'll at least dump the offender.
Is there a point in here somewhere? Well, geez, I'm not so sure. Does a blog need a point? I suspect not.
But let me try and cobble one together anyway. My blog is my blog. I don't ask that you like it, agree with it, endorse or support it, or even look at it. It's mostly for my own amusement, really.
I write because I often like to write. I write because whatever small skill is there gets very rusty without use. I write because I once heard Tom Clancy say that if you ever favored yourself as a writer, you have to write every single day.
Paraphrasing, of course, but Clancy went on to say that it doesn't matter what you write, or how you write it. Punctuation, grammar, syntax, spelling, forget it, they don't matter until, and if, you get to a finished product. Just force yourself to sit at the keys and write, write every day, if only for a few minutes.
I just did. Thanks for reading.
