A Two-Bit Blog

Nary a quarter for my thoughts? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Hello, readers. I’m now contemplating the unsung fifth anniversary of this blog, Strange Fascination. SF’s birthday was January 5th but there was (sadly :-( ) no party thrown for it. Here are but some of the slings and arrows that have befallen our favorite blog:

1. Fewer articles because the author has been absorbed with job and family issues over the last year
2. Reduced hit count and readership due in large part to the previous item
3. Reduced ad revenue due to the economy and the incredible ubiquity of blogs (everybody writes one)

Speaking to the first bullet, blog-writing is a lot of work and I really must have the “free cycles” to devote to it. I just quit doing my “marketing-oriented” blog, Avenue G – it was on a very uninspired autopilot for the last two years and it wasn’t very successful. Time to pull the plug on that one.

Now I’m thinking of Frank Romano (the father on Everybody Loves Raymond) -- he was played by the late and very talented Peter Boyle. In one of the earlier episodes, Frank gets a joke published in Reader’s Digest. He’s so emboldened by that, he decides that he's a witty editorialist and keeps trying to get his son Raymond (a sports writer for the local paper) to show his work to the editor. The editor doesn’t want to publish articles about toilet paper or paint drying (Frank’s milieu) – Raymond has to tell Frank tactfully that he stinks as a writer.

The show is from the mid-1990’s and it’s funny that they approached the whole topic with “old media” (no blogs or Internet) and yet the truth of it certainly persists… Frank Romano is a talentless blow-hard who needs to refrain from writing; sometimes blogSpotter has to wonder if he isn’t another Frank Romano. I did blog about toilets back in 2005.

I’m fairly liberal (both fiscally and socially) and vote as a Democrat. I’m also theistic but theistic outside of organized religion. It’s really ironic that the handful of people who read me regularly are religiously and politically conservative and several are coworkers to boot. Have to say, I haven’t been as forthcoming or “out there” as I could be given the fact that work cohorts and possibly even bosses might read the blog. I used to send out tickler emails to friends and coworkers when I first began with Strange Fascination – that probably served to confine me as things moved along.

A blog idea I keep kicking around is one in which I blow past some of the conventions that constrain me here. In so doing, I’d create another URL and not post it to any direct acquaintances. Hello, total strangers. (Regular readers, feel free to advise me whether this is a good idea or not).

I’m not really to that point yet, and the “muse” would still need to return. Right now, the muse has left the building (hopefully just to stretch its legs) and I’m awaiting his return.

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