I don't blog to make friends or cause I really have something to say that the world must know or cause it's trendy and I'm ultra fashionable. I blog cause I want someone to hear me. I want to believe someone is listening to me. What I say or what anyone hears isn't all that important, just that the transaction is taking place.

I think this is something true for a lot of women. If men ever figured this out they would be dangerous. Luckily, very few of them actually listen to us enough to figure out how much we want them to listen to us.

I've joined yet another of those track your blog readers things, like MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog and Blog Woods. The new one is BumpZee. It's not that I want to build traffic, I'm not selling anything. I just want to see that real people have been here, different real people too not just the same few over and over again. Or myself. It's nice that blog counters can be set to ignore your own visits to your site. Though, in the early days I spent enough time hitting the refresh button just to turn over a few numbers.

I don't like to think I'm lonely. That's not the person I want to be. Yet I guess I am. Not totally cause I like being alone, not having to be pleasant and interesting on demand. It's nice having the place to yourself. Being able to do things you'd never want someone to catch you doing. But, I miss having someone to talk to about nothing. That's where the blog comes in. I type about nothing instead of talking. Maybe it saves air, do you breathe less if you talk less?

Anyway, I will keep blogging just to know I'm being heard. I will keep adding reader tracker junk and checking my blog counters. Cause that's what keeps me coming back to type some more.

I think someone is going to come up with a scheme to bring blogs to email inboxes soon. It seems to be the next evolution in spamming to me. The content management side can’t be beat. But, it is still static. People have to come to you in order to be spammed. How disappointing. Of course they have come up with all sorts of sneaky ways to mislead people into coming for a look. But, once readers realize they’re being splogged they leave and don’t come back. So, emailing it to them is the next step. After all, how many times a day do most people check their email? More than a few for most.

You will get a bloated email full of spammy goodness but that won’t be a problem since mostly everyone has gone out for HTML email. Only a few have kept it to text only. (Mainly because I am still opposed to bloated HTML emails that make me sit and wait for them to spam me). I think some of the blogs coming to your email will have scripts to make them scroll once they are opened. That way they have more chance of snagging your attention before you delete them. Surely they can sell you on something before you hit delete.

I’m writing this cause I would love to see the spammers find some other tool and leave blogs alone. Email spam used to be the biggest problem (and maybe still is for some people) I find splogs to be the worst thing online. They steal content, pollute the blogosphere and they are leaking into what would otherwise be personal blogs worth reading. Get paid to post sites are popping up all over and they are getting clever about their scams too. One offers to pay $20 and up for you to review a commercial website in your blog. Very clever that one. But, do you see that money? Does it just roll right in? I doubt it. All it really does is lose your reader’s attention and bring your blog down to their level of splogginess. Think before you pollute.

PS- I think of any blog with more focus and space given to selling something than original written, drawn or otherwise creative content as spamming. If I didn’t come to your blog to be sold condoms, pills, software, etc then I don’t want to have them stuck in front of my face. If I want ads I can turn on the TV or pick up a magazine. Blogs need a shot of zine spirit when they really were free press and indie publishing. I resent a commercially focused blogger who tries to sneak and trick their way into the free spirited writing atmosphere which blogs used to be.

Thank you Leigh for the Thinking Blogger Award. She even likes my doofus drawings. :)

There are a few rules for those who win and pass along the Thinking Blogger Award.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs which make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award.

Blogs that make me think (not specifying what they make me think about):

Happy and Blue2: Though he stopped publishing his blog (yet again) so I am linking to the Useless Men where his remains linger. Or where he can still be found, pick one. I miss his blog, his little animal stories and especially those family Christmas and renovations posts. He always made me think there was hope, that a real woman really could find a real man and not need to hide the body later.

Rainy Pete: What do you expect from a strange man wearing a red clown nose? His photos will make you laugh in spite of yourself or wish you could have been there to see the scene as he must have seen it. He's a guy who makes being a husband and Father and living in Hamilton look good. No small task, especially in the case of Steel Town.

Death By Children: I'm new to reading Christopher's blog. Another Dad, is that some kind of coincedence? He writes long posts with a lot of thought about the everyday things in life. There is humour but often some really interesting bit of truth and male insight.

Jann Arden: Yes, that Jann Arden. She's a Canadian songwriter, a sometimes fat grrl too and I like to play her CDs cause not many songs can really make me cry and then laugh in a really evil, wicked way. Her journal is really open and I bet she thinks she says too much too easily, cause I think the same about what I write.

Dave MacIntyre: Sometimes I skim, cause I am out of patience for poetry. But, even reading between the lines you catch something of the spirit here with the photos and the poetry. A lot of time and thought has gone into this blog.

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech.

Do you follow me? Are you following through? Do you wonder what I'm writing about? Me too. Leigh over at ThoughtPrints knows. From what I understand, some blogware does not allow comments to be found by the search engine spiders. Blogger is one which lets comments be found/ followed. WP has a plugin available. So, this list is for blogs which allow comments to be found and followed. Who do you love to read and comment upon?
_{copy below to your own blog}

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn't a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.

2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.

3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the "Originals" list.

4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW is using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the "My Adds" section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you've added know, so that they can keep the list going!

My Adds:
**Useless Advice from Useless Men
Henry the Adequate
Rainy Pete
Mrs Lifecruiser
**The Originals:

That Grrl
Inner Dialogues
www.tammiebeagle.com\ The Passionate Ailurophile
Thoughtprints
Just Julie
My thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings
Midlife Musings
Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad
My Single Mom Life
The Photo Pumpkin
Funny Stuff