Blogs and blogging: the good, the bad and the ugly

Poll question of the weekend:
What kind of blogs or online journals do you enjoy reading? Or related questions: What lures you to read a blog regularly? Why do you keep a blog? What turns you on or off a blog?

One obvious reason for reading a blog or online journal, of course, is that you know the person and are interested in keeping up with their lives. Except speaking from experience, I know that I put very little of my personal life in Blatherings; I prefer catching up with friends in person or over the phone.

Please note that I'm talking more about personal weblogs and journals rather than "here's a cool link" blogs. Also, blogs written by people I know in person fall into a different category for me; the following describes my personal preferences when it comes to blogs written by total strangers.



Blogs I enjoy reading:

Blogs that are well-written, especially ones that have a sense of humour. Although I generally find "shopping list" entries dull (e.g. "I woke up. I had Wheaties for breakfast. I brushed my teeth. I took the dog for a walk." etc.), I enjoy them if they're written well.

Blogs with a personal voice and style.

Blogs that voice opinions. Blogs that are brave in some way, that don't always stick to safe topics. It's a risk, of course, because the larger your readership, the more likely you are to get criticism or antagonize readers.

Blogs that acknowledge readers. Either with a comments section, or by incorporating reader feedback into entries somehow.

Conversational blogs. I don't enjoy reading blogs that come across too much like an academic paper or technical manual. I prefer blogs where I feel as if I've just had a conversation with that person from reading a post.

Blogs with well-written anecdotes about little kids. My friend Amanda Snyder is especially good at this; check out this recent entry. I used to read Lileks more regularly when he talked more regularly about child-rearing. Weird personal preference, I know, considering we don't have children of our own. Or perhaps it's because we don't have children of our own that I find kidstories so interesting. :-)



Blogs with a specific focus. Yes, this crosses off Blatherings. :-) Unless I know the person, I tend to be drawn to blogs with a single focus on a topic I really enjoy.

Blogs with interesting visuals. I read The Crafty-Girl, for example, both because of interesting drawings and photos but also because she talks about cool crafts and illustration techniques. My favourite photo blog is Daily Dose of Imagery.

Blogs that are frequently updated.

Blogs with something new to say.

Blogs that use links. Nothing more frustrating that reading an entry that mentions an interesting Web site, but doesn't include a link (expecting the reader to look it up himself or herself, I suppose).

Blogs that turn me off:



Bad writing. Lots of typos. (Assuming English is their first language)

Blogs that are mean-spirited, especially about people whom the author is (likely mistakenly) assuming will never read their blog entry.

Pretentious blogs. Blogs that are a little too "I'm SO cool and I know you're fascinated by every single detail about ME-ME-ME, no matter how mundane."

Blogs that rely heavily on "I'm Luke Skywalker!" type of memes for content, where the result of a so-called "personality quiz" is basically random, especially when one of these gets popular in my Livejournal Friends list and I end up scrolling past pages and pages and pages of identical huge images of Luke Skywalker or Golden Hearts or Tiffany The Happy Fairy. I'll stop whining now (see point below). :-)



Blogs that whine and bitch a lot. I don't mean the occasional whine, I mean a LOT. From some blogs I've seen, I get the impression that the writer takes a special pleasure in blog-whining ("OH, I can't wait to get home so I can blog about what that woman said/did!")

In Livejournal, blogs with long entries that don't use cut-tags.

Blogs that are too obviously marketing vehicles. I don't mind if the author plugs his or her book, CD or other projects from time to time, but not if every other entry tries to get me to buy something.

Blogs where the author posts even if they have nothing to write about, especially when their entry is basically "I don't have anything about."

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But again...these are all personal preferences. I emphasize (again) all the above "turn-off" factors go out the window for me if the blog is well-written. I'll happily read a 1000 word essay about how much you hate women with big hair if it's entertaining and written well.

I'm also well aware that according to the preferences stated above, Blatherings isn't necessarily a blog that I'd read myself.

:-)

Dec/2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

SuperNoteCard, Samorost2, postcards for my collection

Peeked out the window this morning and the scene reminded me of a Christmas card, with every branch of every tree laced in snow, the street silent and white. I love winter mornings.



I've mentioned SuperNoteCard from Mindola Software in Inkygirl but I'll plug it here as well: A while back I started using a virtual index card called "Miss Lonelynotes" to help organize ideas for my articles and novel. They've since upgraded the software at least half a dozen times and renamed it SuperNoteCard, and the functionality is now specifically geared towards writers.



SuperNoteCard uses virtual notecards to help writers capture and organize content in fiction (including screenwriting) and nonfiction projects. You can define and track characters, plots, and references in your writing, using "drag and drop" to organize the flow of ideas and information. I'm using it to organize info for my YA novel and have also used it to organize info for magazine articles. You can try it out yourself for free for 30 days, after which you need to buy an activation code (only US$29).

And another link, this one with zero productivity value at all but SO entertaining: Samorost2 (thanks to Jeff for the link). You need to have sound turned on for full appreciation, so it's best not to check this out at work. ;-) The game reminds me a lot of Myst, except with more humour. You can play several levels for free; the full version is US$9.90.

What's YOUR favourite addictive online game, by the way?

Hey, my Blathering about the National Cartoonists Society Christmas party was mentioned in The Daily Cartoonist (newspaper cartoonist industry news blog).

And wow, the response to my crafty Blathering yesterday was such that I already have one Christmas ornament exchange group filled, and a second started. This is for NEXT year's Christmas, by the way (2006!). People in Group One (I'm using LJ ids since I know some don't want real names listed publicly): me, braider, msminir, vixyish, Allison, chirosinger, rms_butterfly, little_cinnamon, missquirt, Beckett. Group Two (so far): Sandro, Lissa, tibicina. If you want to sign up, please add your name to this comment thread. I'll post confirmations and guidelines next year, but basically each person is going to send one homemade ornament to everyone in their Group plus one extra for Interfilk. If you'd like to make/receive extra, you can make special arrangements with members of other groups as well; I plan to exchange with everyone! :-)

And here are some of the postcards I've recently added to my Flickr Postcard Collection...

Sandro sent me a cool optical illusion postcards that shifts images as you tilt it; sorry, but this can't be accurately shown in this scan:



"Hi Deb! How are you? Well I hope good and confused (because you don't know me). My name's Sandro and I come from Liechtenstein (a small state next to Switzerland) and I'm a huge fan of your comic strips! I found them coincidentally by googling the web for 'comic cooking' (needed it for school). From there on I read all of them and I was laughing like an idiot. I really love them. Thru 'Debbie's Blatherings' I found out about your collection of postcards, so I thought I'll send you one! Searched my whole room and this is what I found. It's been designed by my aunt and I hope you like it. Greets, Sandro."

The (somewhat disturbing! :-)) postcard below is from Joshua:



"Hi Debbie! Greetings from Malaysia! I've been following your works/photos for a while, happy to learn that you like to collect postcards as well! Multi-cultural, multi-racial, Mayalsia consists of 3 main races: Malay, Chinese (that's me :-)) and Indian, plus many other minority yet equally important Aborigine groups. Nice to "meet" you again and hope you'll like this one!"

The postcard below is from Michael"beige_alert" Pereckas:



Description on the postcard:
"Greetings from the Milwaukee Art Museum! Named a "New Wonder of the World" by Conde Nast Traveler, this is the first Santiago Calatrava-designed building in the United States. Stroll through the world-class Collection or one of the changing exhibitions.

Rembrandt and His Time: Masterworks from the Albertina, Vienna
October 8, 2005 - January 8th, 2006"

I love snailmail postcards: each is unique, personal, a brief wave of greeting, a miniature still-life. If you send a postcard to my P.O. Box, I'll post it in my collection as well as in my Blatherings: Debbie Ridpath Ohi, 34 Eglinton Ave. W., P.O. Box 189, Toronto, ON Canada M4R 2H6.

Thanks!

Dec/2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

holiday cheer

Above: My story is the one circled in red (I did the circling; it doesn't appear on the actual cover :-)). I think this should be on newsstands now.

Fun to read the responses to my Miss Squarehead comics post yesterday. I always love it when people commenting on one of my entries spin off a separate conversation thread in LJ, like the one between Teddy and Annie W. :-)

I bought Christmas lights yesterday! You experienced house owners out there are jaded about this, I'm sure, but this is new for me. I bought two sets of LED C-6 lights from Shopper's Drug Mart; they supposedly use 80% less energy and last up to 100,000 hours. I've hung them up in the Corkscrew Hazel in front of our house but can already tell I need another set.





I also bought an indoor set for our Christmas tree, which we're getting this weekend. VERY excited about this. Our condo building didn't allow live Christmas trees, probably because of the fire hazard. Jeff and I could tell that some people smuggled them in anyway, however, because of the pine needles in the elevator after the holidays.



Not sure if we're going to have time to unpack the locker before Christmas, to find the box of decorations we used many years ago. So I'm going to improvise some decorations for our tree this year instead. Say...if any of you are inspired to contribute a decoration, homemade or not, Jeff and I would be most grateful! Even a scribbled drawing on a paperclip will be eagerly received. :-)

If you decide to indulge this unbelieveably selfish plea, you can send it to our new home address, if you know it; I'd be happy to send the address to you if I know you in person -- else please send to my P.O. Box at:

Debbie Ridpath Ohi
34 Eglinton Ave W., POB 189
Toronto, ON
M4R 2H6

(If you're sending a package rather than something flat, I'd appreciate it being sent to my home address instead of the P.O. box so I don't have to pay an extra fee, thanks. :-))



Looking forward to the housefilk at Sally Headford's tomorrow! Allison's going, too; it's been a while since more than one member of Urban Tapestry has been able to attend a housefilk at the same time. :-)

Some more search engine traffic checks (using stats to check how people find me):

Ben & Jerry's Toronto: I'm #1 in Google.
the knights who sat ecky ecky ni monty: I'm #2 in Starware Search.
marmite and cholesterol: #1 in Google UK.
coping with plane flights: #2 in Google UK.
how to sleep with fractured arm: #1 in Google
want Asian eyes: #11 in Yahoo search

Dec/2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

Magic Tails and Serenity

Woohoo, got my copy of MAGIC TAILS from the publisher this morning! Magic Tails is a collection of fantasy short stories from DAW for which Michelle West and I wrote a piece a while back. The collection is edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Janet Pack, and here's an excerpt from the back:

"Cats being magical creatures in their own right, it's not surprising that so many people who are captivated by fantastical tales and classic fables are also enamored of felines. And MAGIC TAILS is the perfect volume for anyone who likes to curl up with a good book and a companionable cat."

Heehee...ironic, since both Michelle and I are allergic to cats. :-) Anyway, our story is called "The Snow Queen."

Yes, I've been published before, but this is my first time in a short story collection! I'm pretty darned thrilled, I have to say.

Thanks so much to Michelle for the collab invite.

Book info, for those interested:

MAGIC TAILS
DAW Books, 2005
Editors: Martin H. Greenberg and Janet Pack
ISBN 0-7564-0288-3



Had lunch with Luisa yesterday; it was really good to see her again; we haven't really had a chance to hang out since before I left for Germany. I had some Italian language questions for her. :-) Luisa has a great report from her Italy trip up on her blog, by the way.

Since I was seeing a movie downtown in the evening, I decided it wasn't worth me going back to North York, so I took my laptop and worked in a Starbucks. Most Starbucks outlets in Toronto offer Wi-Fi wireless hotspots now, so I took advantage of this to check my e-mail. Good thing, too, since I found out that the editor of an article I recently submitted wanted some last-minute changes before I left for Calgary, including a quote from an industry expert.

I Googled for an expert, tracked down his contact info, used MaxEmail to fax my request, got back the needed quote by e-mail. All from a Starbucks coffee shop at Bloor and Jarvis. I love technology. :-)

Saw Serenity again, this time with my friends Parki, Craig and Doug. Laura and Peter were in the theatre as well! Craig, Doug, Laura and Peter were all seeing the movie for the first time, and none of them had watched the series before (Peter had seen a few random episodes). Everyone enjoyed the movie, and I liked it just as much the second time around.

I don't usually buy novelizations of movies, but I'm going to buy the one of Serenity because it was written by a charming fellow we met at Boskone, Keith DeCandido. Keith has an LJ under the user name 'kradical' in which he recently answered some Serenity novelization questions.

Here's a photo of Jodi and Allison with Keith at Boskone:



Have a great weekend, everyone! I'm off to Calgary.

Oct/2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

Internet and productivity

Collab entry for Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Nutrition"
(What can I say? I felt like drawing a robot. :-) )

Thanks so much to Walter for pointing me to various maps of Toronto Parks and Trails as well as the Discovery Walks in response to yesterday's Blathering. And thanks to Kate for explaining how to get to Edwards Gardens from our new house via the trails; I realize now where I took a wrong turn.

Made Gingered Shrimp with Soba last night, a recipe from one of the Moosewood Cookbooks. Turned out pretty well; so far I have yet to try a Moosewood recipe I haven't liked. I found the recipe online, if anyone's interested.

I recently posted a poll asking how people with constant Internet access stayed productive and minimized their time online. I've been experimenting with a 5-minute timer, and so far it's been working well. Whenever I take a break to check e-mail or "just check a fact", the timer keeps me aware of how much time is passing.

Anyway, here are some of the responses to my poll: