Saturday, January 07, 2006

Please Excuse Our Dust

Attention All Possibilians,

We (the royal we) interrupt your mirth and naval contemplation to bring you this Public Service Announcement.

In an effort to beat back the barbarian hordes and the Dread Pirate Roberts and to make our fair and glorious Realm even fairier and gloriousier, we (the royal we again) will from time to time be making changes to the superficial, and occasionally supercilious, appearance and overall click-aroundiness that you enjoy, and dog-gone-it might I say deserve, as distinguished founders, members, visitors, neer-do-wells, and multitudinous peoples who apparently wind up here by accident after clicking the next blog button thingy at the top of the page and then get out as quickly as is humanly possible leaving a duration time of 0:00 in the sophisticated supercomputers maintained by Site Meter (registered trademark of Site Meter, Inc., all rights reserved) not for what you do but for who you are, because as munificent potentates here in the the Realm, Rich and I (the royal I) care deeply for each and every one of you (the (whatever the name is for the lowest class in the Indian caste system, which escapes me at the moment, but will probably come to me as soon as I've finished this post and published it causing me to be quite angry and actually not very munificent at all for a time and half a time at which time I'll get over it, and move on with my opulent, but never corpulent life) you) in a not-at-all creepy kind of way, which cannot be fully described except in the lyrically-stylistic song stylings of that legendary rocker who is certainly no stranger in these parts, whose name need not be uttered for you to know who I'm talking about, but whose initials are ironically the same as are found in the term bowel movement and so leaves us with really very little choice but to shower you with what you crave, what you yen for, what you find yourself pacing the floor in the wee hours (roughly between 2:16 and 3:46 am after which they actually become quite large, but not in the traditional sense of the word, more in the abstract, "Yo dog, I'm livin' large" sense and are not royal at all) of the night for.

Posting Bliss.

In this vein, the following changes have already been implemented:

1) A search box has been provided on the left sidebar. So if you've misplaced your keys, or your purse, or a small child while visiting the Realm, this is the place to start looking.

2) Post Categories. I know that you've all been clamoring for them. We've heard your plight and taken swift action. Now, if you're a topical thinker (not a tropical drinker, we'll deal with you later) you can find all of your favorite posts and some of Rich's too by hazarding a guess as to what lobotomized method we've used to categorize said posts and clicking the link rather than whatever procedure you've previously used like deciding it was too much trouble and walking the dog instead.

3) Top Commenter signage. The Holy Grail of all Realm dwellers. An honor bestowed upon the one individual most responsible for keeping Rich and/or the trained monkey up late at night moderating comments. It's possible that we may give out additional awards for best comments, funniest comments, etc. And hey, this is the Realm of Possibility after all so keep an eye out. Smallprint: Top Commenter Award has a cash value of .000000000000000000000001 mill.

4) A Category called Please Excuse Our Dust, strangely enough, will also be created for this post where we'd like to see your comments for improving the Realm. And yes, Dugalug, we're already looking for code which will truncate the amount of space Rich's really long posts take up on the main page so that you can see some of the other posts on the page without giving yourself carpal tunnel scrolling down the page. But we'd love to hear any others.

Thank you for your time. We now return you to your regularly scheduled post reading.

Realm Revisions

7/3/09

Blog format updated to reflect new feature options allowed by Blogger. More updates on the way.

6/26/2009

Blog content updated to provide actual new posts after multi-year sabbatical.

1/21/06

The "Top Commenter" signage changed to "Commenter of The Week (OTW)" to give new commenters an equal shot at 15 minutes of fame and for ease of vote tallying. The official week will run Saturday through Friday. Good Luck.

1/18/06

The post formerly known as "Poopy-doopy" removed due to feedback from citizens of the Realm.

1/14/06

The "Read More" link has been added to prevent long posts from monopolizing the front page and to allow infrequent visitors an opportunity to more easily browse The Realm. Post length is now no longer an issue and the full post can be viewed by simply clicking, "Read More".

8 comments:

Diabolical Genius said...

1 point to the obtuse gentleman who likes the recent comments section, save the title.

If you're scoring at home, that now perches him precipitously in the lead for the Mythical Funniest Comment Award (MF CA). Heretofore known as MF CA.

Thanks for your interest.

Rich said...

Nice post. It may be our first A+.

Kevin Knox said...

Posting randomly here. Please feel free, if not obligated, to delete.

2 questions.

1) Rich - You need to get over to the Thinklings, and comment on the demise of the Blog Free Association post.

2) How do you guys deal with letdown in writing?

Once a month or so, I post something that I optimistically believe might make a difference in a minute part of the world in some trivial way. After that happens, I am higher than a kite for about 24 hours. After that, I crash for a day or two. Everything is horrible, and I'm a worthless failure at everything. I don't even want to get out of bed. Really, I need to NOT make important decisions for at least 3 days after a post that I happen to like.

Do you guys experience this?

Rich said...

codepoke,

1) Thanks. I went over there and made a brief comment. I was surprised Bill stopped comments. You may have seen that I had made a comment as to whether or not he would a little while back on that post. I know from our blog (and ours is small in comparison), it gets really hard to keep up with all the comments on every post (and in particular what I may or may not have written in the post comments), especially when they're off the main board. The Blog Free could go for miles, though. I would have liked to see how high. But a nod to De anyway for having more character than me (although I'm not sure how much different Blog Free Association is in content from the Gatorade post, so I'm not sure why the promise was made in the first place).

2) As far as letdown in writing, there are different types of letdowns. I don't necessarily have the same type you describe (although there is some jubilation and then an "air out of the balloon" feeling after some of my "real" efforts at writing) or at least not to the same degree, but if I do experience some trepidation or other fallout from works I'm writing or even posts (although my posts range the gambit from sweet little nothings to a few things I think have literary value) my general reaction is to just write more.

Another sort of letdown is when either you've been rejected by editors/agents/etc. or your work is criticized by people you've given it to, and my reaction to that has tended to be the same: write more.

I know Ken has been a little different on that front (if I can speak for him). He's a little more introspective and thoughtful, like I think you probably are, and it takes him some time to get over rejection or other writing letdown. Plus, he's more rational and logical in what he's writing, again like you more than me. So anything he might say would probably be more valuable than advice I might offer.

But back to who I know - me - a lot of times my "write more" approach doesn't equal "write better." It's just a different way to deal with something stirring inside. Sometimes, I've written really good stuff when I'm in the doldrums, but sometimes it's been total crapola.

And then, I think there's also a refueling time for everyone. For some, that's a lot longer than others. You write something, you put a lot into it, you put it in front of other people (which is usually daunting), and then the mind experiences a natural letdown, at times. That's why I think the old adage of "Write something every day" is a good principle, but it's not an absolute. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your writing is go outside and experience something else entirely.

This probably doesn't answer your question, although I'd say judging by your blog, you're making a difference WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more often than "once a month or so." The high/low stuff after writing something you think is important is probably fairly universal - but maybe not to your extremes. I think it's probably important when you crash to try to realize that what's going on. The mind's a weird thing, and changing the way it works is a difficult thing. The everything is horrible, and I'm a worthless failure at everything, to me, and gosh I know this sounds callous, is just a mindset that, if we're feeling that way (and I have my days like this, too, just not necessarily because of writing), we need to try to work to overcome it. Because after those two or three days, we realize everything's not as horrible as we thought, and generally we (or at least I) don't have the luxury of three days without making some important decisions, whether that's at work or home or at church, etc.

I apologize if this sounds like what sometimes Ken refers to as "a cold dose of Rich." I'm not meaning to sound like a jerk, but I suppose a lot of times I end up sounding like that anyway. And worse, an ignorant jerk.

Rich said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Rich said...

Sorry, that last long one had posted more than once.

Kevin Knox said...

Cool. Thanks, Rich.

In general I could not be more delighted with the experience I am having blogging. I am shocked at how many people actually are reading these things, so I am really happy.

And you are right, the fear of rejection is a huge downer too. Probably, that is a big part of what I am feeling, but it is not the biggest. Remember what I said about tennis? How Anna Kournikova defeats herself in her own mind more than anyone else defeats her on the court? I am the same way in everything. Especially now that I am alone.

I love doubles, because I can concern myself with my partner's problems, and I am good to go. My problems just don't exist. Going it alone, though, my mind consumes itself. I hired a coach once. After 1/2 hour, he told me there was nothing he could teach me. Then we played a set, and he finally believed my problem. Everything changes for me when there are points on the line. My choking problem would kill a rhino.

Just writing more is a good idea. I actually do that by accident, since I don't seem to be able to quit writing out there. Usually on "the" posts that are troubling me, I don't write the next day because I want to leave "that" post at the top of the blog. But I could surely just write some stuff in draft mode.

As a matter of fact, you may be on to something here. I get all wiggy about almost everything I write out there, but when I decide to leave a post sitting for a while is when it gets to me.

I will play with this for a while.

Thanks for taking the time!

Kevin Knox said...

Love the Dorkman counter! When did that show up?