Dipping into the Blogpond

Kids say the funniest things. This joke was inspired by overhearing my 6 year old daughter misquoting the witch’s chant.

So what did the constipated witch say? Continue Reading »

Guys, I’m going to give you an unsolicited word of advice here…

Granted, your wife is not your mother, even if at times she accidentally counts you when someone asks how many children she has.

Granted, your wife is not your mother, even IF she does cook for you, clean up after you, do your laundry and all those little things mum used to do when you were little.

Granted, you don’t “owe” your wife a present on Mother’s Day - anniversary, birthday and Christmas - yes, they are a given (even if you do forget).

HOWEVER……

In the secret land of motherhood, if your wife has borne your children, until such time as your children are old enough (read “gainfully employed”), the responsibility for ensuring that your children’s mother is suitably “spoiled” on Mother’s Day rests on your shoulders.

Home made cards and pasta necklaces are very much appreciated. As are the crap delightful trinkets purchased at the school’s Mother’s Day fundraiser guilt alleviator stall.

But seriously, there are two three things you really should do (and I don’t profess to be speaking on behalf of all mothers here).

1. Buy a present on behalf of your children that shows you’ve put at least a little bit of thought into the process, and definitely steer clear of stereo-typical “mother” stuff (i.e. kitchen or laundry appliances - UNLESS specifically requested). The value of the gift isn’t really important, it IS the thought that counts.
2. Let your wife decide what she wants to do with her day off (apart from visit her own mum, if that’s the case). Frequently this will include the obligatory sleep-in, relief from all domestic duties (especially cooking), and “mum time” (like curling up with a book, or watching a video/dvd/t.v. show)
3. Contrary to the fact that this is Mother’s Day, often what she feels like doing most is being not at all like a “mother”, if that makes sense (i.e. relief from what she does the other 364 days a year).

Anyway, happy Mother’s Day to all the mums out there, and please let me know how you would choose to spend your day.

My grandmother turns 100 today. Happy Birthday M.W!

Yes, you do still get a letter from the Queen. And the Governor General. And Brendan Nelson. Sweet! (n.b. there may be others, but I haven’t had an update in a few days).

No I don’t have copies, but I am very curious to see.

Can you imagine what the world will be like when you are 100? I wouldn’t even begin to try…

A lot has been said about swearing lately. Swearing on blogs. Swearing on TV.

Case in point - Gordon Ramsay. I can’t believe the fuss that has been made about his language. I happen to love the show. My (in their 70s) parents love it. My 15 year old daughter loves it.

My six year old siddled up to me one night and said

“Whatcha watching”?
“Kitchen Nightmares” I say.
“Can I watch it with you”? She asks.
“Well, there’s a lot of swearing in it….”
“Mum, if I can handle fake people dying, I’m sure I’ll cope with swearing”.

I didn’t let her watch it.

If you find something offensive, turn the sucker off. It’s simple. Don’t sit there moaning “oh, my ears! I’ll never be the same again”. The viewer has the power, you know.

Senate inquiry. Have those people got nothing better to do? I mean seriously.

Change the channel FFS.

I watched the 60 minutes interview with Gordon the other day. It was interesting to note that he doesn’t swear (much) at home. It’s funny how we develop different styles in different situations. You know, you probably wouldn’t talk in the same manner with your mum, as you would with your mates. Or you might pop a proverbial plum in your mouth in a formal situation.

Blogs are no different really. It’s about finding a voice, a style that suits you. I know a blogger who swears like a trooper on their blog, but rarely in daily life. Maybe it’s a style thing, maybe the blogger is “acting out” on their blog? But if you don’t like the style no one is forcing you to read it. Don’t whinge about it. Unsubscribe. Don’t visit. Change the “channel”. Don’t expect someone to adapt their style to suit you.

Other bloggers swear in daily life, but not on their blog. Not that I swear *that* much, but I’ve been known to drop my share of expletives. I don’t do it here. Well, rarely, and moderately if I do. Why? Well it’s just not part of the style that feels right on this blog. Maybe in emails to choice friends, but not here.

Anyway, kind of a long winded intro to this fun little application (discovered at So Anyway…). It lets you check your blog on the cuss-o-meter (how American is that?). Here’s how I faired:

Created by OnePlusYou

Let me know how you did.

Apparently I’m involved in a “gentlemanly feud” with Lee Hopkins (see here or here or here - yeah I’m confused too) over my/the/a Top 100 Aussie Blog list.

Lee has been a vocal opponent (see here and here) of the top 100 list, because he believes that subscriber numbers should factor into the equation , and that bloggers should disclose their subscriber numbers, and more recently their visitor statistics.

I have previously discussed the difficulty in determining the rankings and lamented that we don’t live in a perfect world - which would encompass full access to every blog’s (standardised) back end stats, subscriber counts, blog earnings, emails of gratitude, number of posts and average comments per post. Nor do I have the time to check how many back links each blog has on Google, Yahoo, Nine MSN etc (though I’m sure with the right API this could be automated).

I suppose Google PageRank could also be factored in and the age of the domain. Then we could look at how many pages have been bookmarked or submitted on del.icio.us, reddit, Digg, stumbleupon, furl, sphinn etc, etc…

I made this comment on Lee’s blog:

It comes down to a) how does one define a “top” blog, and b) how does one quantify that?

Certainly the presence of a large subscriber base indicates the reach and popularity of a blog. But then so do citations (eg Technorati rank or authority - but this is also problematic), and traffic. Some blogs might cater to an audience that hasn’t yet embraced RSS technology, and yet the readers will visit the site daily.

I know of a blog that has upwards of a hundred comments each post, and yet fails to “qualify” for the top list. I don’t know what the subscriber numbers are, but surely that’s a signal of a popular blog? But that kind of information is very difficult to easily quantify (and put in a formula).

Other blogs are informational/instructional in nature and consequently have a lot of search engine traffic, but perhaps less subscribers and less “community”.

The aim of the list was to determine what is popular with Australians, which is why it is weighted by the Australian Alexa rank - so that Aussies can find blogs that are popular with other Aussies. e.g. An “Australian” blog in a foreign language might be very popular overseas, which thousands of subscribers, but would have little value to your average Australian.

Certainly your idea of a “top” blog and mine would more than likely differ. We have different interests, so it stands to reason. I’m not into cooking, cars or gardening, but that’s not to say that others aren’t and that they’re less popular or less worthy of being on a top list.

At present subscriber counts are not factored into the formula at all. They have no weighting. I include them merely as an indicator. I have considered getting the reader numbers from Google (as an indication of total subscriber count), but the discrepancies between blogs are just too great.

I’ll take on board what you say about having two lists, one for bloggers who provide rss counts (which is roughly around 30%) and another for those who don’t. I’ll be interested in any feedback from your community.

It takes me the best part of a day each fortnight to run through the calculations and compile the list. For that time sort of time commitment, I do want the list to have as much credibility and value as possible.

Lee’s response included this:

I guess what irks me is that the list is proclaimed as the Top 100, not *a* top 100.

I know it is NOT you proclaiming it so, but any reasonable person would make that assumptive leap.

I don’t know what the answer is, either. It’s a bugger!

Frankly, I wasn’t going to address what has already been addressed before, but I guess as this is a “feud” some sort of response is needed - as per this Facebook conversation (edit: conversation now linked to and image removed):

Note: For “the record” Lee’s “LeeHopkins.net” is ranked at 76, which is a good thing I guess, because if not the rankings would have “inaccurate and therefore non-reliable and untrustworthy”, as opposed to just “flawed, deeply flawed”.

So, I guess in a roundabout way Lee is issuing a challenge to bloggers to publish their website stats, and their subscriber numbers, as he did his:

Blogpond.com.au Stats 2008

Make of that what you will.

And to Lee, with the utmost (gentlemanly) respect, feel free to propose a viable formula for ranking blogs - one that isn’t so deeply flawed.