Update: What's My Other Blog Doing On The Front Page?

With all my whining, begging and sly attempts to bribe people to give this blog fuel on fuelmyblog , suddenly my other blog , which I haven't even posted on since Thanksgiving, has suddenly catapulted to the number two spot in the Books/Writers section on the fuelmyblog homepage. Sometimes I wonder if this whole thing isn't rigged.

The reading public will be happy to know that my review of "Schulz and Peanuts" by David Michaelis will be coming soon on that blog.



I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
Charles M. Schulz

I Have A Confession To Make

Yes, It's true. I have been fueling my own blog. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, as tough I am doing something vaguely unethical or likely to give me hairy palms. But for the past two days I have given each of my blogs one "fuel" each day.

All these blogging websites - TechnoWhizBang, MyBloggingBuddies, ZigZag, WonderWidgets, BloggingFrenzy - there are just too many of them and I can't keep up with them all. But I am determined to make it onto the homepage of fuelmyblog just once before I run out of things to write about - and some have said that I am already running a bit thin on good ideas.

Fortunately the "snuff" feature doesn't seem to be used very much. How horrible to have your blog "snuffed" by some heartless Tony Soprano wannabe. Fuel, though, is hard to come by. Fuel is a scarce commodity. Fuelmyblog is a Darwinian struggle to gather the most fuel in whatever category you signed your blog up for. Those that are fueled the most gain a fleeting moment of fame on the felmyblog homepage, there to bask in a heavenly shower of readers, and of course, more fuel.

By the way, do you see that kind of orange thing over there on the sidebar with all the little teeny tiny pictures on it? The one that says "My Blogroll" and "Click below to . . . fuelmyblog? Go ahead and click it once, you know you want to.

Editors Note:

I just spent the last 20 minutes fueling every blog of every person on my growing friends list. What a suck up. Maybe I should click the little "Report Abuse" button on myself.

The 2007 ROTUS Blog Awards

Because anybody can give an award. - and it works!

Recently my other blog (see the last post) was given a couple of blogging awards and, after a bit of investigation, I discovered that anybody with an internet connection can, and some do, give out an award to any blog or website that he, she, it or they want. Now, you might think that this makes these awards worth about as much as a square of tissue paper, but wait!

I put the code, to show the little graphic of my awards on my blog and, lo and behold, I started seeing traffic on Statcounter that was coming from the websites that had given me the awards and those people seemed to stay around for a minute or five. They were actual readers!

This is kind of like Amway, but you don’t have to try to recruit your family and friends to sell soap for you. In order for an award to work it has to meet the following criteria.

The blogs or websites receiving the award must actually be good.
They also have to believe in the magic just a little bit and put the award code up someplace on their sites.

The blog giving the award must be, at least, not horrible.
It also must post links to the award winners.

There must be several winners at the same time.

What happens then is that people looking at the award winning sites, see the award, click on it out of curiosity, and then click on, after they have seen the other awards, and look at the other award winners. Hopefully some of them will find something that moves them and will become regular readers.

Assuming that this blog is not horrible and without further ado:

The 2007 ROTUS Blog Awards

To Daddy Papersurfer For promoting merriment and creating a blog using a Mac in Great Britain.: A Strong Cup of Coffee.

To Windows to Russia For opening a window into the heart of Moscow: A Giant Bear Hug.

To My Art Becomes Yours for being artistic and wearing a beret in France: The Beautiful Blogger Award.

And finally, to ROTUS for actions above and beyond the call of good taste: A Dead Horse (so it can be mercilessly beaten.)

Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs

I started this blog, just a couple of days ago with a complaint about the absurdity of promoting one's own blog by madly "networking" with other bloggers, clicking on their profiles in social networking websites, marking them as "my friends" and sometimes actually reading their blogs. The fact is, though, that I have found some very interesting blogs to read by doing this. I'd like to share a few of them with you. Maybe getting a link on my ultra popular blog will give these folks a little boost. ;o)

Here's one: Jon Swift
Jon has a little suggestion for all Americans for tomorrows holiday. "Let's celebrate Thankstaking."

And another: Windows to Russia!
Kyle Keaton is an American living in Moscow. He has a lot to say about his new home and takes great pictures.

And then there is Doodlage: Trashcan Art Salvage in which doodling of all kinds is celebrated.

Finally, a bit of blogging humor: Blaugh , blogging's answer to Dilbert.

Thank you for your time, I hope you hit your back button and returned to this page many times in between reading these other blogs. Gotta get the numbers up, you know. Well, I have a hundred or so profiles to click on before I can sleep and five reviews to write, so that my blog will stay on the front page. Blogging is such a relaxing hobby.

Happy Thankstaking, everyone.

Blogging: One Big Happy Incestuous Family

I'm kind of new to the blogging phenomenon and maybe I'm entirely wrong, but here are me observations so far. First you start writing a blog and it's sort of for your own private use. You don't care whether anybody reads the thing. In fact it might be kind of embarrassing. Then you get a few hits on your blog and someone makes a nice comment about your writing and you start to think, "Gee, this is kind of fun."

Soon you learn about blog directories and social networking sites. Now your into it. These sites are places where you set up an account, make friends with other bloggers and beg them to read your blog. And to get those clicks you have to work those sites. Soon you are spending hours every day reading those websites, clickin on other bloggers profiles and sites and trying to drive readers to your own. Here's the problem: The people who are reading your blog, or at least clicking on it, are doing so because they want you to read, or click on, their blog. And to get those clicks you have to work those sites. Soon you are spending hours every day reading those websites, clicking on other bloggers profiles and sites and trying to drive readers to your own. Have you found readers, people who are interested in what you have to say?

The next thing that happens is that you find out through these social networking sites that you can make money from your blog. There are people out there that will pay you for clicks from your blog on ads that they place there. "Make $hundreds of thousands$ a year from your blog! Be a professional full time blogger! Make money at home! Blogging For Dollars, oy vay.

I found a site that had a counter that showed individual reader clicking on and the city - and country- that they were coming form. There was a new reader about every four seconds. That site had CONTENT! The quality of content that a blog needs to garner that kind of attention is astounding. Well, I'd like to think that this blog will have that kind of quality, pfffffffffft!

Me, I'm blogging for dollars.