Having done the very hard work of sleeping in this morning, taking a shower, and getting dressed, I've rolled up my sleeves to tackle some hard, sweaty blogging while SuperGirlfriend loafs idly out in the kitchen preparing a 12 pound bird and about eight other courses of Thanksgiving goodies. Christ, I spoil that woman.
A scattering of stuff, just from the microscopic section of the blogosphere I normally patrol:
Tom Tomorrow tells us Katrina isn't over by a long shot, despite the fact that the rest of the world seems to have shrugged its shoulders and moved on. Read it all. Remind yourself. Do what you can.
Billmon is one of the best liberal poli-bloggers we have, so it's very disappointing that he's been blogging lightly for the last month. Maybe he's depressed. God knows it's easy to get that way when you try and keep your finger on the American political pulse these days.
Alicublog is always worth checking out.
Bitch Ph.D. has a thread going discussing the best and worst movies of all time, and her lead off entry awards the title of Worst to Howard the Duck. I think she's nuts; the Duck movie is way better than most people give it credit for, or maybe I just think so because it was one of the Late Great Jeff Webb's favorite movies and it always reminds me of him. Whatever the case, you can join the debate over at her blog, if you like. I'm just trying not to get depressed by how many goddam comments she gets.
From Bitch Ph.d I also found this contest. You have to read a brief introduction, after which you can suggest names for an upcoming book studying the bureacracy underlying the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I threw a few at him, but I doubt any of mine will win. He's offering a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card to the winner, although I'd be happy with a notation in his acknowledgements. Attention is everything, after all.
Bottle of Blog is, according to The Poor Man, the best blog nobody is reading. I think that's patently false, THIS blog is the best blog nobody is reading. But since nobody is reading it, I can hardly expect anyone to call it that.
Kung Fu Monkey is a blog I found recently and generally enjoy, although it's pretty clear that the blogger there, and his regular coterie of sycophants, don't enjoy my comments much, since I seem to be the equivalent of a large can of RAID in any thread I post to. I don't post there any more but I continue to check the place out, as not only can John Rogers write well, but he's an ongoing example to me of how I don't want to start behaving, if I should ever be lucky enough to manage to break into professional writing. Stuck up, self absorbed, whiney, defensive, unwilling to tolerate anything but the most abject toadying from all around me, gloating over my own successes while jeering at everyone who still has their nose pressed against the glass from the out side... I can see those seeds inside me, too, waiting to germinate the minute someone actually buys something I've written. I'd love to be a professional writer, I just hope I don't instantly turn into this big a load should it ever happen. Still, he's a funny and entertaining read.
Mike Norton's blog Miraclo Miles is always a fun and often enlightening read. He can't update it often enough for me, but that's just because I check for new stuff about eighty times a day.
Unqualified Offerings is always a good read, too, although I hate his color scheme. I found a link to a registry site for gamers there last night (you'll have to scroll down if you're looking for it) and will probably use it when SuperGirlfriend and I get seroius about recruiting some other grown ups to play in my RPG. Right now, with the holidays, that's definitely on the back burner, but we'll be looking at that more urgently when 2006 rolls around.
Tom Peyer is one of comic's best writers, and his blog Super Frankenstein is one of the gems of the Internet.
I try not to get depressed as I slip-slide around these various blogs. Wishing for more attention is always at least somewhat childish, if supremely human. Still, it would be nice to wake up one morning and find, like, 15 comments in a thread here from 15 different people. 72, on the other hand, would be a little much... that's TOO much attention. Can't keep up with that.
The secret of contentment is to be fine with what you have, and the secret of happiness is to somehow get SuperGirlfriend and the SuperKids to love you. So nobody's got it better than me... and I'm going to go help SuperGirlfriend in the kitchen and stop bitching.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
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So this Boy Scout, couldn't have been older than eleven, is holding up this kinda chubby looking Scotch Pine. It was.... ehhhh... okay...
Happy Thanksgiving to you and the Superpeople from The Always Esteemed family.
ReplyDeleteRe: Kung Fu Monkey - you know, I discovered that blog about 3 months ago, and recently thought 'Hey I bet Highlander would like this blog' but then I thought 'ah Highlander is so cool that he's probably already discovered this blog way before me and I'll just look kinda dweeby for suggesting it'. I hadn't noticed the personality traits you mention, but then I haven't been reading it much lately, and I almost never read the comments.
The personality traits in question... well, perception of these things is always highly subjective, and I'd hardly be able to truthfully deny that I am deeply envious of the guy's undeniable success. Still, when I first discovered the blog a week or so ago (I think) Rogers was totally going off on some poor guy in his comment threads who made what I thought was a pretty innocuous comment. Rogers ripped this guy up one side and down the other in what had to be one of the most manic and emotionally dislocated tirades imaginable. Then he wrote a very long entry rationalizing what he clearly knew was an over the top reaction, boiling most of his justification down to "well, I know I was being an asshole but too bad, it's my blog and I'm a professional writer and you can just deal with it if you want to hang out here".
ReplyDeleteIn short, I felt he truly showed his ass in public. Not that that's unforgivable; I've done it many times on my many blogs... but I like to think that when I do it, I admit it, apologize if it's merited, and move on. Roberts, on the other hand, seems to be the sort of person who can't say he's sorry about anything.
And, mixed in with all this is the fact that, well, it's a new blog and one I liked, and my comments in the threads have been about as well received as radioactive waste. Add all that in, and, while I enjoy the blog, I'm not wild about the blogger. But, as always, other people's mileage not only may, but almost certainly will, vary.
I show my ass in public all the time. And I was having a very, very bad day in question. That said, please do come back, and don't go by the last fucking miserable week of posting, as I've always found your comments amusing. (You have often kickstarted a series of fairly interesting arguments) We have essentially identical political annoyances.
ReplyDeleteIf you think that explanatory post boiled down to: "well, I know I was being an asshole but too bad, it's my blog and I'm a professional writer and you can just deal with it if you want to hang out here" ... well, that's your read. But go through the last year of writing, rather than the last month, and I hope you'll change your mind.
I show my ass in public all the time. And I was having a very, very bad day in question.
ReplyDeleteI'm hip to that, and I know where you were coming from.. at least, I know the general neighborhood well, if not the specific address. Having said that, I reread the original comment you were responding to in the original thread, and, yes, well, I thought perhaps what Anonymous said was a bit flip, but I really felt you totally went off the deep end over it. Jerks like that are best dealt with by ignoring them. Or just deleting their goddam comments. I write under pseudonyms a lot simply to dodge the Brotherhood of Evil Busiek Minions and their trollish ilk, but someone who can't be bothered to put ANY name at all to a comment, especially a snarky one, isn't worth the calories you'd burn typing 'fuck you' back to him. At least, that's my opinion.
As always, these are very subjective viewpoints.
That said, please do come back, and don't go by the last fucking miserable week of posting, as I've always found your comments amusing.
I appreciate that, and I'm lurking there all the time, as you're a fine and funny writer. And I did just post a comment to your Blue Beetle thread, so when I can't resist, I can't resist.
(You have often kickstarted a series of fairly interesting arguments) We have essentially identical political annoyances.
Hmmm. Well, if you think so. I like hearing that, but, again, that's subjective... my impression has been, I hit a thread and the thread just dies. And while you shouldn't have to carry water for Aaron Hawkins, well, after my experiences on his blog a few years back, I'm perhaps oversensitive to how welcome I seem to be when I go out to a new one.
Getting this far, I may as well re-underscore something I already said to Scott... I'm very aware there's a large element of envy in my perceptions of you. That's why I tried to be as fair as possible, notating that my personal views of your behavior were simply my own personal views, while you were still, above and beyond that, an excellent, funny, and entertaining writer. Which you are.
If you think that explanatory post boiled down to: "well, I know I was being an asshole but too bad, it's my blog and I'm a professional writer and you can just deal with it if you want to hang out here" ... well, that's your read.
I'll be frank, although I'm Darren... what pissed me off most about that post was that you disabled comments on it. I kind of understand that you were looking to avoid further potential conflict, but it just struck me as... well... there's no other word for how it struck me besides cowardly. If you're going to put in that kind of effort justifying yourself... and God knows I've done it myself many times... you should at least let your audience respond. A blog with comment threads is, as far as I know, a unique venue for putting your thoughts out there and getting immediate responses.
We both have fairly caustic natures (I perceive) and I suspect because of that, people may be afraid to give both of us honest feedback. But honesty, as Johnny Caspar once noted (right before he got shot), is something we can't get enough of in this business.
People's fear that we're going to rip them to shreds (and you and I both have great power to do that from behind a keyboard) makes it hard enough to get an accurate read on the effects of our actions. Putting something as personal as you did out there, and then refusing to accept feedback on it... it made me bristle.
But go through the last year of writing, rather than the last month, and I hope you'll change your mind.
I have no bitches with your writing, and again, if I seem pissy about how I perceive you to be behaving, much of it is straightforward envy. I appreciate you coming over here and leaving a comment, and the fact that you didn't tear me a new one goes great distances towards causing me to re-evaluate you. I was, more than likely, wrong to be so bitchy at you here.
I don't have the excuse of having had a bad day, either... since I met SuperGirlfriend and the SuperKids, my life is pretty sweet, other than my fucked up job... and even there, bad though it is, I can say quite truthfully, it's the best customer service job I've ever had.
So, yeah, I'll still be around at Kung Fu Monkey, and I'd certainly enjoy it if you mixed in over here a little. My few commenters are all smart people whose feedback I value, and you'd be an excellent addition to that team.
My verification word for this comment is 'ihper'. It certainly sounds like it should mean something...