Most boring site on the web

Moi? Abandoned Blogs

Ohh... for about a year now I've been part of the 125.6 million blogs that hadn't been updated in 120 days:

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream -- or at least an ambition -- unfulfilled.

Reading the article, most of these people had pretty lofty dreams for their blogs. I, on the other hand, don't care if anyone reads this site. Sometimes I just want to publish! So why did I take a break?

Mr. Jalichandra of Technorati -- a blogger himself -- also points out that some retired bloggers have merely found new platforms. “Some of that activity has gone to Facebook and MySpace, and obviously Twitter is a new phenomenon,” he said.

That is a nice point. I didn't really stop blogging for long. As Nate pointed out, I started doing "micro-blogging" with my Facebook status updates. And recently I've been experimenting with Twitter.

But the truth is that sometimes blogging is hard. Some days I just have nothing to say, and trying to find something for the day's post became tedious. Especially during the election cycle. I'm not going to blame it for my absence, but I did burn out on discussing Hill-dog, Barry, and the Maverick all the time. Or, at the very least, them being the dominant topic on the internet.

Lately, however, I've found myself wanting to post larger entries again. Things more than 140 characters. I wrote a couple notes on Facebook, but that's unsatisfying. So here I am. And here I'll stay... as long as the muse is with me.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

I'm just jealous I didn't think of it first.

"I'm Going to Kill MySelf in 90 Days"

No, not me. Anonymous blogger Jane says that she only has 84 days left. So far, she's contemplated what shaving means (I never noticed the connection between Empire Records and The Royal Tenenbaums) and what she should do with all her stuff. She's right though: life is too short to spend packing it all away.

If I only had 90 days left to live, I doubt I'd spend many of them in Chambana. I have a list of major sites I want to see, but Rome and the Vatican tops them all. I could die happy not having seen the great pyramids, the Louvre, Père-Lachaise, Manchu Picchu, or the Temple Mount if I could eat lunch by Trevi Fountain, drink wine outside the Pantheon, and wander the expansive floors of St. Peter's.

papakwanz thinks it's a ruse; that she'll find Jesus on the last day. That's cynical MetaFilter for ya. She could be a right-to-die activist, giving her own life to further her cause. Or it could be an online performance art piece: she wants to see how long she can go before someone stops her. Or she could be what she says she is, someone tired of the banality of living.

Three months is a long time to wait, especially at the pace Web 2.0 moves. I know that by the end of the week I'll have forgotten all about 90 Day Jane. Hopefully someone posts and update on Fark, Digg, or MetaFilter letting us know what happens.

A Bit of Haberdashery

Died in a twitter accident. Blogging was already taken.

A Mental Defect?

After reading an article on dyslexics and entrepreneurship, Ann Althouse wonders "What are the mental deficiencies that prevail in the world of blogging?".

Hmm... TMink in the comments says "I think there is a bit of narcissism in the world of blogging as well." Ha! I'm not sure I'd call myself narcissistic though; I tend to write about everything but what's happening in my life. Do I like to "head myself speak"? Not particularly. Sometimes I will even refuse to read a blog post after I've made it.

Honestly, I can't say what mental defect causes me to keep blogging. Certainly it's been lacking the last couple days.

Sad News Today

Frank the Cat has gone to the cheese burger stand in the sky. What is the opposite of a LOLcat?

I'd post the picture, but my nightly build of Camino is crashing on popups.

Why I Stopped Reading Wonkette

In one of his Best of the Web articles Thursday, James Taranto brought up a good point:

We haven't looked at Wonkette.com in years, but a colleague calls our attention to a piece on the site by "West Coast bureau chief" Ken Layne about Laura Bush's op-ed in yesterdays Wall Street Journal that just makes us shake our head:

[Wonkette post omitted]

When Ana Marie Cox did Wonkette, we considered it a guilty pleasure. But is there really a market for tasteless cynicism unleavened by any touch of wit?

When Ana Marie Cox was there, I used to refresh Wonkette about as many times a day as I refreshed Drudge Report. I frequently didn't understand the allusions and insider jokes, but it was still fun to read. To quote Wikipedia, her writing was "sharp, sarcastic, intelligent". The blog was ostensibly about Washington rumors, but it thrived on mocking those in power. Republicans were mocked more because they had more power.

After AMC left David Lat took over and I continued to read it. He wasn't as good as AMC, but he at least understood what the site was about. Then he left and there was a revolving door of posters. That's when I stopped reading.

Most of the new posters didn't understand Wonkette and for the day they had control they more of less turned it into adjuncts of their own blogs. Too many days passed where every post centered on how evil the President and the Republicans were. This latest incident tells me that things haven't changed.

Eventually I stopped bothering; the vitriol finally got to me. If I wanted daily rants against President Bush then I'd make DailyKos my homepage. But believe it or not, I don't regularly visit any of the angry blogs, blogs where people are constantly in an outrage over something. I don't read DailyKos. I don't read Michelle Malkin.

I miss Wonkette under the management of Ana Marie Cox. I wish she's return and show the current editors how it's done.

Show of Hands

I took the long blog reader survey for Ann Althouse. Somewhere over 140 questions, IIRC. Don't know why... just felt like it.

One of the questions was "Do you believe in UFO's?" I felt like I was at the Republican Debate: "Do you believe in evolution?"

[UPDATE 8:50pm: I should have added this:

Thanks to Gaboo.]

The Molly-Guard

Over on The Daily WTF (one of my favorite websites) they're discussing Take Your Child To Work Day and the Big Red Button:

Take-Your-Child-To-Work Day never made much sense to me. Unless you're someone cool like Tony Hawk or Batman, showing kids the reality of the workplace just seems outright cruel. Cubicles, meetings, TPS reports -- I mean really, while you're at it, why not just crush all of their hopes and dreams and tell them that Santa Claus died in a mid-air collision with the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny was run over while trying to save the world's last candy factory, and that there would never be any birthday parties ever again. It's practically the same thing...

I'm better you can guess what happens next. Anyway, the best part of the article is the comments, where all the readers jump in to tell the story about how they once pushed the Big Red Button. Apparently that plastic safety piece you use to cover such important buttons is called a molly-guard. I didn't know that, and according to the Jargon File the term originated at UIUC! I wonder if that (now) CITES employee is still around.

Caterpillar, the company my father works for, does have any Bring Your Kids To Work Day. Instead, they used to open up their facilities once every couple years and make it a family event. I remember going to the Tech Center and wandering around cubie-ville for awhile, looking at all the neat-o computers, printers, and plotters. Then dad would take us to his bay where he had his current injector or engine torn all apart. Fun times.

But I've never had a chance to push any Big Red Buttons. Where I work currently we don't have anything as fancy as a kill switch. Maybe some day...

Decision of the Day

Over at Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr highlights a great little (new to me) blog called Decision of the Day. It covers some of the most interesting appellate decisions, providing quick summaries of the opinions.

This one is staying in my bookmarks.