Day 7: Hint Hint

Today's challenge over at "We Work for Cheese" is "Hint Hint"...and, this is going to be a very short blog...in a way.

 

Some of you might have the same problem I have...and that's trying to draw readers over to your blog.  I get happy when people say they've read it...and incredibly ecstatic when someone takes the time to comment...and I've always told everyone, "I live for comments...good, bad, or anonymous.  Hint hint."

 

So...ummmm...hint hint.

 

I initially started writing a blog for The Montgomery Advertiser back in March 2006 - hoping they would notice my "brilliance" as a writer (or at least my "above mediocre" ability) and hire me.  It didn't work. The previous executive editor even called me in to talk to her for a whopping two hours...but that's all I have to say about that in public.  All the same, feel free to write them/him (as they have a new editor) and who knows, perhaps with the right nudging they might call me back in and give me that shot after all (and, yes, I'm serious).
 
Anyway, here's a sprinkling of some of my previous blogs, a "Top Ten List" if you will. Some are silly, some are sad, and some are just the early morning ramblings of a woman who takes her Ambien way too late and fancies herself a writer.

I don't ask that you read all of them...that would be ridiculous -- just pick whichever title strikes a chord...or choose your favourite number from 1-10...and go with that one. Oh...and leave me a comment. 

 

Again, hint hint.  :)

 

 

1. Viagra...vating

 

2. Esmerelda and the Area Known as 51

 

3. Driven to Tears

 

4.  Hollywood Lights

 

5.  Of Ripples of Butterfly Wings

 

6.  A Small Slimmer of Taupe

 

7.  Two Guys, a Girl and a Tube Tester

 

8.  Ancient Alien Conspiracy Regarding "The War of the Worlds"

 

9.  Potato Farmers - the New Vampires?

 

10.  Halloween is Different for Me This Year

 

 

(I apologize in advance for some of these not having the photo that I yanked off the Internet for insertion into my blog...apparently someone yanked them.  If I went in and redid my blog with a new photo, it would take me 40 minutes per blog to add all the HTML code to make the spacing correct as it always screws up the spacing and fonts when I edit...so I left them without images.  It even managed to mess up the link colours.  Why?  I don't know!  Blogger is indeed maddening. )

Oh, the Irony (Part III)

When I was a child I used to read those Aesop's Fables - they tried to let you know life's lessons and personality faults - usually portrayed through the eyes of animals. And then along came Captain Edward A. Murphy working at Edwards Air Force base in 1949...some 2549 years later...supposedly coining the infamous "Murphy's Law"...which basically states "If anything can go wrong...it will".

So, I figure - if you combine the two and add some irony - you get my dilemma: each time I post a blog...even if no one has added one in a whole entire day...there will be an onslaught of people rushing to post their blogs directly after.

Now...you might say to yourself..."Um...who cares, Mariann - deal with it". And you might also be saying, "...and how does this relate to me?" Well, it doesn't...unless you are those people who post blogs directly after mine, thereby bumping me out of the primo first slot...down to one of the sub-primo three slots visible on the home page of the Montgomery Advertiser's online site...then relegated to the "click here if you even want to bother waiting for the page to load" slot on the "other" page...culminating in the "totally bumped off the side of the virtual flat Earth which blogland is here".

For those who don't know - a maximum amount of ten blogs get to remain on the newspaper's site at any one time...when a new blog is posted...the one that's been there the longest - gets bumped off to fall into "Internet oblivion"...never to be seen again.

Sure, you can wait until such time you post another blog and hope that someone will happen upon it and read...but typically the home page is key...because people are creatures of habit and usually they are habitually lazy. Clicking to another page is one more step they don't have the patience for...and I say this, because I've heard it said many times: "Ugh...the page takes too long to load - I have to keep clicking on 'refresh' and it STILL doesn't load".

So, while you can sometimes teach an old dog new tricks - it doesn't take too long for that dog to give up if he never gets a bone.

And somewhere in that above statement is possibly a moral to a fable which is probably vaguely similar to one of Aesop's...but for now I'll just be content to play the fox to the Internet's sour grapes.

Blogs Transferring Over

I am going to start moving the blogs I do over at the Montgomery Advertiser's new website over to here as, over there, you have to log in and register in order to read and comment on my blogs. While I would appreciate it very much IF you did that, it's the only way they see if (and how many people read these things) - I feel that I have lost readership because people cannot search and find my blogs as they are in a whole different blogging system.

So, I am going to try (I stress TRY) to remember to post one new (old) blog up here from there each nite.

Please feel free to comment, nice or negative things, as I really would appreciate the feedback. Yes, I live on feedback.

Thank you...

Mariann