Sometimes I sits and thinks . . .

     . . . sometimes I just sits. Here is a blogger, Pranabk in Pune, India, who has been plugging away at this for nearly four years. He is a reader as well.

     And for poetry there's Trinath .

Trolling blogs . . .

Six degrees of affinity  

     Just sitting here browsing blogs on Blogger . . . so I stop at a blog every once in a while and explore the author's list of followed blogs. I've randomly collected a list of over two hundred blogs I cannot possibly follow daily. Some I follow publicly; some not. Some blogs puzzle me in that they are quite good but have no public followers and few comments. I've not answered the question, "Why do you blog?" Is it some kind of head banging neurosis? Too much navel gazing. Waffling for the joy of waffling. I awoke this morning thinking of the memories that made me. learning stuff at school which becomes obsolete. Knowing all the little fishing ports around the coast of England and their specialty catches. the towns famous for a particular product: Witney blankets; Coventry gloves was it? Whitby jet; Northampton shoes; Peterborough bricks . . .

Browsing blogs. I started at World of Poot. This brought George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody to my mind.

Anna Lefler is a stand-up comedienne who lives in Santa Monica for whom life just keeps getting weirder.

I don't really like colourful blogs I thought this kind of shenanigans was frowned on soon after the hoi-poloi started playing with HTML [Doesn't seem so garish now 4 April '10]. And black as a background colour usually works well only with photographs  That blog no longer has a black background but the type is pale [Edit 4 April '10]

Then there are the very personal public blogs that are up for a while then stop at an interesting point and one wonders, "What is happening in that person's life now?"

And the very private blogs for a select group of invited guests . . . I started one of mine like that and then thought, "What the heck?"

The rules of this award-

This award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming. Well, I'm not sure about that; but charming enough to attract eight followers

These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. I'm tickled pink that others have troubled to comment (or cast a pebble into the puddle  . . . er . . . pond; lake; sea; ocean?)

They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. No, I'm too self absorbed in humble introspection . . .

Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.

Thank you, Lemon Verbena Lady; I can only reciprocate  . . . but that's already been done.

Please give more attention to these writers:

Dick Glasgow is a very busy and affable fellow and offers a warm welcome to County Antrim and plenty of links to traditional music happenings in his corner of the world.

 Personal poetic expression may be found here.

Duta alread has many acknowledgments of the quality of her contribution to the blogos-sphere.

Because 60 is divisible by 2, 30, 3, 20, 4, 15, 5, 12, 6 and 10 . . . . keeps things neat.

Watch artwork grow at Christine Walker's blog.

And a slice of life called Please and Thank You

 

Web logs . . .

     There went another day (or three) reading other people's blogs.

     How do you browse blogs? Perhaps you're sensible and eschew reading others' blogs to concentrate on writing your own. Do you just keep clicking 'next blog' until you find one that is so intriguing you stay for more than five seconds? Or perhaps you use other strategies like following links from one blog to another or following links to followers profiles. Too much following? Do you dismiss a blog because there are no followers or the profile has had only a few views in a year or two. Perhaps someone's comment on a blog intrigues you enough to find out more about the poster. This sometimes leads to disappointment as they've only registered to publish a post; or perhaps they deleted their own blog long ago in favour of just reading and commenting on others' blogs; or perhaps they've kept their profile private; maybe even their blog too if they have one.

     In the little time I've been in blogland-ether-ather-osphere- ? what do you call it? I've noted some trends. Some bloggers collect, that is link to and follow blogs like their own exclusively. Very handy when looking for blogs expressing differing ideas about the same subject.

     Serendipity happened for me today linking through comments to others' blogs. One received a 'Blog of Note' citation last week and the other has just eleven public followers. I think they complement each other in that one is the expression of a magical, mysterious created world and the other, from what little I have read of it so far, is a thoughtful lamentation of the loss of magic, mystery, tradition and goodness of the world and our place in it and what writers and thinkers have to say about this loss.

     I hope I can stop reading others' blogs for a while so that I can catch some inspiration of my own. I am still imagining myself in the middle of a silent desert . . .