Friday, August 22, 2008

Who's Your Blog Mama?

When we decided to start this blog, I took it upon myself to create it and then 'splained to Ellie and Beth how to log in. We’ve had some gliches that we I've had to fix, we've I've found some stuff that works and we’ve they've tried some stuff that bombed. We've each discovered a few tricks and techniques to spice up our posts, like the ubiquitous strikethrough and the pretty colors and different sized letters. I have been the one who plays with the layout and tools and stuff late at night when I’m feeling drunk creative and courageous. I'm the blog mama. I know there is a lot more we can do with the format, and I will soon figure out how to do the really fancy stuff like sign in individually and add little photos and intros to our profiles. We all like the funny comic, but we’ve long discussed creating some sort of photo header for the top thingie up there. Oh yeah, we’re savvy.
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A couple of days ago, I was enjoying my morning routine of reading blogs and commenting wily nily when I heard the telltale boop of an incoming e-mail. I was beyond tickled to see that the sender was one of the very bloggers I was stalking! She was way more gracious than she was BOSSY in letting me know that my clueless meanderings comments on her blog included a no-no that is frowned upon in the blogworld. I was all: (in your head, make my voice sound like Patrick from Spongebob. Or Scooby Doo) “LOOK people! I wrote this and I crack myself up and maybe I’ll crack you up too!” and the peeps were all: (sounding like Jesus from on high): “ugh, what a desperate attention-seeking loser to link to her own posts in my comments!” (No, Bossy didn’t say it like that at all. But we’ll never know whether or not she thought it like that).
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So not only are there rules about this blogging thing, but I’m breaking them!
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Shit!
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Here we three are, all new on the scene and positively bursting with enthusiasm and mutual self-admiration. Meanwhile, this whole mysterious world already exists and there are entire conferences about it and there are customary practices about trackybacky linkydinky techniwhammy stuff!
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The birth story of this blog is over there in the sidebar, and it’s all true. Sure, we sat around that night fantasizing that once our words got out; we would be certain to find fortune and fame like that lady in Utah. But we also just wanted an outlet to exercise our writing chops and to write for an audience. The cool thing about blogging is that you never know who that audience IS. Two of us (ahem) wrote e-mails when we started the blog to let our friends and families in on the fun. And we talk to each other about the blog when we’re together, then the people unlucky enough to be stuck at our table sometimes get curious, and next time we see them they’ll mention that they've been reading it. And now we’ve got new friends we’ve never met but we somehow know through our blog or their blog or bloggity blah blah blog. And a couple of people have even offered us awards and we’re so appreciative and amused, but we secretly e-mail each other and go: “What does this mean? There are all these numbers and slashes and scary boxes and instructions! What do we do?“huh?”
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So people of the world, I implore you - tell me when I screw this up! Well, don't tell me when we screw up here, it's our blog and we'll do as we damned well please. But do be like Bossy the blog whisperer, and extend the kindness of clueing me in when I make an arse of myself out there in public. I know, I know, it's like a full time job. But I'm embarassed to have plastered my links all over everyone's comments and messed up their mumbo jumbo statrackficorati and I'm happy that someone spoke up so I'd stop it, already.
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Because the only thing worse than being a smartass is being a dumbass.
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Thank you.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I feel very slighted. You have not posted any comments on my blog worthy of getting smacked down. Think girl! Do it!! Come on and insult me!

please?

NucMEd is Hot said...

I'm with Dana, Ellie comes to see us, but I don't think you ever have...sniff sniff....If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know you could EVEN do that,link to your own blog in a comment, much less that it was a no-no. I think you're fabulous, keep it up!

Anonymous said...

Oh bloggity blah blah blog!

I love it, Jacquie. And you're no smart ass OR dumb ass, you're our very own blog mama, and we love you. Truly. I mean who else among us can decipher all that trackybacky linkydinky techniwhammy stuff?? Only you, Jacquie, only you.

Anonymous said...

Blog-a-doodle-doo, Blog Mama. Blog on.

Rita said...

I don't know of any rules. But, if I did I'd probably break them on purpose, because I'm neither a dumbass nor a smart ass. I just don't like rules.

Feel free to come on my blog and break any and all rules you can think of. I'll think it's funny.

Weith Kick said...

I'm not aware of all the rules. I figured there were some. I still am not clear what it is you did. You put a link on a comment?

Anonymous said...

Yes, what exactly did the blog whisperer tell you?

Anonymous said...

Oh, sorry - I guess I wasn't specific. What I did was write comments, and then add a URL to my latest blog post within the comment. That does something to the tracky backy thing, let me go look at the e-mail again. Okay, here's the skinny. And she was totally cool about it and I'm glad she took the time to e-mail and clue me in:

"first of all i think it fouls with tracking and stuff in terms of Google ranking and technorati and other things; it's not a true "link" back to you and yet it behaves that way and the speculation is that it's not altogether above board.
and then there's also an issue if something were to ever change about your URL, all the instances of links within comments would then be *broken links*, which actually DEDUCTS points from your Google rating..."

Get it? translation: mumbojumbo linkydinky cut it out!

Rita said...

Huh. That is interesting. Personally, I don't give a rodent's hindquarters about Google ratings, nor do I have the "backtrack" thiny even turned on (you have that option in your preferences), so once again, I tell you, my blog is a free-zone, do what you want there in the comments.

But, it's a good thing to know for other people's blogs, since I guess you don't want to go around making big blog blunders. LOL.

Leslie said...

So much of blogging is greek to me. I just write then post. It's a miracle I even get a pic in the post. I leave all the technical skills to Miss Karen.

Anonymous said...

Bah - some people feel the need to make up rules about everything and ruin all the fun. Thank goodness there are also lots of people who just ignore all the rules and keep having fun.

Mandy said...

If everyone did it the same, blogs would become boring. And yours rocks! Thank you for the happy birthday wishes the other day. They were much appreciated!

Magpie said...

Okay okay.

But here's what I want to know. Do you all have an email? One or three? So confused. Hate not being able to email replies to comments...

Anonymous said...

Even though Jacquie's our Blog Mama, you can email ANY or ALL of us at

meyouellie@yahoo.com

I don't know why that doesn't appear in the blog somewhere. Detes, detes...

Frodo the Bee said...

While I personally think it's nice to be informed...screw *da rules*