So I joined BlogExplosion*. It's a nifty idea. You surf through blogs and accumulate points which are then spent to direct other surfers to your blog. You spend 30 seconds on a blog to get credit for viewing it.

One notable problem is that although surfing through the blogs takes a manual click there's nothing to stop people from keeping the surfing window open and just returning to it periodically to click to the next blog without ever giving a site even a cursory look. Oh, well. There are asses in every crowd, no sense crying about it.

The cool thing is that you might actually find a couple of blogs that you like. I've got a half dozen in the evaluation stage now. That's sweet.

Another sucky thing is that you get exposed to a whole lot of absolutely horrible blogs. True garbage, presented on a bed of skank with a side of rotten. After a short while surfing I've identified several instant elimination criteria. Any blog that pops up with any of these gets clicked off right away. Yeah, that means no credit for viewing but my browsing time is limited and I'm not about to look at a piece of crap for half a minute when there might be something worthwhile right around the corner.

So what are these items that ring the death knell for Jim's surfing? I'm glad you asked!

Black backgrounds with blue text. Or any dark background with any dark text. Any light background with light text too for that matter. If I have to highlight text in order to read it the site is dead to me. Ditto for obscuring background graphics.

Yet another female blogger set up with a pink background. Sorry, it's just too trite and common. I'm sure there are many fine pink-backgrounded blogs out there but the vast majority of these are full of inane posts and whining about terrible fate and the vagaries of being misunderstood.

The first post is a health complaint. Or the title is something along the lines of "My life with incurable rectal stenosis" or "My battles with chronic depression". Don't get me wrong now, I'm a compassionate person - I've got compassion leaking out of every orifice. I'm very interested in the travails of my friends and acquaintances. From them it is sharing and support. From strangers it is just depressing. Think of it this way; if you were on the subway and you had the choice between talking with the depressed guy with facial ulcers or the well spoken and cheerful accountant you'd probably pick the accountant. Unless you had some sort of ulcer fetish of course.

The first post is hard-line partisan. Strident tones from the right, left or middle. I like reading political commentary and opinions from every side but I'm fed up with the temper tantrums. Instant site failure.

sk8r kr@p. If u t1pe l1ke dis ur s1te sukz.

Too much crap in the sidebars. For the love of all that is holy, don't have so much crap on your site that it can't possibly load in 30 seconds over a T1 line. Animations, massive graphics, a hundred link buttons, busted java scripts, clutter, geegaws and toys. A weather pixy with a tagboard will get me off of a site faster than Michael Moore downs a Krispy Kreme.

And that's about it. It just comes down to the essentials really: have a site that is easy to load and navigate and doesn't immediately turn me off with depressing or angry content. And yes, I know that on any given day my site would fail one or more of these criteria. That's okay though, I already have the best readers in the world.

* Sign up with BlogExplosion through this link and I'll get 'points' as your referrer. That would be cool and would put a big smile on my depressed ulcerated face.

Posted by: Jim at 11:44 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Comments are going to be just a touch different now. In an effort to defeat the spambots I've implemented this solution (pointed out by Pylorns). You'll need to preview comments before you can post them now.

Hopefully this, along with the comment script hiding that Pixy has already done, will keep these sumbitches at bay until I can move to MT3.

Posted by: Jim at 10:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm under a constant stream of crapspam bombardment. I started to go through entries one by one to turn commenting off but that is just this side of ridiculous seeing as I have a bonifide shitload of posts.

How the fuck can I turn all commenting off on an MT blog?

Posted by: Jim at 09:13 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Protomonkey is reborn!

Protomonkey was my attempt to goad myself into writing more and better. Being the stubborn SOB that I am, I was unable to force myself to do so and the site languished. It has now risen like the monkey from the flames, changed into a new and stronger site.

What, you might ask me, is this wonderful new concept? Well, I say to you, it is now a group blog. It will be a collective home for any creative writing. Short stories, anecdotes, essays, you name it, it's welcome. For a more complete (and dare I say humorous) introduction see the FAQ.

Joining is simple. Just comment in the FAQ thread or send me an email and mention that you'd like to be a contributor. If you don't have my email address you can get it from the sidebar here or just contact your friendly neighborhood spammer. Apparently they've all got it.

So what are you waiting for? Get over there and look around. My short stories are posted over there and there's already a second protomonkey churning out goods for you.

Posted by: Jim at 08:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well my friends I'll be incommunicado until Thursday as I brave the bitter cold wastes of Chicago. Fortunately my hotel connects to our office building so at least I won't be freezing my nads off walking to work.

Whilst I'm gone avail yourselves of this space, so generously granted by yours truly, to toss out ribald bon mots, incessant chatterings and other nuggets of your literary genius. I'll be quite sad if there aren't at least a half dozen terrifically naughty jokes here when I get back.

Coming next week:

Rebirth of the ProtoMonkey

Another caption contest

The political party startup

Possible anecdotes about the Chicago trip

Posted by: Jim at 06:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The 2004 Weblog Awards polls are now open, featuring yours truly and quite a few of the folks in my sidebar. I pulled out all of the Munuvians who made the cut and posted that over at the central Munuviana blog.

The campaigning and politicking for votes promises to be fierce. You won't find that here, of course. As exemplified by our failed presidential campaign, I am an incredibly lazy politician with almost no skills whatsoever in successful campaigning.

So without further ado, here's who you should vote for. Voting for other people in these contests will make me sad. I could possibly enter a pouting state if things get bad enough. You can (and should!) vote once each day in each poll. The poll category lines link to the actual polls, the blog names link to the blogs. You're probably reading all of these regularly anyway but I've included the links just in case.

BEST ONLINE COMMUNITY
Munuviana

BEST ASIAN BLOG
Simon World

BEST AUSTRALIA OR NEW ZEALAND BLOG
Ambient Irony

BEST OF THE TOP 100 - 250 BLOGS***
Bad Example
Patriot Paradox

BEST OF THE TOP 500 - 1000 BLOGS*
Snooze Button Dreams - This is the most important one!

BEST OF THE TOP 1000 - 1750 BLOGS**
Everyday Stranger
Boudicca's Voice

BEST OF THE TOP 1750 - 2500 BLOGS
Ravings of a Corporate Mommy

BEST OF THE TOP 5000 - 6750 BLOGS
Ilyka Damen

* Jen would have been in this category if she made the cut. Since she didn't get in due to some administrative oversite, thus giving me some small chance of victory a guarantee of victory in the face of all other blogs, I'm pledging to share my award with her if when I win.

** Both of these lovely ladies fell into the same category. Voting for either of them will make me happy. You do want me to be happy, don't you?

*** Similar to the ladies, supporting either of these two gents is goodness incarnate. Yeah, I know that this third footnote is referenced first. It came on an edit, okay? Live with it.

Posted by: Jim at 03:39 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Goddamn that NZ Bear. Do you know how many times I've submitted my URL change for my weblog? And NOTHING. He will NEVER change it. That's why I'm nominated for the best 5000-6750 block--it's http://ilyka.journalspace.com that the ranking is based on. Or that's my excuse, anyway.

Posted by: ilyka at December 02, 2004 04:37 PM (bj0Lb)

2 I am so rankled at not bein' nominated in any category that I am abstainin' from votin' in this fiasco, 'cept that I will vote daily for Munuviana to show my support for the community that so lovin'ly ignores me. It's almos' 'zactly like my real life.

Posted by: Tig at December 02, 2004 06:03 PM (G5PGV)

3 Just so you know, I'd comment here more often if you'd just give me a freaking cookie. Is it that much to ask? Anyway, since I nominated you (along with the lovely Simon, but I did it first), it'll be just like winning when you win. Better than losing to you, as I surely would have done.

Posted by: Jennifer at December 02, 2004 06:35 PM (uItZd)

4 So, Ilyka - playing the southpaw are we? I see how you are. Professional blogsharp we've got in our midst. ;-)

Posted by: Jim at December 02, 2004 07:24 PM (GCA5m)

5 Pray, do not mock me! I looked again and I guess now there's a bit of code or something you add to your old url to auto-update the Ecosystem. It should have worked by tomorrow if it's going to work at all. And then I'm gonna ask Aylward to pull me from the nominees entirely because I sure don't need that bastard Paul laughing at me. "5000-6750, hee hee!" Oh, wait. I yelled at Aylward once for linking 13 year-old girl masturbation videos, didn't I? I gotta quit burning those bridges.

Posted by: ilyka at December 02, 2004 10:49 PM (197aV)

6 Just wanted to mention that fellow Munuvian Nick of Patriot Paradox is also in the 100-250 category. Which means we have both good and bad completely covered Now we just need to find an ugly blog...

Posted by: Harvey at December 03, 2004 11:53 AM (tJfh1)

7 Doh! Darned that non "mu.nu" url! Second time that one's tripped me up. Is fixed.

Posted by: Jim at December 03, 2004 12:06 PM (tyQ8y)

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RP inquired about Protomonkey a few days ago. There's been one post in the past 3 months and he was wondering when I might put up something new. I didn't answer right back because I really didn't have an answer.

The purpose behind Protomonkey was to separate my creative writing (tall tales, short stories, essays) from the rest of the stuff here at Snooze Button Dreams. I thought that if I set up a separate site with a goal of posting one item a week it would get me back into the habit of writing that type of work. Well, it didn't work very well.

Turns out that type of work either comes or it doesn't. I'm an abysmally poor 'on demand' type of writer. When the muse is with me the stuff pours out. When the fickle bitch smacks her ass on the way out the door I end up staring at a blinking cursor.

In my mind Protomonkey had failed. In fact when I posted that recent short story it went here without even a thought of putting it on the 'classy' blog. Can I force it to work? No, I don't really think so. I'm just not a performance writer. I'm not dogging myself here, I'm just acknowledging that my writing style isn't conducive to a regularly scheduled metered output.

If I just post the Protomonkey-type stuff when it happens to get written that site will never attract a following. People just don't follow a site that is scantily and infrequently updated. It would be a waste of effort to put my gems in a location where few if any people will read them.

So Protomonkey is doomed? Maybe not. I'm not the only blogger out there who writes the occasional story. Protomonkey could succeed as a team blog, if it had a decent amount of support. So here's my idea:

1) Protomonkey becomes a group blog.
2) Posts can be short stories, tall tales, creative works, etc. or links to the same type of post on other blogs.
3) Members can therefore post their own stuff or link to their own stuff or that of the people who they read.
4) Membership would be figuratively unlimited. In the event that it gets too big and unwieldy we can deal with such happy fate at a later date.

Thoughts? Comments? Anybody care for a mint?

Posted by: Jim at 12:31 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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