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Links For Brains: 10/01/2008

October 1st, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Archaeologists find an ancient bowl with an engraving that claims Jesus was magic. (Ancient weed “totally bogarted.”)
New Humanist suspects that Sarah Palin may be downplaying her actual creationist beliefs. (Also suspects water might be just as wet as claimed.)
Another transitional fossil, a fish with rudimentary fingers, rudely insists on existing. (Creationists celebrate creation of two new gaps in fossil record.)
Lawsuit against operation of Large Hadron Collider dismissed by U.S. court. (Lawyer for Mad Scientist lobby unavailable for comment.)

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└ Tags: archaeology, creationism, evolution, fingers, fish, fossils, Jesus, Large Hadron Collider, lawsuit, links, magic, Sarah Palin, science, stupid

I can’t decide if it’s worth it or not to try liveblogging the Vice Presidential debate tomorrow night. Joe Biden has a solid track record of at least one completely insane statement per public appearance, and Palin appears to be a big, flaming bag of whackjob incompetence. It could be comedy gold, and a lot of fun to write about. On the flip side, the candidates’ aggregate bat-shittery should be impressive enough on its own, and might not gain much from my commentary.

It might be worth it just to wait and embed the video of the best moments.

What do you think?

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└ Tags: debate, election, funny, Joe Biden, opinion, politics, question, readers, Sarah Palin

I Must Be Doing It Wrong

October 1st, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

There are lots of folks who write about blogging. There are even people who make money teaching technologically backward management types how to do the blogs as part of their marketing strategies.

All of these people who analyze blogging, whether as a hobby or a business, have a vicious, barbed-stinger of a bee in their collective bonnet about interactivity. The way to get repeat readers, they say, is to swallow the sticky-sweet Web 2.0 bug juice, and give your visitors as many opportunities as possible to participate in the content of the blog that you naively call “yours.”

You’re not all that interesting, the thinking seems to be. Nobody really cares about your opinions/high school poetry/suicide note. The secret to getting people to pay attention is to share the spotlight. The same fundamental narcissism that led you to blogging in the first place makes it nigh impossible for your readers to resist the opportunity to share their analysis of your sad blathering.

Give your readers a comment section. Give them message boards and a fan site where they can spout off about your latest entry. Let them caption your photos, and submit links to their own blogs. Like a spectral baseball team to a remote rural field, they will be irresistibly drawn by the chance to plant their flags in your little electronic kingdom.

Above all, they say, ask questions. Engage your readers by directly asking for their input. They will answer before they’ve even finished the question, so in thrall are they that you asked them to weigh in. They’ll sit in their underwear, F5-ing compulsively until they pass out from exhaustion, in the hopes that someone will respond to their clever observations, witty one-liners or slightly naughty opinions. Questions are the irresistible siren song of the Internets, and those lonely, half-mad cyber-sailors will dash themselves en masse on the jagged rocks of your blog.

Except for you. Asking a question around here is like puking in a crowded elevator. Everybody clears out at the earliest opportunity.

I like to think that you’re an iconclast. You sneer at the pundits, and scoff at my transparent attempts to solicit your input. Good for you, I say. Just because some doofus can manage to wear a suit AND work a tablet PC, doesn’t mean he should get to tell you how to consume blogs.

Then again, maybe I’m really not all that interesting. Perhaps I need to swear more?

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└ Tags: advice, blog, question, readers, writing

Subconscious Self-Contempt

October 2nd, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

I think that the pressures of impending fatherhood and looking for a job in the current bleakonomy have finally found their way into my subconscious. I had a dream about my own incompetence that was so frustrating that I actually woke up because I was so angry with myself.

I was on the phone, trying to write down the address of the person I was talking to. She kept repeating it for me, and I just kept getting different bits wrong.

Have you ever had a dream that was so pleasant that, if it was interrupted by the phone or a dog barking or the cat throwing up on your bedroom floor, you were able to lay back down and slip back into the dream at the point where you left? Only it wasn’t really pleasant, but crazy-angry-making, and you desperately wanted to go back to sleep and stop dreaming about it, but you couldn’t?

That’s what this dream was like. I kep waking up because I was so furious with myself. I woke up (or dreamed that I woke up) three times. But every time I went back to sleep, I found myself back on the phone, unable to correctly write down the information I needed. I should have just stayed awake. I’ll take exhaustion over helpless self-loathing any morning.

Okay, I’ll stop now. Things could be a lot worse, and I’m sure you have better things to do. Thanks for reading.

</pity party>

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└ Tags: angry, dream, frustrated, job, law school, nervous

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