Thirteen things I could have cooked for dinner but didn’t!
In no particular order…

1. Roast Duck with a red wine sauce
2. Shrimp Alfredo
3. BBQ Chicken
4. Prime Rib, Baked Potato, Green Beans and a Salad
5. Lasagana
6. Chicken Dumplings
7. Chicken Pot Pie
8. Poptarts
9. Pancakes (or waffles)
10. Pan seared chicken and cuscus
11. Roasted Pepper Rotini with Chicken
12. Ramen Noodles
13. Hamburgers, french fries and potato salad

Links to other Thursday Thirteens are in the comments!
(leave your link in comments, I’m a dofollower!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Ok, here’s this week’s ASMW post. Its the North Mississippi Allstars cause its been a bluesie kind of month…..

Amie St. Music Wednesday

Why Amie St. Wednesday? Music is in everyones lives. It surrounds us even when we don.t it. This is a way to discover new artist, and share the artist that you enjoy listening to on AmieStreet.com. If you enjoy the music please support the artist. Amie St. Music Wednesday has no affiliation with AmieStreet.com and the opinion about the music and/or artist is the that of the postie.

Neal Boortz, one of the local talk hosts here in the ATL played this interview a while ago on the radio. Its a good example of why they should not ever interview people….

Boo Got Shot – Animation – video powered by Metacafe

A week or two (maybe three?) I wrote a Thursday 13 post in which I mentioned finding a niche as a good way to helping your blog find success. I received several comments in response claiming that having fun blogging makes it hard to stay in one particular niche and even just this week, Chica posted on her site that she felt like not having a niche was like not wearing undies, but that she found it hard to find ways to stay on topic with a set niche.

Well, guess what? A niche does not have to be as specialized as the type of car you drive or your favorite style of music. It can be something as obvious as “personal diary” where you talk about your day, your job (which in itself is a whole different post topic) or the funny LoL cat photo you saw yesterday. A niche can even be as detailed as marketing, real estate or boating. The idea is not to limit the topics you cover, but to give yourself some boundaries (providing you do not limit yourself to only talking about Hansgrohe faucets, you should be ok)

In my original post I equated a starting a blog to starting a business. Most businesses (the successful ones anyways) start with a business plan, a set of goals and a “mission statement”. They also have an area that they work in. You don’t find many aquarium cleaning services also offering tax help or a doctor’s office changing your minivan’s oil. They have a niche. You walk in to a store, you know what kind of store it is by the products they’re offering. Your blog should be the same way.

Cigar Jack for instance, is very obviously a blog about cigars and while the majority of the posts on the blog are about cigars (some really good reviews by the way), he also has posts about things that go along with cigars (liquor). He’s not limited in his topics, but guided. A post about smoking a don Peppin in a Tesla Roadster wouldn’t be too out of line, as long as there was some focus on the cigar as well as the car.

So I guess, in response to Chica’s post, don’t be afraid to pick a niche or topic for your blog, as Mr. Tibbs said in Pirates of the Caribbean, “its more a suggestion really”.

Perhaps it was the weather or maybe it was because 2008 is already so far underway. Maybe it was the fact that I spent my Monday last week as though I were an Au Pair for a pair of terrors I like to call the munchkins… either way, it appears my gloom and doom funk last week wasn’t confined to just me. I ran across a lot of other bloggers who suffered the same “I don’t wanna” issues I did. Gorilla Sushi battled back by posting some videos making fun of Tom Cruise.

It does appear though that its more widespread than just the blogging world. According to the UK Daily Mail last monday was the gloomiest day of the year. They blamed it on the holidays being over and the bills starting to come due, I blame it on the newness of the Rolex Submariner watch you got for christmas wearing off and you realized its just another watch.

Not much happened last week either (unless you were a Green Bay or Cowboy’s fan). It was quite all the way around and Georgia had several bouts of winter weather that didn’t amount to much more than a minor inconvenience. I mean really, if its going to snow, at least snow on a work night and snow or ice enough that I don’t have to go to work the next morning…

Here’s to hoping the last week of January is better…

By the by, no one is entered in the contest to win an iTunes gift card yet…. you could be the first and only!!

I was in high school when this song came out on the radio and I absolutely fell in love with it and the songstress responsible for bringing such a wonderful sound to the airwaves. This week, Lisa Loeb released the Purple Tapes on amiestreet and fans of hers could not be happier. It comes as a two disc set (to get this version of Stay you have to buy the whole bonus disc) with some previously unreleased cuts on the main disc and some background interviews on the bonus disc that make the whole thing worth while.

Especially if you’re a Lisa Loeb fan…

Ever have one of those weeks where everything you do seems like a chore? I happen to be stuck in the middle of one such week, and I *gasp* don’t feel like blogging. I know its terrible isn’t it? I’ve been busy converting one of my other sites (http://linuxtracker.org) to a new software backend and I’m elbows deep in code and I would rather work on that then sit here and blog.

But fear not my devoted readers, I will have tomorrows Amie Street Wed. post for you (believe me, its a blast from the past!!) as well as another rockin Thursday Thirteen on Thursday (duh). I’ve also got a series of indepth posts planned on some of the things I’ve talked about in the past couple of TT posts that should provide more fodder than you really need.

I will say, it was interesting to note that most people who replied to the Cruise Control post believe tommy boy to be off his rocker, it was mixed on whether or not you’re going to see his movies though. I’d like to point you all to some Informative reading on Scientology and just how bad it truly is. I’d go as far as to say that Scientology is worse for the country than Radical Islam. They’re at least equal…

I don’t know, maybe I just need to go knock some golf balls in to oblivion to feel better….

So in yet two more primaries (well, a primary and a really messed up caucus system) the GOP has yet to deem someone worthy of being a front runner. McCain took South Carolina, while romney took Nevada and it appears Mike stayed in third place in both states….

Who’s it going to be??

Don’t expect too much from me today, I’m home watching the girls since its a “federal” holiday!

• Its snowing in Atlanta!! #

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Some one’s off his rocker and needs to be put away before he does the people around him (namely Katie Holmes) any harm. Well known Scientology FREAK Tom Cruise is the recent target of several videos that have been circulating around the net about his scientology views. From watching the video that Gawker has its not that hard to see why the mainstream has an issue with embracing scientology.

I used to be a Tom Cruise fan (one of my favorite movies of ALL time is Top Gun!) but in light of everything he has done lately I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see another Cruise movie again. The man is crazier than Travolta (who might be a few sandwiches short of a picnic hisself…). Watch the video. Be amazed. Be scared.

Let me know what you think…

The littlest bit of winter weather and all hell breaks loose in the state of Georgia. Its amazing really. The Metro area was slated to get a wintry mix Wednesday night/Thursday morning and we did indeed. However, the snow had stopped by the time I went to bed Wednesday night and was almost all gone by the time I woke up Thursday morning.

That didn’t stop some from having a lot of fun though. The kids across the street built a rather tiny little snow man and were plotting how to spend their snow day (which they never got to see). Grace and Emma played outside for a bit that night in the snow, though Grace enjoyed it more than Emma did. Its always funny to watch the bread and milk disappear from the local stores when the weather calls for it.

We’re expecting another round of the wintry mix tonight and tomorrow morning, I can’t wait to see if it comes true. Nothing like snow on a saturday, now thats a good snow day!

Thirteen Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
In no particular order…

1. Using a popular theme – Yes. Its extremely easy to use a theme that is widely available and very popular. Maybe you like the colors but so do 100 other bloggers and the problem occurs that all the blogs start to look the same after a while. Choose a theme that makes your blog stand out. If everyone is using three columns this month, switch to two. If the trend is towards lighter fonts on darker backgrounds, change it up. Be different. Make your blog stand out and your readers are more likely to remember your blog.
2. Agree with everything everyone says – Sure. Its nice that you and John Chow happen to feel the same way about a product or a website. However, writing a post that agrees with something that the major players say will gain you far less readers than writing a post disagreeing with them. The person you disagree with is also more likely to pay attention to you as well, especially if your counter argument is well formed and supported. Don’t just post “John Cow said this, but I disagree.” Back up your argument with examples and facts.
3. Widget Love!! – There comes a point when there too many widgets are a bad thing. This is especially true in the case of thirdparty widgets that load from someone else’s websites. Issues can arise that cause your site to never complete loading. Plus, your readers aren’t there for the widgets. They’re there for the content. CONTENT should be THE most important thing on your blog (yea, the widgets are nice, but really, out side of a select few widgets, they’re more for you than your readers!)
4. Once its posted, thats it – Don’t let the conversation stop once the post is published. Get some good dialouge going in the comments on your more popular posts or post a question regarding peoples thoughts on some less popular ones. The more you get people active on your blog, the better your blog will do.
5. Doing it for the money – Yea, money is nice and its always good to be able to pay the bills so the lights stay on, but if you’re blogging strictly for money, your posts will show it and you’ll get tired of blogging.
6. Talking above your readers – If your posts read more like a college textbook than a trashy romance novel chances are your readers are few. Don’t go all academic on your blog, keep it real.
7. Constant Tinkering – Do not constantly tinker with the theme, layout, plugins, etc. Thats what a dev blog on a subdomain is good for. The biggest reason for this is a simple mistake (you accidentally erase something, or add some code and something goes horribly wrong.) Its easy these days to setup a second “development” blog where you can test new themes, plugins and whatnot with out damaging your main blog.
8. Trying to make everyone happy – You can’t so don’t. Besides, if people like the drama thats going on on your blog, they’re more likely to return to catch up on it. That does not mean you have to pick fights with anyone who leaves a comment, but don’t bend over backwards either. Remember, its your site, you’re the only one who has to be happy.
9. Not Promoting your site – Unfortunately, your blog is not the Field of Dreams (such a good movie). If you build it, “they” will certainly not come, at least not with out a little help. You need to promote your blog. Use entrecard, use bloglog, blogcatalog, bloggingzoom. Hit your favorite message boards (don’t be spammy) or community sites. Post comments on OTHER blogs. Spread your link around and then they will come. Its simply not enough to simply build it these days (especially since EVERYONE has a blog).
10. Taking yourself too seriously – Seriously. Unless you’re a nationally syndicated columnist, you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. When you start to fret more over what your readers think then whether or not you’re having fun blogging, its time to reevaluate things. The important thing to remember is that when it comes to blogging, the next guy is just as important as you are (doesn’t that make you feel better??)
11. Blogging about things you don’t know – Never a good idea. You wouldn’t get up in front of a group and talk about a subject you don’t know anything about (well, unless you’re me and its a college history class you need to pass) so why would you blog about something you’re not even vaguely familiar with? Before you blog, do your research. Better yet, stick to things you know (that means a car mechanic should talk about fixing cars and not about fixing the space shuttle)
12. Tire of blogging – Its tough blogging once or twice a day but you need to at least update a couple of times a week. Never let more than a few days go by with out posting. If you know you’re not going to be able to for a while, ask some other bloggers if they’d like to guest post. Give your readers a reason not to forget you as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind!
13. Blog about the current hot topic – Did you see what Britney did to her children with that monkey?? Chances are if there’s a hot topic going around the internet (say, the google pr bitch slap) then there are tens of thousands of similar posts going on about how so and so was hit hard by the PR update. Instead of writing about the same thing as everyone else, come at it from a different angle. If everyone is writing about HOW they were affected, write about what you’re going to do instead. Hot topics are nice, but if the market is saturated with posts about it, your won’t stand out. I came across a really good post @ problogger about this very topic…

What are things you try to avoid??
Links to other Thursday Thirteens are in the comments!
(leave your link in comments, I’m a dofollower!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

No. Not the little red delicious (though i prefer the Mt. Fuji apples) kind. Nor will you be wining the new $3800 virtually flat apple laptop. What you can win though is a $25 iTunes giftcard good for downloading a variety of music, tv or movies right to whatever itunes enabled device you own.

Did I just hear you scream “How the hell do I win that??” Glad you asked. Its kind of a “You rub my back, I rub yours” (No, I will not rub anything other than backs so don’t ask me perv…). All you have to do is write a post about Delusions of Grandeur and link to this post (so that I get a ping back and can tell you actually did the post). You can write about the new design (of which I’ve received nothing but compliments, or at least, I’ve only paid attention to the compliments), you can write about my awesome generosity (I mean seriously! I’m GIVING AWAY $25 worth of iTunes!) or you can write about how off base I am in my belief that Mike Huckabee should be the next president of the United States.

Write about whatever you want to about this site. The only requirement is that you link back to THIS post. If for some reason, your trackback doesn’t work correctly, make sure to drop a comment here with a link to the post so I can check it out. I’ll choose one first place winner at random (or at least you’ll think its random) for the iTunage and I’ll even pick a second place winner who will get a 125×125 ad spot for a month on the site here (not that thats not a big deal in itself). Hell. I’m feeling generous. I’ll even review the two sites here on Delusions of Grandeur and rip in to you like a lion rips in to a retarded zebra.

So what are you waiting for…. get posting!

I’m usually not a big pop music fan (check out some of my past ASMW posts to figure that one out) but I cam across Marina on AmieStreet and not only is she hot (look at her photo!!) but her voice is haunting as well. Her newest release Modern Fairytale is a really cool mix of piano pop with a lot of good listens. My favorite from this cd is Moonlight Lullaby. Listen below and you’ll see why!

I was stumbling around the net (as I tend to do when I’m not busy working, by which, I mean, almost constantly) and I happened across this photo. First of all, the caption is right. Be glad its leashed. It looks like the gothapotomus would rip the lid off a minicooper and devour whatever hapless soul was inside.

The only way that would not be a bad thing is if it’s “keeper” were driving the Mini….

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• Culling the commerce commision during a recession: WTF | TVHE

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Next up in the race to be the next leader of the Not So Free World is Michigan. The polls opened in MI today to a somewhat limited Democratic side (the DNC is punishing MI for moving their primary by taking all of their delegates away) with only Clinton listed on the ballot there while the GOP has a full slate of contenders (though, Thompson, Guliani and Paul are visibly lacking in the state) listed. Mit Romney is looking to gain some ground here as many have guessed that another second or third place finish in the motor state would leave him questioning whether or not he wants to continue.

Its interesting that by now, the Democratic side is almost paired down to the final three, while the GOP hopefuls are looking past what has happened to states with later primaries to gain ground (Thompson is looking to the Carolinas and most of the south, while guliani is looking to Florida and some of the other red states). It definately proves how split the republican party is going in to this election and I think if Ron Paul were smart, he’d drop out of the GOP race and focus on gaining a third party nomination. Of course whether or not he could do anything with that nomination would be a stretch.

The only thing I know for sure is that the American people have not found one consistant leader from either party to put their faith behind. If the election were today, and you had to vote for one of the six leaders, who could you vote for with out feeling the need to go in to a drug treatment program??

One of my biggest pet peeves these days are poorly constructed blogs. I don’t mean theme/template wise (though thats a sore point too, there’s NO FSCKING reason to have Music autoplaying on ANY website in this day and age. We’re not back in 1996!!!), I mean content wise. Along with some other bloggers, I’m attempting to break the chain of “Make Money Blogging” sites with an attempt to get back to the heart of things.

When Blogging started several years ago, people blogged because they wanted to share things, not make money. It wasn’t until a while after that the money making aspect came in to play. Prior to this, people put more effort in to their blogs when it came to content. The latest project I’m working on, The Art of Blogging seeks to help people find the art in blogging and concentrate more on blogging as a way of life and not just a way to make money.

The goal is to have weekly posts on a variety of topics (yes, there will be the occasional post on making money with your blog) mostly focusing on how to be a better blogger. Tips, tricks, reviews, themes, plugins and other advice will be shared by a varied panel of self described experts in the blogging world. THIS is where you come in!

We’re currently looking for people interested in writing columns about blogging. We’re also in need of reviewers and other asundry of folks to help make this site work right. If you have a talent (say, logo design!) we’d love to tap that talent! We’re also in need of ideas for posts. Tell me what you’d like to see and what you believe makes a good blog good! If you’d like to help, go to The Art of Blogging and register or leave me a note here.

The little G and I were watching tv recently (most likely when I should have been cleaning house…) and I stopped on a kids channel because for once, it had something I wanted to watch. Much to my amazement, Cartoon Network was showing an older Tom and Jerry “movie” and Grace was enthralled with it (she likes cats and mice). I had to explain to her several times who the two main characters were (you know, the cat and the mouse) but after a while, she got it and had no problem following along.

What struck me, while watching it, wasn’t the violence (because the cartoons of my youth were definitely more violent than todays cartoons, remember Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs?) but the fact that unlike most of the cartoons today, Tom and Jerry were quality cartoons. Well drawn, for the most part, the story was better than a lot of the crud on the kids networks today and it was fun to watch. When did kids shows become mindless drivel?

It was nice watching Tom try to catch jerry with no luck at all and even more fun to watch jerry out wit Tom with whatever engraved plaques, bowling balls, bats or other implements of distruction he could get his little mouse paws on. Even cooler was the ability to connect with my eldest watching something that had me laughing for hours when I was her age.

Apparently, if you’re an Englishman, your internal organs are only on loan. PM Gordo Brown wants to ensure that once you kick it your organs are returned to their rightful owner, the State (by state, I mean the National Health System in GB (Great Britain, not Gordon Brown)). Thats right, Brown is backing a law that makes it proper for a state Hospital to assume that you want your organs donated if you show up DOA (or you kick it on their dime) and do not have it explicitly expressed beforehand that you want to hang on to what you believe to be is yours.

This opens up a whole pandora’s box of legality and what is and is not considered personal property. Currently in the States (the United ones of course) you generally have to declare (on your Drivers License or a living will of some sort) that you want to donate your organs. I like the fact that I get to decide what happens to my liver (if I don’t drown it in rum and coke first) when I die and its not automatically handed to the state for the first Tom, Dick or Sue who needs a new liver.

I mean, what’s next? If the Government can declare that your organs belong to the state when you die, whats to keep them from taking other personal property once you pass??

Note: I don’t have a problem with organ donation, I just believe it should be on your own terms…

With all the brouhaha over the google bitchslap that took place towards the end of 2007 (in case you didn’t know, google penalized sites who posted links with out nofollow for payment) something was bound to step up and take its place. The question is can a new comer survive in the shark eat shark world of SEO and Page ranking? IZEA (payperpost’s daddy) hopes so and it thinks it has a winning product with RealRank.

RealRank (RR) is Izea’s answer for its affiliates on how to retain a ranking system that doesn’t care how or what you link to so much as traffic quantity and quality to your site. The idea is that the realrank weights blogs 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views as reported by ITK (Izea tool Kit). While the idea was just released to the public, Izea and the PPP crowd have been using this since December ‘07 as a way to rank websites in order to maintain the level of advertising as before. From where I sit, the only down side is that advertisers have been slow on the uptake of the new ranking system, prefering PageRank still despite the fact that anyone who would even consider posting about their products has virtually no PR at the present time.

The realrank system is a pretty nice system with some nice looking graphs. According to the ranking, Delusions of Grandeur is some where around 452 for the day with a weekly average of somewhere around 588. Not bad when you consider the 100,000 blogs that Izea/PPP is potentially already tracking. A nice feature about RealRank is the ability to keep the stats private. While I personally do not mind if others see how successful I am, it might not behoove a smaller site to have its stats public until they’ve built up a good base.

According to the realrank site:

RealRank is a more accurate ranking than Alexa and Google PageRank because it isn’t based on a small sample of a site’s visitors or on a censored link-weighting algorithm. It’s based on real traffic.

One of the other cool things is that they have an open api so anyone can develop for it with out any penalty. Already, there’s a rank badge available and its only a matter of time before there are more and more things developed.

We’ll have to see if RR makes a difference. If you haven’t checked it out yet, visit IzeaRanks to check out your blog, create an account and get the tracking code for your site. It could help boost your traffic!

I’ve found the pres/vp combo that I’d vote for in heartbeat if only it would happen in real life. Mike Huckabee (the GOP candidate who currently has my support) was on The Colbert Report again last night and he reaffirmed his plan to make Steven his VP if he gets the nomination. While I’m sure its little more than a publicity stunt, I honestly think it’d be good for the country to have someone in office like Colbert who doesn’t seem to take the whole process too seriously (remember his bid in South Carolina?).

Of course if elected, I bet we see a huge rush on addiction treatment centers as people try to figure out if its all just a bad drug induced dream or not.

Would you vote for a Huckabee/Colbert ticket??

Thirteen ways to blogging success
In no particular order…

1. Find a Niche. Pick a subject (or a couple of subjects) and blog about those specifically. Don’t jump from Britney, to Politics, to Software reviews to auto racing on the same blog. Your posts would be everywhere and no one would be able to follow. If you want to blog about a variety of subjects, create multiple blogs (they can all be subdomains!). Look at the big guys, they all have a fairly narrow subject and they stick with it.
2. Blog regularly. Regular blogging helps keep you on your toes. It provides more content for your visitors and it gives them a reason to keep coming back. Not to mention, but it looks really bad when there is a month span between posts. Almost like you don’t care to blog.
3. Write about what you know. I’m a dad, a history major, a backpacker and an IT guy. It would be insane for me to blog about cars or soccer or even milking cows when I know very little about those things. However, I can blog about family experiences, computer related topics and even history and politics to some extent with a little credibility. It helps to sound like you know what you’re talking about. You wouldn’t go to the Doctor for a physical if his doctorate was in poetry would you?
4. Communicate with your readers. This is one thing that a lot of bloggers fail to do. Yea, you’ve written the post. Maybe your job is “done” but it shouldn’t stop there. If susie leaves a comment on your post follow up. Either a reply in the comments or an email to susie thanking her for her comment and commenting on it goes a long way to gaining a new reader. Besides, your readers are more likely to check back if they know you’re going to reply.
5. Don’t do it for the money. Yea, money is nice and its always good to be able to pay the bills so the lights stay on, but if you’re blogging strictly for money, your posts will show it and you’ll get tired of blogging. Not to mention, your readers will get tired of reading the CRAP you put out.
6. Relate to your readers. I know it sounds silly, but the better you relate to your readers, the more readers you’ll have. Instead of spouting off statistics, numbers and links, try and tell your story (think of each post as a story) on a personal level. If you add a bit of personality to your writing your readers will be more likely to relate to the post and find that nugget of wisdom in it you want them to have.
7. Post things you like. If you like something, chances are your readers will too. If you’re disgusted by something, again, chances are your readers will be too. One of the best things you can do is post about things you like (it goes back to posting about what you know).
8. Keep a journal. Call it what you will, but journaling on paper was the precursor to blogging as it is today and it still has a valuable place in every day life. Unless you’re a hermit living in your mother’s basement (sorry Gruntled) you’re not going to live connected to your computer/blog 24/7. Keeping a small notepad on you will help you remember what you wanted to blog about the next time you log on line (like that outfit the really fat guy was wearing at the mall today, or something your professor said in class about making sausage). Its easy to come up with ideas to blog about, its harder to remember them.
9. Write as though you’re having a conversation with a friend. This is a tricky one that could get a lot of bloggers in trouble and it shows in the blogs that use broken English as their main language. The trick is to write so not to seem stuckup and snooty. If you write as you talk (make sure grammar and spelling are correct) your readers will have a much easier time reading and will be more likely to come back.
10. Do not use a FREE blogging site like wordpress.com, blogger, livejournal or myspace. If you really want success as a blogger, pony up the $10 a year for a domain name and find some inexpensive hosting. Know though, that as with most things, the cheaper the hosting the cheaper the service. If you go for a cheap hosting plan, don’t be upset when you experience outages, downtime and poor customer service. The cheaper hosts aren’t concerned about quality so much as quantity.
11. Have fun. I mentioned post things you like above, but you also need to have fun. Successful blogging is a job (whether or not you see it that way) and as with most jobs, the more you enjoy it or have fun doing it, the more likely you are to continue doing it. Imagine that instead of blogging we’re talking about making widgets. You spend every day punching a time clock and standing on a manufacturing line making these widgets. Every widget is the same as the last. For the sake of arguement, lets say, they’re money making widgets. Each one is the same color. The same size and shape. After a while, the newness of the “job” wears off and you hit the snooze button in the morning because you really don’t want to make widgets again. Blogging is a lot like that. If you don’t enjoy blogging (I mean really enjoy blogging) it becomes a chore and one thats easier to give up than most. Don’t constantly blog about the fact that you aren’t making any money. Instead, blog about things like what you did with the little amount you have made. Blog about your children, pets (well, dogs really) or your favorite pair of shoes. Blog about things that are fun to blog about.
12. Comment on other blogs. Establish a network of blogs you visit daily. It doesn’t take long to pop in to five or ten blogs and leave a comment. Even if its just a “hey, this was a good post” comment. Almost every blog around will at least let you drop a link to your blog back in. Some of the cooler ones let you drop a couple. And every link counts.
13. Make social networking your friend. I don’t mean myspace. There are plenty of other SN sites out there. FaceBook (there is a really cool WordPress plugin for facebook), entrecard, digg, thoof, bloggingzoom, sphinn. These should all be your friends and you should be visiting them daily. One of the best ways to gain readers is to figure out what the hot button topics are and post about them. I don’t mean the “John chow said” type posts, but blog about the hot stuff in your own voice. Yea, hot button topics are good, but the same old crap isn’t. Bring a new and different (conflicting?) view to the scene and more people will visit and comment.

Whats your key to success?
Links to other Thursday Thirteens are in the comments!
(leave your link in comments, I’m a dofollower!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

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When I hit 300 drops yesterday (which I repeated today!) I mentioned to gruntled that I had come across a ton of bad sites and a few good ones in my quest. He wanted to know which ones I liked, so I thought I’d let everyone know. Here are five of the better blogs I came across on EntreCard. In no order….

1. Fabulously Jinxed – A really cool site that has a mix of everything. The writing is easy to read and the site is rather well laid out.
2. Mrs. Sparrow – Granted, if she was married to the famous captain, she wouldn’t really have time to be blogging, but her site is fun, witty and another good read. Not to mention that chick pirates are HOT!!
3. Gospel According To Rhys I actually came across the Gospel before I came across Entrecard, but it wasn’t too prominent on my radar until EntreCard. Rhys is a witty writer from across the pond (thats England for you wags who didn’t know) who chronicles most anything he feels like.
4. Gorilla Sushi is a fun and light hearted read who is going to Ear more whale blubber this year. I can only hope he does.
5. cigar Jacks – This has become one of my daily must hits. If for any other reason than to extend my knowledge of cigars. I smoke an occasional cigar (I even have a Humidor), but my knowledge is rather limited to the one brand I happen to have on hand. I need to learn the lingo and find some new smokes and this is a good place to do it.

I think I’ll work on a five of the worst finds on EntreCard… the problem is going to be narrowing it down to only five.

Sometimes, its fun to play in the dirt. Other times, its just fun to listen. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band take the best of everything country and mash it all together in a really unique sound that will have anyone bopping their head to the music (listen to the harmonica!!). The guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica and other instruments rock out the sound on their album. Listen to “Party on the Mountain” and you’ll feel like you’re there!!

300 “drops” seems to be the magic number per day. I came across a post on the EntreCard forums mentioning that one of the users had hit the upper limit of 300. I was curious to know if there was in fact a limit (it seems a little silly to have a limit when you can only drop your card once per day on a blog) and I also wanted the extra credits to buy spots on as many of the lower wait blogs as I could.

So, between work, posting and some other stuff today, I attempted to hit the number. And I did. And it wasn’t easy. I’d hit the most recent and least wait pages often and click on most of the cards and go through to their sites. I’d drop my card and I’d look and check out the quality of the blog. While I’m happy to have hit the 300 limit for the day, I don’t know I’ll make the effort, as I hit a lot of crap sites. I’ve also come to feel like a blogging minority in the fact that a) I do not speak broken English, b) I am not Pinoy or otherwise asian and c) my layout is somewhat different from the vast majority of blogs out there.

Granted, dropping this many cards should push a good bit of traffic my way…

12:01 am on January 8th, 2007, New Hampshire was the first state to hold an official Primary in the presidential season. Sure, Iowa had their caucuses last week, but come on, standing in a corner is hardly the way to pick the future president of the country is it? New Hampshire is generally the first official primary in the country (its been that way by tradition since 1920 and by state law since the 70’s, though I don’t see how a state can decide its going to be first. Thats like the last place qualifier at a nascar event deciding to take the choice poll position).

Its not that important of a primary as far as delegates go (come on, this ISNew Hampshire we’re talking about) but the important part of the NH primary is the media exposure that a candidate gets from the event. Most sub-third place finishers will most likely begin their exit after today’s primary while the two or three main players in either party may fight for more of their life. If Obama can finish strong here beating out Clinton (or even if Hillary looses to John Edwards), the Clinton camp will either have to ramp up their fight for super tuesday or take a good look at their strategy and decide to go home. Its seldom that a candidate looses the party’s nomination after taking both Iowa and New Hampshire (and another loss here would take a lot of wind out of HRC’s sails).

On the Right side of the aisle, if McCain can stage a coup and come out ahead of Romney, then the Mittster will have to step his game up a tad as well as he would have suffered two early losses in Key states. Same for Rudy. Fred isn’t expecting to do well until he hits the southern half of the country, but more than anything, I think I’d like to see him drop out and endorse Huckabee who could do well with anything above a third place finish in the Granite state.

All in all its going to be an exciting day. By the way, if you’re in Georgia and you did not register to vote before Yesterday, you’re out of luck for the Primary coming up in February.

Its official, the USA is a White Trash Nation! Thats right, that staple of early nineties TV is back on the air, proving that once again, we have a facination for watching our neighbors get the crap beat out of them. American Gladiators is back on the air, and unfortunately, it was in the works even before the writers strike began. Instead of watching new episodes of this season’s greatest new shows, I’m stuck watching this ken doll on steroids pummel firemen, professional skateboarders and day care workers in to the ground. Granted, there is a part of me (a little white and trashy part of me) that likes it for the shear humor.

Like one of last nights male contestants, Chad, a professional skateboarder. He went the entire round only scoring 4 points (to the NYFD’s 32 or something like that) and all he could say was “I still got time”. Well, his time ran out and he lost. It was much more entertaining watching the women battle their way through the challenges than it was the guys.

That may be because I would not want to meet any of the women gladiators in real life, or because the women seemed to be doing a better job (and were more evenly matched against the gladiators) than the guys did. There’s just something about watching someone, anyone, get the crap beat out of them by someone twice their size though.

Amy asked while we were watching it, if we watched it when it was on before and I had a hard time recalling. I don’t think we ever made a conscientious effort to watch it, but if it was on, it was on. Maybe Eric can shed some light on that for me. Did you watch Gladiators?

It appears that several of the bigger players are abandoning ship in hopes that they aren’t dragged down with it. The promises made by BlogRush head John Reese have failed to materialize as more and more bloggers pull the widget from their sites in an effort to rid the web of such bloaty scripts.

I had posted back in November about my experiences with BlogRush and whether or not it was worth it and at the time, I decided to make some changes to the way I handled their system. Instead of giving them my main feed with every article in it, I switched to a specific blogrush feed that only showed the articles I wanted to show. It helped a little, but as the next screenshot shows, it still wasn’t the boon to traffic that programs like EntreCard, and even just making comments on other blogs has been.

My next step was to change the category my blog lived in as well on the BlogRush system. That did little more than drive my credits up as I received less and less exposure. So now, I have around 20k credits that aren’t being used (which is a far cry from the Cow’s 10,000,000 credits). I’ve noticed that as I browse the blogosphere, I’m seeing the BR widget less and less and with bigger sites pulling their widgets, I have to wonder if it was a good idea poorly implemented. One of the things that makes EntreCard worth while is that you have to get out and drop your card on other blogs and YOU get to choose who you advertise on and who advertises on you.

This form of self quality control enables you to make better choices that benefit you and your readers more than blogrush. Most of the crap on the blogrush widget is just that, crap. I really don’t need to know that you failed to make 28,000 a month last year. What I need is good incoming traffic.

One of the perks of the internet is the endless ways to kill time while putting off the things that should have already been done. If I’m not busy stumbling around the net, I’m watching youtube videos, playing desktop towerdefense or catching up on the blogs I usually read. Well, that was until I added the hobowars game on facebook. The cool thing about HoboWars is that in addition to the facebook game, there’s a standalone web game as well, and its pretty addicting.

The point is to create a hobo and navigate him/her through the city. Get them an education (it helps in the fighting), join a gang, find cans, beg and other random hobo things. So far its pretty fun and it looks like its going to be a good way to pass the time. I’ve been playing for about two hours and my hobo is already a level two!

So the caucuses were good for some and not so good for others. On the side of the donkey we have two senators (dodd and biden) dropping out of the race as Obama edges past Edwards and Clinton for the Iowa delegates. Whats surprising is that Edwards beat out Hillary Clinton for second. The talking heads are calling this a “debate between change and experience” this go round. Personally, I think people are beginning to see Hillary Clinton for what she is, and I hope it continues to New Hampshire.

The GOP pushed Huckabee to the front of the pack and gave him the nod and its my hope that he’s able to parlay this early win in to a string of them. I think an Obama vs. Huckabee general election in November could prove interesting and beneficial for the country. They both offer different views from previous holders of the office and most importantly, they both seem to know whats on the minds of the average person. Of which, there are a lot. It makes me wish I had real estate in NH and some of the early primary states so I could vote now, but I guess I’ll wait my turn. Georgia votes in February.

Caucus Outcome (top 3 in each party)

Democrat

1. Obama – 38%
2. Edwards – 30%
3. Clinton – 29%

GOP

1. Huckabee – 34%
2. Romney – 25%
3. Thompson – 13%
4. McCain – 13%

They don’t send out kids party invitations to people in either party reminding them about the Caucuses on January 3rd, people just know about them. If you’ve turned on a radio, tv or picked up a paper today then chances are fairly good you know about them as well. The opening of the political voting season is brought in with friends and neighbors meeting in schools, churches, halls and other meeting areas for a chance to literally stand up and be counted.

According to CNN the democratic caucuses actually require a person “voting” for one of the candidates to stand in the appropriate corner of the room for the candidate, while the GOP Caucuses take a secret ballot. I prefer the secret ballot as opposed to standing in my guy’s corner, after all, one of the two things you don’t discus with friends is politics.

It will be interesting to see who from the Democrat side walks away triumphant (Obama, Edwards and Clinton are in a tight three way race) and I’m even more excited to see which GOP frontrunner takes it and whether or not Thompson can garner enough votes to stay alive in the race.