Feeling more like myself than I was yesterday, so let's get to this...
On "Blog Post Titles; Confusing"
First things first. [Gotta love redundancy coming at you right off the bat.] Yesterday I titled my post Constitutional Amendments and asked if anyone knew the reason why I might do so. Well, I was just wondering if anyone happens to have the same Jeopardy! desk calendar I do. That's all. [Sorry for the letdown!]
I'm a huge fan of the classic trivia show and my wife had gotten the calendar for me as one of my Christmas presents this past year.
Note to self: The "past year" part of that sentence is unnecessary. It's not like she would have gotten you a 2010 calendar in '08. Of course, you've already typed it and are currently out of White-Out, so you'd better just keep it in there.
2nd Note to self: Buy White-Out.
Note to reader: Did you just read my "notes to self?" Those were personal! How could you?!
Ha!
On "Soccer Players; Unrelenting Whining From"
For those who don't necessarily follow soccer (vast majority of Americans...), there has been controversy surrounding the particular ball being used for the World Cup. The "Jabulani," manufactured by Adidas, had been widely criticized by goalies, whose job it is to prevent goals from being scored. They have claimed that the nature of the construction for these balls leads to erratic movement while in the air.
I play rec soccer. My game is not even close to being good enough to be affected by how a ball moves in the air. Mostly, I'm just lucky when I don't miss the ball completely when I go to kick it... which was not the case on one offensive possession this past Sunday. *hangs head in shame at the memory*
Recently, the Argentina futbol coach, Diego Maradona, has blamed the Jabulani for the low scores of the current World Cup games. Uh, Diego, aren't high level soccer games typically low scoring?
But wait a second... Don't those contradict? Goalies -- current soccer players -- don't want scores to be made, so they complained that the ball will cause too much scoring. The Argentina coach -- a former iconic soccer player -- is complaining because the Jabulani doesn't lead to enough scoring. Say what?
My take? Soccer players just like to whine.
On "Readers; Can't We Just Be Called"
I had a revelation yesterday. It wasn't divinely inspired, no heavens parting or whatnot. My revelation came in the form of one of those rejected posts I had written.
(For the benefit of those just joining us, I was feeling quite "off" yesterday and wrote three posts, all of which I hated. I wound up deleting something close to two thousand words, if you round up.)
In my semi-coherent rambling, I used the term "lurking." My revelation was the fact that I HATE this term in the context of our little blogosphere we have going here.
For those who aren't "in the know," lurking refers to those who read blogs without leaving comments. (You're welcome.)
Here's what I don't like about it: The term lurking has negative connotations. At worst, it makes you think about some creepy guy hanging outside a bedroom window at night. At best, it makes you think about a creepy guy just hanging around.
Either way, that's a lot of creepy.
But people accused of lurking in the blogger world aren't necessarily doing anything creepy. They're just reading. Sure, they aren't leaving comments, but maybe they don't have much to say... Maybe they are shy... Maybe their keyboards are broken, but the mice, monitors and hard drives are working just fine.
We don't know.
What we do know is that when someone reads a book or magazine, he is not accused of "lurking." No, he's just reading. Why can't it be the same here?
Just because someone has the ability to comment doesn't mean she should feel any obligation to do so. I don't. If I don't have anything to say, which -- believe it or not -- happens, then I don't say anything. Period.
And that's all I have to say about that.
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It's better to delete the posts yourself rather than fat finger them into non-existence. And I'm glad you slipped past the scheduling guards today.
ReplyDeleteAs for the whining in soccer, I was actually expecting to find a tirade about Ronaldo. My wife had to explain the complaint about the ball...I was like "what they don't like the odd paint job?" The thing even worked out in the pouring rain. Anyone blaming the equipment for poor performance needs to reevaluate their role in the game.
As for lurking, you're absolutely right, they are just reading, which is why we write.
"Anyone blaming the equipment for poor performance needs to reevaluate their role in the game."
ReplyDeleteSame holds true for blaming refs!
Dorn, I actually have a story which fits in with your quote, so I might use it tomorrow. It will be properly cited, as per MLA rules for citing blog post comments. (I believe that is in a section towards the back of the text book.)
Of course, I might not use it, too. Just know that I'm considering it to be an option.
yes, soccer players really like to whine. When my national Serbian team lost from Ghana a few days ago, our players said that a voodoo sorcerer from Ghana probably put a curse on them :))
ReplyDeleteAlthough, when you come to think about it, they don't necessarily have to be wrong :))
I think the concept of blogosphere lurking is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. We put our blogs out there to be read, not to keep score on who garners the most comments. Frankly, if all 78 of my followers (who's counting?) were to comment regularly on my posts, I'd go crazy trying to keep up on what would mostly be nonsense. I like my regular commenters who've become friends of sorts. And who wants hundreds of friends? Not me ;-)
ReplyDeleteSoccer player too. Decent. I guess, More of a writer though. (=
ReplyDeleteWendy - I'm more of a "quality" than "quantity" type of guy, so I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteThere are people who have literally -- word of the week over at Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares! -- thousands of Facebook "friends." My question is why? It is scientifically impossible to have that many close relationships. The human brain literally -- there it is again -- cannot handle it.
There's an interesting theory out there called, I believe, The Law of 150. I don't know if you've heard about it, but I was introduced to it in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.
Cut and paste from Wikipedia: "Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.[1] Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150."
Anyhow, I'm definitely in the "couple of genuine relationships, instead of many superficial ones" camp, myself. :)
Jo - Welcome aboard! Hope you like it here at the Ducks. :)
ReplyDeleteDecent or not, as long as you have fun playing, that's the important part, right? For me, I just love getting out and running around. I find that it really helps relieve a lot of stress.
I've had a few people who joined on the dotted line and then left about a week later - I guess my next post was not good enough to keep their attention...
ReplyDeleteI love the content of your post. .thanks a lot for showing it to me,... keep it up . .love it..
ReplyDeletewellhead compression