Adieu, For Now

Yes, I'm cutting off the blog. On my first year anniversary.

It's not so much that I'm tired of blogging, nor is it that my numbers have dropped (although to be honest it did play a part). Nor is it running out of topics (you do enough reading anywhere, you can continue running into topics to talk about).

More to the point: I feel I have some other things I need to do more important than blogging. One of these things includes organizing some things, which have sort of fallen behind for the past couple of years (beyond the time of this blog). And I don't have any other time I can take.

As it is, It's a good time to rethink the blog thing. After all, in the past year I've learned a few things:

• One easy way to get people to read you is to piss on a sacred cow of theirs .
• You can also play to various choirs, giving them what they want to hear.
• Probably the best way to blog is to pick a topic and work your way through it.

As it happened, I did things mightily slap-dash. I'd hit up a topic for maybe four or five blogging posts, then jump off onto something wildly disconnected. One month's blogging (November 2005, to pick a month) hit upon the following topics:

• How long it was since I last went to Chicago
• The differences between men and women, and how odd they actually are (two posts, separated)
• Words of gloom and doom about intercity transit, and a comparison between toy depictions of busses and how they were viewed by the public
• A jab at a conservative think tank for forgetting their champion (Shrub Jr) was disliked for reasons of actual competence
• Whether the Republicans (more to the point: The Corporatista overlords) WANTED Roe v Wade overturned
• What I disliked about Wal-Mart
• Why doesn't Pat Robertson ask for Healing, instead of his constant litany for the damnation of what he hates
• The seeming return of Anti-Semitism to the airwaves, with thoughts on whether the Xian right wanted Isreal established so Christ could return and they could watch the world fall apart for their entertainment
• Bemoaning America's joyous underfunding of mass transit, and how we suffer when we need it
• Two postings related to college football, one referring to the past, the other to then current outcomes
• Trying to explain (to myself, mainly) why Prayer In School was so important to Fundamentalist Christians
• Why women who seduced teenaged boys were usually treated differently than men who seduced teenaged girls (usually in favor of the women seducers)
• Three postings stating the problem of Metra Electric service, positing a solution of mine, and listing the problems with such an answer
• Ripping into 60 Minutes for a badly biased, badly done report on why "Plan B" isn't yet legal
• A final posting in the month, stating why I consider myself a Democrat
  

In other words, a wildly varied set of postings, nothing uniting the whole. A few tendencies (and a definite leftward tilt) but a definite scattershot. Other months include postings on soda pop, home schooling (not all negative), intellectual property (usually wrapped up with music issues), Madalyn Murray O'Hair, my Toe, The Super Bowl (five postings!), book reviews on occasion, and New Orleans; among other things.

When I restart this blog (IF i restart this blog, lest we forget -- I plan on returning, but plans can change) I will do things a bit different. While trying to keep (make?) things eclectic, I might plan on setting up a topic for each month. That way, I have a focus that will keep me from scattershotting around. And the changes will allow me to change when things start getting boring (or at least institute enough change).

Anyway...adieu for now. Maybe we'll meet again.