Holy Milestone, Batman!!

This marks my 200th blog post. I know.

Believe you me, I never expected to get here. Honestly, I probably would have expected to get to 200 words and call it quits. I’m sure you find it hard to believe, since I’m normally so long winded, but it’s true.

My thought would be that I would have a really great post for such an event. But that’s just not the case. This will be a mish-mash of random crap. You’re welcome.

I recently purchased an electronic drum kit from my friend Dave, a.k.a. the worst friend ever. Shortly after, I had my friend, Brian, over and he spied it with his little eye sitting unassembled in the corner. He was horrified that such a thing could happen and demanded (read: hinted repeatedly) that it should be set up.

I allowed him the pleasure. Partially because he really wanted to, but also because I had no idea how to do it myself. Truth be told, I was planning on calling him or Dave to help with the process when I got the inkling to do so.

Now I just got to learn how to use all four limbs independently. Not going to be easy. But it will make music day much more interesting!! You know, when someone that can play drums comes over.

Throughout Brian’s visit, and his follow up visit to make sure I could use my set up properly, he brought a little friend of his. His name is Hank. And he’s a dog. During this visit, Brian also taught me something:

Yeah, that’s right. I gif now. When I was trying to determine if my EZ-post-it software could upload gifs to my blog, I discovered that it was going to be my 200th post. I promptly unpublished it and decided to make it the most epic, memorable post of all time.

And then I sorely disappointed my readers. I’m sorry.

In an attempt to make it up to you, and also practice my new found gif skills, I made something for you that shows exactly what I was thinking when I posted my “Hey Hank” trial.

And that monstrosity is my 200th post.

It’s bound to get better from here.

Thanks so much for your support, or at least for keeping your judgment to your inside voice.

I need your help

As you may have noticed, there's always an "About" section on blogs and if you've ever visited my "About" section you will notice that it's extremely lackluster at best. I've never quite figured out what to write there... Whenever I write something it either sounds like a resume or an online dating profile. Not desirable.

So here's my request... I want you guys to write it for me. You know me (and my blog) just as well as I do (actually, probably more). So how about you help a girl out and leave a comment for what you think this blog is all about or what sorts of information you think I should include. Short snarky sentences are not frowned upon... they're encouraged.

See ya, folks!

The full story

Recently, I was told that I skew facts and only tell one side of the story and always in a negative light. I'm referring to the search terms used by my 'readers' to find me on the interweb. Just so that I'm not misleading anyone, I decided to show the full story. Below is a complete list of terms used to find me in the last 30days. As you can see, there are also positive search terms.

It's a nice gesture. Thank-you, Gorm.

But just to be clear, I still see the situation like this:

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree! :)

Why did you go camping in your storage room?

I came to the realization a while back that I am, quite possibly, the worst blogger ever. Not only because I can go weeks without posting and then try to make up for it by posting multiple times a week and/or day, but also because if you read the self-help books on how to blog, I'm doing it all wrong. Also, I insult my audience (you fuckers).

I knew all along that I wasn't doing this blogging thing right and in the beginning I didn't really care, but the more I do it, the more I realize that if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right. I try to live my life by not doing things half-assed and yet here I am, the half-assed blogging queen.

In the past few months I've tried to pull up my socks and be better and I think I have been, but there are still a number of areas where I fail miserably.

Things bloggers do to get readers:

Tell their friends/family about the blog and follow up to make sure they're reading. I have many people in my life that do not know that I blog at all. People that I would be slightly embarrassed to admit this to. And the people that I have told, I typically don't follow up with them.

Promote their blog on their social networks. To this day, I have not had a facebook update relating to my blog. I have set up a facebook page, but I didn't advertise that on my personal profile either. I don't know what's wrong with me. Honestly.

Comment on other people's blogs. Up until a couple of months ago I was more of the "long time listener, first time caller" kind of internet user. I've since come to terms with it and have started leaving comments on ramdon people's blogs. Because, you know what, if I'm reading it, I might as well tell them what I think about it.  After all, I'm just another ramdon person on the internet!

Have a catchy name that people will remember. Okay, I just made that one up. I just wanted to accomplish another one of these points. But seriously, I think it makes sense, that way people that don't know you are able to remember the name.

Categorize & tag items in the posts so search engines find you. I went the first 6 months of blogging under "uncategorized" because I didn't know how to make categories, or what they were used for. I've since learned a bit about these things and now have a ba-zillion categories to choose from. I still don't know how to 'tag' though.

Post/handout advertisements so people in real life see them. Seriously? Do some people make business cards and hand them out to the people in front of them in the Starbucks lineup? I'm not sure I can do that. I'll consider this one once I've whored myself out to all my family and friends.

I'm sure there's about a million other tips & tidbits, but that would require me doing research and I don't feel like it. That's how good of a blogger I am. Oh boy. Good thing I've already started trying to be better. Yeesh. I suppose now I just gotta try harder.

I just remembered another point:

Ask your friends/family/readers to tell their friends/family/readers. Okay guys - this one is on you... get at 'er!! :)

On another note, a real human being liked one of my posts today (you know, as opposed to a spam-bot). My first real post under my first real name... Coincidence? I think not.

Who's your dog wearing?

I read blogs. It's true. I've been a blog-ger and a blog-reader for about a year now and throughout that time I've stumbled upon numerous blogs. Most of these blogs I will read a post or two and decide it's not for me. Other blogs, I will read a post and think it's right up my alley, but upon further perusal, I realize that that one post was for me and the rest is crap.

And every so often I stumble upon a blog that I dig immediately. After reading a few recent posts, I will go back to the beginning of their blog and read the entire thing start-to-finish over the course of days/weeks. If I still give a fuck about what they're talking about, I'll bookmark them and visit their site on a regular basis.

More often than not, I give up reading the blog, either because they post so infrequently that I've forgotten who they are and what they're about, or else I decide that they're not funny anymore, or I no longer have an interest in what they have to say.

There's one blog in particular I want to bring your attention to. I have no idea how I found it, but I remember the first post I ever read. The post was practically devoted to vodka and I thought "Now this I can relate to!" I read her blog from the beginning onwards and I started visiting her site nearly everyday. (She posts nearly everyday, so I don't feel like a stalker).

Since then, I've gone back to re-read her blog from the beginning at least once (but I think two more times), I've commented on her posts (and received comments back!), I even set up a "Blogger" account so that I can officially "follow" her.

Why? Because sometimes it's nice to know when people are reading and they care about/enjoy what you write. Because sometimes you need to know that people like you. Because sometimes you need someone to bolster your spirits, even if you don't know them.

And that's why I wrote this post. In hopes that, maybe, you'll visit her blog and like what you read. And maybe you'll turn someone else onto her fabulous site. That maybe, just maybe, she'll achieve her dream of being a famous blogger/writer.

Now, go to her site: http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/ and read dammit!

Just in case you're a little gun-shy, here are a couple of my favourite posts:

http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/2010/07/celibacy-is-fun-not.html

http://www.whenredmeansgo.com/2010/07/taste-for-disaster.html

Pretty awesome, right? But please don't stop reading my blog, m'kay?

Nuttin’ but mutton

I went onto my blog page today to "moderate a comment" (I have to approve nearly every comment that people put on my page, and because I love the four of you so much, I also use that time to respond to your comments). It's not exactly time-consuming, but it does need to be done.

So today I went to my page to moderate and respond and I saw this little thing that I'd never seen before...

SPAM! I got SPAM?! I was really curious and had to see what it was....

Tracfone?! What the hell is that? And who exactly is supposed to answer his question? It's not like this is a forum for cell phones... Although, he was responding to "I bet it's in the credits", so maybe he thought it was about airtime credits. Either he didn't read the post, or he's a spam-bot.

I almost approved this comment just to make it seem like I have five readers, but then I thought the four of you would probably realize I don't. So instead of approving it and attempting to fool you, I wrote a quick post about it, mocking my lack of readership and his attempt at finding Tracfone airtime. Better luck next time, Carl.

Revenge is best served with asparagus. It also makes your pee taste funny.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I have four readers that I know of... I could probably think of a fifth, but I don't know if he actually reads my blog, so I like to say four, just to be safe. In either case, I can definitely say with certainty that I can count all my readers on one hand. Pretty impressive.

All that aside, I was looking at my web-stats the other day and there were a few days in the last month where I had 6, 7, 8 views in one day! 8 views? Wow! The way I see it there are two options... Either every single one of you is reading the same post twice in one day, or else there may be more than four people reading.

To be honest, I find it really hard to believe that you four will all read the same post twice in one day (not just re-reading it, but actually logging back on to the internet so that the web-stat-thinga-ma-jig sees it as a new visit). If that is how the internet works...

But I find it even harder to believe that there are 4 other people in this world that read my blog. Even if it was just those 3 days, people other than you read it... I mean, where did you come from? What on Earth did you google to find me?

I just tried googling myself... Would you believe that "Are you honourable" shows up #4 on google?

I was surprised. I continued googling myself and discovered you have to write VERY specific sentences in order for me to show up. This may be the only instance where using random, out of context sentences as my titles will come in handy - example: #1 ranking below.

But "My apple tastes like parsley" isn't even on the first page? How does that work? In fact, I looked through 5 pages and nada. And even this one (which I think is pretty unique) doesn't yield the same #1 results.

My favorite is the porn video that showed up before my post (if my page was even there).

What I'm driving at here is: I find it highly unlikely that people are finding me on the web. So my question to you, all eight readers, is this: are there actually eight of you? If so, do I know you? You didn't actually find me through the internet, did you? If so, how? If not, how?

You were genetically modified to suck!

I'm not very technologically savvy... maybe even technologically retarded. Challenged, pardon me. It's not that bad; I have friends that know what they're doing.

One of these friends has his own website and blog and everything. He told me that I should also blog. My immediate response was "But that's on the internet and I don't know how that works". So he told me how: go here and make an account, download this and type. My response: "Sounds complicated". His response: "It's not. It couldn't be easier." I brushed it off with my non-committal "Sounds interesting", which he took to mean that it sounded interesting and so he started explaining how pings work and how I could ping better than anyone else... or something. I can't recall. I really didn't understand that part of the email.

So a couple months later, someone else said I should write down my stories and since I'd recently become addicted to Cracked, I decided the blog idea wasn't that far-fetched and I'd give it a shot. I went through my discarded emails and found the one outlining how to make it happen. I still have no idea what pings are...

Yes, yes, I do want pings, so long as you're offering and so long as they're free.

So once I started up my blog my friend asked if I'd like his blog to have a link to my blog, I said sure. Within minutes, a link was up. (Thanks Brain!) Since I have no idea how to do that (that's on the internet and I don't know how that works) I'll return the favour, the low tech way. http://www.trepaning.com/blog/. You're welcome. You may have just recruited three new readers. I can say three with confidence because I have four readers and one of them is you.

**UPDATE** I have now figured out one part of the internet; Brain's blog now has a working link on the sidebar. Oh yeah.

**UPDATE** I may have in fact recruited a fifth reader... it's questionable whether or not he will actually read it, but since it's my brother, I can only hope! :)

Hmmm... other technology that I don't understand...

Well, I still refer to the flat screen TVs/monitors as the "new" kind... even though you can no longer purchase CRT versions anywhere... Except for maybe the local pawn shop or crack house. I realize they're not new anymore, but I just can't seem to get past it. I think I should buy one of those new TVs and then maybe I'll stop making that slip.

I got my first cell phone for xmas 5 years ago. After I opened it and gave Dad the totally cliché response "Oh, cool!", he informed me that he had taken the liberty of charging the battery, so I could use it right away. Aw, thanks Dad. I continued to hold it and say "pretty" a lot. Finally, a 12 year old took it out of my hands, turned it on and started showing me how it worked. Wow... when I saw the colours on the screen... you should've heard me - I tell ya, it's like I'd never seen TV before. I had, I just had never seen one so small and with a screen so flat! Fairly certain everyone in the room laughed at me. For the rest of the night.

I've started recording music. I got myself a 4 track (the cassette, analog version, not the new, digital, fancy kind), but after I dropped it a few times and it stopped working so well, I decided to feed the music into the computer. I say 'I decided', but really, I called a friend of mine complaining and he told me that's what I should do and then told me how to do it. I followed his instructions and then I figured out the cords and the program and now I can record straight into my computer. Amazing. (Thanks Brain!) I've since ditched the 4 track and have upgraded to the least digital, least fancy computer-music-interface-thing money could buy.

When I first played a Wii, I was blown away by the cordless controller and amazed by the fact that you just point it at the TV and it knows what you're doing. I had no idea how the TV could "see" the Wii remote, let alone tell the Wii what you're doing with it... yes, I did say that out loud and yes, I was shown the sensor bar, completely separate from the TV. Okay, so it's not that smart... And apparently neither am I...