A Thirteen Month Anniversary for the Blog

Today, this blog turns 13 months old.  I would have celebrated the one year anniversary if only I had remembered to celebrate it.  That I’d forgotten is actually fitting for this rather irrelevant blog.

In 13 months, I have written 76 posts, averaging nearly 6 posts a month.  While the pace has slowed, I’ve tried to maintain the pace of at least one piece every two weeks.  I’m pleased that I’ve succeeded in that effort even as I had little time due to my work.  The truth is, I think the slower pace has improved the blog–not necessarily because my posts are better quality, but because I’m avoiding saturation.  There is such a thing as saturation no matter how good something is.  I ain’t sayin’ my blog is good, but it’s not going to get any better by increasing the frequency of my posts.

As an example of what I mean, when I have too many pieces to post, I end up posting crap like this piece on the NFL overtime system.  I drafted this junk on a legal pad at an airport on my way to some business trip.  After I typed it up, I knew it wasn’t really good so I delayed posting it as I came up with better ideas.  Eventually, I got busier, felt the need to post something, so this piece was unceremoniously dumped à la bad flicks premiering in August.  More recently, I’ve become selective in the pieces I’m posting.  I currently have 18 posts draft form of one stage or another, some of which will never be read by a single reader.  I’m understanding what Steve Jobs meant when he said he’s as proud of products Apple didn’t release as those it has.

I obviously have my share of favorite posts.  I think the piece in which I reveal my savagery by mocking Steinbeck is a humorous piece executed well.  I like the narcisstic, irrelevant 662 word post on my name because it’s like a perfect representation of what this blog is about.  I like ripping on the NY Times in general, but this piece on their movie critics is particularly memorable because a colleague at work had very nice things to say about it.  I enjoyed writing the piece on how I meticulously planned to get rejected by every law school that I applied to, and apparently readers liked reading it: it received the most feedback with 20 commentsl.  I think I whined about not being published (and apparently not publishable) in a readable way.  Politics and sports didn’t make the list because either I don’t care or my readers don’t care, but I think my best political pieces are the emotional one dedicated to Bush when he left office and the logical one legally defending California’s Proposition 8.

As a genera observation, I’m pleased with the mix of categories of my posts.  I committed to no politics and to a large extent, I’ve succeeded.  For a person who studied politics, lives for elections and mocks Democrats 24/7/365, 14 political posts in 13 months shows quite a restraint.  Granted it’s not a restraint I had shown while writing a business column in college–one political post in 87 weeks–but in those four years, I had a topic I was committed to.  Here, I write what I think.  Since I’m always thinking liberalism is idiotic, it’s remarkable I’ve managed to come up with so many irrelevant topics unrelated to politics.  It only goes to show how frighteningly irrelevant I am.

I said I’d write fiction, and while 3 posts in a year isn’t many, I feel like I’ve gotten off to a good start.  I have more sections I’ve written, but I’m not ready to post them yet.  Although slow, I’m not upset with the progress.  I feel like I’m being thoughtful about what I’m writing and where I’m going since I can’t really go back and “fix” it once I post a section.  Posting fiction here forces  me to carefully contemplate each step of the way, but also compels me to keep on moving forward.  That was always my problem with writing fiction; I always kept on going back.  No one really gives a crap about my fiction, but since I do, I really don’t care that you don’t care.

I’m not sure I have the same indifferent attitude about my sports posts.  My posts on sports get a response that’s very similar to my posts on politics–except in the opposite way.  So whereas my readership spikes when I share my love of Bush or questions Obama’s new stature as a Nobel laureate, I get a deafening silence when I talk about David Shinske or Chris Crane.  One person cares–and he cares enough to leave a comment (thank you, Chris)–but he’s clearly it.  Not really feeling the BC love, even though a majority of the readers probably share my alma mater.

Just like my sports posts don’t get any attention, I’m pretty sure no one noticed that the blog’s layout changed a while back–and I think for the better.   When I made the change to the background template several months ago, I thought of  doing a more dramatic change, but that’s the thing about personal taste: you really like certain types.  What I ended up settling on pretty much had the same look as the one I had originally.  Change is good, so long as it doesn’t change anything–just like how Henry Ford accepted any color in his line of cars so long as it was black.

You know what needed changing that was changed?  The annoying titles to each post that began with “On…”  It was one of those idiotic ideas I came up with while writing a column in high school.  I carried over the dumb idea regarding titles of every post because I carried over the title of the column to this blog.  I think back then, I wanted a way to have a consistent theme that ran through every column.   Beginning the title of every column “On” was as good as I could get–and as idiotic.  This unattractive feature was quickly dropped like a bad habit, but the spirit has continued with the substance of the posts that continue to be idiotic.

To accurately reflect the idiocy and irrelevance of this blog, a buddy I met while in law school, who is a college student, contributed a tag line.  (Incidentally, the fact that I still know a college student attending  Boston College should give you a pretty good idea of what my life in law school was like).  “Never Before Has One With So Little To Say Said So Much To So Few,” the blog now sells itself.  I personally liked what I had come up with–“Those who has the least to say, speaks the most”–but Joseph’s was much more fitting and humorous.

I owe several people thanks.

Chris S. deserves a recognition for posting the most number of comments, by far (although recently, he’s become a little more AWOL).  He cares.

Vijay gets booed for leaving his only comment when I talked politics/law.   He doesn’t get my blog.

Jon gets a special prize because he’s interested in posts about me and couldn’t care less about my politics.    He gets it.

Ciriaco gets a dishonorable mention because he never leaves a comment, hardly reads my blog but bitches that I need to write more politics.  He’s evil.

Milky gets a thumb’s up because she encouraged me to start a blog, yet oddly has never visited for all I know.  She’s mysterious.

Joseph gets a wink because he pretends to care by leaving a comment.  He’s cool.

Chris R. gets a mixed review because he often leaves a comment, but it’s always political.  He should knock it off.

And I get a standing ovation because I started this blog and has stayed with it.  I love my blog.

I hope you enjoyed visiting this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.  I tried to thank all of you by making sure all comments were not left unanswered.

All in all, if I were to grade this blog, I would give it a strong, non-grade-inflated B, just short of a  B+.

How would you rate my blog on this monumentous 13th month anniversary?