I’d like to file a missing persons report

Tags

blogging, freshly pressed, humor, wordpress

Seriously. Where has the person gone who takes care of Freshly Pressed? The same blog posts have been pressed so long they’re starting to smell and have turned a fuzzy green. I’m fairly certain that even those whose posts are up have passed the point of embarrassment at being labeled freshly anything. Has WordPress looked into his/her disappearance? Have they thought of assigning a replacement until s/he’s located? Anyone who logs into wordpress.com and wants to know how to make their own vanilla has read it, done it, and now has vats of the stuff just waiting for chocolate chip cookies and other treats. Anyone who’s taken an English class and thought their teacher was a repressed third-world dictator has discovered the lies their English teacher told them. What is up? I know it’s not because there’ a lack of suitable replacement material. I read a post the other day ranting about how to become Freshly Pressed and it was hilarious and fresh. Most of the blogs I follow I have found because of or through blogs that have been Freshly Pressed. It’s a time saver, right? Even if I disagree (often) with the editor’s judgment, there are some gems there.
So please, Mr/Ms. Freshly Pressed. If you’ve wandered away of your own accord, please return. If you’ve been kidnapped by angry bloggers who have yet to be pressed, please blog a rescue plea or just agree to press them. They can’t be any worse than some of your past choices and at least they’d be fresh. And, for God’s sakes, WordPress, pay attention to the fact that Mr/Ms. Freshly Pressed has disappeared and fill the gap, man. Idle minds are waiting for fresh fodder.

Cake or pie?–Really?

Tags

blogging, humor, jetsetter, living social, post prompts, sunflower girl, wordpress, writing

I’ve been wanting to write about this for awhile, and this weekend, one of my favorite bloggers, Sunflower Girl, wrote about post prompts.

I want to rant specifically about the type of post prompts WordPress offers when you’ve just finished a post. On the left column are your congratulations, your word count, suggestions for other tags, etc. On the right comes the are you stuck for something to write about prompts.

Problem #1: I just published a post. I wasn’t blocked then and, if I’m blocked 30 seconds after publishing a post, maybe I should just go live life a little, have some reflection time, or just breathe.

Problem #2: The prompts. They do have an upside. They make me laugh. Every time. I just published a post and here was the top prompt: Cake or pie? Oh my God (OMG just didn’t have enough gravitas here). Maybe the person with the block is the person responsible for coming up with prompts. Or that person needs to go have a meal or a snack or chew a piece of gum. The next one was how long would you be willing to live without the internet? I can’t even remember the third one because, by the time I finished this second epic post prompt, my brain had turned to mush and I stared into space for a good ten minutes marveling at how sad I must be to be blogging if this is what it all comes down to.

If I want to feel this lame, I’ll go read the emails that come streaming in every morning from Living Social. Do I want to rejuvenate my face, tune up my vacuum, redecorate my home, or take dance classes (those all came in the last five minutes while I was writing this post). Or the offers from Jetsetter, now partnering with that new show, Pan Am (God knows why), to whisk me away to Mexico, Baja, Big Sur, Las Vegas, Sweden, San Francisco, Uruguay, Iceland, Turkey, Atlanta, Thailand, Bangkok (hey, I saw Hangover II–avoid that one), a place I don’t even recognize called Anantara Phuket, the Maldives (isn’t that a salad green), Costa Rica, Tunisia, or West Virginia.

West Virginia?

I think I’ll go contemplate the cake or pie question.

The “Praise Page”

Tags

100th post, blogging, humor, praise page, wordpress

Today I published my 100th post and hit my high point in views (mostly for pictures, but it’s a stat nonetheless). I thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect on what I like to call the “praise page.”

WordPress has this cool little uplifting page that pops up after you publish a post. It starts off with something positive like

Cool! This is your 100th post! It contains 543.5 words.

You’ve tagged this post with praise page, wordpress, blogging, and humor.
You’ve used no categories.
You might consider tagging this post with opportunity, stats, positive, publishing, get a life, does anyone read these, and 543.5.

I am a praise-monger, so I enjoy the opening line. I’m also motivated by numbers so double win.
As I move down the page, however, I’m less impressed. I just hit the publish button and just chose the tags, so, unless I’m drunk or am in early-onset dementia, I think I can remember which tags I used.
What I find most humorous are the tags they suggest. They’re words from the post, but not words that capture what the post is about. I scoff at the silly computer and its algorithms, but then I realize, all over again, what an amazing and complex function our brain performs when it reads.
And I get metaphysical. What is this post really about? Is it what I meant it to be or what the reader creates from it? Are the sentences most important? Or the words that make them up?

Ah, what the hell. I’ll take my trophy for playing, thank you very much, and celebrate that I’ve published my 100th post in just over four months. Quantity is where it’s at, baby. After all, there’s nothing about quality on the “praise page.”

My Name is X and I’m Addicted to Social Media

Tags

blogging, dropbox, facebook, musings, my space, social media, twitter, wordpress

I got on Facebook and My Space to keep tabs on my young teenagers. I was certain these were tools created by stalkers and pedophiles to ensnare children just like mine. My Space faded into the unused social profile pile, but Facebook became a major part of my life. On my best days, I’m one of those Facebook friends who drive you crazy by posting twice within minutes of one another. Once I had a smart phone with the Facebook app, I was unstoppable. When I couldn’t sleep at night, which is often, I would check Facebook and make a post to let all of my friends know that I was still suffering from insomnia. These were usually links to news stories that I would never have had time to read during the day, so I felt that at least my insomniac hours weren’t wasted.

I heard a news story that Facebook is causing depression among Americans, who worry about not having as many friends as their friends or not having posts that are as exciting. Most of my Facebook “friends” are no longer people. My family members post regularly, but mostly Facebook lets me keep up with the news outlets I’ve chosen and alerts me to sales at my favorite stores. My children, who began all of this craziness, never post and they have hundreds of friends.

Confessional: It does drive me crazy that my husband’s ex-wife, whom I find to be such a disagreeable person, has more friends than I do:(

When I began using Facebook as a therapy session, I gave myself an intervention and started a blog! Here I became numbers obsessed. I didn’t expect anyone to ever view my blog, but once someone had, I was intrigued and began tracking my stats. I was so excited when real searches were leading people to my blog about my kids’ mom’s husband and his stomach ulcer, until I realized that they were probably hits generated by the picture of a stomach ulcer. Same for my post about the Habitrail. My husband laughed when I saw hits for my post about the best sex playlist. “Sex sells,” was basically his comment.

So now, thanks to WordPress, I’m on Twitter and I just received notice that I have a follower! Who this person is, why they chose to follow, is irrelevant. One follower might be followed by others and now I have more stats to track!

A friend just invited me to join Dropbox. It’s downloading as we speak. I just hope it doesn’t have a stats feature. All of this social media helping me manage my social networks and channel my inner addict are starting to make me wonder if I have a problem.

Maybe I’ll start a Facebook page for people like me. And your first post should be, “Hello, my name is x and I’m addicted to social media.” Maybe those addicts will become your Facebook friends, read your blog, follow you on Twitter, and view your shared Dropbox items. Hey, an addict can dream.