Against All Odds
"How can I just let you walk away
just let you leave without a trace?
Oh
take a look at your blog now
there's just an empty space
And you coming back to post is against the odds
But that's what I've got to face."1
I was digging around in my template the other day, and noticed the ever growing ranks of the 'Sporadic Blogs' category. So, apologizing in advance for any cases where people have good, serious reasons for abruptly ceasing posting with no word of explanation for their loyal readers, here are some open questions:
Skippy, your last post as The Amazing Wonderdog was on September 29, 2006. We all agree that it's great Travis Biehn won on appeal, and maybe that's a decent note to go out on, but come on, nothing in the last 4 months has provoked your characteristic bite? Did the rabies get you?
Moebius Stripper, last we heard - over half a year ago - you were explaining how you became a curmudgeon. But even a curmudgeon comes out to yell at the kids on their lawn every now and then. New job leaves no time to post? Too busy writing graphing calculator instructions for math textbooks? Listen, I didn't want to have to resort to this, but you've left me no choice. By continuing to not post, you are helping to prove Warren Kinsella right Great, now I feel dirty, thanks a lot.
Ian King - oh, you just got under the wire, very sneaky. "it’s been a while since I posted anything here"?? It's been 123 days. The only time I use 'a while' to indicate 123 days is when my boss asks when I'm going to have something done, and I say, "In a while." Here's a tip, if you're going to go months between posts, you might want to drop the counter on your posts which tells readers just how long it's been!
Jonathan, your blog title is "No More Shall I Roam", maybe you should change it to, "No More Shall I Post." We're approaching the one year anniversary of your last post, "I, for one, welcome our new Conservative overlords." Hey, if you want that to be your final word on the internets, to go down in history with, "I welcome our Conservative overlords" on your virtual tombstone, I can't stop you. Be my guest. See if I care. Whatever.
Finally, Skeeter. Your very last words, written 20 months ago, were - and I quote - "I'll stay in touch." Need I say more?
---
1From Phil Collins' 'Against All Odds'
posted by Declan at
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
8 Comments:
I'll attend to that "xxx amount of time ago" display in a while.
By
Ian King, at 10:10 PM
I won't hold my breath :)
By
Declan, at 10:43 PM
GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DAMN BLOGGERS!
Hey, Declan ;).
What happened was this: this summer, I decided to do something I'd been thinking about doing for a decade and change, but never got around to: I decided to learn to play the fiddle. (I know; no one saw that coming.) I expected I'd enjoy it, but I didn't anticipate the extent to which it would take over my life. Seven months later, I'm spending more time in Irish pubs than probably any other teetotaler without any ancestral ties to the British Isles, and I'm loving every minute of it.
There are only so many hours in the week, and adults are not expected to have any hobbies they take seriously, and I have two (pottery being the other). That's twenty hours of my week; add that to the forty-plus I spend at and on work, and the fifty or so I spend lying around unconscious, and that doesn't leave much more. Something had to give, and, alas, it was blogging (both reading others' and writing in mine).
By
Anonymous, at 9:54 AM
So what you're saying is, all this time you've just been fiddling around? :)
Thanks for the update - I know what you mean about only so many hours in the day. If I ever stop blogging it will probably be for the same reason. OK, not fiddling perhaps, - although that sounds cool (musical talent passed me by entirely, alas) - but some other hobby that takes up my blogging hours.
Maybe I'll see you (and not realize it) in an Irish pub one of these days - I was in Irish Heather down in Gastown tonight, but there were no fiddler's to be seen.
By
Declan, at 8:54 PM
It seems to me there's a bit of a cycle at work here. People get busy and can't post; because there are fewer new posts visitors stop coming around; because there are fewer visitors the idea of posting is less appealing so posts decline further in frequency; more vistors stop coming and so on. . .
One solution would be for two or three people to merge blogs with everyone posting. More new posts; more reason to vist; more visitors; more reason to post - a virtuous circle, as one of my former big bosses would describe it.
By
Anonymous, at 8:03 AM
Yeah, I know that cycle and the group blog is a good solution. Although personally, for whatever reason, I only really feel comfortable posting on my own blog. I guess that would (might) pass over time, but it's a tough hurdle, maybe others have the same attitude.
By
Declan, at 7:16 PM
I solve this problem by taking my favourite mostly-dead blogs out of my sidebar, but leaving it in my rss feed, in case they come back to it.
I have occasionally considered doing this for CAtO, but you've always come back before I got around to it. *grin*
By
Idealistic Pragmatist, at 2:27 PM
If I ever pack it in, I'll post a message saying so (assuming I'm not struck down by something relative instantaneously). Perhaps I should put a provision for a wrap-up post into my will (perhaps I should write a will...)
By
Declan, at 10:11 PM
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