June 27, 2008
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Confessions of a terrible blogger
I just realized that I had recently subscribed to my 100th blog. That’s
right, I said “subscribed to”. That means there’s a full one hundred of
you Xangans out there who have your daily and semi-daily ramblings
piped directly into my subscription browser day after day.
I guess that seemed like a momentous enough occasion for me to justify
taking a moment to confess to you significantly less than 100 possible
readers of this blog my terrible reprehensible unforgivable sin:
I’m not reading your blogs.
It’s true. Sadly true. Can you ever forgive me? No no, of course you
can’t! There can be no forgiveness for such a terrible crime. I throw
myself at thine feet and pray you have mercy upon me.
Perhaps an explanation is in order. You might be wondering why on Earth
do I subscribe to a hundred blogs and don’t read them? How can that
make any sense?
Well you see the trick is… I “skim”. I skim everything. My eyes just
glaze over and speed through the words as I page through the
subscription lists. Sometimes I’m not even reading the words at all.
I’m just looking at the pictures!
… hmmm interesting pictures on Xanga these days…
*dazed look*
*shakes himself back to attention*
Ahem, yeah as I was saying I’m not really reading at all. And if you
have a video on your blog I probably didn’t click the link to watch it
and if you have an mp3 file posted, I probably didn’t listen to it. And if there are interesting events, stories, conflicts, series, contests or whatnot going on in Xanga-land, I probably haven’t read enough to know about it.
This is true even of the blogs I *like*. Heck it’s even true of the
blogs of the people I *know*. I’m not reading it. Sorry. Even if I told
you I really like your blog and I think it’s innovative or creative or
whatever… I’m probably not reading it. If you post something tomorrow
thinking I’m gonna read it. Think again. I probably won’t.
That’s not to say I don’t read *any* blogs. I do read some. But only if
they really catch my attention and capture my imagination or I really
like the style or something. Or they’re really trivially short. I read
the two sentence entries. Usually. Sometimes I just skip over them too
though.
Of longer blogs, generally I read the first paragraph. Unless you’re
one of those people who don’t use paragraphs. BTW, if you don’t use
paragraphs…
I hate you.
I wish I were kidding. Those who know me know I’m the farthest thing
from a Grammar Nazi in the world. I don’t care about grammar. I don’t
care about spelling. I think we should replace all da w0rdz w1t t3h
l33t! I’d be totally happy with that. No problem.
But I draw the line at eliminating paragraphs. God damn it use
paragraphs! It drives me into a murderous rage when I see something
written all as one big monstrous evil paragraph from hell. I hate it. And because I hate it, it makes me want to hate you.
And you don’t want that do you? I’m awesome after all. You want me as
your friend. So please please please please please please please use paragraphs.
Heck they don’t have to be proper paragraphs with a main idea or
anything. Just put a line break every few sentences or so. Do that and
I will utterly ecstatic.
[End Side Rant]
So yeah I was saying, if there aren’t any interesting pictures or
anything to draw my attention, I’ll usually read the first paragraph
and the first couple of sentences and then spot check a few sentences
here and there. And if I find it more interesting maybe I’ll read a
little bit more. But all in all there are maybe one or two non-short
entries on any given day that I actually read in their entirety. And
some days, lots of days, there aren’t any.
Maybe you’re thinking that’s not so bad. But wait! I haven’t finished
recounting you the depths of my sins. You see it’s even worse than
that. Not only am I not reading your blogs. Sometimes, in fact far
more often than I should probably admit to in public… I’m commenting
on them anyway!
That’s right. I comment on things I haven’t read every word of. I comment on things I haven’t even read half the
words of. And so if your wondering why my long ass-ed comment seems to
have like nothing to do with what you wrote… there’s probably a good
reason for it. I probably didn’t read what you wrote. Not all of it
anyway. Heck even when I do read entries, if they’re longer entries,
I’ve usually forgotten what I read by the time I start writing my
comment anyway., so it hardly makes any difference.
But why you say? Why aren’t you reading our blogs? Are we not interesting enough? Do we bore you?
No no! It’s not that. I find soo many blogs so very very fascinating.
Why do you think I subscribe to so many? I’m curious about all of them.
I love reading blogs. I learn so much from reading blogs and I think I
would literally lose my mind if I didn’t have blogs to read.
So why then?
I don’t know! I guess… I guess I’m just a terrible terrible horrible
vile person. *whimpers* So go ahead, Unleash the horrors of your
self-righteous rage upon me! I deserve it. I’m a terrible blogger. I
deserve what I get.
But let me make this last plea for leniency to my most kind and
benevolent readership! At least take into account that I am completely
democratic in my skimming. I don’t place any favorites. I’m skim
everyone with equal measure. Does that make it any better? Also, I try
to make my comments at least interesting if not necessarily on point?
Does that buy me some leeway? How about the fact that I read every
single word of every comment placed on my blog very carefully and try
to reply to them whenever I can? Does that help me out any? No?
Then all I have left to do is beg of thee to find it in your hearts to forgive me.
All I can offer you is this oath that I’ll do my best to do a better in the future.
Yes, I’ll try to read more in the future. I’ll try to care about what
you have to say. I’ll try to follow your weird series and odd contests
and strange multi-part rants. I’ll give it a shot reading through your
daily ramblings about the food you ate and the people you beat up or
made fun of and the dates you went on and the clothes you bought and
the video games you happened to play yesterday. I’ll do my best to
read about your trips around the world and your opinions on politics
and religion and philosophy and giraffes and the month of July. I’ll
even attempt to analyze and comprehend your story stories and your
poems and your artistic collages of who knows what they are supposed to
be. And throughout it all I’ll do my best to leave coherent intelligent
and reasonable comments that are on point and reflect all that you have
to say.
I’ll try. I promise.
But I can’t make any guarantees. In my heart of hearts I’m a natural
skimmer. It is not in my nature to read things in depth. But for the
sake of the great and extraordinary community that is Xanga, I will try.
Oh and if you read this and reply with anything along the lines of
“that’s OK, I’m not reading your Xanga either” I’m going to throw a pie
in your face next time I see you.
Happy Friday all!(addendum – actually there are some bloggers who I do read virtually every entry word for word of, but I’ll never admit who those are, yup I’m a liar and a deceiver too.)
Comments (22)
Wow, that’s a really long post. Good paragraph usage, though.
I’m not mad… I do exactly the same thing…in fact in this post,i still had a few paragraphs left to read yet,and I’m posting now… but mine(my reason) is cause i’m lazy.Which is more unexcusable than your fascination. =P
stick around next time, maybe there is meaning in some of them that you are missing.
I read every single entry I SEE in my mailbox in a daily basis. I don’t comment on all of them because I don’t have time to comment every single one…and I am not admitting how many people I subscribe to.
You….fiend! I unleash righteous wrath! Ksh, ksh, boom! Ahaha! Ahaha! Ahahahaha!
what was this blog about? it was so long i skimmed it and i still have no idea what it’s about, i don’t think you’re a bad blogger… you write pretty well…
j/k ^_^
I skim a lot of times too. I’m sure people do that with my blog too because sometimes i add in a random sentance and no one comments on it, so whatever. ^_^
i remember in college my team in software engineering design something or whatever, the middle of the quarter project was this huge process control papers, seriously it was like 50 pages well there were like 6 groups and so in the middle of one of our pages we wrote “dear professor sterns we know you probably aren’t going to read this, we actually think you have monkey working for you, so monkey’s if you give us a good grade we promise to give you a bunch of bananas, thanks” ^_^ We totally got a good grade on it without any comments on that sentance.
@Southernlass - you are scary. I think my head would explode if I tried to do that.
@saintvi - but of course! I’ll always use paragraphs. I’m a sinner not a monster.
@zunky - nah. That’s cool. I can honestly say I’m utterly shocked whenever anyone reads through one of my posts til the end.
@antisoccermom - alright. I’ll give it a shot. I hope so.
@VaultESL - how did I know *you’d* be the one to unleash the wrath? pfft you’re starting to get predictable.
@nephyo - No, the scary part is you don’t want to know in addition to my Xanga reading how much I read at home too. I have discovered though, that by adding people to friends on Xanga instead of subscribing, I am a lot more sane. That way I can slowly find new people I LIKE reading.
@raindrops23 - hahaha that story is hilarious! I wonder if he read it and just ignored it so you’d have a good story to tell? That would be nice of him. I think if I was the teacher that’d be what I’d do.
But I once had a paper for a History class that was massive and part of a pretty big class full of huge papers and there was one page missing in the middle of my paper that must have somehow fallen out or something. The professor caught it, called me just before the winter break, and wouldn’t give me my grade until I turned in that one stupid page. So annoying! Ha. So there are some people out there who don’t skim. Glad I’m not one of them though.
@Southernlass - heh. I used to be known around my town for my obsessive excessive reading. But these days I keep encountering people who put me the shame with how much they read. Funny that. Meanwhile, I read less and less as the effect Leonidas described on his blog lately consumes me and destroys my attentiveness.
@nephyo - I’m subscribed to 60 blogs (granted 4 of those are real life friend blogs that have stop writing, i only have one real life friend that kind of still blogs).
I try to subscribe to people that write daily but I don’t even write daily so it’s hard to find those people ^_^
@raindrops23 - I have 4 RL friends who have xangas. One never blogs (and never has), one very very rarely blogs, one rarely blogs, and one blogs every day.
I just subscribe to anyone who sounds interesting no matter how frequently or infrequently they blog so I’ve got a lot of subscriptions that don’t update that often, but a lot who update frequently too. Of course I try to update every day but sometimes long period go by when I don’t. I try to make up for it by writing a lot whenever I do!
“But I draw the line at eliminating paragraphs. God damn it use paragraphs! “
You’re funny. =) I share the same pet-peeve. Having proper paragraph structuring, in my belief, is the sign of a sound and logical mind.
My problem is having paragraphs at thare too short: One or two lines. Rereading some of my comments or entries, I become disconcerted with the excess of white space. Half the time, I find myself going back and artifically melding two seperate semi-connected paragraphs.
Even better than paragraph-useage is the employment of headings and sub-headings! This is especially helpful for long dissertations/rants. =P
LOL, too funny. But I don’t think anybody will be too hurt! At least you were honest and thats what counts right?
great… so you skim? i feel better about myself [dripping with sarcasm, of course]
@rianahntr - [ooooh I love sarcasm. ^_^]
Of course you should feel better about yourself. This means that you are one of the chosen 100 whose blogs are worthy of me setting my divine eyes upon. That I deign to read even one word of your blog ought be considered a gift so grand it makes collapse to the ground weeping in sheer ecstasy!
@Beautiful_Actress - haha don’t be so sure! *some* bloggers can be pretty tough. I might have to make some sort of sacrifice or pay tributes or or something to make up for this crime. ^_^
@huginn - too short paragraphs bother me but not nearly as much. The long ones that combine multiple ideas drive me nuts because they are so hard to read and follow. My mind wanders in the middle of them and I want to do something else.
Short paragraphs can sometimes be used for special emphasis or to make certain lines stand out. So it’s only like if a whole bunch of paragraphs that are only one line that it really starts to get on my nerves.
Heading and sub-headings though? Seriously. That’s waaay too much to ask. Of course I’d love it if more people used them. But I don’t want to be greedy. I’m usually too lazy to use them myself unless I’m writing something very formal. But for an informal blog, I don’t care what else anybody does. I just want paragraphs for christ sake. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
Oh for shame! tch!
I got about halfway through on this…
And now I’m commenting!
Yay! *claps hands* Going to the twentieth level of Xanga Hell now.
Random comment.
.
-Anna.
@StorybookAuthor - YAAYY! I’ll have company down there!
Ditto.