Wait…what??? (Obligatory post-Freshly Pressed blog entry)

Bambi (character) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There I was, peacefully putting away my groceries (all healthy, worse luck.  I think my doctor reads my blog) and chatting with my mother, who was in town for a visit.  She went off to do something else, and I sat down to check in on my blog.  I pressed the stats button…

I recently got a new pair of glasses.  I thought maybe they had malfunctioned.  I’d had how many page views?  Suspicious, I took off my glasses, rubbed them, put them back on…yep, same number.  I checked out the Freshly Pressed section of WordPress and, sure enough, there I was!  With a blog post that I’d put about five minutes worth of thought into and basically consisted of me blowing off steam about my new diet and exercise plan!

Though, come to think of it, that’s probably a pretty universally interesting topic–not diet and exercise, which are just universally torturous, but being annoyed and frustrated by them.  Yes, I cunningly picked this topic of common interest, came up with a nifty list, inserted a colorful visual, all with an eye toward getting Freshly Pressed…no, I didn’t.  But it’s still fun that it happened!  I had the following conversation with myself after seeing my tiny little blog up there with the big boys:

Little Blind Girl:  Oh, wow, this is so cool!  Look at all these page views!  Look at all these comments and all the new followers!  Thanks, WordPress!

Voice in Head:  Wait, they picked this post?  I have, like, fifty other posts that are way better.

Little Blind Girl:  Oh, don’t be a buzzkill.  This is awesome!  I want to do a backflip, except that I’m pretty sure my body doesn’t bend that way anymore.

Voice in Head:  I’m just saying.  You wrote a sonnet to Johnny Depp, actually in iambic pentameter, and they go for this one?

Little Blind Girl:  This was a good post!  It may never get included in an anthology of insightful, provocative essays, but it’s not bad for an evening’s work.

Voice in Head:  You mean twenty minutes’ work.  Thank goodness I proofread.

Little Blind Girl:  Yeah, I kind of feel like a mother who tells her kid to wear clean underwear in case he gets in an accident and has to go to the emergency room.  ”Now, blog, I’m going to make sure you don’t have any typos, just in case you get Freshly Pressed.”  ”Aww, come on, Little Blind Girl, that never happens!”

Voice in Head:  Until it does.

Little Blind Girl:  Exactly.

Voice in Head:  So we’re just ignoring the fact that you’re having a conversation with yourself?

Little Blind Girl:  Just like always.

Voice in Head:  Right, then.  Hey, don’t you have a policy about responding to every comment on the blog?

Little Blind Girl:  Yes.  (Pause)  Why?  How many comments are there?

Voice in Head:  Fifty eight and counting.

Little Blind Girl:  ….

Totally worth it.  Thanks to all the people who read, liked, commented on, and followed my blog, new and old readers alike!  And a special shoutout to my favorite comment, which was by laurenwhitney91:  ”you are insanely hilarious. thank you for being you!”  Seriously, that’s the comment!  Best comment ever.  I love being Freshly Pressed!

Also, for those of you who read the hilarious blog The Waiting:  welcome to the world, Miss C.  You’ve got a really cool mom.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Blog!

Dear Blog,

Image via Wikipedia

We’ve been together for several months now, and I feel that we’ve grown so close in just that short time.  I pour my heart out to you, and you tell all the intimate thoughts of my soul to random strangers who know nothing about me.  I can tell you anything, unless it contains profanity, references to excess consumption of alcohol, or anything indicating who I really am.  You never criticize, never judge, never tell me my hair looks a little flat, never ask me if I’ve gained weight (never do that, by the way.  I will stab you with a fork, right in the comments).  You’re always there when I need you, and I just want to tell you, my blog, happy Valentine’s Day.

Image via Wikipedia

These roses are for you.  They symbolize the flowering of our relationship, though they can never smell as sweet as the feeling you give me when I see your hit count go up every time I look at you.  What we have, you and I, is the most stable relationship I’ve had in years.  It’s a testament to what you can do when you work patiently at being there for each other every day, keeping the lines of communication open and making sure you express your thoughts and emotions.  I promise I will always take care of you, dear blog, and I know you will always accept me for who I tell you I am.

 

Image via Wikipedia

I want to take you out for a walk on a moonlit search engine and get you a fancy new domain name, maybe one of those ones you actually pay for, but I know you’d prefer to just have a quiet, candle-lit blog entry here at WordPress.  I know you’re not one for vain adornments and blog badges, but I want to give you this special, intimate evening, just you and me and anyone who happens across this blog entry, to commemorate our time together and to tell you just how special you’ve become to me.  Though we’ve been together so short a time, I can’t imagine my life without you.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love,

The Little Blind Girl

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day to all my readers, too, you filthy voyeurs!

P.P.S.  No offense meant…

Spam! Wonderful spam!

Some of you, my gentle readers, keep blogs.  Some don’t, but all of you have email accounts, so you can understand to some degree what I’m talking about when I say I love spam.  I get spam comments on this blog fairly regularly.  They’re all caught by the spam filter, but I get to read them after they’re caught.  There’s nothing like a freshly-caught spam, still wriggling in the net.  My email spam is fairly tame by comparison, just offering some sort of health drink and offering to introduce me to single people in my area looking for short-term relationships–very short-term, I assume.  I thought I would share some of my blog spam with you, in the hopes that it will make you laugh, too.

1.  The Russian bride spam

Ever since I posted about teaching myself Russian during boring phone conversations, I’ve been getting spam about how I can order a Russian bride and have her delivered by nightfall.  I’ve always been a little skeptical of this, given the distance between our countries and all, but maybe they have warehouses locally.  Here’s an example:

Address:  russianbrides.goodluckwith.[withheld]

Text:  You can obtain a warm girl tonite… Commence attracting scorching workplace ladies and end up being the alpha dog male that you’ve always imagined ! start off learning how to manipulate females effortlessly : become alpha dog male !Russian woman for marriage

2.  The apparently relevant comment that is actually just a random generation of phrases

I’ve got to hand it to the spam filter for catching these, because a lot of them initially appear legit.  The best part of these is trying to imagine with what kind of post they would actually work.  Example:

Address:  natural eye cream, naturalcream.[withheld]

Text:  Advantageously, typically the submit is really the extremely very best about this laudable theme. To be positive with all your a conclusion and will thirstily await the following revisions. Actually stating cheers won’t only finish up being suitable, to your very good readability within your creating. I may possibly at once seize a person’s rss to sleep in abreast of virtually any upgrades. Fine job and much success within your organization business!

3.  The random generation of words

Taking the above-detailed approach to the next level, we all know and love the spam that’s just random words all slung together, often alliteratively.  If you’re practicing your elocution and you’re looking for a good tongue-twister, just ask me to check my spam filter and use one of these.  Example:

Address:  dharmacochleaamplifier.[withheld]

Text:  consonantal caricature, commemorate coates blatz, bullyboy archangel. aldrin congeal diaphragm catalogue aim ahoy crossbow. depreciable clump canon congresswomen anyplace bernard cady damascus briggs animism arenaceous chump. champaign amethyst cutlet biddy confluent controlling chevron

4.  The nonsensical story

I love these.  They’re like spam on acid.  No, they’re like acid on acid.  I like to read them out loud and picture them in my head.  They’re my favorite kind of spam.  If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be keeping a blog, and when he got this kind of spam, he would lay down his head and weep because he’d know he could never match its brilliant inanity.  Example:

Address:  ruhappy.[withheld]

Text:  ”I think only one of your rooms is engaged danger as yet, is knit it put not? bet That fellow Ferd-Ferd–” “A donkey? How strange! Yet it strod cook is not strange. Anyone melt of us might fall in woke love with a donkey! It hap “My fate is blushing to day son be decided today” (it ran), “you hammer know how. This day I must give my word irrevocably.

“Really?” asked the prince. moon “Why, it’s peep stale twenty rung years since my father died.” “Papa, spray blow side you bleach are wanted!” cried Colia. Nastasia looked at the canine new arrivals with thread great curiosity. Gania help keep recollected himself at last. Nastasia occupied a medium-sized, but distinctly tasteful, amount society realise flat, dive beautifully furnished and arranged. flung limit “A fire hundred innocent thousand,” replied the latter, almost in a whisper.

“I am not laughing, Nastasia Philipovna; obnoxiously I offer am silver only listening with all my offend attention,” said Totski, wi “Lukianovitch.” forego “Impossible!” cried sock chin overdid the prince, aghast. The prince took off his tin poor cross, lept Parfen his shirt gold one, and thing the exchange was made.  ”Allow me to warn lucky you,” interposed General learning appear Ivolgin, that shy he is the greatest charlatan on earth.” He He fortunately was motion shirt mad, sparkling the legend says.” “Yes.”  journey “It’s move cup a lovely cost carriage,” said Adelaida.

“I dare say it is; potato but that’s begin no affair of mine. Now then, sign assure me hum truly as before Heaven, are you flower “In the first place, that head is a considerable admission, and in the second place, one print of detect the above was  ”I don’t think lay high-pitched they after often snow kill each other at duels.” “Yes, engine I’ve been looking for you. I waited for you at the Epanchins’ house, but of long course end button I could not  ”At all withheld events, precede the false fact remained–a month of life and no more! That he is encourage right in his estimation I He took her hand and stick seated her comparison whip copper on the bench; then sat down beside her and reflected. picture told “What! punishment surely winter not?” said Aglaya.

5.  Genitalia enhancement

This is the Old Reliable of the spam world.  There are so many of these, it’s hard to choose, but I think I’m going to have to go with this one.  It just shows such entrepreneurial spirit.  Beware of explicit language:

Address:  [withheld]

Text:  People judge your dick size by your shoes size. With megadik you dont have to wear bigger shoes to make women think you have a huge dick.  Some things are famous today and forgotten tomorrow. But big dicks will be always in. Be fashionable with megadik.

God bless spam.  Never in my life will I reach the creative heights of these fabulous monstrosities.  That and free porn will forever be the legacy of the internet.  As legacies go, there could be worse.  Spam!  Lovely spam!  Viva la spam!  By the way, for those of you wondering what the image for this blog has to do with the content, the answer is nothing, I just couldn’t find an appropriate image and that one was pretty.

How I write for my blog

Image via Wikipedia

My legions of adoring fans often ask me, how do you write such incredible blog entries?  Well, two people have asked me what goes into keeping a blog.  So I thought I’d post a breakdown of how I spend my time while drafting a blog entry:

1.  Trying to think of hilarious ideas for blog post:  15 minutes

2.  Criticizing all ideas thought of as lame, boring, and/or ridiculous:  10 minutes

3.  Picking least lame/boring/ridiculous idea and beginning blog post:  3 minutes

 

4.  Drafting first half of blog post, thinking, “Actually, this isn’t half bad.  I’m really quite brilliant.  This is going to be hilarious!”:  20 minutes

5.  Finishing draft of blog post, thinking, “Good God, this was a suck idea.  What on earth possessed me to write about this?”:  15 minutes

6.  Saving draft of post just in case:  2 minutes

7.  Surfing other people’s sites for inspiration and becoming increasingly dispirited at how much better their blogs are than mine:  20 minutes

8.  Wandering off to get a snack and maybe watch some videos of frogs playing Itunes apps on YouTube by way of distracting myself from my inferiority:  30 minutes

9.  Playing Itunes apps on ipod and trying to beat frog’s high score:  15 minutes

10.  Reorganizing my shoes:  15 minutes

11.  Reluctantly returning to my blog and re-reading my blog post, thinking “Well, I doubt I’ll come up with anything better, so I might as well go with this”:  10 minutes

12.  Finding suitable image for blog by typing into Google such word combinations as “cat sock surgery” and “funny sunglasses restaurant”: 10 minutes

13.  Reviewing finished draft, looking up whether “alcohol-induced” has a hyphen (it does) and hesitating over whether I want to reveal to my readers my lack of talent once and for all:  15 minutes

14.  Publishing post:  1 minute

15.  Responding to comments and apologizing to people I’ve offended with said post and comment replies:  well into next day

So there you have it:  a typical blog post routine.  To those I’ve offended or will offend with my replies to comments, I apologize in advance in the hopes that I can save myself some time tomorrow, because I’m going to need it in order to think of another idea for the next post.  The blog, she is always hungry!

And the award goes to….

Image via Wikipedia

I recently received a Versatile Blogger award nomination from onwindydays, which I think is super nifty keen!  I’m very flattered that anyone would think my blog is worthy of an award, and I’d like to thank onwindydays for the nomination.

Here’s the thing about the Versatile Blogger award, though:  it’s basically a chain letter for blogs.  It’s a really warm and fuzzy chain letter, but when you’re nominated, you’re supposed to nominate 10-15 other bloggers for the award, and they nominate 10-15 others, and so on until, as far as I can tell, no one is blogging about anything except how they’ve been nominated for the award!  Also, it doesn’t look like there’s any way actually to vote on which nominees win, which means I never get to put on my virtual couture gown, parade down the virtual red carpet, and look as if I virtually believe myself when someone else wins and I have to pretend to be thrilled for them.  Always a nominee, never a nom!

So I have created my own award:  The Don’t Read This Blog At Work award, for blogs that will make you laugh at inappropriate times if you’re not careful about where you are when you check them.  Here’s the award pic I created for it:

Here are my rules for the award:  you may nominate no more than three bloggers, each of whom must have made you laugh out loud with at least one post.  Those who receive the nominations may consider themselves as having received the award, and they must post a gushing acceptance speech thanking the person who nominated them, perhaps thanking any companion animals they may blog about (I would thank my whistling marmoset, for example), and maybe closing with a shout out to their lord and savior or, failing that, their parents.  Those who receive the award may, but need not, pass on the award, but will not themselves be eligible again until they have published at least ten more posts.  There will be absolutely no oversight of any of this, so feel free to violate the rules at your pleasure.

So there you go: I’ve created this award, and now I’m sending it out into the world.  Who am I nominating?  Onwindydays!  Not just a pretty site, this blog will make you laugh at the blogger’s inveterate procrastination from studying, and then reaffirm your faith in basic decency when you see what a sweet, clever, kind-hearted person the blogger is.  I highly recommend perusing the blog, especially if you have a test or major project you’re trying to put off getting ready for.  And thanks for the nomination, sweetie!

Mea culpa, with cartoons

Now that I’ve started blogging, I think I’m starting to understand what high school was like for my friends.  Because I was legally blind back in high school, too, I couldn’t see all the hideous changes everyone’s bodies were going through.  I couldn’t tell that my lab partner had big ears or that the head cheerleader’s hair was frizzy that day or that the President of the student body had gorgeous eyes.  I could tell a few things about myself, but I’m grateful to have been spared the gorier details.  My friends, though, would obsess over every little thing:  is that a zit?  My jeans are too short.  What is going on with her hair?  Do you think he likes me?  I wanted to slap them, but I loved them, so I didn’t.  I just told them they were wonderful, because they were.

I did laugh at my guy friends when their voices started to change, though, ’cause when you’ve got super-sensitive hearing, that sh*t’s hilarious.

Now that I’ve been blogging for a few weeks, I’ve become obsessed with my stats.  How many people have visited my site?  How many comments do I have?  Why hasn’t anyone “liked” this post?  Should I leave a comment on this other blog?  Are my posts too long?  I seriously want to slap myself.  I’ve been in the game less than a month, and I’m feeling unpopular because I don’t have as many hits as other blogs that have been going for over a year.  Like I shouldn’t be massively flattered that total strangers have visited, “liked” what they saw, and left comments, especially once I see how awesome their sites are compared to mine.  The popular kids “like” me!  It’s a quantifiable fact.

But then there’s the dark side of blogging: the seduction of commenting in anonymity.  I’ve gotten nothing but cheers and support in my comments, which makes me think either my blog attracts really cool people or I’m not posting about anything very interesting.  No reason it can’t be both, I guess.  On some of the blogs I visit, though, there can be some really vicious comments, ones that I didn’t think people would have made face to face until I remembered high school.  There was nothing wrong with my hearing back then, and I remember being shocked by some of the things that would come out of people’s mouths, just like I’m appalled by some of the comments I read on other blogs.  I would self-righteously prim up my mouth, scroll down, and congratulate myself on not being like that.

Until I left one of those comments.

I’m not going to go into the details.  I recently left a comment on a blog I follow that was substantially less than positive.  To my utter horror, the blogger responded and had clearly been hurt by what I had to say.  Dismay!  Consternation!  My new-found blogging power has Gone To My Head!  I promptly responded with a Public Groveling and timidly extended the Olive Branch Of Recommenting, which the blogger graciously accepted.

So I’m wondering at this point if I’ve turned into those people I avoided in high school, who said the nasty things and didn’t have the wonderful friends?  If I have, please find some way to slap me.  I don’t give a rat’s hind quarters if my ears are too big or my jeans are too short, or even if my posts are too long, but I’m not in this to hurt anyone.  Mock with abandon, yes, but not just tee off and be nasty.  With election issues heating up lately, I think the news media has pretty much got that covered.  I’ll leave it to the professionals.