About Blogging

I'm feeling very chatty suddenly.

I've been meaning to say this for months now, but everytime I launch the "Create new post" window I always seem to forget.

It's about blogs, Kuching-ite blogs in particular. I started blogging nearly two years ago. Back then, not too many people have heard about blogging, especially here in Kuching. Over the last year, I suddenly noticed this explosion of blogs coming from all over the Internet, all by people here in Kuching.

This is great. Awesome even. That's the beauty of blog hopping, you get to "meet" new people without getting out of your room. And so many new Kuching bloggers. Sometimes nowadays, I'd be driving around or doing something in town when I would notice other people in cars or buses or just walking around on the street or queing up to buy movie ticks at Star Cineplex and I wonder,"Hmm, I wonder if he/she has a blog?"

And not to mention blogs by other people from countries all over the world. I find the most interesting are the ones from countries that aren't usually very well known, like say, Faroe Islands or Estonia or Burundi or El Salvador or Bhutan etc.

Just now, I went looking around for blogs from Brazil. Didn't find anything yet.

Anyway, while niche blogs are always interesting, I find the most interesting ones are the ones that most pundits would consider mundane, i.e the personal blogs. They're interesting because these blogs are about the blogger him/herself and about their daily life. It's an eye opener to read about daily life in another country.

It's cool to see that we can be so different and yet be so similar at the same time.

Anyway, day to day stuff is sometimes easier to read than the news. Which is usually bad.

Oh yes, there's another virtue of blogging. It teaches people how to disagree. From blogging, you will eventually see that just because something is different doesn't mean it has to be "wrong".

I can say that before I started this blogging business, that is usually the case. I like something or have an opinion on something. Someone else doesn't like that something or has a different opinion. At the time, it was simple. I don't agree. They're wrong.

These days, I'd like to think that I'm more open about such things. I might not agree. It's not necessarily wrong. Just different. It's fine. I might counter with an opinion or two myself to explain my position, but these days I can do that without feeling much malice.

There are many blogs on my blog roll and more in the bookmarks in my PCs at home and at work. Obviously, many times, I don't agree with some of the posts in these blogs. Imagine how exhausting it would get if I were to rebutt everything I don't agree with? I admit, when I first started, I actually took the trouble to leave comments and write posts expressing my contrary opinion. Not that it's a bad thing to do so, but sometimes I admit I didn't have much tact when doing so.

Yes, I can be severely opinionated sometimes. It's a flaw.

These days to me, some things are worth debating about but it seems that most things can be left as they are, different as they may be. The difference doesn't have to mean much.

All this I got from blogs. So go ahead and blog away, gentle reader. There are many fruits to reap from blogging and reading blogs.

Then there is that thing where I notice some bloggers are beginning to make it appear that blogging is now a competitive event. How blogs are supposed to have some "standard" or formula or a well defined niche before it can be consider a "proper" blog. Even worse is when I read that some people insist that the only real "blogs" are those news and politics pundit ones and all the rest are written by trendwhores.

That's codswallop. Poppycock (which apparently is a brand of a popcorn-like product as I just recently found out).

See, this kind of elitism is exactly the thing that will ruin blogging for everyone.

My opinion? Blogging and blogs are whatever the blogger wants them to be. A photo album. A diary. A personal soapbox. A fansite. A place to put up links to whatever. All of the above. None of the above. And so on and so forth.

It doesn't have to be about traffic or fame or following guidelines and formats. It can be anything. In my humble opinion , that's the beauty of blogs. That diversity of function and purpose is what makes it so great.

Of course, there are "rules". Like the blogger must be accountable for what he/she writes. It's no good to write something and deny it later if they get called out because of it, for example. But this is common sense, not hard and fast "rules".

The point? Just because someone's blog is reasonably "successful" (and what constitutes a "successful" blog is yet another one of those things that can be argued about until the cows come home) doesn't give them the right to impose a certain "standard" and proclaim that other bloggers are doing it "wrong"

I've actually read some blogs that make claims like that. That may be their opinion, but in my opinion, that kind of opinion is flawed and kind of bigoted. That kind of elitism doesn't do anyone any favours. It pisses everyone else off and it makes the elitist party look like a prat.

And that is the end of that. Blogging is a beautiful thing and as usual, I encourage everyone to at least try it once. It's great, yo.

In other news, I was looking through my hit counter and as usual, keywords are the best thing about hit counters.

Let's see what on this week's charts.

As usual SDHider is still a hot search. Lots of people out there are having trouble playing Need for Speed Most Wanted I see. The link to download that is in my archives somewhere. Or they could try looking on Torrentspy. You're welcome.

Another usual one is Need for Speed related stuff like cracks and torrent files. That's easy people, go to Torrentspy. They have lots of stuff. Better hurry up before they close shop. I hear they have a lawsuit on their hands now.

There a search for Mimy Indra. I'd give you her email address, but then I'd have to go into hiding when she finds out and hires assasins to take me out.

Someone was looking for references to the mechanics of gatling guns. A very good search since gatling weapons are awesome.

One more keyword that's quite common over the last week is "uphamol". Hmm.

At least there's no "girls on ladders" this time.

Have a nice weekend.