Blogospherics: The cool kids
•Wordy rappinghood
Several bloggers have added recurring word for today entries to their weblogs. Being a word-a-holic, I always stop and read those. One of the most interesting currently is at Blah3.
Word of the Day
tris-kai-dek-a-pho-bi-a
n.
An abnormal fear of the number 13.
Wanna take bets on whether there's a White House briefing today? My money says no.
Another source of new words for me is the Scrabble game on my Palm Tungsten C. The latest, Version 1.2 , which is from Handmark, contains a usable dictionary. One can actually look up words and get a definition from Merriam-Webster. Earlier versions of the game were not nearly as neat. If you haven't upgraded, do.
And, yes, George W. Bush does strike me as the kind of person who is superstitious. He is someone who avoids thinking, and that personality type often likes shortcuts that make thought unnecessary.
(Pause.)
I thought I had Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," in iTunes and I do. The perfect song for this entry, eh?
•Let's hear it for links
Filmmaker and blogger Brian Flemming has launched a blog ad campaign too promote his movie, Nothing So Strange. That required thinking about what blogs are and do.
Blogads are fun
"Nothing So Strange" is running Blogads to promote the DVD release. Because I actually know what a blog is, I have been put in charge of this particular portion of the ad campaign. It's an awesome responsibility.
I had lunch with Blogads proprietor Henry Copeland this weekend, and he gave me some excellent advice on running the campaign. Henry told me not to try to communicate too much information with the ad, as tempting as that might be. Don't underestimate the 'wtf?' aspect, he said. So I'm trying to create simple ads that create curiosity. Nothing So Strange has a densely packed website, so there's no reason not to let the website do the work.
Henry recommended on his blog a few weeks back to "update your ad text and image often," but he didn't need to tell me that. I know from reading blogs all the time that I get used to the layout of each blog and habitually tune out all the familiar clutter at the edges. Only when something changes do I notice.
Brian, for whom mischevious is an understatement, couldn't resist the urge to play around with his ad. He linked it to an entry about his belief that sort of President Bush has had plastic surgery on his (cocaine affected?) nose. Just for the fun of it , for a few hours. Now that rumor has legs. Short, stubby legs. This is the blogosphere, after all. But legs.
Brian's experience happens to segue into a recent one I have had in the blogosphere. Someone new to blogging attacked an entry I had posted because it contained links to news stories (which he thought were press releases, for some unfathomable reason) and other blogs. Well, as any blogger worth his or her salt knows, links are the life blood of blogging. The fellow has now started a blog of his own. Unfortunately, his ignorance is apparent there, too. It consists of his own run-of-the-mill thoughts, not supplemented by information. Yes, blogging is a very loose thing. However, I believe it is like any other endeavor in that a person should learn what blogs are and do before attempting to have one. 'Person' includes me. I read blogs and was a contributor to several of them for months before starting any of my own. Jumping into blogging with both feet without even knowing what blogging is a fool's act in my opinion.
•The blogging blues
Composer and blogger Richard Einhorn at Tristero has a case of the blogging blues. Two of 'those things that happen' interfered with his ability to blog recently.
Between jury duty and a serious computer crash, I have begun to resemble the absent-minded butcher who backed into a meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. So, the next update will be March 1.
I had to send my Titanium PowerBook G4 to Apple to be repaired in December, but, luckily, the repair intersected with the holidays, when I didn't have much time to blog anyway. And, Apple, sent it back amazingly quickly considering the logic board and the screen were replaced. When I first began blogging, I worried about anything that interfered with it a lot. Now, I've learned to take distractions in stride.
The worst form of the blogging blues is when the blogger just doesn't feel like blogging. I used to wonder why some bloggers disappear for days, weeks, months or altogether, with not so much as a good-bye in some cases. Now, I realize there is a kind of malaise. The blogger gets tired of slogging through molasses. He wonders if doing the research and writing is worth the trouble. Another blogger recently expressed it as being tired of his own voice. So far, I haven't succumbed to the deep blogger blues for long enough to affect the viability of Mac-a-ro-nies. But, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Richard has a reading assignment for you while he is away.
Meanwhile, chew on this remarkable article by George Packer in the New Yorker in which Joe Biden blames the American casualties of the Bush/Iraq war on. . .I kid you not . . . Paul Wellstone and the anti-war senators.
I will be following his advice.
