Erik Mona Has a Blog!

[Son_of_Thunder]

What is the purpose of a Blog?

Could someone tell me what the purpose of a blog is?

I see it as someone who wants attention. I don't read blogs because I don't care what you have to say to someone you don't know. I have friends I discuss politics, religion, and sex with.

Is that what it is? Just someone who is an attention nut?

 

[Simplicity]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To Blogging:

Blogging. Blogging is the act of regularly updating your website with some humdrum information about your life or a link to something you just read on the Internet in the mistaken belief that anyone actually cares. It is the 21st century equivalent of hanging around railway stations writing pithy, but erudite descriptions of the passing trains.

To take part in blogging, or (to use the appropriate terminology) to join the blogosphere, there are a couple of things you need to do. Firstly, you'll need to increase the size of your ego. Without a swollen ego, you simply cannot achieve the levels of solipsism required by a modern blog. This necessary step is often missed by new bloggers, yet without it, you won't believe that anyone is remotely interested in what you had for lunch today, how cute your cat Mittens is, or whether or not you designed some tedious Internet protocol.

In fact, blogging without an oversized ego can actually be dangerous. If you start using words like blogosphere, there is a very real possibility that your own major intestine will leap straight up through your neck and throttle your brain in an attempt to preserve civilization.

Fortunately, there are various forms of medication to increase the size of your ego -- many offering a moneyback guarantee that you'll be at least twice as obnoxious in four weeks or less. Until you are sufficiently obnoxious, you might feel the need to explain or at the very least describe the things you link to. Experienced bloggers know that they are so important that readers will blindly follow their links. After all, a few seconds of one blogger's time is clearly more valuable than all the time spent by people discovering they really didn't care.

The other thing you should do to become a successful blogger is change your website to use dotted lines and unreadable, tiny fonts wherever possible.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Very observant

The Hitchhiker's Guide To Blogging:

Blogging. Blogging is the act of regularly updating your website with some humdrum information about your life or a link to something you just read on the Internet in the mistaken belief that anyone actually cares. It is the 21st century equivalent of hanging around railway stations writing pithy, but erudite descriptions of the passing trains.

To take part in blogging, or (to use the appropriate terminology) to join the blogosphere, there are a couple of things you need to do. Firstly, you'll need to increase the size of your ego. Without a swollen ego, you simply cannot achieve the levels of solipsism required by a modern blog. This necessary step is often missed by new bloggers, yet without it, you won't believe that anyone is remotely interested in what you had for lunch today, how cute your cat Mittens is, or whether or not you designed some tedious Internet protocol.

In fact, blogging without an oversized ego can actually be dangerous. If you start using words like blogosphere, there is a very real possibility that your own major interstine will leap straight up through your neck and throttle your brain in an attempt to preserve civilization.

Fortunately, there are various forms of medication to increase the size of your ego -- many offering a moneyback guarantee that you'll be at least twice as obnoxious in four weeks or less. Until you are sufficiently obnoxious, you might feel the need to explain or at the very least describe the things you link to. Experienced bloggers know that they are so important that readers will blindly follow their links. After all, a few seconds of one blogger's time is clearly more valuable than all the time spent by people discovering they really didn't care.

The other thing you should do to become a successful blogger is change your website to use dotted lines and unreadable, tiny fonts wherever possible.

Laugh out Loud. This is pretty much my opinion on Blogs. Laugh point for you sir.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't read blogs because I don't care what you have to say to someone you don't know.

Some people do, and thus, blogs.

 

[Simplicity]

I'm just transcribing my HG2TG soundtrack...

I actually do like blogs, not that I read many of them. Though they are a bit odd...

 

[GMSkarka]

I have friends I discuss politics, religion, and sex with.

Some of us have friends that are spread all over the world, and that's exactly what we ARE doing with blogs. The strangers who drop by and read what we have to say are just a side-effect (with the consequence that occasionally, they become friends too).

Why is this so hard to understand? I mean, we all participate in a hobby where we take part in imaginary adventures using math and probability to determine the outcome of events, fer godssakes. How can people who can deal with something as inherently strange as that have problems with something so relatively straightforward?

 

[WizarDru]

Could someone tell me what the purpose of a blog is?

I see it as someone who wants attention. I don't read blogs because I don't care what you have to say to someone you don't know. I have friends I discuss politics, religion, and sex with.

Is that what it is? Just someone who is an attention nut?

You seem to be discounting the idea that some of the blogs people read are FROM their friends. I joined LiveJournal to keep in touch with many of my now geographically distant friends. One of my friends regularly posts to blogger, which is how I keep track of his comings and goings.

Blogs are different things to different folks. My Livejournal is for friends near and far to keep up with me, find out what I'm listening to, reading, working on or just shot the breeze. You might ask: "Well, why not just pick up the phone?" For some friends, that might be valid...but I work 13 hour days and have two kids...time is scarce. Couple that with the fact that most of the folks who's blogs I read or who read mine are in different time zones, and you see the problem. I'm in bed by 10PM most night, since I need to be up and out of the house by 5:30AM....calling someone who keeps similar hours in San Diego is problematic.

Other blogs are good news aggregate sites: I get my video game and gadget news from a series of blogs, who collect news stories and share them. I don't have time to seek out the latest information on when Bomberman DS will ship...and thanks to DSRevolution, Joystiq and Kotaku, I don't need to bother. When I wanted E3 coverage, I turned to the blogs. When I want to know about specific topics, I often turn to a blog for a viewpoint and commentary on it.

Some blogs are like Erik Mona's, Chris Pramas' or Jackson Publick (of the Venture Brothers fame): part of it is just stuff that happens to them and part of it is related to content they're working on that has some relevancy to a shared interest. Hearing Erik's write-up about the Ethergaunts, or his link to the 'transformation' database, for example. Finding out the details of how work is progressing on Season Two of the Venture Brothers, for another.

In some cases, Blogs are just pure entertainment. Reading John Scalzi or Wil Wheaton's blogs, for example, contain both some insight and amusement. They are both professional writers who provide sometime keen insight into their various crafts (and in Wheaton's case, both writing AND acting).

I'm not a big fan of political blogs...but some old media folks sure are spooked by 'em.

In many ways, I view blogs as the 21st century equivalent of Letters (as in the collected Letters of Mark Twain, frex). We frequently go back, these days, and review those writings when trying to glean an insight into someone's thought process. This is no different, IMHO.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Some of us have friends that are spread all over the world, and that's exactly what we ARE doing with blogs. The strangers who drop by and read what we have to say are just a side-effect (with the consequence that occasionally, they become friends too).

Why is this so hard to understand? I mean, we all participate in a hobby where we take part in imaginary adventures using math and probability to determine the outcome of events, fer godssakes. How can people who can deal with something as inherently strange as that have problems with something so relatively straightforward?

So why not email? Why not irc or another chat program?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

So why not email? Why not irc or another chat program?

If that's how they want to keep in touch, why should they?

 

[GMSkarka]

So why not email? Why not irc or another chat program?

To piss you off personally, apparently.

No, seriously---because it doesn't require that we're all on at the same time (useful when people are literally on the other side of the planet), and is much more social (i.e. the chance of meeting new folks, as mentioned earlier.)

Your question makes about as much sense as asking why friends go to a pub and hang out...why not just do it by phone, or in someone's house? The answer: Because the pub has benefits that the other venues do not.