That White Girl’s Alive–Part Two

As I mentioned last time, I’ve had some recent developments in my life. Although, all developments I listed in my last post do not warrant their own post, they do warrant elaboration.

List from last post:

1. I’m still alive

2. Work has been chaos and has been eating up all my time

3. I graduated from school (eeeep!)

4. The Boy moved in (double eeeep!)

5. I lost internet at home for 5 long weeks

6. I just got internet back

1. I am still alive. Unfortunately, I lost my URL because I didn’t have it on auto-renew. Even though that hurts me on the inside, it certainly hasn’t and won’t actually kill me.

2. Work has been busy and will continue to be busy for the next little while but now has a different kind of pressure and deadline. We completed one big project, but now are dealing with the aftermath of it and cleaning up after ourselves. We’re also expecting some auditors in at the end of the year, so we need to be prepared for that and make sure that we in fact adequately cleaned up after ourselves.

3. I graduated from school and this warrants its own post, so I won’t go into any detail now other than to say, I did it.

4. The Boy officially moved in. In the 8 months we’ve been seeing each other, we’ve basically been living together for 5 months. Right around Thanksgiving, he stopped going home much and was spending most of his time here. I eventually gave him a key.

In January, we had the conversation about him officially moving in. It didn’t make sense for him to be paying rent to his room-mate for a place he doesn’t live in and he wanted to be able to help me with the bills instead. So, he gave his room-mate notice and intended to vacate as of March 1st. Over the next few weeks, he slowly started bringing stuff over. As the end of February grew closer, the loads got bigger.

With me being busy at work and not being around to help organize and go through stuff, the boxes simply piled up and remained unopened. Once work slowed down enough that I had an available brain cell, I was overwhelmed by the chaos and was minutes away from completely losing my mind. The Boy may or may not have heard all about it. Multiple times.

I ended up taking the past week off work and we spent most of that time dealing with the chaos, so now the majority of stuff has been sorted, stored, given away etc. The place is starting to resemble a home again instead of this mess:

5. The internet was being provided by my upstairs neighbour. Once the landlord moved out, his cousin moved in and continued to give the tenants internet. Over the years, the other tenants lost their privileges and eventually I was the only tenant left with this grandfathered perk.

When The Boy brought his computers over, I gave him the internet password and he promptly went to town on it. My upstairs neighbour promptly changed the password and I promptly lost my free internet. I called the service provider for my land line and requested internet be added. They had a fantastic bundle that would end up costing me all of $15 more a month.

And then, it took them over 4 weeks to get their shit together; I had to contact them 3 times in order for them to actually ship the modem out. And then I got my bill.

6. Moral of the story, I now have internet, even though it was a pain in the ass and the longest 4.5 weeks of my life. Luckily, I had a work-issued smartphone and was able to pilfer internet access through that data plan.

That basically covers everything from the last post, aside from the graduation, which will soon follow.

Met up with a friend the other day for lunch; the following conversation occurred:

Thanks LC. Although (I hope) you’re right about the lack of terrible dating stories in the future, I sure hope to prove you wrong about being boring and not having any good stories left to tell.

That White Girl’s Alive!!

Holy crap – it’s been forever since I’ve posted anything! Just wanted to write a quick update to let you know what’s been going on.

1. I’m still alive
2. Work has been chaos and has been eating up all my time
3. I graduated from school (eeeep!)
4. The Boy moved in (double eeeep!)
5. I lost internet at home for 5 long weeks
6. I just got internet back

I swear I’ll write more details on all of this soon – I just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and haven’t forgotten about this thing I call a blog.

And apparently, I didn’t have my auto-renew on my website set up, so I lost my domain name. Serves me right I guess.

School Sucks

As you may or may not know, in addition to working for a living, I’m also in school. Sort of. I’ve been working on a bachelors degree part time for a long time; I’m finished all my classes, but still have a graduating project to do.

There are only so many steps associated with this process.

Step 1 – Pick a topic

Step 2 – Write a proposal and have it accepted

Step 3 – Carry out project

Step 4 – Write report and have it accepted

Step 5 – Graduate

But every step, takes way longer than it has to.

Six months later, we agreed on a topic. I started writing the proposal and it took 8 months (and 6 submissions) to get any feedback from my professor; when I finally did, it wasn’t exactly how I anticipated it.

So I did. And then…

So I did. And then…

I’ve actively been stuck in Step 1 and Step 2 for over two years. I’m beyond frustrated, which is why I have writer’s block and why you get a rant instead of a post. You’re welcome.

I have a blog?

Holy crap – I think this is hands-down the longest dry spell I’ve ever had with my blog.

A lot has been going on around here. I’ll try to give a brief rundown on what’s been going on… I’m sure most of these will require their own post. We’ll see if that happens.

First off, I’ve been working away at my school project – it’s been a struggle for the past year and it’s only gotten worse in the last 3 months. The good news is, I’ve finally gotten the green light to go ahead with it, so I’ll be starting that next week. And it will overtake my life for the next however-many-months.

For too long, I’ve been working too much; I recently decided I need more balance in my life and, as a result, have made huge efforts to maintain a social life with friends and family. Good, in theory, but it makes me stay up too late and have no time for writing.

But I have a feeling that minimal overtime will soon come to an end – it’s a big year at work and the to-do list will eventually catch up to me and I’ll be living there again. Such is life, I guess.

There’s also the summer factor, which also contributes to the social life factor. With the long days of sunshine, it’s much easier to not even think about going home until well after dark. And with the long days come short nights, so I’ve found its much easier for me not to get home until sunrise. It’s happening more and more. Which makes the next day rough and unproductive.

Yet worth every minute of it.

Now that I’ve put that in writing, it doesn’t seem as though it’s enough to warrant such a stretch of non-writing. I guess there’s no real excuse.

 

Except there might also be a boy involved.

Adventures in online dating: Part - Oh… I get it…

I found this in my drafts – I wrote it several months back, but since I’m chronically single, it still applies.

Hooray for being timeless.

I think I’ve finally figured out a reason, if not the reason, why I’m still single. Meh – who am I kidding there’s clearly a laundry list of reasons…

You know the dating technique where you trick someone into liking you by being not yourself and then dole out your true self in single-bite-size-servings so that, given enough time, you eventually become yourself, but it was done so gradually that the person you’re with didn’t realize just how weird/crazy/needy/sarcastic/(insert undesirable trait here) you really are until it was too late and they already like you and have already come to accept your character flaws?

Turns out that may be a problem, if not the problem, with … … well... me. I think that honesty is the best policy.

Allow me to explain my most recent epic fail. *Update – since this is not so recent anymore, I’m sure there’s more to come… Who am I kidding, I have some in reserves.

Although, my POF account is hidden and I’m not showing up in the general populations’ searches, I do log on, view profiles and email people. Not super frequently, but often enough.

I did this recently and started chatting with an attractive young man, who coincidentally enough, shares the same, uncommon (in the western world at least), name as Thailand. We’ll call him Thailand 2.0, or Thai2 for short.

I decided not to hold this against him, even though, more often than not, I cringe when I meet a prospect with the same name as my ex. Or my brother. Or my father. Sorry – but I got a thing with names!

So we start doing the whole email exchange thing. Back and forth for an hour or so every night. This lasted a few nights when one day Thai2 asked me what I was doing. I said I was at home, relaxing, doing some writing.

Something no one ever does is ask what exactly I’m writing. He does. I explain that I was writing some “short stories”; he asked what kind.

Something no one ever does is ask for my blog address. He does.

I wanted to discourage him, but I didn’t know what to say. My first thought was “No – I only share this with really good friends, or complete strangers and you’re too in between” which seemed like a ridiculous thing to say out loud. I settled with  “I don’t know about that…..” He sent me his website in exchange, so I sent him mine with a “don’t judge me!” disclaimer. He said he wouldn’t.

His website is themed around wine and is very professional and appropriate. And…  yeah… you’ve seen mine. A little while later, he asked who does my “artwork”.

A little while after that, he pointed out a specific post he liked. A post that was quite old. A post that happens to be in my “top posts based on nothing list”. I looked at the random list and hoped he wasn’t working his way down.

Let’s just say that list of posts has some… …  unsavory links. Links that my readers and friends enjoy, but maybe don’t portray me in the best light. That maybe aren’t super becoming of me. Or worse yet, are exactly as becoming of me.

He must have found them because he stopped replying to my emails. I should’ve known he was judging me. Better sooner rather than later, though, right?

Right??

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.

Oh no! Not another one!?!?!?

Alright, it’s official. I have another stalker. I know this because they left a creepy message on my car. I found it when I left work on Friday. This is it in all it’s glory:

Naturally, I spent the majority of my car ride home laughing, things like “Oh, Gorm, that’s a good one!” running through my head.

But then, my mind started wandering… have I said what kind of car I drive on my blog? I know I’ve said that I work near my school but I never said which school… And then for the briefest of seconds:

Because I wouldn’t be surprised if I got another stalker under my belt… And he’s probably hoping for the very same thing.

Devastation central

I haven’t forgotten about this thing I call a blog. And by “I call”, I mean, “everyone on Earth calls”. Doubtful that “everyone on Earth” knows about this blog… but whatever. The point is I’m really upset about something.

I can’t make my tablet work. The touch function works so I thought it was my pen; I bought a new one and it still doesn’t work. I’m really upset. And my next Mexico post REQUIRES pictures. And a track pad just doesn’t cut it. I’m going to break out my mouse and see if that helps the situation, but I’m not optimistic.

Anybody know anything about drawing tablets?

*giant sad face*

Uh-oh... SpaghettiOs

I had a serious (self-inflicted) glitch with my blog. You probably won't notice. And I think I fixed everything. Basically, I had to delete and import and re-delete and re-import a bunch of stuff because I messed up the last time I imported a bunch of stuff. I should stop doing that...

Long story short... I think I caught all the glitches, but you can never really be sure. And it would take me roughly 86.9 hours to figure out if I caught them all.

I worry about comments and I worry about links. Like I said, I think I caught them all. So here's hoping this is a warning for nothing. BUT... if you notice things are weird, please let me know. There are a few other things I need to work through after all, so there bound to be things that I don't know about.

Thanks for you patience. (Even though you probably didn't notice!)

Also!!! I'm trying to add a "Best of" section... so if there are any posts that you think should end up in this section for new people to read, or to have your old favourites one click away, please let me know...

You would blog too if it happened to you

I wrote a post awhile back with tips on how to get more traffic to your blog. Most of which I wasn't doing, because I'm blog-shy. And the rest were things I made up. Maybe not entirely, but it definitely wasn't very helpful. One of the points I made was that some people make business cards with their URL on them and hand them out. I was skeptical as to who would do such a thing and then promptly received a comment from another blogger that admitted to doing it.

:O <---Insert foot here

Although I haven't looked back at that post to see if I've started doing any of those things, I can tell you for sure that I have done one thing. Okay, I didn't make up business cards, but I did hand out my blog address to someone I met in a mall*. He ended up reading it and the next time I saw him at the mall* he told me what he thought about my posts. He said he read my blog three times, but I think he probably read one post three times, because let's face it, not many people have that kind of dedication.

Also, someone from facebook recently posted something about their blog and instead of not saying anything and wondering what she wrote about, I invited her to be blog-buddies. I'm pretty sure I used those exact words. Clearly, I've made strides in overcoming my blog-shyness. And although I have a lot of room for improvement, I thought you would be proud of me that I took this one, very small, step to being a serious blogger.

Okay, fine, more of a serious blogger.

A long time ago, I was reading a blog and the author admitted in a new post that she wrote a post awhile back and then buried it in older posts in hopes that no one would read it. Ultimately, she linked the new post to the buried post, but I couldn't help but wonder who would do that. I mean, if you're going to write something, write it. And if you don't want anyone to read it, then don't post it. Seems simple enough, right.

And then I turned around and did the exact same thing. I wrote a post and then less than 12 hours later I decided I needed to bury it so that it wasn't the first thing you read when you logged on. And then less than 12 hours after that I realized that it was a dumb-shit thing to do and promptly unpublished it. Now it's sitting there in my drafts mocking me for not having the courage to post it. And now, if I decide to post it, I'll have to rewrite it so that the "yesterday's and today's" are replaced with "two weeks ago", or else, post it in chronological order, thereby burying it once again.

I guess I didn't take that many steps out of my blog-shyness as I thought.

*I said "mall" but I meant "bar"


Update - I realized that burying the post is dumb. Here it is.  Thanks for your supportive comments.

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!

No fixed address

Until now, of course!

So you may be wondering what prompted this final move. Well, I recently purchased a domain (http://www.thatwhitegirls.com/) and was having a hard time figuring out how to make it my blog. The internet is a strange place. Since I don't know HTML and have little to no interest in learning how to build a website from scratch, I started looking at other blogs that I read.

All the blogs that have their own domain had something in common. At the bottom of the screen it said "Powered by Blogger". So, I created a blogger account and it turned out to be super easy to use blogger to make my domain useful. Within a few clicks, I had my banner and basic template uploaded on the site.

Always loyal, I decided to poke around wordpress to see if I could make it happen using that avenue. But they wanted me to pay money to have my domain 'mapped' and export my blog and redirect my site, and, and, and. Always frugal, I decided not to pay for something when I can get it for free.

So I set up my own redirect (a simple: hey you, go here now!) and had blogger do the mapping of my domain and I exported and imported the contents all by myself. For Free!! High tech? No. Functional? Yes. After all, we all made the switch last time without a hitch, so we can do it again.

Now, comes the work of getting used to blogger when I was so used to wordpress and getting my new blog address recognized in Google once again. But, I'm sure it'll all be worth it to have my own domain.

Where's Waldo?

I keep swearing to myself that I will write a post that does not involve dancing. It's hard because it's all I think about lately. That's why I haven't posted anything. So, I'm left with writing about random things that have happened to me lately. I know how much you love those.

I got a new camera. I'm really fricken pleased with it, even though I haven't had much of a chance to really test it out. I'm waiting on a case before I start taking it out of the house. With this new camera, I've been reminded about how much there is to know about photography and how I don't know about any of it. Oh well, such is life, good-a-time as any to start learning.

I recently bought a new top that looks good... until I start moving. Then the neck line starts moving up until the part that's supposed to cover my boobs is choking me. I decided that I was going to fix this problem by adding in an elastic band to try and prevent the upward migration. Three hours later, I was reminded that I'm not very good at sewing. Luckily, I'm very good at undoing sewing, so I'm left with the top as it was when I bought it... well, with a few thousand extra holes of course.

I had my brother over today; we went out for lunch and spent several hours catching up. Which was really nice; it's been awhile since we've been able to do that. The first thing he does when he walked in the door was say "I have something for you" and then he dropped three packages of 'ResoraLAX' onto my coffee table 'just in case'. Um. Thanks.

I'm not that into Christmas decorating, but decided to go all out** this year, since I was having people over for dinner. It's almost February and my decorations are still up. In my defense, I'm not turning them on anymore.

Several months ago, I gave myself a goal to write 600 word posts, four days a week. I went full-on-strong for the first six weeks or so and since then have petered out. I no longer count words and don't post nearly four times a week. So in an effort to not drop the ball, I'm changing my goal post to twice a week and however many words I want.

This will hopefully limit the amount of posts like this one that I put up. Fear not, they will still exist. I'm not changing my personality after all. It might be a good idea to post consistently on certain days, but it also might lead to giant failure on my part, again. So, let's say I'm going to post on Sundays and Wednesdays and if I don't, I'll do it some other day, I swear.

I think that's about all I got for this random post. I'm sure I could come up with something else to say, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting as writing about cameras, clothes or constipation medication.

Until next time... See ya folks!

 

**"All out" includes a 3ft Christmas tree, two sets of lights, a stocking and a Santa hat.

A Beer For the Shower

One of my favorite blogs is having a contest. This post is my entry into said contest. I must be funny and/or creative. We all know these are not my strong suits, but here's my attempt so that I win a prize.

Ironically enough, the prize is having my picture drawn in MSPaint.

I'm oddly excited about potentially winning the prize... So it's pretty much like every other prize I've been in the vicinity of. I should really stop being so damn excitable.

Anyway, back to the post... I don't quite recall how I first came to read A Beer For the Shower (ABFtS) , but within reading a post or two I decided to go back to the beginning of time and read their entire blog. I got through it and I'm still reading to this day, if that's a testament of their awesomeness.

It probably isn't. But it should be!

The blog is written by two dudes and started out as purely prose, but it eventually became a comic-laden blog. The difference between these guys and someone like, oh... let's say... me, is that these guys are actually writers. Like professional writers. They make books and stuff.

This is where this post comes in. They recently released an e-book available on Amazon. The book is called The Missing Link and it's cover was drawn in, you guessed it, MSPaint. It's about the day the internet died. They released it this way because the publishing world is a crock and they got tired of being dicked around.

It makes me glad that I don't have those sorts of goals.

So why am I doing this? Well, for one, the prize (duh!); for two, they too have asshole neighbours. Mostly though, it's because they they like drinking beer in the shower, so they're okay in my books. In fact, they actually have instructions on the best way to enjoy a beer in the shower. Tips that you don't want to learn through trial and error; after all, trial and error often results in wasted beer.

Very few people know, that drinking while bathing is a guilty pleasure of mine. For a long time, I deprived myself of this luxury. I thought it made me a bad person, or an alcoholic. It's not that I can't bathe without a drink, but sometimes, I simply choose not to.

I don't really drink beer anymore; I switched over to vodka and never really looked back. But every so often, I get a hankering for drinking while bathing, and a vodka cocktail does not do it justice. Trust me, I've tried. When this happens, I go out and buy a case of beer just so I can drink one while I bathe.

Which results in me having nice, long, relaxing baths 6 days in row. I've always enjoyed it while in the bath, as opposed to the shower, however, this was before I read their tips; I was always afraid of watering down the precious nectar. Not anymore.

So there you have it. Read their blog, buy their book and convince them that this is the funniest, most creative entry they've received.

And... ... ... GO!

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing the [good] illustration!

I'm leaving on a jet plane

I'm mere hours from take off. 11 to be exact. Sometimes I'm excited, other times I have a hard time believing that 24hours from now I'll be in Mexico. It's surreal.

Since I don't want to bore you with another anticipatory post, I'll leave you with this...

And I thought syphilis was bad.

See ya folks!

A First for Everything

I have an announcement. I've been twittering up a storm lately and have been in contact with several other bloggers (we have a nice little community, online, oddly enough). One in particular, @theTsaritsa (on Twitter), or The Tsaritsa Sez (her blog), asked whether or not someone would be willing to do a guest post on her blog, or have her do a guest post on theirs.

Now, I've never done a guest post and I've never had anyone do a guest post for me, so I thought that it would be an interesting experience. Our writing styles and post topics are quite different, but I was totally willing to have her do a guest post for me. I expressed my interest and she asked me if I was willing to do a swap and write on a similar topic. I also accepted that invitation.

So, just so you guys know, there will be a guest post by The Tsaritsa on this blog and That White Girl's doing a guest post on her site. Don't forget to go on over and show her some love. http://thetsaritsasez.com/

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! :)

If you write it, they will read.

I recently got forwarded a link for blogging basics. http://boingboing.net/2011/09/25/the-1000-words-rule-of-blogging-book-excerpt.html

Thanks Brain Trepaning!

In it, it states that every blogger should write at least 1000 words per day. I'm not even sure I know what 1000 words looks like.

I responded to his email with: "1000 words per day?? I'm not sure if any of my posts are 1000 period. Pictures are worth a 1000 words though right?!?!!? :)". To which he replied: "your posts are close to a few hundred words. Just checked, your He's A Cruper post is 987 words."

Notice how he didn't acknowledge my picture comment?? I did. I guess pictures aren't worth a 1000 words. Dammit. There goes that idea.

So. The idea of this book is to give yourself goals and to try and achieve them. Since I'm fairly convinced that 1000 words is a lot and way more than I have to say on any given day (put that in the record books!) I'm going cut that number down to 500, okay fine, 600 and try and achieve that in any given day. And by given day, I mean, at least 4 days a week. I've really cut that down to a goal a monkey could achieve, but you gotta start somewhere, right??

If I achieve my goal for 3 straight weeks, then I'll consider actually following the experts advice.

So, that's one example of really helpful friends. Here's an example of a not so helpful friend. One of my loyal commenters is also my loyal skewing-Google-results-by-fabricating-search-terms-and-linking-them-to-my-blog friend.

Hamster porn?! Really, Gorm?! I don't even have a hamster story, let alone a hamster porn story. Also, he said that it's getting easier and easier to find me on Google - to the point where you don't have to have quotation marks around my blog title anymore for me to show up (you know, unless you want it to show up under hamster porn, that is!).

I do have stories relating to spiders, and horses, and dogs. I have more that I haven't written too. I think my next post will be about flies. Big, old, black, flies.

Is this 600 words yet??

Epic fail - 363. (Palindrome for the win!) (367)

This is what I have to deal with

I'm really thankful that today is Friday and I have the whole weekend to cope with this before having to see a 'certain someone'. Rather, he should be thankful that I have the whole weekend to cope with this before he has to see me again.

And here's why:

You're actually skewing Google search results, Gorm! You're the reason for my ultimate demise. You suck. So bad. I hate you.

I will never forgive you for this. I'll never forgive you, or your children, or your children's children.

-

-

For three months.

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.