Tag Archives: blog

Confessions of a Digital Hoarder

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I am something of a virtual hoarder (or digital hoarder, either will do). By this, I mean that I am constantly bookmarking things I read online, saving funny memes and other pictures into vast directories, accumulating animated GIFs that I may never look at again because I think they might be useful in a Facebook thread some day, and so on. I’ve mentioned before that I have amassed a sizable collection of unpublished blog post drafts, some half-written, some entirely unwritten, and some that are nothing more than a title and a note to write something with that title.

By TheDoctorMo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Not pictured: My blog dashboard. This is a metaphor.

Among those drafts are several accumulations of links to major news stories of the past couple years, which I accumulated through hours upon hours of reading time-wasting on the internet. I have no reasonable expectation that I will ever take those giant lists of URLs and spin them into written gold, but I want to do something with them. I proclaim this to be blog-cleaning season! Continue reading →

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500

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I just noticed that I have exactly five hundred drafts of unpublished blog posts saved here, ranging from mostly-finished posts to a title with one or two links.

Surely I have raised procrastination to an art form by now.

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Blogging is Going to Change the World!!!!!1!!!!!

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The power of bloggers to change the world appears to be the theme of the almost comically-pretentious documentary American Blogger (h/t Julie).

The trailer tells us this ‘beautiful’ and ‘cinematic’ movie follows some documentarian you never heard of as he travels America in an Airstream interviewing bloggers… who with only one (briefly shown) exception are gorgeous white women who appear to be fairly wealthy.

This is the face of blogging: blond MILFs lounging about in hammocks on their porches. As a blogger this pretty well reflects my life.

Everything about this trailer – from the premise to the awful fucking music – is hilarious. Please hate-watch this.

I can’t add much to that, except to note that if blogging does change the world, the blogs probably won’t originate in suburban middle America. (If someone wants to make Egyptian Blogger, there might be more to it.)

Also, has anyone actually touted the ability of blogs to “change the world” since Twitter and Facebook first caught on? There’s always a new killer app that’s going to change the world until the next world-changing killer app comes along…..

Anyway, you can hate-watch the trailer here:

American Blogger Official Trailer from Chris Wiegand on Vimeo.

 

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5 Tips for Successful Blogging

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Blog posts about blogging abound on the internet, usually with titles like “5 Tips for Writing Blog Posts that Make $$$” or something. They pretty much all have the same advice, which I might summarize as follows:

  1. Update often.
  2. Optimize.
  3. Share among social media platforms.
  4. Have guest bloggers.
  5. Have compelling content. (This is my all-time favorite, for its shameless redundancy.)

I might as well add some advice of my own to the mix. My additions to this would be:

  1. Drink plenty of water.
  2. Try to write in the predominate language spoken in your market.
  3. Type with your fingers.
  4. Make sure the CO2 concentration in the environment in which you blog stays below 360 ppm.
  5. Do not allow ferrets to proofread your work.

711px-Fretts_301004_selbstfotografiert,_GNU-FDL

Not the editorial staff you’re looking for.

Follow these tips, and blogging success is yours for the taking!

Photo credit: By de:User:Viki (de:Wikipedia) [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons.

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The Number of the Blog

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Okay seriously, who numbered this beast?

I just noticed that my blog has 666 published posts. With this one you are currently reading, of course, it has 667, but it seemed like a moment worth mentioning. Whether my blog becomes more or less devilish after this milestone remains to be seen…..

Photo credit: ‘The number of the beast’ by David Stutz [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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BlogathonATX Approaches

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logoLabor Day weekend will mark my one-year anniversary as a “professional blogger.” I cannot honestly say that I switched from courtroom attorney to paid scribbler of words because I overly enjoy the company of others. That said, even the most hermetical of people ought to get out and meet like-minded people now and then. Ileenie “The Weenie” Haddad’s BlogathonATX series is about to have its latest incarnation, and I plan on going for the hell of it. Rather than try to come up with a nifty unpaid sales pitch, I’ll steal words from Q:

This homegrown conference was the brain child of Ilene “The Weenie” Haddad.  Weenie originally thought it would be fun to get all her favorite local bloggers together in one place for a whole day and see what happened.  The result was a loosely structured event comprised of impromptu learning and interaction with the coolest, hippest, smartest and most laid-back folks in the city.  After the first BlogathonATX, the people wanted more.  Now, on Saturday, September 15 2012, the fifth installment of BlogathonATX is scheduled to take place–and tickets are on sale now.

I might even consider waking up early on a Saturday for this.

Weenie, I might add, is quite the comic artist.

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A quantum singularity of blogging that could destroy the Universe

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'NGC_6745' by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA-GSFC (The Goddard Library) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Could this be the end result of self-referential blogging? History will decide.

Social media marketing consultant Jayme Soulati has a post up at her business blog entitled “Six Types of Blogging.”The first type on her list is “Blogger Teaches Blogger.” She raises some very good points about identifying an audience and a goal or goals for one’s blog, something I have not really done in earnest.

My main goal here, however, is to write a blog post about a blog post that discusses bloggers who write about blog posts. That ought to be enough of an infinite feedback loop.

Photo credit: ‘NGC_6745’ By NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA-GSFC (The Goddard Library) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Corporate Marketing Jumps the Shark at #BlogathonATX

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"Yelp Life," a bit of corporate marketing swag obtained at BlogathonATX, Austin, Texas, April 28, 2012I promise I will never, ever wear these again.

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An open apology to everyone who follows me on Twitter

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I was trying to import a few posts from the old platform, and I ended up with more than 100 duplicate posts, all of which then automatically went to Twitter. I regret any inconvenience this may have cause, but I assure you (CK) that I did not break Twitter. All is well once again…

In honor of everything being well once again, here is a GIF of Megan Fox fixing her hair.

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The Re-Launch of Cryptic Philosopher is Complete

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After several clumsy attempts to import posts from the old platform, followed by the process of making sure there wasn’t anything too incriminating that I didn’t remember writing back in 2007, I can now say that the blog is up and running once again.

Except for internal links. Those won’t work. Too bad,’ because I’m not re-editing anything else.

In honor of the blog finding new life, here’s a GIF of Kate Upton dancing in a bikini:

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