How To Blog

Or more importantly, how I blog, and how bloody inefficient it is and how you're all going to post fascinating links or comments that will me help to do a better job (aren't I a selfish bastard).

1. Get a newsreader, hook RSS feeds to said newsreader. If you don't know what those are, go away and come back when you do. I used to use bloglines, but found it utterly frustrating, so I switched to Google Reader, which is only slightly less frustrating. The great thing is it's part of the Google family of products, like Blogger and Gmail. The bad thing is it's as responsive as an aircraft carrier during a hurricane.
Go to #2.

2. Come back next day, start reading. I think I subscribe to an overwhelming number of sites and even some automated searches (200+ - some for work, some for play). Anything that looks interesting dump to a new tab (in Firefox, not that crappy IE stuff). As you can guess the number of tabs can become fairly large (I think I have 18 open right now).
Go to #3.

3. Finish feed list, start reading the tabs. Now the fantastic thing about tabs is that when you open a link in a new tab, it just sits there, quietly waiting for you to go about your business until called to attention, EXCEPT for video clips on places like YouTube, because they insist on starting without even asking (bloody rude if you ask me). Now I have the Stop Autoplay extension for stopping embedded clips but it doesn't work on YouTube and GoogleVideo. Does anyone have a suggestion? Having to flip to the newly opened tab only to hit pause so that four videos don't start playing at the same time is a nuisance (although maybe that is a new artform, blended video for the schizophrenic?).
Go to #4.

4. Decide if links is:
relevant, interesting, entertaining, or novel.
Look at video clip:
is it by someone you know
is it
funny, thought provoking, artistic, or in a rarely used game engine. is it in HL2 (one of my favs).
Go to #5
If someone has already written about it on machinifeed or mprem, skip it.
If it is somewhat interesting, keep for an info barf (link list) post.

If it is:
yet another Halo series, less than 30 seconds long, has a title with all CAPS or all lowercase or has too much punctuation or any color mentioned, don't even start the video.
Go to #5 (twice).

5. Go outside and play. For several hours. Come back when tired and thirsty.
Either go to #6 or have a beer.

6. Go through the links again and get rid of 90% of them. Go through the remainder and get rid of the last 90%. Stare in awe at how many are left. Curse the internet and all of the words that are there.
Go to #7.

7. You now have two options, do something about the link/tab(s), or ignore them in the hopes that they will quietly go away and that you can forget about them. To help in this regards, repeat #5. Hope for a power surge while you're out.

8. Sigh. Grab a coffee. Start writing. Listen to the Overcast. Finish writing and save draft post. Congratulate yourself on a job almost well done.
Go to step #5.

9. Come back, open draft post. Blanch in fear at the atrocious grammar and spelling that your elementary school teacher warned would haunt you for the rest of your life. Curse her name. Get another coffee.
Go to #10.

10. Go to work.
Go to #11.

11. Come home from work. Read post again. Stare at the wall with a blank look on your face while you try to decide why in the blood hell you actually wanted to write about said link. Decide it wasn't worth it and use copy all URLs extension to copy all tabbed URLs plus a title, paste the links into a gmail message to yourself. Delete the post. Ignore the growing list of self-to-self emails loaded with links crying for your attention and read the fascinating spam message from the Nigerian who seems to have lost a bit of money and would you mind helping him out for a bit.
Go to #12.

12. Play Desktop Tower Defense. Try to beat previous score. Curse as you realize that you screwed up your maze halfway through and will have to start all over.
Go to #13.

13. Watch a movie.
Go to #14.

14. Fall asleep halfway through movie. Realize Netflix's founders are all billionaires because of you.
Go to #15.

15. Wake up. Realize why you wanted to talk about said link. Realize that everything you wanted to say was in the original post, which you have now deleted. Make pot of coffee. Drink pot of coffee. Make another pot. Regurgitate said post from failing memory. Publish.
Go to #16.

16. Sit back and relax while the cash flows in.