I find that my patience for that other blogging site is wearing thin. I keep trying to make the best of what it is...because, you know, it is what it is. (or something) But it's becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid the vast annoyances.

And that's too bad. Because I really like some of my acquaintances from there. And I love seeing them riff on my silliness. There are some truly funny people there who take some black humor and just run with it.

And then there are the gems. Those are the people who have sent me private messages about certain posts...offering help, etc. I had someone from there send me a huge package of photography materials when I was first encouraging my brother to take it up as a hobby for both our benefit. This person sent rolls and rolls of film, frames, photo albums. I almost cried with gratitude. They didn't have to do that. And wouldn't take no for an answer. Someone else offered to send me several old cameras they no longer used. Yet another person offered to perform fund raising for my work so my Iraq vet won't have to move out for lack of money.

They didn't have to do that...they are just a few people who care.

Unfortunately, they are vastly unnumbered by the scuzzy assholes, the preeners, the attention whores, etc...who seem to multiply exponentially. It's nearly impossible to cruise the blogs now without major annoyance.

At best...I guess I can beat a tactical retreat into my own blog and only read those who come to me.

I'm just tired of the silly attempts at manipulation. Particularly of the ranking lists...that long standing bone of contention for some and Holy Grail for others.

For fuck's sake...I hate going through the daily lists of new bloggers looking for interesting new posts (and possibly people who haven't been tainted) only to find that a certain few bloggers have been there before me...leaving little messages not related to the posts but rather to get the attention of people who can provide them with an increase in their unique comment counts. It's always the same two people. Always the same two messages no matter what the blogger has written an an intro. "Hi, nice blog! ~wink~" or "Hi, welcome to the blogs!"

Alt really should dump that whole ranking system. Maybe it would relieve my sore eyes of of cruising past boring blogs designed as nothing more than comment catchers. Christ...some of them sound like five year old children. "Why is the sky blue? Why is grass green? What's your favorite heavy metal song?"

Maybe if they dampened the child-like bloggers...the rest of the adults would act like...grown ups?

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I'm feeling so beaten down over there that I can't even raise the energy to call someone on plagiarism. I became suspicious when someone had a few things in their blog that seemed too polished...and sure enough...found they had been lifted whole from a web site. I couldn't be bothered to bring up ethics when weighed against the shit that would be raised...because the person was a popular, front page face. And we've all seen the shit caused by slavish devotion to personality even in the face of evidence there, right?

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That site is what it is. A blogging section on a hook up site. Maybe I created too large of a series of expectations for it. No, that's not exactly correct. When I first joined...I learned a lot. The earliest group of people spent a lot of time writing great pieces. Then came the rankings system...thrust upon a population overrepresented by fragile egos and over sized egos...and the rest is history.


It just gnaws at me that a lot of great writers who put out fantastic, emotional, enlightening posts...get overlooked...no, more than that...shunted aside in the stampede every time some Pretty Young Thing arrives on the blog scene and cyberly shakes her tits. The herds of horndogs are usually comprised of all the same dumb fuckers. Sigh...but at it's heart it is a dating site...and I got to expect that most of the population (being male) will flock to where they believe the pussy is.

I guess I'm just disappointed that only a small percentage of the population can rise above that.

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Whatchagonnado?