It is just me and Willie again.
He is singing The Last Thing I Needed First Thing This Morning and I am wondering if it is a Scotch, Whiskey or Vodka night.
Four hours at urgent care, way too much nonsense everywhere else and a suitcase that won’t pack itself are weighing upon my shoulders.
Some of you might say it sounds a bit overwhelming and I’d say you don’t know the half of it or how disappointing it is to discover some things and how angry it can make a man.
That man being me.
Yeah, I am irritated enough to have thought about speaking far more freely than you would normally see here.
And given how unfiltered I am, you can imagine what happens if I say screw it and just let go.
The One Sided Conversations Of Blogging
Blogging is often a one sided conversation and that includes blogs with very active comment sections.
We sit on one side of the microphone sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings without a whole of lot of input and insight as to whether people think we’re a genius or an idiot.
Sometimes it is pretty clear we can be both and it might even happen during the same post.
You can turn a phrase that makes everyone stop and admire it and say something so damn stupid afterwards people wonder if you know how to read.
And that reminds me of a variety of exchanges I saw between a country lawyer and a woman he was trying to impress. It didn’t take place on my blog, but on a different one a group of us used to hang out at.
It was pretty clear to most of us that she didn’t recognize how hard he worked to try and impress her and that he didn’t see he had no shot.
Every day he’d try to come up with something witty and insightful but most of us were pretty sure he was missing the mark and that she was just being friendly.
Had there been a real conversation we might have found out we were wrong and that they were both really into each other.
A couple of us wondered if maybe she thought the bumpkin thing was cute or if she liked rubes. We were certain that if it was true it was good for him because he was oblivious.
Not that any of it mattered because we were just commenters who would shoot the breeze with each other and give the author of the blog a good natured ribbing.
But if you circle back to the subhead what I find interesting is that there was a half dozen of us who were active commenters.
A half dozen people who represented thousands of readers.
Well, if you believe the stats the author shared there were thousands of readers and based upon my experiences online I think it is possible.
We often talk about the blog readers as resembling an iceberg.
The few commenters are like the tip that rises above water but three quarters of its bulk stays beneath the surface and isn’t seen unless you go overboard or something extraordinary happens.
Dark Gray Suit
There is a dark gray suit hanging in the closet next to several white shirts and some blue ones.
Got about 40 ties waiting for me to pull the ten favorites so that I can choose three to come fly with me.
Bathing suit, shorts, shirts and assorted toiletries await their turn too.
Justin Timberlake Can’t Stop the Feeling and leads right into Johnny Lee’s Lookin’ For Love and I am wondering where the dog is ‘cuz he sings along with me.
Well, I’ve spent a lifetime lookin’ for you;
singles bars and good time lovers were never true.
Playin’ a fools game hopin’ to win;
Guess I’ll have to wait for tomorrow night to have that fur ball give me that look when I hit
And I was alone then, no love in sight;
and I did ev’rything I could to get me though the night.
Don’t know where it started or where it might end;
Sometimes he barks and wags his tail and sometimes he just wags his tail.
Man’s best and most reliable friend.
Of course I’d love him more if he would pack the damn suitcase for me. I hate packing.
Time to lace up the shoes tight, roll the dice and hit it…hard.
They told me to hold the gate and it will be held.
Danny Brown
I feel RSS has a lot to do with the lack of comments around a blog. Yes, people can blame social media, saying the conversation is moving there. But that’s the point – it’s still A CONVERSATION.
RSS nixes that. People skim headlines, read post, delete, move on. There’s no impetus to comment. But there could be.
I was visiting Jason from Postmatic last summer, and we bounced the idea of comments via RSS around. He dropped a piece of code into Feedly, and BOOM, comments appeared. You could comment via RSS (using the Epoch plugin from the Postmatic devs) and the comment would appear on the blog.
Reply to the comment, and it appears via Feedly RSS. Pretty damn slick, would love to see it implemented.
Joshua Wilner
You’re absolutely right about RSS. It damn near killed commenting on blogs.
Still happens, but clearly not like it used to. Add all of the other side show attractions and it is that much harder to get people to take a moment to share their two cents.