Another Reason I've stopped Reading Your Blog

You know what they say about opinions- they're like butt holes.

Everyone's got one. But I've got a blog about ten people read, so I'm going to keep talking about mine. :)

There's a fairly new phenomenon that I don't love-the drop down ad. Seriously, I get it, I click the ad, you get paid for it. We all understand this process pretty well, as MANY of us participate in paid to click programs. (Those ads on the side aren't for the fun of it, people.)

I want to tell you, I've stopped going to people's blogs because of this. I HAVE a pop blocker. You've actually gone out of your way to embed code in your blog to circumvent my security. It's rude. It's self entitled-I'm already GIVING you a page view and entering your contest and tweeting to increase your readership and doing all kinds of things I hope people are going to someday do for me, and you have the NERVE to demand I both LOOK at your ad AND choose NOT to click it.

Um, yeah, about that? I'll take my readership someplace else, thanks. It slows down my computer, it bogs it down (which is why pop up blockers are a dime a dozen) and it wastes my valuable time.

The best part is, the ad isn't usually even relevant. I'm on a mom blog, and it's like a subscription to men's health, and it flashes every one to two minutes while I'm trying to read. I've left blogs, without my usual comment, and refused to go back regardless of the giveaway offered. I'm just saying.

It's your blog. Do what you want with it. There's no law saying I have to read it!

Damn Mice

I have a LOT to do today.

The sun is shining, it's SO gorgeous out. The house needs to be cleaned, of course, laundry done, and sugar snaps need to go into the ground. I want the yard cleaned, I want the everything done, and I start my day each day multitasking- poking the blog with a sharp stick, returning blog comments and catching up on hops and coffee, while nursing the baby for a marathon hour long session.

It's what we do, each day. Not today. Today I settled into the couch with a steaming cuppa only to see the dreaded yellow exclamation point over my internet connections.

At this point I have to marvel at how far I've come in the last two years. While not completely and totally tech savvy, I can work around a router and modem with no assistance. A quick glance at the cords behind the modem revealed the problem: A mouse had EATEN the damn cord down to the copper.

I'm at my wits end with these things already. I've killed over a dozen since we've moved in. I've tried peppermint oil, potato flakes, and snap traps, with various degrees of success. We live in a half double, and so, we need the mice to be gone from both sides of the house. I'm loathe to bring it up to the neighbors, I really like them, and there are five or six things I'd like to mention to them, the biggest being the mice situation.

*big, deep, sigh*

How does the conversation go? Is there a good way to bring this up? "Excuse me, Lovely Mr. Neighbor Whom I Adore for NOT playing Guitar Hero at 3 AM while Smoking Pot Like My Old Neighbors, Do you by any chance happen to have a rodent problem? Because you're sharing it with me, and I don't want to put down poison and accidentally kill your cat that moans outside my front door in the cold."

Ugh.

I guess the point of this is, if I promised you a visit to your blog or a vote in your contest or an entry in your giveaway, I'm about twelve hours behind, and I'll get there before too long, I promise.

And if you have any ideas on how to execute a rodent mass murder without harming plants, animals, children, the ozone, or small orphans in a far off country without child labor laws, I'd be glad to hear them.

Why are some blogs so hard to comment on?

Honestly, some of you all have your comment section locked down like it contains a National Treasure.

The Captcha is bad enough.

But if I battle the Captcha monster for twenty or so tries, only to find out you're moderating your comments ANYWAY- I'm kind of wondering what kind of comment trauma you've endured that would make you so protective of the space beneath your post? You can always delete stuff. Is there a spamming destructive worm-y disease that infects blogs through the comment section? Should I, too, be more cautious of the blank space beneath the post?

Have I missed out on some insidious beast?

People just put stupid crap on the internet.

And yeah, I guess I'm a major contributor. But I'm not likely to whine about getting called on it. And I'm not stupid enough to complain about my job or my guests where one of them might see it.

I work in a restaurant, people. I've got enough comic fodder to populate twelve, count them, twelve blogs. I can tell a story, and it's a lot easier in print than it is person, with 3 little girls crawling all over me and the attention span of a gnat. I can walk away, I can read it twice, I can make sure that it comes out the way I want it to.

This could be comedy gold. Really. But I like my job. I like my coworkers. I like the extra money. I like not being mommy for eight hours a week. So I DON'T tell the funny stories. Even though it would be easy enough for me to create a "completely private" blog, or a blog that's only open to invited readers.

Because actions have consequences. Words have meaning. And if you are going to put something out on the internet, you have to be willing to accept the consequences.

And of course I'm talking about the quasi-local teacher whose blog has been the subject of so much discussion as of late.

The school district suspended her. She wrote an "anonymous" blog about "anonymous" students.

It was so "anonymous" that it's all over the blogosphere. Yeah, Real first name, real last initial, real photo. NOT anonymous.

And I have sympathy. I've written things I've regretted. I've run my mouth (and my keyboard) where I shouldn't have. But you will NOT catch me discussing negative details about my work life here.

Because actions have consequences. Words have meaning. Free speech doesn't protect you from getting fired. It simply protects you from going to jail.

Should she have been fired? I don't really care. I'm not going to defend her actions, not going to climb on a (higher) soapbox and proclaim my outrage. Somewhere, there is a child who wrote an email to a teacher, only to have it exposed to the entire world, along with her disdain for him, his classmates, and their parents. (The ones who, you know, actually PAID HER SALARY.) I've seen how people act, how they let their kids behave, and I have every sympathy for her. She should be able to blow off steam. She should be able to write about it.

She should have enough good sense to keep it off the internet. As of right now, she's no better than the kids and parents making bad, self-entitled decisions she complained about.

So whatever happens, I don't care. I don't feel as a blogger this effects me in any way. I don't feel any more censored than I did already... by my own good sense.

Plagiarism Sucks.

Ok, people, listen up.

This is the rule. It's not up for debate. If you use the copy and paste function on your computer to take something someone else wrote and put it on your site, you've got to source the person.

If you right-click on an image and download it to your computer and post it to your website, you've got to source the website.

If you surf photobucket, or one of the other 800 photo sharing websites, and you grab a picture, you've got to give credit to the photographer.

Because that's the right thing to do. Got it? Copy something, source someone.
This is not rocket science people. I like to write. I do. I tap away at this freaking keyboard like it's my personal business, and someone is actually gonna read it. So if you like something you see, give a nod in my direction. That's not hard, is it?

Now apply it to the rest of the internet. Because Karma, she's a bitch.

Rant brought on by my favorite Author in the whole world's tweet this morning. And I hope whoever stole her stuff gets a quadruple helping of badness.

Weekend Hopping-

thanks for stopping by- Fridays are crazy for me, so give me till this evening to return the love...



I return all love... let me know what you want- be it a post tweeted, a giveaway entered, gfc follower, whatever. I'm easy.
Let me know if you follow via comment so I can return the favor...

Happy Friday and many new followers to you!

We're Being Featured!

I love the mom blog community. I really do. In seven or twelve years or so, when I feel like this thing is really going somewhere, I'm totally going to feature a mom blog, because it feels really cool!


I love blog hops...there are SO many great bloggers out there that just put so much effort into their sites! If you want me to visit yours, leave a comment! I follow all followers, but you HAVE to tell me where to find you! Also, if you'd like me to place your button, grab mine, and tell me where to find yours!

Happy Hopping, everybody!

Why People Stop Following You.

There's a hugely narcissistic element in internet life. Me! Me! Me! Facebook, your posts are about you, you tweet what you are doing, you stumble things you like, not necessarily that you think your best friend's sister's cousin will like.

You spend the day updating people about you. We all do it. I like to read my friend's status updates with greedy eyes...it helps with the fact that I'm home with two kids locked in a house on a snowy Saturday, but I've learned ages ago that I'm not an average bear.

I LIKE not being average.

I have seen one or two tweets about people getting their feelings hurt when people stop following them and I wanted to touch on that.

It's pretty simple.

Shut up. That's it. You talk too freaking much. If you've tweeted so many times in the last five minutes that I scroll through two whole screens of your tweets, Unfollow.

If you email me blog updates more than once a day...unsubscribe.

If you post more than ten times a day doing five thousand product reviews and tweet them each six times, Unfollow.

IF you don't follow me back? Unfollow. This is a relationship-I'm not your worshiper.

If your website crashes my computer more than once you could be giving away the Taj Mahal and I wouldn't show up. So stop with all the javascript trojans already. (You know who you are.)

See, it's that easy! Have a little respect for your readers. We like what you have to say, that's why we followed you to begin with. Now, give us a little respect back, and we'll both be happy!