happy Bloomsday blogaversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the start of this blog, aptly enough on Bloomsday.

It changed my life.

I haven't written everyday.

But the blog provided a blank slate upon which to scribble.

And that got me to limber up any writing muscles I thought I might possess.

Thanks for stopping by.

Onward and upward and sideways and beyond.

happy blogaversary, selfie

Ten years ago, I started The Laughorist, appropriately enough on Bloomsday. I've kept at it. Not every day. I'm glad I did.

Thanks for reading my words.

I invite you to browse backwards into the archives, strolling through the streets of my imagination and the precincts of my world.

Call me Boulevardier.

beauteous Bloomsday blogaversary

Me started this blather storm of laden words in 2006 on Bloomsday, so carry on, keep calm or be qualmed, knickers in pocket, knickknack paddywhack, give the dog a bone.

what is a blog?

Blog. What is a blog? Yes, it is a blend of the words web and log. For a coined term of relatively youthful status, it seems venerable, as if it has been around more than its dozen-plus years.

People blog, but who admits to keeping a journal? Or a diary? As for the word's sound, its onomatopoeia, it sounds so blah. Ergo, blahgging is what I do on an off day.

Web, with its notion of weaving, reminding me of one of the world's best book titles, Caught in the Web of Words, a biography of the Oxford English Dictionary and its makers. Interwoven connections, in digital thoughts as well as the surprise of you who came here, now reading this or hearing it, if you use such software.

Log, with its notion of solidity, woodenness; the concept of a ship's log book; logs because, we are told, wooden floats measured the ship's speed. Log: grounded, rooted in the earth. Fecund and possibly crawling with worms or moss or overshadowed by saplings, metaphorical and otherwise.

So, to blend these disparate visions (and not end up too cross-eyed or star-crossed):

Words and images and musings wandering or dancing or strolling along the spidered reality of incarnate bits and bytes, testing the pliancy or durability of imagination; both partitioning and elongating threads of meaning or nonsense; registered and recorded and cast into a faux eternity made up of seemingly infinite particles of ephemera, yearning for venerable SEO ranking, for immediate, pop-up Googled status: the canonization of the quotidian.

Blog, blogged, blogging. To blog. Cf. loc. cit. Ibid. Op. cit. Ad infinitum. Into aeternitas.

Age quod agis.

why

why is Blogger doing this annoying thing whereby I hit "return" and it does a return but the cursor lags behind and does not show up where you would expect it to show up after hitting (pressing, tapping, punching) "return"?

why?

can anyone tell me?

pace

I'm on pace for 365 posts in 2010.

Not likely, given my track, or traction, record.

Anyway, who's counting?

Blogger is. As a favor to me.

best of the beast

By the count of Blogger.com, this is post number 666 on this blog, The Laughorist.

To some, the number 666 signifies the apocalyptic Beast, a designation of evil.

But here it's a "beast" of another kind; here it's more like the slang term meaning "one who excels or dominates," in a positive sense. As in, "She's a beast at cross-country." Or, referring to San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum: "Dude, he's a beast."

So, I hereby declare myself a beast of blogging.

Words.

They're something.

Or nothing.

Or some thing.

Or no thing.

(Disclaimer: Since my inaugural post on Bloomsday 2006, I've actually written and published more than 666 blog posts, but decorum and job-related issues and rare prudence have dictated that I delete some postulated posts every now and then. Eh?)

Blizzard

Look out for a blizzard of blogging.

It's been almost a week.

Post time (all manics, all aboard!)!

Comma-ical Populism

Yesterday, The Laughorist blog had more than 200 hits, and I can't tell you why. Not exactly.

From what I can gather by my stats counter (provided, thank you, by statcounter.com), most people stopped by for a brief flirtatious visit (most visitors staying fewer than 5 seconds; is that an eon in cyberworld?), and most either coming in to browse over palaver I posted on the serial comma or so-called obitchuaries; that and a few other bits here and there.

I'm flummoxed.

And bowled over.

People apparently came from -- as a sampling: Wisconsin, New Mexico, the United Kingdom (quite a few; thank ye), Sweden, Pennsylvania, Syracuse and Rochester, New York; Connecticut, Kentucky, Oregon, Florida, Wshington, Kansas, Ohio, Ontario, South Africa, Norway, Iowa, Indiana, Texas, Egypt, California, Mexico, Maine, Australia, Ireland, Arizona.

And Elsewhere, initial cap E.

Thankee.

333

This is my 333rd post, a trinitarian's trifecta to the third power.

Is a cumulative 333 a total opposite, an antidote, to the beastly 666?

The blogosphere abounds with more consistent bloggers, and those that are funnier, deeper, less ephemeral, more political, more literary, more philosophical, more authentic, more sincere, and more consequential, by far. Many upon many.

But not many upon many who solipsistically touch and gallop and swerve and swagger through such a thicket of topics, eh?

Labels Majora and Labels Minora

In looking over Blogger.com's options to "customize" my blog, I noticed an option labeled, Labels.

Presto! I clicked a few times and soon surveyed one of the longest lists in Christendom (second only to the list of remembered resentments of a particular ethnic group [hint: my wife's, whose ancestral lands we visited without resentments before or after last October], or possibly second only to the list of things to sort and dispose of at home and office).

Sheesh! Talk about a laundry list! Or talk about airing your laundry in public!!

Or exclaim about about excessive exclamation points!!

I dare say my list redefines the word eclectic.

Or obsessive. Or some other word.