blogs as channels of insight
Blogs as Channels of Insight
We were with some new friends at a little get-together last night.
One feller exclaimed with tremendous vocal volume that his daughter is
in college and "is really into blogging." My ears perked up. I heard
the magic word that makes my world go round, that single thing that
mattered to me, meant more to me than life itself.
"Blogs, eh? Say on, good sir", I think I might have yelled at him.
"She writes stuff for her blog every day, she's an English major, and
she reads the blogs of her friends, and writes comments on them." he
answered with all his might.
"I would like to see her blog sometime", I shouted.
He looked at me with what I assumed was good-natured and polite
tolerance of the shape of my shoes, which I admit are lumpy looking.
As he stared down at the lopsided galloshes I had slopped onto my
feet, I reached for my cup of coffee, hoping that abrupt and dignified
motion would detour him. I have other shoes, I just never wear them.
"It's on Xanga", he explained loudly.
I refrained from showing off by suppressing a strong desire to
ponitificate on Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogspot, Typepad, Craig's List,
Always On, Corante, Metafilter, Blog Expulsion, Personal Democracy
Forum, and other blog communities, multi-authored team blogs,
web-rings, and portal hubs.
"I will check it out," I screamed crazily. "What's the name of the
blog? Or her full name? Does she use her real name in the blog? Is it
password protected, so only friends and family can read it?"
I was wishing someone would turn off the lawnmower in the livingroom.
I mean, the carpet was freshly cut, hence--the noisy, gassy mower had
served its purpose, hadn't it?
So, why did someone have to let it just sit there? and idle like that?
with a rope tied around the handle? to keep it running while no one
was attending it? Rather annoying.
He told me, in a vocal register quite in excess of a whimper, that it
was not locked. He gave me the name of the blog, and her real full
name.
So I'm going to check it out later.
I will post a comment at it, no lurking.
"It's a great way to keep tabs on her, what she's experiencing and
thinking", he wailed thunderously, entirely unprovoked. "I've
explained how to be safe online and she mostly just writes about
classes and activities going on at her college. I love it."
Here a blog is used as a tool to gain insight into a loved one's life
who is off to college.
Blogs, the miracle that they are, even bring families together in a
digital monitoring that can be better than letters or photo file
sharing.
A blog by a college student can contain photos with poetry or
explanations of what's going on in the photo. The frequent updating of
blogs means that parents can have very current information on their
children's moods, problems, and adventures.
Now if dad had a blog, his daughter could keep tabs on him, in a
mutual surveillance for reciprocal benefit.
[signed] Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate
:^)
Posted by steven edward streight at 8/01/2005 12:52:00 PM 0 comments
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Blog Blindness: an untreatable disease
Blog Blindness: an untreatable disease
Some people are blinded by strange shimmerings and cannot see blogs.
Symptoms of This Tragic Incurable Ailment
(1.) They ask "What's a blog?" You explain "blog, blogging,
blogosphere" very well. They still don't "get it".
(2.) They hear about blogs from others, they watch television news
reports about blogs with blogger interviews and screenshots. They are
no wiser than they were before. They still wonder what a blog is.
(3.) You show them a blog, maybe even your own blog. They look right
at the blog and cannot see it. It's there, but they're not. They're
somewhere else, in a faraway outmoded land, a brazen frozen
terrasphere, cracked and bleeding ground of being something that's
behind, straggling shamefacedly, stalled and negligent, stuff with
Other Things, eyes burned out of their sockets by rockets of nowhere's
glands.
The Dreaded Cure that's No Cure
The only way to heal the person is to convince them to start their own
blog.
This is dismissed as a totally undesirable solution, since the
formerly Blog Blind person generally turns into a Chronic
Overcompensating Blogging Evangelist, trying to get others to follow
down the slippery slope of hardcore bloggery.
Blog Creation, although it is potent enough to flush out misgivings
and mistakings, will only result, in most cases, with manic pursuit of
addictive:
"template tweaking"
"blogroll rubbing"
"clinking syndrome"
"blooging"
"reciprocal comment posting"
"blog traffic exchange cult involvement"
"blogocombat"
"blogoslang"
"visitor stats frenzy"
and
"blattooing (self-inflicted blog tattoos)".
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