Whining in Public

Whining In Public



Or maybe that headline should be Nagging In Public.  With every bit of restraint and self control on high alert, comes this post.



Why the hell would anyone use their blog as a platform to whine or nag
-- and do so in so public a manner?  Maybe the short answer is
that they have nothing better to do.  Perhaps their lives are so
miserable this is just a natural step in the process of being the sort
of person no one wants to be around (at least for any prolonged period
of time) by choice. 



Reading a few of my "daily read" blogs today, it seemed that I'd missed
the notation on the calendar of National Nag & Whine
day.   Blog after blog either featured or linked to (and in
some cases both) bitching, whining, moaning, or wallowing in self-pity
over the lack of understanding of others what they, the self-proclaimed
enlightened blogger(s) knew to be the truth so obvious and accepted
that it truly pained their ever so righteous and worthier-than-thou
souls to read.



There's one blogger, who it happens I really enjoy reading, who gave no
endorsement to the whiners, but managed to link to a slew of
them.  This may have been out of a sense of fair-mindedness, but
it still seemed to validate all the teeth-gnashing. 



Then
there's another blogger who finds it their job to proclaim the
hipper-than-hip internet and bloggish news of each day.  Not real
news, mind you, but blogospheric news, or news of bloggy and internet
sorts of things.  These are always followed by a perky little
comment (thankfully in few words) which let us know how this blogger is
cooler than cool, more clued in than all others, and totally up with
the latest and greatest.



Why read this blog, you might ask.  Good question.  Actually,
I use this one person's "take on what is cool, worthy, hip and
earth-shaking in blogs and the net" in lieu of an aggregator.  But
it is not a daily visit.  Usually I go there once a week, to see
if (egad!) I've managed to miss out on any can't-miss totally important
gee-better-read-to-remain-hip news.  Funny thing is, this blogger
always points to one other blogger.



That pointed-to blogger is a pretty good source of what's happening on
the net and to a lesser degree, in the blogosphere.   So why not
just read that one?  Here's why: because I find the layout and the
overall visual presentation of that blog very annoying.  Too
much sensory overload on one page for these eyes. 



Actually,
perusing that blog via an aggreggator would be a better idea.


The Dean's List



Over to the right of this entry is a long column, chock full of blogs, sites, pages
of interest.  I use The Dean's List (catchy name for a blog roll, eh?) (done by hand and not connected
or syncing to alert to new posts)  to review the sites that
interest me.  And I can count on some of the blogs over there to
help me with pointers to other interesting sites.



A friend and fellow blogger asked me if the order of the DeanLand
blogroll had any significance.  He also told me, before I could
answer, that he wanted a higher position on the blogroll, so readers
would see his link when they were at the top post over here.  That
made me want to come up with an automated way to rotate
everything.  And it also made me want to put his link at he top,
just because he asked so nicely and was so blunt about what he wanted
and why.  But now, having written this, I can't do that, for fear
of exposing his identity.  He's not the sort of guy who would
appreciate my telling the world about our conversation.  He's a
bold and bodacious blogger, but also really a shy sort of guy.



Maybe one of these days, when I have absolutely nothing to do and a ton
of time on my hands, I'll re-order the blog roll.  Don't hold your
breath.



Back to my blogger buddy's question:  no, the order is of little
consequence, and means nothing,  I visit as many
top-of-the-blogroll spaces as bottom ones.  As fate would have
it,  a few of my never-miss daily stops are all the way down.



And Speaking of Whining and Nagging



As
soon as the last of the four bloggers I tagged for that meme of four [1]
finally posts their response, I will link to the quartet and we can all
enjoy their responses.  Now that sentence could well be perceived
as passive-aggressive.  So let's clear that up.  Hey, last
tagged person: move it!