I read Thirteen Blog Clichés last month, and thought I’d discover how many sins I’m “guilty” of, and whether I care.
1. The Useless Calendar Widget – don’t have one. I do have a clock, mostly because I don’t trust my computer clock which tends to run faster and faster.
2. Random Images Arbitrarily Inserted In Text – never thought to do that, but hey, maybe I’ll start!
3. No Information on the Author – well, you got my name, my city, my hometown, my profession, and more. What else would you like to know?
4. Excess Flair – not likely to happen, not by my discipline, but from the fact that I’m too technologically deficient to add a lot of widgets.
5. The Giant Blogroll – Some of the author’s readers really fussed over this one. As someone else once recommended to me, my blog I do initially for me. I refer to those links. Some I read regularly, some I use as bookmarks (Major League Baseball, e.g.) Yes, I could RSS most of them, but then I’d miss that random nature of wanting to check out Lefty on Friday when he’s going to post his questions, e.g.
In fact, I added a couple new links yesterday, first-time bloggers, each of whom I’ve known for over a quarter century: Joe Fludd, an old FantaCo artist and customer, and CD, with whom I shared a boarding house, along with nine other people, in New Paltz in the mid 1970s.
Philosophically, it’s like how I sometimes would pull out my address book, leaf through it and realize I hadn’t checked in with someone for a while, and I would give him or her a call. (Some girlfriend of mine at the time complained about me doing that; she thought I should just know who I wanted to call, and call them. I thought her complaint was nonsensical.)
6. The Nebulous Tag Cloud – don’t even know HOW to do this. I’m/you’re safe.
7. Excessive Advertisements – I resisted having any ads at all. Think I’m OK. I’m utterly fascinated, BTW, what topic my ad (that I can’t mention) will read, based on the varied topics on my blog.
8. This Ain’t Your Diary – yes, it sorta is. But generally, I leave a lot out.
9. Sorry I Haven’t Written in a While – Well, since I haven’t missed a day yet, not applicable. But I agree with the general point.
10. Blogging About Blogging – the obvious irony of the author noting that one. Occasionally guilty. Like now.
And while I’m thinking about it, how does Technorati actually work? A story about a recent post that appeared in Journalista!, but not the initial referral that ADD made. Yet other ADD stories have shown up.
11. Mindless Link Propagation – never! Only MINDFUL Link Propagation. For instance, H.R. 811, expected to be voted on today, is bad legislation. There’s this link about kissing is a story from Australia quoting a UAlbany professor. How about a baseball league with only one team with a winning record? I hadn’t read about Turkey’s previous incursions into northern Iraq in the MSM. Someone asked me to pass along this Snopes story about a virus posing as a postcard.
12. Top (n) Lists – I like them. It’s one of my favorite features in Tosy’s page, e.g.
13. No Comments Allowed – I agree with this complaint, and I am open for comments. In fact, I would like to get more comments. More, MORE, MORE.
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Blogging Success Study.
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Oh, the “random picture” is of Ana Ivanovic, the tennis player who lost to Venus Williams at the U.S. Open this past weekend.
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My latest poll asked:
Do you know the source of the line, “Vote for me and I’ll set you free”?
19 of you said, “Of course!”
9 pf you said, “It sounds familiar but I can’t place it.”
4 of you said, “I have no clue.”
the answer is the song Ball of Confusion, originally made famous by the Temptations in 1970, and covered by Edwin Starr (1971), Undisputed Truth (1971), Love & Rockets (1986), and Duran Duran (1995). I’ve also heard the Neville Brothers perform it live a couple years ago.
ROG