I’ve been noticing a trend lately, maybe you have too. If someone finds a unique hook, writes something radically different or changes their theme to a never before used design, everyone else does the same thing.

This needs to stop.

I wrote a while ago how bloggers were getting their periods at the same time. I said it in jest and to point out that we tend to write about a lot of the same topics at the same time. Sometimes this is done deliberately in the form of a carnival or theme but often times it seems as if one blogger finds a great topic and then others, who see how popular it was, basically steal it. They rewrite it and throw it up on their blog.

I know, stealing is a strong word.

I’ve gotten many topics by stealing.  Just the other day I was over at MrsBlogalot’s and saw what a great post she had written about being a blog junkie. I left a comment and while writing it noticed I had a post in the making. My Boyfriend or Blog post was born out of her Blog Junkie post. However, they weren’t the same post. Lately I have seen many blogs that seem to have taken the post from another blogger, change a word or two and then call it there own. This happened over at Agoosa.com recently. She had posted a little tip about what to do with that last slice of bread. Several comments were left thanking her for such a helpful tip. The next day one of the commenters used the post, didn’t even bother to change it up, as her own.

Stealing is wrong.  And thankfully it doesn’t happen all that often.

What I have noticed happening more often is blogs are being copied in theme, tone of voice and especially schtick.

I don’t know who started the cat blog fad, probably that cheeseburger cat, but whoever did it is now responsible for 352 billion blogs about cats, dogs, goats and other animals. I’ve even seen hermit crabs. Seriously, hermit crabs? They aren’t the most social of animals. How does anyone fill a post with a talking hermit crab?

Well, I hid in my shell most of the day. When it got dark I crawled around looking for water. They forgot to feed me again.

Having said there are billions of animal blogs I have to say this, there are three of them who do it so well I honestly think I am leaving a comment for a furry friend. Daisy, Pricilla and Nooter are superb at the animal blog genre. When I stop by the Maaaaa of Pricilla and leave a comment I know a goat has not only written the post but is also reading my comments. When Nooter stops by my blog I get all excited because I love dogs and he is so cute and reminds me of one of my dogs who is no longer here. I feel as if I need to leave dog treats out for him, just to get him to stop by on his rounds.

The reason these animal blogs are so good is because the authors never break character and they don’t treat their audience like idiots. These blogs are irreverent and self deprecating which makes them so enjoyable. Even though I have a cat I am not a cat person. My cat ignores me. I am only good for feeding her, changing her litter box and providing my feet for her to sleep on. Cats don’t take to me usually. I am a dog person. Because of the way my cat treats me, like I am her bitch or something, I fly by most of the cat blogs. Not Daisy and Harley. They are cute and they do good things for other animals. They also remind me of my children. These animal blogs are intelligent and interesting. The millions of copycat blogs that try to be like them are not. They are just annoying.

Another thing that has just gotten way out of hand is the strike through. It was funny at first but now it’s getting old. Maybe I need to wear my glasses more often but I have a hell of a time reading what is under the strike through slashes. If you don’t want to say something then don’t say it. Use the backspace key and get rid of the original thought. We all know we think horrible thought sometimes and lie about them. It’s been done to death.

( I would have totally over used the strike through thing except I don’t have the option in my editor and I am too lazy to do the HTML code for it)

Another thing I have noticed lately is that bloggers are using the same tone of voice. I go from one blog to the next and they all read as if they could have been written by the same person. Which is not to say that they are written poorly, not at all, they just sound like everyone else. I don’t have the skills to take this one apart. I can’t pinpoint what is so annoying about reading different posts that sound like they were all written by a computer. Because they don’t sound like they were written by a machine, they are good but there is nothing unique about them anymore. The AdMaster does a much better job explaining the importance of finding your own voice.

And finally, I’ve had it with the fucking cartoon characters. These were cute at first but now everyone has one.  Aren’t we adults now? The cartoon characters remind me of high school and having cute stickers on lockers and books. The cartoon characters are always juggling baby bottles, minivan keys, laptop, purse and other items. Who wants to juggle all that shit?

Not me.

If I ever figure out how to make a cartoon character for my blog (would someone please help me make a cartoon character for my blog, I really want one) it will have me juggling a box of wine, a vibrator with extra batteries just in case, and a take out menu.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Making Blogger Blogs Prettier: Google Launches New Template Designer (readwriteweb.com)
• Trendy gift – hermit crabs – require care, humane society warns (windsorstar.com)

Since Lola jumped back into the dating world I have been thinking about finding a mate for myself. It’s been a fleeting thought, here and there, throughout the years since my divorce. I have dated but no one seriously. There seemed to be all kinds of good reasons not to get involved with anyone. My divorce took two years and it brought out the worst in me. I was angry and when angry I tend to attract the wrong kind of guy.

After my divorce was finally settled I moved, was job hopping and busy finding my way. Dating just seemed like one more burden that I didn’t want to take on. Last year I decided to give it another try but then life interrupted that plan and I never made it a priority. It didn’t help that the few dates I did go on were somewhat( okay, horribly) disappointing.

Fear is another reason I haven’t jumped back into the dating pool. You don’t go down in flames twice and think to yourself, oh, this is a breeze, I’ll just get back on the horse again. While it might be easy to blame my choice in mates for going down in flames the truth is it takes two to tango and I contributed to the death of both of my marriages. About 2% is my fault. That might be a conservative estimate. Regardless, I don’t trust anyone to get too close anymore.

For the most part this hasn’t bothered me. Being a single mom I don’t have a lot of free time so when I do I like to spend it with a book or watching a show from start to finish. I used to be fun. I used to do things. Now, I have to raise to kids and that can sap a lot of energy from anyone and I am not the most energetic person to begin with. The holidays are the worst but even they are getting better. I don’t feel as if I need a man to complete me. I am complete on my own and am happy with myself.

Which means I am no longer angry, in fact I am at peace, and it is probably time to go out and meet someone.

Except.

Now I blog. Unless I meet a man who blogs, who also happens to live in my hometown, it isn’t going to work. There is no room in my life for a boyfriend and a blog, let alone four.

How will I explain to him that I have to visit a million sites a day? How will he understand that everything he does is very likely going to be published on my blog and then commented on by virtual strangers. Strangers to him, not to me, you guys are family. But how is he going to understand that? Will he understand that when he tells me a secret I will keep it to myself, never to mention it to anyone, except all of you? I don’t think so.

I should have found a mate before I started blogging. I am sure that when a spouse becomes a blogger it is covered under that for better or worse part of the vows. If I became a blogger after I met and married him he would have no choice but to accept it, begrudgingly maybe, but accept it he would.

Who wants to get involved with someone who eats almost every meal in front of the computer? Who wants to get involved with someone who is constantly checking email to see if anyone commented? Who wants to get involved with someone who looks at stats all day long, even though she really doesn’t understand them. Who wants to get involved with someone who runs around the house mumbling things like keywords and bounce rate under her breath? Who would understand that when Google publishes their page ranks it’s the same thing as having tickets to the Super Bowl when your team is in it?

No one, unless he is another blogger and then there would be competition.

Who has the better theme? Who has more followers? Who has more feed readers (he would)? Who has more comments? I’d have to double my bandwidth.

Another blogger wouldn’t work for those reasons and because no one would go out and get things like groceries. We’d both never wear anything but sweats and showers would become optional. Two bloggers don’t make a right.

I’ve decided if I am going to get involved with anyone he is going to have to be a computer geek, but not one who blogs. A geek who spends his days in forums about databases, MySQL, PHP, CGI and scripts ( I have no idea what these things are, I just looked at my cpanel). He will have to be a guy who can lose hours of his life online learning things that will ultimately benefit me.

My first ex husband is a real estate agent. Yeah, I dodged a bullet there, though I completely missed his successful rise for nearly a decade. He had no tech skills and even worse no mechanical skills. If anything broke I had to fix it, or make the call if I couldn’t. My second ex husband is an electrician. He could fix things, anything. It was great having him around because if something broke I wasn’t allowed to fix it. He could also cook and enjoyed doing so. But he didn’t understand my attachment to the internet and I wasn’t blogging then. Even though he could fix anything he rarely did. He started considerably more projects than he ever finished, our marriage included.

No, the kind of guy I need to find is someone who has not seen the sun in decades. Someone so pasty white I will look tropical standing next to him. Someone who can explain things to me when I announce “I don’t get it”. Right now I am covered, my son is that kind of geek. However, he leaves for college in a year and a half so I don’t have a lot of time to meet a geek. And it isn’t as if they are easy to find. You don’t meet them at the bars or coffee shops. I’d have to find them online and sadly I don’t speak their language. I need someone to set me up.

Guys and gals, I need you to find me a geek. The only requirement I have is that he not live in the basement of his mother’s house.

Instead of turning into that crazy cat lady, if I don’t find a mate, I will be that crazy blog lady.

*Hat tip to Mrsblogalot for inspiring this post.

Related articles by Zemanta

• My Love for Blogging (chrisbrogan.com)

Last week I got an email from a blog friend asking me for some help. Lola, from Lola’s Diner wanted to know if I would help her tweak her profile on Match.com. Lola has recently re-entered the dating scene and she wanted to make an impression.

Lola is one of my oldest blogging pals and I would do anything for her.

I am flattered that Lola would ask me to help her write a witty blurb about her. I am sure it is because she thinks I am a gifted wordsmith. I’m not. The moment you ask me to write about anything I get complete writers block. I start checking my email, I run a load a laundry, bathe the dog, anything to avoid having to write about one particular topic. I can blather on until the cows come home about anything until you ask me to talk about cows coming home and then I am stuck.

So I let the email sit there for a bit.

Lola sent me another email a day or two later and asked if I could help write her tagline.

At least that was a lot fewer words. Something catchy, something unique and witty. Sure I could do that.

All I could come up with was several different lyrics from Commodore songs.

“You’re once, twice, three times a lady”

“Lady, you bring me up when I’m down”

“Oh, oh sail on…”

Lola was pleased with my attempt, and ever so polite when she mentioned that lesbians don’t really care for the Commodores. She suggested I pick something from Melissa Etheridge or the Indigo Girls.

I like the Indigo Girls, Retrospective is a staple CD in my car. I couldn’t think of any lyrics to their songs except:

“Galileo’s head was on the block…”

and the song about Minnesota and the river but I was unable to come up with any lyrics, couldn’t remember the tune and didn’t want to go out to the car. I do remember it was a song about unrequited love and that probably wouldn’t be suitable.

This was hard.

So I wrote back to her and asked what her profile looked like now. I figured I could read it and maybe add a few suggestions.

Her profile was well written, funny and interesting. I suggested she remove one word.

That’s all I could contribute.

Which isn’t surprising given the fact that I am a straight woman who hasn’t had a date in well over six months. I can hardly get my writing mojo on to try to attract men, how the hell was I supposed to try to attract women.

I couldn’t even write my own profile on Match.com. I had to have JD from Idothings do it for me.

Lola, you don’t need my help and you shouldn’t want it. The only thing I was able to attract, when I wrote my own profile, was a guy who had the worlds worst set of teeth. You don’t need that. You are doing just fine on your own. Any woman would be lucky to have you consider dating her. I can’t make that any better than it already is.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Definition of Friends (caregiving.com)
• Love is a four-letter word (speedcommunications.com)
• Match.com acquires Singlesnet (slyvisions.com)
• CBS rejects gay dating site’s Super Bowl ad – 10Connects.com (domainmacher.com)

As any seasoned blogger knows, comments are the prize we seek for a well written post. Even for a crappy post we hope to get some comments.

There is a right way and a wrong way to leave comments.

The right way to leave a comment is to read the article thoroughly, read the other witty comments so as not to repeat what they have said, contemplate the relevance the article and other comments have to one’s life and then make a concise, well developed, comment in the comment section.

That is the right way to leave a comment.

The wrong way to leave a comment is illustrated beautifully over at Nanny Goats in Panties.

Margaret wrote a piece about her recent trip to Arizona. She wrote waggishly about getting her ass kicked by Tucson. She also mentioned the road runners and cacti in her article.

I could easily identify with this piece because although I have never been to Tucson, Arizona I have seen a road runner and I have seen cacti. I also happen to drive a Hyundai Tucson and I like hot sauce. Writing a comment for this particular post was going to be easy. Or so I thought.

Notice I wrote Tuscan and not Tucson.

Notice also that little button right next to the Reply button, the one that says Edit.

I didn’t notice it yesterday.

I realized my mistake and tried to correct it with another comment.

I spelled it wrong, AGAIN!  And I still haven’t noticed the Edit button.

I should have let it go the first time. Most people would have understood what I meant, but I couldn’t. It was out there and I had to rectify the situation.

I gave it another try.

You will notice that I have acknowledge my mistake. This is important when you have dug yourself in so deep there is no chance at recovery.

You can almost hear me throw my arms up in defeat as I am writing my third and final comment to fix my original comment and the second comment that repeated the first mistake.

Notice the button with Flag on it. Someone should have flagged me and put me out of my misery.

Luckily Margaret is a very gracious blog host and tried her best to calm my growing anxiety over my un take backable comment (because I swear those Edit buttons were not there yesterday).

Margaret uses Disqus so when she responds, in her post, to my fucked up comments, she also sends the response in an email to me.

Notice she addresses me as redheadranting. Margaret knows my real name. I didn’t notice the way she addressed me.

I replied, privately, to Margaret.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize that when I replied in the email that it would get posted to the original thread for all to see.

Margaret knows me, she knows that if she continues to respond to me in emails the correspondence will go on all day long and into next week. She is a bright woman who knows when to say no more.

Thankfully she didn’t respond again.

And that, my friends and fellow bloggers, is how not to leave a comment.

Do you know what this means?

No, it does not mean I get to go to fancy dinners with important people from Port Charles, or even NY for that matter.

It means I get shwag from Port Charles.

Woohoo.

It also means I have to watch TV during the day, for research, you know.

Even better, I get super secret plot details in advance, and I get to share them with you.

I’ve been watching GH since high school. My best friend and I would get home from school and catch the last half hour of the show, usually eating brownie batter and Munchos.  (Munchos, the best named munchie food ever. No one knows what they are but the name screams stoner fuel.)

Back to General Hospital. Right now, MomCentral.com is having a sweepstakes for General Hospital fans. You can enter here. One lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive a trip to Los Angeles to visit the set of General Hospital and have a walk-on role. The sweepstakes is open until February 28th. Again, you can sign up here.

I’m still not a mommy blogger but who could pass up General Hospital and free shwag? Not me.

Legal stuff:

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for ABC Daytime and will receive a tote bag or other General Hospital branded items to facilitate my review.

I’m doing an unscientific study here today.

If you would be so kind to leave me:

Age

Marital Status

Number of Children

URL of your blog or website

I’ll start.

44

Divorced (2)

2 kids Boy(17), Girl (7)

http://www.redheadranting.com/