I updated my list on the Blogs O’Plenty page. Which is to say, I got through the letter A.

And that was before I almost accidentally deleted the whole thing by somehow typing this blog post on that page’s “Edit” window. How I almost managed that, I have no idea. I would have had to Select All the text and type over it, which I don’t recall doing. And changed the title? What the heck? How did that almost happen? I have no idea. But, whew. I caught it just before I made it permanent…

Anyway, so I got through the letter A.

But progress is progress.

The question is, at what point should a blog be considered dead?

For some, it’s easy. They aren’t there anymore.

But, what about those that are still up but not updated? In the case of those that have their own domain or hosting, someone’s still paying the bill, no? Granted, on a domain name, they could have registered the name for several years, but what of the hosting? Even if they have an annual plan, you’d think the site would go down after a year. Are they auto-renewing it on their credit card? Why haven’t they cancelled? Is it because they plan to get back into blogging? Or have they just not noticed the charge on their cards?

So, when would you consider a blog dead?

Maybe you just chalk it up as inactive and not completely dead until it’s gone all together.

That makes sense. And that was probably my line of thinking the last time I updated that list… two years ago.

I should really differentiate between dead and inactive. I should probably just delete the dead ones instead of leaving them around.

And how to handle those that have gone to password-protection? How do I know if they are active or not? Maybe I should just delete those too. After all, there’s no sense sharing a link to a blog I can’t even read.

And what of those former regulars? You know, the ones that don’t even acknowledge my comments anymore or comment here? Interaction is a big part of blogging, no? So maybe I should delete those too.

Or, maybe I can get tough and delete ‘em all and say, leave a comment if you want a link!

Yeah, that probably would work better if I were still a PR3 instead of being demoted to a PR2.

Or, maybe you all can check them and see if you spot anyone that’s long gone.

Or, maybe you’ll just tell me that’s my job.

Or, maybe we can all wait until January 2012, when I’ll tackle the letter B.

So, there I was, dutifully racking up the Coca-Cola points.

Only, it seemed to be in vain, because all I seemed to manage to collect was enough points to get a free magazine subscription to some magazine I’d have no interest in, largely because (as I recall) most of the magazines seemed geared to women. Maybe they had some of the “men’s” magazines, but those didn’t interest me either.

You know, I used to subscribe to a ton of magazines. Now, I only get one on gardening.

Anyway, so I had these Coke points but not enough to do anything with. Or, to rephrase that, not enough to get anything genuinely interesting with. You need like a gazillion points to get something like your own Coca-Cola vending machine. But, you can only key in ten codes per day. And, with a bottle being one point, you just know you’re never going to get a gazillion points in your lifetime.

It all seems so pointless.

But then, and this was 2008 mind you, I heard that you could donate your points to some organization that would use the points to get Coca-Cola toys for kids for Christmas. That seemed like a good idea. I can’t get anything useful with my points and I’m pretty sure it would be cheaper to buy my own Coca-Cola vending machine than to buy enough pop to earn one with points. So, why not give those points to the kids? They add all those points up, and they can probably get lots of Coca-Cola polar bears (or whatever) for the kids.

Did you know that your points expire if you don’t log in often enough?

So, no points for the kiddies because they were all gone.

Still, I collected bottles, figuring I’d key in the codes and pass those along to the kiddies.

After a while, I had a number of empty bottles scattered around. Now, since you’re limited to entering 10 codes a day and (last time I checked) you could only enter them through some pain in the neck Flash monstrosity that doesn’t make doing it easy or efficient, I decided I’d just enter the codes in a text file, so I’d have them to enter them on the site at a later date.

How much nicer it could be if I could just enter them on the site all on one day. I work in spurts. Sorry, but I’m just not going to log into Coke’s website on a daily basis. Maybe if I was still a teenager and amused by Flash animations and stuff, but I’m not.

So, the codes go into a text file. That way, I can enter them 10 at a time at a later date.

Except I never do that.

Because (a) I would have to stop after 10 codes and (b) by the time I logged in again to enter another 10 codes, the first 10 would probably have expired.

A vicious cycle.

Sure, I could perhaps donate the points right after entering them. That’d be a possibility, but still doesn’t resolve (a).

And, so now I have a text file with a number of codes, and I also (again) have a number of empty bottles scattered about.

I would feel bad throwing them away, knowing there are points being wasted if I do that. Kids are starving for Coke toys, you know? Especially this past Christmas when the recession probably had a big impact for a lot of families.

So, I have this clutter of bottles. I’d throw them away but it seems wasteful. I’d enter the codes into a text file, but it seems pointless. I’d enter the codes into the Coke website, but it’s such a pain in the neck.

I should have never registered for the Coke website to begin with. Then, I wouldn’t have worried about points. I wouldn’t have known I could have donated those points to kids, because if I saw something about Coke points, I wouldn’t have read it. And then I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.

You know, maybe I should just toss the bottles and send ten bucks to some kids’ charity.

Seems like it would be a lot less hassle. My time is worth more than 10 points a day anyway.

But then it still seems like I’m throwing away something of value…

August 14, 2009 was my 500th consecutive post. That is, I had at least one post every day for 500 days in a row.

Mind you, some posts may have been scheduled but, in my view, those totally count. A post a day is hard enough sometimes, so if some days I can manage multiple posts and spread them out, I still think that counts. Generally, though, I’ve only used post scheduling when I’m away on vacation, sick or extremely busy.

Something I’ve quite unintentionally managed to do is to sporadically reply to comments. It used to be that I would respond to comments right away, or at least within relative short order. Of course, this posed a problem if I went on vacation. Due to post scheduling, I could have new posts appear, but people would surely notice if new posts appeared and I had not yet replied to comments on prior posts.

Way to blow my cover.

But, I’ve grown a bit lax in replying to comments, so it may be a few days before I reply to them, even though I may be writing new posts.

So, now you really have no idea whether I’m on vacation or not. Maybe I’m gone. Maybe I’m just not replying to comments. Who knows?

I wish I could claim credit for that line of thinking, but, oh heck, I’ll take credit for it. It was probably my subconscious mind, which is at times still astoundingly brilliant, causing me to create such a scenario where I keep you guessing.

Anyway, I’ve strayed from my original point, which was on the topic of consecutive daily blogging. On top of the aforementioned date where I achieved a record of 500 consecutive daily posts, 2009 was the first year where I managed to have at least one post each day. Too bad it wasn’t a leap year.

Came close in 2008, except for March, which was a bad month…

It’s become a bit of an obsession too. A couple weeks ago, when I was ill, I had to force myself to come down to the computer to do a blog post. So, there I am, standing next to the computer, barely able to stand, but stuff was on my chair that I didn’t have the energy to move, pounding out a blog post, and then staying on the computer entirely too long as I barely made it back upstairs. Yeah. Good times.

I’ll try to repeat the consecutive daily blogging thing again this year. I’ll try not to repeat the bit where I’m standing at the computer, barely able to blog but doing it anyway…

You see, if I make it to December 27, 2010, that will be my 1000th day of consecutive daily blogging. And, at that point, I might as well finish out the year, you know? So, I’ll cross my fingers…

Also, I hope to have some more substantive posts. I did better in my earlier blogging days. I guess maybe I don’t venture out into the blogosphere as widely as I used to. I mainly stick around the same group of blogs, which are dwindling in number as I haven’t sought out new blogs to read to replace those that have become ghost towns.

I also need to re-discover some blogs I used to frequent. I have a feed reader which I used to use to read several blogs. But, I haven’t fired that thing up in ages! I don’t know why. I just got out of the habit of firing up the feed reader. You know, if you want to leave a comment, you have to go to the blog with your browser anyway, so it just saves some hassle by skipping the feed reader.

And, then if blogs don’t get updated, you don’t check them as often. And, when you don’t use bookmarks, as I don’t, you tend to forget the URLs after a while. And, then you need to look them up, which you don’t because you’ll do that later. But then you forget.

So, it becomes a vicious cycle.

There are only really three blogs (that I can think of) that I intentionally don’t read anymore. Well, actually just two; the third I still read occasionally, but not as often, because it doesn’t speak to my interests so much anymore. Of the other two, one changed ownership (more than once, if I remember) and the last guy who ran it decided to go with all video blogging and I’m just not going to sit through a video blog. Sorry. With text, I can read, speed-read or skim. With a video, you have to watch it. Skimming a video does not compare to skimming text. And, speed-viewing only works if you’re an android. And, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway, since that blog is completely gone now. Maybe I wasn’t the only one not interested?

As for the other blog, well, I just felt the blogger’s attitude went a little too negative. Not negative in the sense that the tone was negative, but rather that this blogger’s life choices were going in what I viewed as a negative direction. It’s difficult to explain. I’m sure you probably have a goal of being a better person; most people do. Maybe we don’t always do a good job of staying on that track, but it is still our intention to try to stay on that track, you know? So, you have in your mind this vision of the type of person you would like to be, that is better than you are today. If someone else is going in what you feel is the opposite direction, you might not want to have that kind of influence in your life, even if it is only a blog. You know? If you want to be a certain way, it often works best if you surround yourself with people that are already that way or are at least heading in the same direction.

Mind you, that may not be the case for everyone. Some may choose to go against the grain, in which case surrounding yourself with people that are the opposite of what you want to be may be more fruitful. And, while I am often the against-the-grain type, in this situation, I felt the opposite would be best.

So, that’s one blog I no longer read.

It may be that I just read things wrong. Who knows? But, that was my interpretation and I just decided to avoid that sort of influence.

Back to goals, though. Another goal is to actually update some of the other blogs I created a few weeks ago. I got started, got sick and then never really got back into it. Seems to be a cycle I frequently find myself in. I’ll have to change that around.

You know, when I was in school, it seemed like I was better able to manage multiple things. I did my homework while watching TV. I also worked on other projects while watching TV. Sometimes I would draw while watching TV. Seems I can’t do that amount of multi-tasking anymore. Maybe I immerse myself into the TV show too much, figuring things out, imagining alternatives, etc.

But, even taking TV out of the picture, I don’t seem to be able to manage the amount of stuff I used to. I mean, school is roughly comparable to work, albeit with fewer hours. So, work shouldn’t be that big of an impact on your personal productivity. At home, I used to do my homework, write stories, draw, do projects, do a newsletter, read books, etc.

Maybe reality kills your motivation. I always had a dream home envisioned and all the cool stuff I wanted. So, there’d be that motivation there. You know, if I do this newsletter/magazine and it takes off and I can be rich and afford the stuff I want. Or, if I write this story and it gets made into a movie, I’ll be rich. Or, I’ll make my own video series and sell it and get rich. And so on.

But then, you grow up, and reality kills that. Nobody buys your newsletter. Nobody reads it if you send it out for free. Nobody likes your stories. And so on.

Then, even if you continue to believe in yourself, you’ll sit down and think, I’ll never get rich if I write this… And, maybe even money isn’t the big motivator. Or, at least it wasn’t. Maybe being recognized and “famous” was the motivation, and the money was the side benefit you knew about but really didn’t think of, or wasn’t your main motivation.

But then grown-up life changes that. You have bills to pay. And they don’t get paid if you don’t have money. And writing a story, creating a video, or whatnot doesn’t have an immediate payback, and it’s uncertain whether it ever really will.

So, you’re forced to work on things that do, or you think will, make you money, all the while wishing to be able to make money off the things you’d really rather be doing.

And so you get stuck in that limbo where reality tramples passion, and you don’t get to do what you enjoy and just go through the motions at the stuff that gets you money. And, as a result, you’re just not as productive as you used to be, because the things you once saw as possibilities seem to be too far out of reach anymore.

Anyway, I’ve kind of covered the gamut in this post. I could have probably created two or three separate–and maybe even useful–posts out of this. Maybe I can do that later.

Congratulations if you made it this far. You made it farther than I did. I don’t even feel like going back to proofread this. This is clocking in at 1,685 words. Wow.

Here’s another exciting* episode of how people found my blog. Weird ways, typically. This is how they found me in December.

Bear in mind that December is the holiday season, so you might think people would have things on their mind other than porn, but apparently not.

This time, I’m not going to link all these, because I don’t feel like it. Okay?

The weirdest? Yblagulous, banana is scared photos, card game bananaphaser, what does baiting mean on meez, buttbunnies.com, how to make blog url into dot com, hollydale mental hospital picture, ju57 plane, what do morons believe, how to act creepy, blue banana, people with tail, scared banana picture and a time to believe act new year.

Some people were thinking of Christmas. These folks searched for: windy christmas, a windy christmas, regifting christmas, christmas blog meme, christmas fruit cakes for gift giving, christmas regirfting and a windy christmas meaning.

The recession hit some people really hard this year. Some of them went looking for: christmas i.o.u. form, christmas iou form, iou christmas form and iou cancelled cancel to give christmas present.

Some people were looking for pictures of men and–gasp!–boys: kids in underwear pictures, free burt ward naked pics, nude men aprons, men in their underwear#ii=68 (what???), nude men under apron, man atractive, and weird men underwear photo.

And, it’s probably not hard to guess that most people were after pictures of women, typically naked: naked women, naked women in aprons, naked woman, hot naked women, would you be naked when wearing an apron, hot chicks photo, game of naked apron, tail woman, nude women, ways to make money with women, naked women wearing apron, tiger woman, woman baking in the nude, megan fox inurl blogs.com, nude strange women tails, looking for hot chicks, nakey women, little women nude pic, naked women apron, hot chicks blog, female swimsuit models, women with tails pics, hot traffic chick, naked apron photos, tila tequila not wearing underwear, naked women with tails, pictures or movies of pretty women in apron, woman baking naked, nake women picture and nude teenagers (which admittedly could go either way).

And, you can pretty much not find most of those things on my blog. So, I guess most of my readers leave disappointed.

There’s an SEO lesson in all of this. But, I’ll leave that to the reader to analyze. I have a headache. Well, not really, but I would if I analyze this.

*Probably not, but it fills a post.

Happy New Year 2010!

Is no one else online today? Haven’t seen anyone else with a new blog post today, except for Michael Kwan, but he’s efficient enough that he may have thought ahead and scheduled the post.

Anyway, just doing miscellaneous things today. You know how things are… A day off work means taking care of work around the house. Plus, I have an online project I’d like to work on today as well.

Maybe 2010 will mark the return of the animated GIF! They’ve taken a beating the past few years. The major bummer was last year when Twitter stopped supporting them. Bad, Twitter, bad. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have changed my Twitter avatar from my beloved animated version to the static version that was only meant to be temporary.

Did I mention a couple of my projects will let you have animated GIFs as avatars? Hehehe.

Anyway, Happy New Year!