I think of memes as bombs in a way. I had a few dropped on me recently.
I was tagged twice with the same meme. I hate tags, and viral linking of any kind. Call me an arrogant but stunning woman a creep if you must. (again)
I’m going to do it without the links, and I’m not going to tag anyone. I can’t help but do a “blogging tip” meme. Like anyone who has had a blog for two minutes I am a “blogging expert”.
The premise was everyone give a tip. Link and post all the tips in your blog. Then add yours. You were to strike out the tips you thought sucked, keeping only the ones you thought were fine.
Chip tagged me some time ago, and People in the Sun tagged me today.
I use some of Chips plug-ins here. I read him quite a bit. He was also one of the first people to show up on my blog log back in the day. People in the Sun I have started reading recently, so I’m in. Sort of.
My blogging tips:
Try to change your theme at least weekly. You will have a variety of readers with different ideas as to what is aesthetically pleasing. Some of your readers will be very old and will require large letters. Some will get sinus infections from bright colors, or complain that reading text on a full page of white gives them a headache. There are those who will complain the sidebar is not a sidebar if it’s on the bottom, as well as those who want to see your links and pictures plastered all over the sidebar because it shows your essence. Once in a great while there will be the real design geek who will complain about your White Space and justification of text. You will zone out at this but feel the need to find a justified or not — white space balanced theme anyway.
If you want to please all your readers changing your theme at least weekly is a must.
Follow the above rule, and don’t pay attention to blogging tips, and you will be fine.
For those who don’t know me, and because I feel that there is too much literal interpretation of blogs (mine), I am taking my tongue out of my cheek now.
The only blogging tip I ever give anyone is to write something that pleases you. Lord knows it’s hard enough to get up enough verve to maintain regular posting. You don’t need the extra pressure of trying to please everyone and their aunt too.
Besides, you need a reason to come back to your site everyday. What could be a better reason than reading something you know you’re going to enjoy by an author you’re intimately familiar with?
Yeah. I quit listening to blogging tips myself, other than “why the hell are you so fucking long-winded.” I try to keep posts under five printed pages
Yes, a permanent theme makes a blog way too recognizable. When visitors ask themselves “wait, is this the right site?” then you’ve achieved the level of “super mysterious”.
Mission accomplished.
(tongue/cheek also)
I definately agree, getting tagged is often awkward.
i don’t think i could handle generating a new theme every week, though. i suppose it depends if you value your writing or your design more.
Thanks Cooper
All these years I was wondering what I was doing wrong
Please never feel the need to explain yourself. I do that enough for both of us and some more
Like this theme
must add this post was one of your funnier posts in several years of continually refining your humor to its essence
This is hilarious. I do have to say, tho, that looking at your theme today is somewhat like seeing someone walk through the door with spiky auburn hair and black eye-liner instead of uh…dunno…longer black hair with a bit of mascara? Manolo Blahniks instead of Cole Hahn loafers? Is this making any sense? Trick.
I promise I will never, ever send you one of these horrible things.
Ever.
I don’t blog enough to give a blogging tip.
I’m glad to see you highlighting your comedic skills. This helps take the edge off your more socially pointed posts. I like the auburn hair and black eyeliner, and I wouldn’t worry about not showing “your essence” on a sidebar. “Your essence” comes through in the writing when your not doing memes.
Be an arrogant but stunning creep, again.
For the record, I never said that a sidebar wasn’t a sidebar if it was on the bottom. I just said that bottom-sidebars are fugly =P
MoJo: “You can’t please everyone so you got to please yourself” Ricky Nelson
What could be a better reason than reading something you know you’re going to enjoy by an author you’re intimately familiar with?
ding, ding, ding, ding
Jason: Five printed pages is about my limit as well. You do a good five pages.
Sushi Gorilla: The goal I think, and it is a loftY one I know, is to have people recognize one by the words on the page.
I wonder if too much tongue in cheek is damaging?
Adam: I imagine you value the design whereas I value the content housed by the design. Although if I found a design which screamed my name I would surely settle.
I’m happy in your house for the moment.
Pia: I’m glad I could clarify that for you. Yea I like it as well. The reason I explain myself is because I have noticed once in awhile people answering to posts which were not meant to be taken literally in a way which makes me realize they are taking me literally.
Kellypea: In reality I’m neither a loafer or a spiked heal. More like a leather sandal.
Dedd: I knew I could count on you. I’m always excited to see you.…makes my day.
Dane: One must highlight those comedic skills every so often or they disappear never to return.
Doug: I promise.
Wombat: Ah, well thank you for the clarification. Is fugly uglier than ugly? And just for that I shall tag you with this.
Tongue in cheek is good.
As long as it’s not your own.
I never had any real blogging advice until today. And it comes thanks to you, cooper.
Paraphrased: “never be enamored with an avatar of a chick with 38 double E’s”
With sage advice like that, you can be as arrogant and stunning as you’d like. Just promise you’ll never turn into a lindsay lohan.
Well well well, we meet again. And look at the anti-meme backlash here. And it’s not just here; you see it a lot now. Here’s how it happens: Someone posts about hating tags, another person sees that, agrees, then posts why s/he hates tags, and so on. I Call it “passive tagging” ™.
And thanks for indulging me (to a point). Tongue in or out of cheek, I would have changed my design more often if I didn’t always feel like my blog template was a Jenga tower, that it was my turn to play, and that I’ve just had another shot of whiskey.
SK: Sorry, I just could not help it. It was a friggin technology blog for god sake, with an icon of some woman with breasts the size of my body. I am not much on icons of that kind anyway, but when they lead you to a tech blog I call it false and annoying advertising.
Lindsay who?????
PITS: I am nothing if not a “passive tagger”.
One might say I don’t like to get in the faces of other people. They’d be wrong of course, but they still might say it.
It’s a little early in the day for whiskey.
Question: Did you have your hand on your hip while writing well well well?
later folks I’m off due to a hundred and six degree heat index so I’m going to go run five miles.
You figure out where my tongue is on that and you win.…something.
I never tag anyone… I guess I would have to be blogging to do such things
Miss ya coop
“Passive tagger™?” LMAO.
P.Sun, man, you make it sound like dominoes or lemmings or something. Maybe some people just honestly don’t like memes.
Cooper,
You ARE an arrogant but stunning woman. Sandals huh? Right on.
5 miles in this crap?? Oh my gosh… are you out of your mind???? I tried going for a 40 mile bike ride but cut it back by half because it just plain sucked out there. And the weatherman says it’s even worse where you are.
Leigh: I miss you too, but you must live your life. Unfortunately at this point in time my life does not involve water…
DaveJ: Yes Dave sandals. All illusions shot eh?
SK: There were a couple of sixty and seventy year olds running in the park with me.
Since memeing and tagging are now a no-no, what should I do?
The Hiroshima thing is one of the oddities of our policies. We tell every country looking to harness the atom (nuclear plants and bombs) that’s a no-no..
The U.S. killed nearly 100,000 not once (but twice) with the only two bombs we had.
I know we have some real good reasons for this, however, we should acknowledge we started this mess and we were not right in doing it.
It may have avoid 1,000,000 U.S. causalities (including my Grandpa), but the Prices of the whole incident may have outweighed that eventuality that really was not actual eventuality. (A blockade of Japan in late 1945 would have triggered the surrender.)
Just think: this ‘Iraq war’ has dragged on longer that our involvement in the fighting of WWII.
well, it’s short for “fucking ugly,” so yeah…
Fine then. You know I’m good for it.
Dave, look at that, all my friends are here. And I know, I know. For some people it’s great, for others it’s fun, for others it’s something they endure, and for a growing number it’s the worst thing in the world; the new blogs-that-open-and-a-frickin’-song-starts-playing. Still, you and Cooper have used my trademark without my permission and you will now be contacted by my team of lawyers.
Have you noticed my “tag free zone” on my Blog. I used to do the Meme thing and blah, blah, blah. The next thing I knew, it was taking up way to much time. I will let my Blog (s) grow naturally. I would rather have a few faithful readers than a bunch of numbers that don’t give a crap what I am writing about anyway.
Jason: It is too depressing to think about, yet I think about it daily.
Wombat: We definitely have different opinions on sidebars and on BRIGHT RED LETTERS…;)
I won’t pressure you. I know you have some serious cracking of the whip to do.
PITS: or Pits as I will now call you. My attorney has been fighting for the rights of bloggers to name their own meme genre for years.…you will lose.
Carol: yes, I never did them ( unless I saw one that I felt like doing in a time of boredom ), and it was all well and good. Then I joined my blog log. I found some nice bloggers and good blogs but I also found a lot of this meme issue.
Besides my astute readership and mentors would have never stood for it. They are very cultist and prefer I follow the rules of blog purity. I have been indoctrinated as such.
i hear you dear and you are and always have been a guiding light.… i’m coming to join your coast in days
Given, but my bright red letters don’t keep previous posts off of the front page, or skew widgets out of shape. =P
i love how you’re so intensely intellectual one moment and so unabashedly acerbic the next.
Thanks, Coop. I always looked forward to seeing you, back when I was doing this on a regular basis. When I start up again, you’ll be among the first to know, promise
I like your design.
Rio: You write therefore you live, thank goodness.Do tell dear rio do tell.
EW: My widgets are in fine shape, although the guy who made this theme might be cringing more than a little at seeing them all.
There is one previous post and a delicious
archive.
illyria: I was over reading your beautiful words and didn’t comment but I will soon. You are like something which just floats over me and helps me rest and makes me smile.
ID: I had better be.
DEBOHOBO: Perhaps you should tell the wombat that.
Thanks it’s not mine of course. It belongs to the guy in the footer.
Cooper,
Negative, all illusions *confirmed!
P.Sun,
I knew I should have looked into legal representation, I just never thought it would catch up to me this soon.
“Sorry, I just could not help it. It was a friggin technology blog for god sake, with an icon of some woman with breasts the size of my body. I am not much on icons of that kind anyway, but when they lead you to a tech blog I call it false and annoying advertising.”
Uhh, since this complaint was posted on my MyBlogLog page, it lead me to believe you were talking about my site… but since I have no such icon (nor any such thing) nor are we a technology blog… maybe there was just some confusion? Or did my account get hacked by a pervert?
As to the post, we were guilty of participating in that linking meme, and lo and behold, people reading the blog just did not care, and likened it to chain letters.
I would not at all be surprised if there was a plugin out there that automatically changed your theme weekly. But it really would be something if it downloaded new themes for you, and automatically picked clashing colors.
Dave J: Good to know. You and PITS carry on now.
Dave T. GAME: I just sent you off a message, it was posted to my community message board and lucky you are in my community.
I was annoyed at a spam avatar…I was posting my annoyance. You are not the first to think it was directed at you. Next time I complain I will make it clear that I am just using you all as a sounding board, abusing my community message board and my community.
Dave — cooper probably intended to post that comment only to my attention. I’ve had a rather aggressive, um… fan the past couple of days. A fan who at least twice spammed a few hundred people with anti-SauerKraut messages. It’s not cooper’s fault; really, it isn’t.
hi cooper. funny cross posting like this. hahahaaaa.
your mere reading honors me, cooper. you know that.
it’s like spending time with a really close friend. one does all the talking, and the other, the listening, but you’re both this synergistic whole where you completely get each other.
I like the look. It brings the edge out in the open.
“i love how you’re so intensely intellectual one moment and so unabashedly acerbic the next.” says it all.
I was here for your first “tag”. I’ll be here for your last.
That was funny cooper, a little bit of truth thrown in, thanks.
It’s wise to make your mark by your words, especially if you can’t design.
This looks good. A non conventional look, outside the box. The graphics are perfection.
Some of your meme tags have been very interesting, don’t dismiss them entirely.
My wife is an attorney she may know something about “the rights of bloggers to name their own meme genre”.
If not I will have to suggest she work on that.
You certainly are going crazy with the Wordpress aren’t you? I don’t like looking for older post I like them to be in a line. But I applaud you attempt at trend setting.
Saurkraut: Actually that comment had nothing to do with you it was on a totally different matter.
Tran: I will spend some more quality time there this evening. That is the word. Quality Time.
Joe: Thanks and it is nice to see you.
jacob: Could be financially well worthwhile.
Croaker: Well the are in line actually in both the archives and in the recent post widget posted right below the post. Change is sometimes good . Tradition often needs to be changed.
moving to florida to start playing at a grown-up life it should be terribly exciting
Cooper!!!!!!! These endlessly changing themes are bring on my schizophrenia!
p.s. Want to come to Prague with me next week?
Rio: I wish for you only the best, and hope to see you around more. You must keep us filled in, you can’t start a story and leave me with no ending. My imagination could kill me.
Goldy: I believe I’ve had this one for several days. I was on blogger a year and two months with the same theme I had adapted from “maystar designs”. My original wordpress theme was intact for seven months or more. Then came widgets and uprades. and I have yet to find something which is truly me.
I’m very fond of this one though.
Damn it, lucky you. Prague is beautiful. More than beautiful actually.
Great tips! Thanks and they will come in handy for my blog
Would love a blog purity movement along with whips cracked and meme free zones. As a Cooper cultist I like this template.
The ever so slightly changing colors have not been mentioned and should be.
I too think of Hiroshima too much and Nagasaki even more
Now back to the silk cave that actually has windows opened due to the amazing drop in temperature/heat/humidity index, and a tornado.
Alright cooper, time to confess! What subliminal messages do you put in your post? Seems no matter what you write, for the better or bitter – Readers simply adore you, almost bordering on a worshiping fashion. Heck, you could run with Hillary and I bet you would get into the Oval Office. What is your secret? What is this seemingly pizzazz you possess? 20 something comments and counting! Congrats! Now confess!
Didn’t comment here before because I didn’t want to get lost among the crowd.I have a pure blog. I write about black dresses. Not enough I guess.
This is a good design, more on the arty site. You would like this. You feel at home here I bet.
They do not know of your charisma and your charm girl. Going way past the genuine smile, and the on and off curls. I could write about you cooper. Maybe that would send me traffic.
Save second weekend in September for me.
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