New Guest Editor's Picks for 7/29

Hi all. As posted in the Journals Message Board, our new Guest Editor for this week (and her picks) are up on the Journals Main Page:

Debbie is our Guest Editor; her blog is My Big Fat Greek Life, and here is her her blog entry, where she talks about her top picks and more:

* Ain't Life Grand?
* Reflections of a Prison Wife
* Hey! Let's Talk
* Mark's Weight Loss Journey
* Just One Girl's Head Noise
* Life With Linny


Debbie chose of theme of blogs that inspire her, so her picks are all about people facing and overcoming adversity of all kinds.

In other news, we seem to be facing yet another round of porn comment spam; I'm working with the enforcement team to set up a dedicated reporting procedure, so please stay tuned.

That's about it for now...thanks, and have a great weekend. -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

New Guest Editor's Picks for 7/22 and More

Hi all. As posted in the Journals Message Board, our new
Guest Editor for this week (and her picks) are up on
the Journals Main
Page.

Leading the way is Guest Editor
Jaime, "...the chick with the four kids who lives in Alaska:"

(Apologies
to all previous Guest Editors for not including their photos in this
here blog. I didn't think of it until now.)



Her blog is JaimeChase.com:
A ChaseNKids Production, and here is her
blog entry, where she talks about her top picks and
more:

* Accidental
Mother
* The Goofy Side
of Motherhood
* A Vision
Incarnate
* My Life
in a 'Nut' Shell
* Thought
Salad
* This Fish Needs a
Bicycle

Jaime's theme is blogs written by
wonder women (her

term): different women going through different things in their lives,

unified by their ability to blog and tell people about what's going
on.

(As an aside, another of her top picks [which
you can see in her blog entry] is http://thefoodwhore.com

-- it's a blog by a caterer, it was supposed to go in the Top 6 on the

main page, but it kept timing out when I tried to view it. It seems to

work okay now.)

In other news, the idea of a
mid-week refresh of the Top 6 seems to have gotten a
universal thumbs-down, so I will continue to try to
find other ways to highlight blogs on the main page.


This sort of relates to the big open
whitespace which was on the Journals Main Page; it's gone, but only
because I temporarily yanked the AOL News BlogZone module (you can
always jump directly to BlogZone.)




The point is, the HTML publishing tools we're using give us the

flexibility to try adding in new modules and features; we aren't

limited by the size of the page (unlike in the Rainman days); we're

only

limited by our ability to keep things updated in a timely fashion, so

we'll keep adding modules and features to the main page so we can

feature more of your blog content and other cool
stuff.

That's about it for right now -- thanks, and
have a great weekend. -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

Update on FTP, Plus a Way to Check Your Disk Quota

Hi folks...here's a quick update: It looks like AOL FTP (via
Keyword: FTP) is
back.

I don't have any word yet what the problem was
or if it is well and truly fixed, so let me know if you still run into
problems.

Also, now that AOL FTP is back up, I can
share a help tip that I found. Every now and then, I
get the question: "How can I tell how much FTP space I have
left?"

This is not as easy a question to
answer as you might think -- the storage space available to you (also
known as your disk quota), has gone up over time,
and unfortunately, a lot of the help resources and explainer text have
never been updated.

Waaaaay

back (like when a megabyte was still a lot), your disk quota was
2

megabytes per screen name (or 14 megabytes total, across all
your 5 [later 7]

screen names).

Now, I think we're supposed to be at
20 megabytes per screen name (140 megabytes over
your 7 screen names). But keep reading.

To find
out how much FTP space you have left, you can see the
step-by-step instructions in this AOL Help article, How much space do I have
left?



(Yes, we had a help article about it. That I never bothered to check for. Go figure.)



It basically tells you to connect anonymously to members.aol.com,

and in the "Welcome, you're connected" message, it will tell you how

many bytes you've got left in your quota.

For
example, for me, it might say:



/journalseditor quota is 100000000 bytes (99960797
free)

Now, if you do the math,

you'll find that 100,000,000 bytes is about 95
megabytes (because it's

computer math, 1 megabyte isn't 1,000,000 bytes; it's actually

1,048,576 bytes).

This would seem to
imply that you get approximately 100 megabytes of Web storage
per screen name, or 700 megabytes across your 7 screen
names.

Because

I am using an employee account, I am not sure if everyone gets this or

not. I have a question out to the FTP folks, but in the meantime,
I'm

curious -- if you check your quota status, please leave a
comment and

tell me what you've got.

Thanks -- Joe

FTP Problems? Try Using an External FTP Client

Hi folks...intrepid blogger John Scalzi has reported that some of you are having problems accessing your FTP storage space from Keyword: FTP. [Edit: These problems have been resolved.]

I have passed this along to the tech guys, and they are looking into it.

However, there is a workaround, and it also gives me an opportunity to talk about a much better way to handle the files (usually photos) that you want to put in your Journals & Web pages. It involves using an external FTP program running over your AOL connection.

Here's the story: The AOL FTP program (also known as an FTP client) is older than dirt.
It offers some basic functionality, but it's not very easy to use. In
fact, I rarely use it myself. (The tech folks are trying to figure out
how we can replace it all with a better way to handle files.) [Edit: The new Web-based file manager is now available. See my entry on how to use the new File Manager. However, there are still some advantages to using an external FTP client, so you can keep reading if you like.]

However, one thing you can do to make things easier is to get an
external FTP client, and run it over your AOL connection. Here's how
you do it:

1. Download and install an external FTP client. There are lots and lots of freeware or shareware FTP clients available. AOL members can search in the AOL Download Center, and you can also search for FTP clients at reputable download sites such as Download.com, Shareware.com, Tucows.com, etc.

2. Configure your FTP client.
The exact instructions will vary according to manufacturer, so please
check their instructions; for my example, I will be referring to the
process for WS_FTP, the program I currently use. The basic outline
goes like this: Somewhere in the settings, you will be asked for the following information so you can connect to your FTP space: host address (of the place you want to connect to), User ID and Password. Now, this next part kind of goes against intuition, so please pay attention:

• For host address, enter members.aol.com


• For User ID, enter anonymous (there may be a checkbox or pulldown for Anonymous, that you have to do also)


• For Password, enter the full e-mail address of the AOL screen name's FTP space you're trying to access.

For example, for my JournalsEditor screen name, my host address will be members.aol.com; user ID will be anonymous (the check box is also checked), and password will be journalseditor@aol.com (Don't worry about "profile name"; it's just something WS_FTP uses so I can save these settings for next time):


3. Make sure that you are running the AOL client, signed in using the same screen name
as the screen name whose FTP space you're trying to access. This is
very important -- your AOL client connection takes care of the
authentication stuff, so you can't access someone elses private FTP
space. If my AOL client connection is signed in with my JournalsEditor
screen name, I can only access the private JournalsEditor FTP space
with my external FTP client.

It all sounds complicated, but it should fall into place once you try it -- and once you try it, you'll never go back.

One warning, though: Using an external FTP client makes it easier do everything: upload files, rename files, move files. It also makes it easier to delete files. You should be doing this anyway, but please make sure that you have backups (preferably on your own computer and backup storage), in case you delete anything you shouldn't have.

[Update: You can now upload and access the files in your storage space using an external FTP program that doesn't require an AOL connection -- you just need to use an FTP client program that supports SFTP -- see my full entry with instructions on what to do.]

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or problems. -- Joe

Update: Six More Guest Editor's Picks

Hey folks. Quick update -- as I mentioned on Friday, I wanted to try putting up another six of Guest Editor Mrs. L's picks up on the Journals Main Page. I'm trying to figure out ways to highlight more great Journals and blogs on the main page. Of course, you can see Mrs. L's full list of picks in her blog entry (which is the focus of this whole exercise, anyway):

• One-Way Passage


• Life in the Blue Victorian House


• Inane Thoughts


• I Do Not Recall Having a Memory Problem


• View From A Farmhouse Window


• Surrounded By Nincompoops

So what do you think -- one set of six for the whole week, or is two sets over the course of the week better? I don't think we could get any more frequent than that, at least not in this space. I also can't currently make the list longer -- it's used on the People Connection main page, and I'm already pushing the limit.

Thanks -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

New Guest Editor's Picks for 7/15

Hi all. As posted in the Journals Message Board, we've got a new Guest Editor, and therefore new picks up on the Journals Main Page.

Manning the ship of the Journals state this week is Guest Editor Mrs. Linklater, who I describe on the main page as "iconoclastic." Her mission (er, theme): highlighting blogs with style, so see her blog entry for her full list of picks (the top 6 of which are below):

• Screamin' Remo


• Do I AMUSE You?


• A Trickle of Semi-consciouness


• The Way Ahead


• Perpetual Notion Machine


• The Badinage

I will try to refresh the Top 6 with more of her picks on Monday or so, so be warned.

Next, as I noted in the previous entry, we have a new widget on the Journals Main Page, which displays a list of the Journals you own. I note that some of you are singularly unimpresssed, but let me just say that we're working on more stuff.

Also, the way the modules lay out on the main page, there's a big empty blank space that's offending me. I may try to start in on that list of member self-programming features that I was asking for; stay tuned.

That's about it for now; have a good weekend, all. -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

Meet Myrtle, the New Journals Listing Widget

Hi everybody; if you look on the Journals main page,
you'll see a change to the module on the upper left.  Depending on
whether you're signed in or not (and if you have any Journals or not,
though I'm assuming you do), you should see the new Journals listing widget (which I call "Myrtle", after somehow tongue-twisting "Journals functionality module" into "Myrtle" too many times):



If
you don't have any Journals or are using an external browser (such as
Firefox or Netscape) that's not signed in with your AOL screen name,
you will see a promo and some buttons, which looks almost exactly like
it was before.

Once you sign on, though (you can sign on
by clicking the "Sign On" button in the very top toolbar), you should
see a listing of your public and private Journals, similar to what you
saw on http://journals.aol.com.

If you only have one Journal, you'll see that Journal, as well as the promo underneath.

If you have more than one Journal, the box will keep stretching vertically, up to a max of 20 right now.

Having the box stretch vertically will throw off the layout of the page something fierce; we're working on a fix where the listing will scroll vertically within a set space.

One note to clarify something that may be confusing right now: If you want to add a new entry to your Journal or edit an existing entry, click on your Journal's name.  If you click the "Edit" link to the right of your Journal's name, you will be editing the properties of your Journal (color, layout, etc.).


Oh, and one last thing -- the view with 2 or more Journals doesn't have room for a link to the message boards, so I moved it to the "Advanced Tools & Tips" module in the lower right of the page.


We're
also working on other issues of Myrtle's labeling and layout; we'll be
displaying the number of comments in each entry, and a few other
changes, so please consider this a public test, and let me know what you think of Myrtle in the comments below.

Thanks -- Joe

Submit! You Must Submit!

Hi folks -- Paul, one of our previous Guest Editors,
has asked me to throw out a plug for something he's
working on called CarnivAOL,
which is a version of a Blog Carnival.

Here's the
scenario: You've blogged this really great entry,
but then it moved off your main page and you don't think enough people
got the chance to read it.

So, with a blog carnival,
you submit your best entries, and they get put
together so that everyone has one place they can go to see everyone
else's best stuff.

Sorry, Paul: there's no way I can
plug your first call for
CarnivAOL submissions (scheduled for July 18). Just can't do
it.

Actually, this kind of ties in for my own
call for submissions for something I've been working
on, and it is thus:

If

you've got a bit of regular programming that you do,
one that involves

asking people to participate by blogging and sending in their

responses, please let me know.  I'm working on some form of

listing or aggregator page for this. Don't have a timeline
yet.

The kind of blog self-programming
I'm talking about includes:

• Weekly Blog Discussion
  Topics (Like the Friday Five or Saturday Six -- as well as Scalzi's
  topics, of course)
• Book
  Clubs
• Collaborative
  Novels
• Photo Challenges
• Round
  Robins
• Pretty
  
  much anything else that involves asking other Journalers to blog about
  
  something and collecting and highlighting their
  responses.

At

the outset, it would probably be a simple listing,
but with a little

development, it could possibly evolve into a dynamic
registry, where you

could see the latest updated assignments & deadlines, see
other

people's responses, etc.



On

a related note, if you've got other examples of Journals

self-programming (stuff that you've done yourself because you got
tired

of waiting for AOL to do it), also send them along.  I'm
thinking

stuff like:

• Directories
• Quote
  Archives
• Birthday
  Listings
• Facebooks
• Awards

As with the assignment stuff, I know some of the stuff out
there,

but am working on a more definitive list, so please send me what
you've

got.



If you've got anything like this and

would like to be included, please

leave a comment or send
me an e-mail. Please be sure to include
the name of your feature, a description, and how often it
happens.

Thanks -- Joe

New Guest Editor's Picks for 7/8 & More

Hi everybody. As posted in the Journals
Message Board, the new Guest Editor's
Picks are up on the Journals Main
Page.

Taking on the Guest
Editor mantle this week is Dawn, whose blog is Carpe Diem
- Seize the Day.

As

Guest Editor, Dawn chose a theme (as is her option and her right as

Guest Editor), highlighting blogs that chronicle the lives of people

living with Invisible Disabilities, including Lupus
and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Here are some of her
top
picks:

• Luanne's
  Life Living With Lupus
• Karyl's
  Glimpses of Eternity
• Foxy's
  RA Journal
• One*Hip*Mama
• Mariann
  on Lupus & Life
• Life With
  Lupus

That about wraps it up this week.
Don't forget to participate in John Scalzi's Weekend
Assignment; "What's your guilty pleasure?" topics always
generate some good content, especially when it comes to
movies.

Oh, you want me to play, too? Let's see: My
favorite bad movie right now would have to be 'Road
House,' starring Patrick Swayze. It's incredibly cheesy, it's
on TNT all the damn time and it has some pretty good
fight scenes.





Favorite quote: "Pain don't hurt."



It was even made into an off-off-Broadway musical this a couple of
years back.

Have a good weekend, everyone. --
Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

London Bombing Blog Links

Hi...needless to say, most of the major blog outlets have significant coverage of the London terrorist bombings (BBC News link).

Here is a quick roundup of blog links, shared photos and other blog-related resources.

The Guardian Newspaper has a news blog;
it's a very good example of how a mainstream media organization can use
blogs to supplement and enhance its offerings.  The also link to Messages of Resolve and Eyewitness Accounts, for those looking for a more personal perspective of events.

Here is the Wikinews article -- a wiki is a group blog which anyone can contribute to; WikiNews is a take on group citizen journalism blogging.

The Londonist is a local London group blog (it's part of a network of local blogs, such as DCist, Gothamist, LAist, etc).

Here is the Flickr.com London Bomb photo pool.
There are lots of pics of TV screens and so forth, but there are some
photos taken from mobile phones from people evacuating the Underground.

Here is an example of a UK Moblog photo
-- it's a single pic, and I can't vouch for the quality of the rest of
the pics on that site (Moblog sites can be pretty dicey, especially
when it comes to porn pics, etc -- Flickr is probably the best bet for
moblog photos).

Here's another UK Blogs Aggregator.

Scalzi found this one; it's a LiveJournal bulletin board for London LiveJournalers to touch base and check in.

And here are some more links from some of the usual blog suspects:

• Boing Boing
• Kottke.org
• memeorandum.com - Lots of blog links, with summaries
• Instapundit's take
• Truthlaidbear.com - A blog news tracking site
• Metafilter's (a group blog) discussion thread
• The Counterterrorism blog - A group blog I found linked from instapundit -- it's a little wonky
• And of course, our own John Scalzi's aggregator/blog check-in entry

In addition, here are some canned searches for "London Bombing" so you can find your own blog content:

• Feedster 
  
• Technorati (the technorati main page is loaded with canned searches on this)
• AOL Journals

Lastly for right now, I was looking through some AOL UK Journals -- they're largely reactions from folks watching events unfold on TV, just like us across the pond:

• Jeannette's Jottings
• It's My Life
• Sara's Days
• Amy Loves Peccarys
• An Average Life (and other stories)
• A Mum's Tale

Thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by this.

Thanks -- Joe

Followup: Boring Is Not Bad

Hi folks. This is a followup to my earlier entry (which I have not edited in any way since posting), where I led off with the deliberately outrageous statement "Blogs are boring."

(I've been posting comments and answering lot of e-mails, so please excuse me as I repeat and steal from myself.)

I
posted this largely to stir things up. Nothing in my post, though, was
meant to call any person, blog or blog entry boring (other than maybe
my own).

As I said, blogs are most interesting to people you
know, the people who know you, and the people you interact with online.
If you've found blogs you like and that you follow -- well, now you
"know" them. They become important and interesting to you.

I didn't mean to belittle anyone or hurt anyone's feelings, so if I did, I apologize.

Here's where I'm coming from.

First off, I am not annoyed now. See? Smiling. I'm smiling:


Next, I am not trying to change how anyone writes, what they write about, whose blogs they read, or anything else.

If you enjoy blogging (and I hope you do), and have found blogs you enjoy reading (which I think you have), nothing I or anyone else says can change that. Which is the way it should be.

Furthermore, when it comes to personal blogs, "boring" is not a bad thing. In fact, boring is good. Here's why:

Very few of us are going to break big news stories in our blogs.

Almost none of us are former Hollywood child actors, or blogging cross-country as we promote our movies.

We're not going to be writing Shakespeare every day or blogging entries from the top of Mount Everest. And you know what?

That's perfectly okay.

Maybe "boring" is the wrong word -- but I don't think mundane, ordinary, normal or regular are much better.

Part of what I'm trying to do is deflate some of the media hype about blogging. Blogging is just something that people do. And we like to do it.

One downside to all this hype is that I've personally heard from people who feel intimidated
and discouraged from starting their own blogs, because they feel
pressure (that they put on themselves) to be "interesting" -- instead
of feeling free to write about what they know, or what happens to them.

Like
I've said elsewhere, no matter how "boring" you might think your own
blog is, there's bound to be someone out there who finds it interesting.

All that I ask right now is that people take a leap of faith and know that I don't actually hate you all, your journals, or my job, and maybe re-read my entry with that in mind.

I did set out to shake things up a bit in the middle of the summer slump, maybe jar a few assumptions and get people to think about why they blog. If the question is "Why do you blog?", there really are no wrong answers.

Having said all that, there were a lot of comments in my blog, and entries in your own Journals, responding to my post and Scalzi's entry talking about my post.

A
bunch of you even took it upon yourselves to post your own "Annoyed"
journal entries, in some cases emulating the pose in my photo
(apologies if I've missed any):

• Omar, the Lord of Butter, started the ball rolling


• Dornbrau has one too and is keeping a list


• Brandy's take (is my bolding that random?)


• Angelia Rian turns to the dictionary


• Christina expresses her boredom in brown


• Kell lists out some interesting boring factoids


• Even the 2-Faced Baseball takes a swing

Also, here's a small sampling of other commentary in your Journals:

• Jodi chimes in


• Tina agrees and disagrees


• Coy's concerns include, "Hey, who made him boss?"


• Hadonfield opines on opinions


• Jeanette holds a poll from across the pond

Lastly, as journaler Sepintx pointed out, if you do a Google search for the phrase "blogs are boring", my entry comes up as #1, thanks to your links.

This was not my intent, but I'll take it.

Again, I'm not one for non-apology apologies -- if I upset you or otherwise insulted you, I'm sorry.

Like I wrapped up the prior entry, so I wind down this one: "Does this mean that people are going to stop blogging? Of course not. And it shouldn't. If we're lucky, maybe people will just stop talking about it so much and just do it."

Thanks -- Joe

Live 8 Live

Hi everybody -- just watching the Live 8 Concert live streams -- it's pretty cool, there's a ticker on top, which tells you who's on stage, where, at any given time. Makes it easy to flip between the different venues.

Live 8 is dedicated to eradicating global poverty by convincing the G8 leadership to cancel debt, increase aid and more.

Now, AOL is Live 8's online partner
(if you don't know that by now, I think someone's gonna get fired), so
we've been busy all week working to help promote it, raise awareness
and more.

In addition, there's a lot of blogging going on around Live 8; there are bloggers using AIM Blogs to cover the shows in six cities:

• Berlin
• London
• Paris
• Philadephia
• Rome
• Toronto  (This will be a post-show blog.)

There was a temporary downside,
though -- the Live 8 Concert blogs were getting a lot of high-level
promotion, which really taxed the servers, and caused a slowdown.

We should be better now.

Here's some more Live 8 blogs from around the Web:
Live 8 Insider, which is a pretty good group blog.

Also, here are some canned searches for some Live 8 blogs & other content: AOL Journals | Feedster | Technorati | Flikr (photos)

And, with that deft human editor's touch, here are some of your blog entries about Live 8:

• Am I There Yet
• Syrophenikon
• For Myself & Others
• Daily Ponderings
• In My Own Words
• The Unknown Zone of Mwah
• Jilly's Poems
• Back Talk
• Sassy's Word
• Jenny's Journal
• ONE
• Back Talk

That's it for now, talk to you later -- Joe

New Guest Editor's Picks for 7/1 & More

Hi everybody. As posted in the Journals Message Board, there's a new set of Guest Editor's Picks up on the Journals Main Page, so swing by and check it out.

This week, taking the Guest Editor reins is Felicia, whose blog is PIT (Psychologist in Training).

We
did things a little differently this time around; I asked Felicia if,
in addition to some of her favorite picks, if she could also choose a
few blogs related to the theme of the Fourth of July. That was all the guidance I gave -- the rest was up to her.

Here are some of her top picks:

• I'm Leaving for the Army
• Comments on the Events of My Life
• Becoming a Firefighter
• Organized Chaos
• America
• Rhonda's Strange Thoughts and Pics

As you can see, Felicia's primary theme is the blogs of people who serve, including firefighters, EMS workers, soldiers & more. You can see her full lineup, as well as some blog shout-outs, in her blog entry.

We might try another tweak with the Guest Editor's Top 6
picks, where instead of running one set of picks on the front page for
a week, we might go for two sets of six picks over the course of the
week.

The upside is that the Guest Editor would get more
picks on the main page -- the downside, of course, is that they
wouldn't be up as long. Still working on that one.

Next up, I published a new AOL Editors' Blogs
page, listing out all the "official" AOL blogs that I know about. 
If you read any of the other Editor's Blogs, drop a comment some time
(they like that).

And no, I'm not suddenly determined to put my photo in everything I publish.

Also, in a bit of followup, we're looking at the blogging Buddy Icon suggestions you folks sent in; I'll let you know when we start to get closer to creating them.

That's pretty much it for right now. I need to do an update for all the Live 8 Concert blogging stuff that's going on, either later today or tomorrow. It's keeping us pretty busy, suffice it to say.

Finally, regarding my previous post about blogs being boring -- thanks for responding to it in spirit which it was written (namely, with humor and provoking discussion).

Thanks, have a great July Fourth holiday. And watch Live 8! -- Joe

Tag: Guest Editor's Picks

What Is Joe Annoyed About This Time?

Okay, let's get this out of the way: Yes, that's me. I'm the Journals Editor.

The look on my face, coupled with the forward-leaning posture, shows that I'm annoyed about something.

It's probably because I have a cut on my tongue, a headache, and my tendinitis is flaring up.

But it's also because of this:

Blogs are boring.

This goes for the biggest, baddest, most popular blogs out there -- the Boing Boings, Farks, Metafilters, Power Lines, Kottkes -- the whole lot of 'em.

In fact, the big blogs are probably the most boring of all the blogs out there.

It goes for this blog. And it goes for your blog.

And I'll tell you why.  It's real simple, and it comes in two parts: one for the big fish, and one for the small fry bloggers:

1. The Big Fish Blogs: Everyone talks about the same things. And links to the same Web pages.

Don't believe me? Trust me: Read enough of the same big blog and blog-like pages, and you'll see it -- all the man bites dog stories, all the weird news, top headlines, internet myths, celebrity gossip, stupid flash movies and gadget porn -- everyone's talking about the same thing. At near enough the same time. (We're very predictable.) It's a gigantic echo chamber.

Things are a little different for the regular guy blogger, the small potatoes blogger who ain't never going to crack the Technorati Top 100 (or Top 10,000 for that matter).

2. Small Fry Bloggers: Regular people are by definition regular. Hence, boring.

For most regular folks (I include myself, when I'm not blogging for AOL), your blog is going to be boring -- by design -- to everyone except a small group of people who know you: Your family, your friends, and the people you interact with online.

It's the same group of people you might send a family update newsletter with your Christmas (sorry, Winter Holiday) card.

Have you ever read the Christmas (sorry, Winter Holiday) family newsletter of someone you don't know?

(And hey, if you're a celebrity? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the most revealing things about blogging is that it shows us just how boring celebrities really are.)

So, let's recap: You have two kinds of boring blogs:

1. Big Fish Bloggers, who are just endlessly talking about the same things, over and over.
2. Small Fry Blogger, who are regular folks who are (let's face it) regular.

If there's any consolation, no matter how boring your own blog is, it's never going to be as boring as the Dullest Blog in the World.

Plus, even the most boring blog is a great way to kill time, as evidenced by the Exciting Links for Boring Days in No Particular Order. (Taking into account Rule #1: Everyone is linking to the same things.)

Does this mean that people are going to stop blogging? Of course not. And it shouldn't. If we're lucky, maybe people will just stop talking about it so much and just do it.

Okay, so I'm a little cranky right now.

This blog entry is rated approximately 60-75% serious.

-- Joe