Blogger: I want the truth!
Commenter: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has blogs. And those blogs have to be commented by people with opinions. Who’s gonna do it? You? You on your own Blog? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.

[Back from my hullcinating dreams of being Jack Nicholson...] I’m feeling better as the day progressed, and I finally got caught up with my Blog reading tonight. AmBlogger has been my forum to give back and bring to light some of the goodness and ugliness that the Blogosphere exhibits daily. That’s a nice way of saying I got something to get off my chest.

Comment Groupies
Let’s get right to it! If Bloggers were Rockstars, then there are a helluva lot of groupies out there! I love reading Blogs because the information is delivered along with a multitude of different perspectives as different people chime in with their comments. However, once a Blog gets too popular, sifting through the comments for some real meat is like getting a quarter-pounder at McDonald’s; where’s the beef?

Comments are so cordial on some of the Blogs in my read list that I’m wondering are these people kissing ass or is this Blogger really beyond reproach? Comments on many popular blogs start out with “Great post!”, “Excellent article”, “Fabulous Insight”, “You’ve hit the nail right on the head”… (you get the gist of it).

All these phrases are fully compliant with the unwritten Blogger’s comment etiquette. I say “unwritten” because I cannot find any authoritative, popular blogging figure who has touched on this subject (try searching it on Google!). But it makes sense, why bite the hand that feeds you?

Andy Hagans once said that he always envisioned the Blogosphere “as a couple cliques of high school girls with too much time on their hands“. I really like the metaphor when I first saw it. Sometimes, the Blogosphere feels just like a bunch of established people praising each other for their nice hair and make-up while the less popular outcasts try to join the cliques by being nice too!

ProBlogger talked about quality vs. quantity of posting. I want to ask the same question for comments! Even though I appreciate (more…)

Just woke up because I’ve been sneezing all night and this morning. To clear my head, I decided to seek the most mundane entertainment that I could find. I often tell myself that even though more and more people are starting to Blog, the ones that are hardcore can still be pre-dominantly described as geeks or nerds. I decided to prove to myself (by being honest) that I am not a nerd. Why do I need my validation? Because I don’t look like this guy! LOL Here’s my score!

What do you think? Do you also expect the people who make the effort to blog on a regular or semi-regular basis to have a bit of nerd/geek in them? I’m not here to debate the differences in definition (since nerds and geeks are different breeds). If you know of a good geek test, I’d like to take that too!

Most of us will remember the Ren & Stimpy show! Its greatest contribution to humanity were its small fun songs such as “Happy Happy Joy Joy” and the Slinky commercial parody “The Log Song”

That got me to thinking about “The Blog Song”. Do we need an anthem? I’ll put the lyrics up here because god knows I have no creative bone in my body to change these lyrics to something relevant to blogging. Perhaps you can help me? Make sure you contact me!

Here’s lyrics of “The Log Song”:

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack and fits on your back?
It’s Log, Log, Log!

It’s Log, Log, it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood.
It’s Log, Log, it’s better than bad, it’s good!
Everyone wants a log! You’re gonna love it, Log!
Come on and get your log! Everyone needs a Log!

Here’s an audio sample!

Just for interest sake, here’s the lyrics of “The Slinky Commercial”:

What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs,
and makes a slinkity sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!
Everyone knows it’s Slinky.

It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, it’s fun, it’s a wonderful toy.
It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, It’s fun for a girl or a boy.

For those of you who wanted to defend Blogs against mainstream criticism, here’s your chance!

Pardon my ramblings tonight, but I still have a splitting headache as I typed. But I figured I couldn’t put off blogging anymore when these ideas are swimming in my head. One of the major challenges for an Amateur Blogger is posting frequencies. Partly because many Amateurs may experience writer’s block; running out of ideas. Partly due to other activities taking up valuable blogging time. I won’t touch on lack of interest because that’s simply referring to a dead Blogger walking.

So we Am Bloggers will go on binges. Sometimes when inspiration hits or when we have lots of time, we can post frequently. But when the to-do list piles up and you have other commitments to attend to, that’s when you can go for days without writing or reading about Blogs.

This happened to me for the last few days. I become very busy during the day, and coming home too tired to do anything but rest. All the while I kept trying to convince myself to make some time to Blog on any one of my sites. Is it Blogging guilt? I have never been able to blog multiple posts consistently everyday. I was actually surprised that I could turn out almost one post a day the week before.

On a different note, looking forward to future posts - I’m going to be conducting my first Blogger interview! I have a Blogger lined up who’s actually willing to take my questions! Who is this Blogger? You can certainly speculate. All I’m willing to say right now is that you know I always compared Pro and Am Bloggers with sports right? Yes, this person is a sports Blogger, who is much more successful at Blogging than myself.

He’s certainly being a good sport! (Pun intended) But I wonder if my list of questions is enough? I would like to ask for your suggestion for questions. What would you like to know about this mystery sports Blogger? Please share!

Last month’s poll recognized that the old AmBlogger design was “Bizarro ProBlogger”. I’m not sure whether it’s the design or the theme/title of this Blog that kept users voting for this choice even after I switched the design.

The second most popular answer was not surprisngly express the people’s dissatisfaction, telling me that I’ll never resemble ProBlogger! Well, that’s why I put that answer there in the first place. Is that called poller’s bias?

For this month’s poll, I ask the question of “When Do You Blog?”. I’ve previously mentioned that I don’t do any Blogging at work, even during on breaks. So I do all my Blogging primariliy at night. I also Blog heavily during the weekends, but that’s if there were not any events I have to attend.

Unfortunately, the WordPress democracy poll plugin does not allow me to select multiple answers, so you’ll have to make do with what describes you the best!

Just a quick post to add to my previous post regarding Blog Reading. If you are adventurous, you may want to try surfing the web using Internet Explorer 7.0! Download the Beta 2 Preview here!

Subnixus wrote a short but glowing review about his upgrade experience. We must be in different timezones, because he always gives me some good reads when I wake up! Sub, do I qualify for your Vegas contest yet?

When you stop reading, you stop growing. And when you stop reading Blogs, you stop growing as a Blogger! Do you agree with that statement?

Indulge me for a second as I ask for your participation in an experiment. “Mentally” close your eyes. (Because if you physically close your eyes, you simply wouldn’t know what to do next!) Think back… back to your happy place. Back to the first time you decided that you were going to register that domain name, when you decided to install Movable Type or WordPress, when you decided to sign up with a Blog hosting service like Blogger.com. Are you feeling excited all over again? Try to recall why you decided to put your voice out for all to see and criticize on the unforgiving internet.

Why?
Why did you want to Blog? The answer lies within you! If you have never blogged about why you decided to take up Blogging, its a worthwhile journey of self-discovery as you contemplate your mini-bio. I venture to guess that most Bloggers will have some sort of mention about “when I read [this], when I read [that]” in their stories. (more…)

Am I The William Hung of Blogging? LOL. I wish I thought of that analogy! CitizenCircus has written a post reflecting on the AmBlogger / ProBlogger fiasco. I wanted to point it out because of the wonderful metaphor!

No, I’m not upset, I’m very amused! Why would people take themselves so seriously? It’s not like I’m getting paid 6 figures! Hope you enjoyed comparing myself to William. Honestly, do I actually resemble him?