Saturday, February 26, 2005

What can you say about an ostensibly close to you person who tells you the following on the phone?

You are home on a Saturday evening?
Yes, I have some writing to do. You know, work stuff.

You work at home??
Yes, I very often work at home.

Really? Like what kind of work?
[I pause and cosider the very real possibility that this person doesn't actually know what my job is.] Work work.

I’m surprised. Anyway, I just talked to [a young person, known to the two of us; in fact, a relative].
And?

I enjoyed it. Unlike [a not too oblique reference to two grown women residing an ocean apart], he actually listens to me, is interested in what I have to say.

I mean, it’s a conversation stopper, isn’t it? Not to mention that I distinctly remember having like a ten hour spell of listening just a few days back.

More on tracking the size of an audience

Just remember, when they say tomorrow that more than a billion are watching the Oscars, it's not really true.

A post where Ocean takes on both the mysteries of the universe and jokes about garlic breath

As the health of the Pope makes headlines on an almost daily basis, stories about religion and Catholicism are trickling into blogs and bookstore lines.

For example, this Thursday I was standing in line at the University Bookstore downtown and a man was telling a quite funny joke about a Pope who needed a heart transplant (it’s about feathers and unwilling donors and garlic breath in Italy; really a nice little chuckle). A small group gathered and we had ourselves an impromptu discussion as to how Pontiffs get elected. I’d forgotten how long it’s been since there has been a change in the Vatican. Most students weren’t even born at the time of the last Papal inauguration (1978).

In the meantime, matchingtracksuits is posting about how difficult it is to admit to atheism in Poland (citing my comment on that blog about there being no reward for keeping an open mind to possibility of an absence of a God). I’d always felt that a lack of tolerance toward atheism should be especially pronounced in deeply Catholic countries. But is that really true? It is an accepted truth that an atheist would have no chance at political success in the States. The same cannot be said for Poland. Moreover, as matchingtracksuits points out, a Pole’s response to atheism is typically one of pity (“I cannot imagine living without God”). In the States, I think it breeds distrust (“So what else don’t you believe in? Democracy? Freedom? The American Way?”).

On the other hand, no one standing in a line in Poland would have thought the joke about a Pope’s heart transplant was funny. Rather than lingering, I would have looked for the nearest exit. It’s not safe to be in the midst of an angry mob.

Rolling around the blog, linking games and traffic updates

At the Wednesday blogger dinner, Bozzo and Oscar* cooked up a linking game, whereby they increase the number of links to each other, so that their blogs reach an elevated status in the ecosystem rankings, where such things count.

But count for what? If you reach a higher level for a day, for a week, forever, as a result of machinations and manipulations, what have you actually demonstrated except that your game was a success (which we already know will be the case)?

Again, the question has been raised as to why numbers – of links and readers – do not fascinate me as much. And it really is quite simple. Once I knew I had readers (and I do know, from emails that people write, which I absolutely treasure) I felt that I have an obligation to write for them, these real people who are already connected to me. Who cares if there are 100 or 500? What possible difference does it make?

Much as I like fashioning my own rules and sticking to my own way of doing things on Ocean, I will, however, give in to one recurring request: that I list the blogs I read on a regular basis. That will be my project for this week-end. And I want it to be an inclusive list, so if you have included Ocean on your blogroll and want to be mentioned here, please send me an email. Since I am not a checker, chances are I do not know about Ocean’s appearance elsewhere, if indeed it does appear elsewhere.

*Why am I on a first name basis with Oscar but not Bozzo in my references to them here? Because tradition has it that we’ve used last names in posting about blogger dinner attendees. Oscar muddled things up by giving himself the last name of Madison. It is too odd to refer to him as Madison. It’s as if I am writing about my home town. Thus – he shall be Oscar, while the rest of us will suffer away with our authentically honest last names.