Blogging

Sorry, every time I read this the junior high school kid in me comes out and I just have to giggle.

I am an avid reader. I devour books, swallow them whole, ingest them as fast as I can. I love reading. I don’t have enough time to read the way I want to, but who does. I love writing and I pay attention to the style and manner of the authors I read be it blogging, newspaper or otherwise.

One thing that makes me crazy is the penchant that some people have for trying to construct their writing in the most complex manner they can produce. That is, they go searching for ways and means to make themselves sound like an incredibly intelligent academic.

Now I am happy to admit that I strive to be considered to be an excellent writer, someone who is an easy read and very insightful. I am not sure how often I hit the mark. I kind of figure that more often than not I miss it, but I make the effort because I enjoy it. And as I mentioned my ego wants to be stroked, but who doesn’t want to be stroked a little.

What makes me insane is reading the drek that is produced by people who haven’t got a good command of the language, but think that they can overcome that by using words that are not generally used in everyday communication.

This is a problem because it often obfuscates the point they were trying to make. Why confuse the reader. Secondly, I do believe that less is more. And yes I know that I could be more concise, paragraphs could be tighter etc. But I am aware of this so I do try and work on it.

If only some of these pseudo-academics would get a clue and understand that they are making life more difficult.

The other place that I always find problems is on business websites. The marketing people are so afraid of management that they create these convoluted mission statements and website crud when there is no need to do so.

If you sell widgets than just say so, you don’t need 800 words to try and creatively describe what you are doing. Don’t make the reader struggle to understand your product/service, just present in a simple, yet eloquent form and you’ll see good things happen.

Sometimes I wonder just how boring my thoughts must be to other people. That of course sounds like a plea for validation. “Please Jack, keep writing, don’t leave us, blah, blah, blah.” And I suppose to a certain extent it is. I really like knowing that people are reading what I write.

But, the reality is that if I didn’t really enjoy blogging it would be left behind, just one more hobby that couldn’t keep my eye. Now that sounds bad, makes me sound like I can’t focus. And that is not true. There are times that I can be easily distracted, but I have tremendous focus. Sometimes the level of concentration I can bring is a problem because I end up working on whatever the project is without any sense of the time.

When I was single it was not a big deal, but as the big family man it does cause issues. Which brings up the next point. Am I deaf or just good at ignoring people. Ask me again, I can’t hear you. Yes, I can ignore you all day long. I can look right through you as if you didn’t exist. It can be a good tool, but a real problem.

As I step into my chauvinist shoes let me say that if you really want to piss off your lady friend all you need to do is intentionally ignore her. Under the best of circumstances women get irritated with men for not listening and focusing on what they say. Do it intentionally and you can really get things going. Of course if you work it properly you get to makeup and that has it’s own benefits, even if she is from Monkeytown.

What is nice about blogging is that you can develop a community. You can find people with common interests and share your experiences. We are communal creatures and need that kind of familiarity. Which brings up hugging. I am big on hugging and if I may brag, I give an excellent hug. It is an advantage of being built like a teddy bear.

My Torah observant friends and I have gone around the bush and back again about this in relation to being Shomer Ngiya. Moderation is the key. You can still be snius and get a hug. A good hug makes life better. Maybe I’ll make that my next post.

Do you ever engage in blogging to avoid work? Do you find yourself racking your brain or scouring the web for that one perfect topic to blog about? Do you find yourself cursing outloud because you discoved that the topic you wish to discuss has already been covered by 6,354 other bloggers, and at least six of them did a better job than you.

If you answered yes to these questions you are clearly engaged in blogavoidance, also known as suffering from blogavoiditis. There is no cure, no hope and like this post, no point.

But I do have an answer for you. For little to no money down I will serve as a guest blogger for you. I will write a piece that you can place on your little slab of the net. I do not promise or guarantee that it will be educational, informational, witty or interesting, just that you will receive it.

Remember that all donations go to rebuilding Jack’s Shack and are not tax deductible. They will make you feel, just what it is that you will feel I cannot say. It could be a thigh or it could be a wing. You might even feel swindled, foolish and or silly.

If nothing else you can rest assured that I am not going to use the money on anyone but myself. I am my own favorite charity. So go ahead and consider how you can make Jack have a better day. I’ll be thinking of you. 😀

It is only a short time prior to the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It is a time of reflection and struggle for me. Not that this should surprise any of the 7 regular readers here as I tend to repeat myself.

One of the things that many people do is engage in contacting friends and family to ask them to forgive them if they have done anything to insult them. I find that this is hard for me on a number of levels. Let’s begin with the blogging community first.

I don’t fault other bloggers for posting an apology to a large group of people. Religion is a personal thing. But I also find that the blogging is too impersonal for me. For someone like myself to do that is really hard. I simply find apologizing difficult and do not want to offer it without some kind of personal touch. I figure if I am going to do it, I might as well try and give it my best shot.

Not to mention that the people who really know me and receive these apologies also know that this is not something that I do well or often and in theory should appreciate it more. Yes, that is right, if I am going to do it I want people to appreciate the effort.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not like doing it and it is very hard for me.

To me the biggest question of the day is one that can only be answered by individuals. And that is, did you try and be a better person, did you work hard to improve yourself and did you take the time to sit in the silence and look inside.

If you can say yes to these questions you can also make your own judgement and determine whether you feel comfortable with your actions. Tonight I will spend quiet time in the late evening and I will think about the entire year and try and consider what I did and where life is taking me.

I enjoy this kind of quiet reflection and find it to be very relaxing. And then tomorrow I will wake up and try to ignore the sweet aromas wafting through my neighborhood and focus on what it is I want to accomplish. And as I daven in shul I will pull my tallis over my head and create my own “cone of silence” so that even though I am part of the community I can focus that much more closely.

I wish everyone a very easy fast and am looking forward to a very exciting new year. G’mar Tov.

“The CBS mess variously known as “Forgerygate” or “Rathergate” is by any other name a seminal moment in the blogosphere that holds promise not only for revolutionizing journalism, but also perhaps for problem-solving on a global scale.

And why not?

Still in relative infancy, the blogosphere – that new galaxy within the journalism universe wherein citizen journalists known as bloggers (short for keepers of Web logs) chat among themselves through mutual links and commentary – has defined itself in large part as a vehicle for challenging the mainstream media (MSM).

Bloggers love fact-checking television and newspaper reporters and commentators, for instance, and have proved themselves both energetic and competent on both fronts.”

The full story can be found through the link above. Obviously. I am blogging, which makes me a blogger, but that does not mean that I am a credible blogger. And the point of this is that I think that what we do here in cyberspace is important, but it also offers a few problems.



The primary issue is that there are still many people who believe that if it is in print, it must be true or close to it. Now you can call me a snob for saying it, but I really believe that large numbers of the public just accept whatever you feed them regardless of the medium.



So while I will keep reading many different blogs, there are relatively few that make me think that they have inside information and or a keen enough grasp of the situation to make me view them as a trusted resource.