Dear...

Thanks for getting me in trouble. I was only being sympathetic and listening to your complaints when I made the comment. I didn't realize that it was your mission in life to share your pain. From now on, anything you have to say to me you can put in writing.

That is all.

You did not get fired from Gray's Anatomy. The option on your contract was not picked up. There's a difference there and it's not simple semantics. The decision to not pick up the option on your contract was not borne out of racism, or because you called someone a faggot, or because the white man is still trying to suppress the black man. It was not picked up because you're an asshole, and no one on that set wants to work with you anymore. So shut up already.

School is out and your kids are staying up later. I get that. But for fuck's sake, don't let them run around the neighborhood at 9 p.m. with a damned airhorn. And don't let your little girl stand at her bedroom window the the microphone of an amplified Karaoke machine, singing her little heart out. Yeah, she can carry a tune, but I don't want to hear it. Make her close the damned windown. And especially don't let your spawn out the door with a dozen eggs and even one roll of toilet paper, because they are up to no good, and it's not the paint job on YOUR car that will suffer for it.

Oh yeah, and keep them off my damned lawn.

==Fed Up==

Every once in a while I get email asking how I get so many comments, while they get none. The most recent email was laced with borderline whining, trying to make the claim that a disproportionate number of bloggers were hogging all the comments. You get anywhere from 60-200, the writer said, while I get 1 or 2.

So I visited this person's blog, as I have others on request. I don't know what people think I can do for them, unless they want me to promote them on my blog, but the closest I ever come to doing that is adding someone to my blogroll. Off I went, expecting to see more comments than were claimed, thinking that perhaps it was a new blog and simply hadn't built readership.

What I found I find often: the last blog post was 2 months old, and the one previous to that was six weeks older. It was a mommy blog (several of which I happen to enjoy) but it just wasn't a very good one. In 2 years of blogging there were less than 50 posts, the majority of which focused on what the blogger cooked for dinner that night, the movie they went to that afternoon, or something cute their kid did--which honestly wasn't really cute at all.

Their blog header was a picture of their children, a giant picture.

People, let me be honest. Your kids are not as cute as you think they are. Most of us don't want to tune into a page where the first thing we see is some 3 year old with dried snot rimming his nose and the remnants of a candy bar around his mouth. We especially don't want to see it every single day, were we to visit your blog domain that often. Some of your kids are actually creepy looking; no, you should not be expected to see that in them, but there it is. That header image of your offspring in snot and chocolate covered glory is enough to make a whole lot of people bypass your site.

If you want a readership: take the kiddie header down unless your kid really is adorable. If you're not sure, then leave the kid off. Write about your kids, yes, of course--I do it, most people do it--but remember that their mundane details are not interesting unless you have some mad writing skillz. Most of what kids do is funny in a you had to be there kind of way. It might have been amusing when little Cleo burped during dinner out at Denny's, but it's not really post-worthy.

Post frequently. If you're going months without, there's no reason for people to come back.

Have a blogroll. Link to other blogs.

Don't whine more than a couple times a year unless you're dying, and even then limit it. Seriously. Be honest, but cut the whine. Look at Minerva or Following ling ling. They don't whine, even though they have a hell of a lot to complain about. They share, even when it's sad.

Whining is not the same as venting. A lot of blogging is venting; if your readers can relate, they'll comment.

Comment on other people's blogs. One person who lamented about the dearth of comments on her blog admitted that she rarely comments on others because she "doesn't have time." There's no reason other people should make the time if you're not willing to.

If you're going to use a standard Blogger template, your content needs to be outstanding. Either pony up for a custom one, or learn a little bit about creating your own. It's not difficult, If I can do it, anyone can. Those standard issue templates are nice and easy, but when you're looking at new blogs and they all look the same, its easy to not really read the content and blow it off as just another blog.

And finally, don't make people register to read your blog. If I don't know you, I'm not going to bother, and if I do know you, I'm going to tell you you're a little paranoid. If you don't want certain people reading certain things, create a new personna and a new blog don't tell your friends.

Sincerely,
Blogging Before Blogging Had A Name...

Would you mind checking behind you before you back out of a parking space. I was almost hit again today. Do you even look before you go in reverse? It doesn't seem like you do to me. How could you not see me? I'm directly behind you. There is no blind spot there.

Please be more careful.

Thanks

Dude, stop picking your nose and eating it.

Really.

Gross.

Stop it.

Ok, not just old people. But you know who you are. The people who park their carts sideways in the middle of the grocery store aisles. The people who then bend over to get something off the bottom shelf, leaving no room for anyone else to get around as you hover there, pondering the gastronmical possibilities available 5 inches abover floor level.

Please stop it.

Sincerely,
The Person Who Did Not Knock You To Your A$$ Today

My dad died last week. He was 62 years old, and had a massive heart attack while watching the evening news. It was quick, he didn't even have a chance to do the TV thing and grab at his chest while asking someone to call 911. He took a deep breath and said "No," and then was gone. There was nothing anyone could do.

We're burying him tomorrow. His death came out of left field. No one expected it and we all thought he would be around forever. Because he was active and he was healthy and happy. He didn't smoke and had a drink maybe once a week. There was no reason to expect him to die.

After he was pronounced dead officially at the hospial we were approached by a doctor who offered his condolences, and then said he wished he had been more forceful at getting my dad in to have more tests done and to have the angiogram he thought my dad needed.

That was like getting slugged in the face with a hot poker.

So now we know that the dad we thought was healthy as a horse actually had seen a doctor for chest pain and that his blood pressure was high except for one leg where it was low. His doctors wanted him to undergo tests to look for peripheral artery disease and they wanted to look at his heart because they were sure he had clogged arteries. We also know that he'd had several small skin cancers removed in the last couple of years and was borderline diabetic.

There were a lot of things we did not know about him, medically. If we had known we could have pushed him to get things taken care of. And maybe his dying wouldn't have felt like getting run over by a semi-truck filled with explosives. It would have hurt all the same but at least we would have had some position to stand in other than the one that was the most surprising and overwhelming.

I miss my dad and would give anything to change that he's dead but I'm also super pissed.

I'm sure he felt that his medical problems were no one else's business and he wasnt't the kind of person who ever wanted pity or even sympathy. I respect his right to privacy, but if we hadn't met that doctor we probably wouldn't have looked for more information. His medical problems are my family history. Those are things people need to know, so they know what to look for as they get older and they have the chance to make lifestyle changes that can help prevent them from happening.

If he had told us, not only would we have had that information all along, we would have known that there was always that slim chance that he wouldn't live as long as we wanted him to.

There's being private, and then there's being stubborn and selfish. Please, if you have a medical histoty, you have to share that with your kids. They have the right to prepare themseves for what might happen, and they have the right to be proactive on their own behalf.

Please be honest. Because you want your kids to have a chance at a life longer than yours, isn't you?

I’m sorry. I didn’t realize some of the things I said were hurtful. I thought I was being funny. You probably were happy to see me go. It’s been a couple of years and I’m finally smarter. I don’t expect you to forgive or forget, but my conscience is bothering me. I need to apologize.

I’m sorry and I hope you are having a happy life.

Sincerely,
Dumb