Random beads of water on a flower; June 15, 2008 – Photo by Me.
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“Creature From The Black Leather Lagoon”; The Cramps
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.
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When you’re logged into a WordPress account there’s a bar that runs across the top of every blog. I can never remember what they call it, but it allows users to quickly access their “dashboard”. The best part about it is the little arrow at the top right-hand corner. When you press the arrow you’re randomly taken to another WordPress blog.
There are more than 3.5 million WordPress blogs, about 1.16 million of them have some human activity every month. Just by pushing the arrow button you’re able to find blogs on Whatever from Wherever.
So last night I found these blogs…
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1. Re-Percussions: run by a guy who hosts an abstract hip-hop, electronic, and dub show on The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s college radio station, KTUH… he keeps playlists from his show on his blog;
2. Operation Save Clark Kent: a collaborative fan blog which is trying to save the integrity of Clark Kent from the television show called “Smallville”;
3. I Am Thou: run by a guy in Delhi who is studying Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit, and teaching yoga. He uses the blog to store “notes from the various dharma teachings I attend”;
4. Renovation: it’s a personal blog kept by a guy in Greensboro, North Carolina who describes himself as “a twenty-something, God-seeker, post-modern, jazz pianist, gospel-believing, singer-songwriter, hannah-lover, who is grappling with life and hoping in Jesus.” He’s also helping to launch a new church in Greensboro called “Hope Chapel”.
So how freaking cool is that?
I try to find new blogs to read and to share, so my blogroll gets reworked fairly regularly. But I find we (you, me, her and him) get stuck commenting on the same blogs over and over again. Or at least blogs about the same things we’re writing about. It’s like we’re always going to the same bar and having the same discussions with the same people.
So I thought I’d bring back the universally loved No Post Day and offer a challenge. I even figured out a way for non-WordPress people to participate.
So… one questions and one challenge — your mother called last night and told me to say to say this is good for you and she’d be disappointed if you flaked out…
Question: Since most of the blogs you’ll encounter while surfing the Random Button have no readers and no comments, how long from when you started blogging did it take to get a comment? In my case it was roughly four days.
The Random Blogging Challenge: pick a number between three and ten, click the Random button that many times and leave the link you end up on here with a brief description of what the blog is about.
The second part of the challenge, for extra delicious bonus points, is to find a blog you feel comfortable putting into your blogroll.
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Now… for people without a WordPress account (they are free BTW) who have no arrow button, just click on this link and wait for the magic to happen: Randomizer.
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...salted lithium. 
Interesting challenge
I got my first comment three days after my first post. Funnily enough my first post has received no comments and sits just outside my top ten posts.
I picked five clicks and found this: http://bobbysweezy.wordpress.com/
A slightly irreverent, sometimes laugh out loud collection of short thoughts. Like a personal twitter.
I currently don’t have a blogroll, I have some RSS feeds down the side and a poorly maintained page with links.
So the plan for today – depressed people should do simple achievable tasks says the doc – is to get the page sorted and have a blogroll – with mentalists and non-mentalist galore on the front page.
I know, isn’t this a great idea? Anyone who doesn’t follow through with this challenge obviously has no soul, is totally dead inside and hates mothers.
Cool find, I think it’s worth keeping track of so I’m going to put it into the Recently Found section.
I found this.
That’s pretty messed up dude… and not a little disturbing.
I wish I hadn’t clicked that link.
Now I can’t stop wondering…
Pingback: throwing one out there « Dark Entries
I so wanted to do this. I started to do this yesterday, and the random blog I found was a makeup blog. Make up! I’ve never even worn it! But midway through my reply, I had a fight with my wife and I had to shut the computer down. So the make up blog didn’t make it into my comment.
Today when I came back to try, the random blog I got was a political, conservative blog. I cannot publicize it. I cannot! Next was a blog having to do with the mid east, and I’m ashamed to say I don’t know enough about it to know if it should be publicized or not. So I give up.
It took me a month to get a comment on my blog that wasn’t from my wife. She commented right away. I’m torn between wanting readers and not wanting readers. When I see lots of readers, I always have a thought like, “Yikes! Who read it? Maybe I didn’t want them to!”
I’d like to do this…I read this post a few days ago…mom has been visiting for 8 days…to say I’m beat is an understatement…she fried my brain so bad I can’t think of anything to post…maybe tomorrow I’ll try to do something with this and do a post on my blog…but like I said, I’m beat and I seem to be grossly lacking in creativity at the moment…it’s a great idea though!
Hi Lydia, I’ve had the same feelings about Salted. Every time the stats get to a certain level I start freaking out and thinking I should shut it down until everyone goes away.
I either feel like there might be something of value for someone to learn from, or I just want to password protect the whole thing because it just feels too personal to be sharing.
If you feel comfortable coming back try hitting the random button until you find a blog you like. It might be a good way for you to meet someone with similar — but non-recovery — related interests.
Feel free to spread The Random around Gianna, I’ll come over and play if you post it.
So, I have been gone a bit again. Glad to hear your sister is back. Darkentries and I were browsing around the web and came across this:
“My boyfriend has Asperger’s Syndrome, and now I think I might have it as well.”
He said it sounded like a Gabriel
leblog post. Made me laugh. Hope it makes you laugh too.Gloomdark and you surf together? Is this the compromise keeping you two together? I’m guessing the negotiation went like “can we at least surf together?” “Okay, Jesus, we can surf together.” “In the same room?” “No.”
Yes, you have been gone but I know you’ve been busy what with all the listening to whining and buying of electronic devices you’ve been doing. Tell him I’m joking. Or at least I’m laughing. But not out loud, I’m not a total asshole.
That Asperger thing mad me laugh as well… but for so many reasons that I’m overloaded and will reflect and post a top ten list. I think I found the page. I’m also going to put a slash through the “le” so it makes it look like you were talking about me, even if you weren’t.
It’s always good to see your chocolate foot.
And, like, would it totally kill people to hit the freaking random button and tell me what they find? … frigging pack of tweaked out ADHD freaks.
I hit the random button nine times and found…. http://thechocolatemonster.wordpress.com/ which is a blog all about chocolate, if i had the time i would write one all about Jelly. Hannah X
That’s a great find Hannah, and thanks for playing along… I’m pretty sure Aikaterine, what with her chocolate foot avatar, would totally enjoy that blog.
I got a comment the first day that my blog was up.
I went 7 times and found:
http://dontjump.wordpress.com/
Not sure what it’s about, about page didn’t help. It was just a blog, I guess…
Thanks Finicky Penguin.
It’s actually a cute little personal / travel blog of a student learning stuff in another country… I’m assuming in the UK because of the photos.
Talk about random… if you Google what they have on their About Page: 27516 zixin, you get this: ATROCITIES IN CHINA – Vol. II List of Victims in the Persecution [I think of Fulan Gong, it’s a doc file]… which is really cool.
I responded to a meme. In less than a week. I am like unto a GOD I say.
I did say it sounded like a gabriel post. I don’t know what she did there.
Surfing with a bipolar ADD GF is an adventure in itself. Last night it was:
AIK: ok that was funny, now I need to look at meercats….awww cute, can we have a meercat, I wonder if you can have meercats as pets in this country (googlegoogle) look I think you can. Although a mexican hairless cat would be good. Look at them they’re so funny, they look like demons’
DE: Please stop talking. It’s 3am.
We all have our crosses to bear when living with ‘special’ people.
Now go and look at my post about stuff and things.
http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/
I read an earlier post on humor and forgot to comment, but: XKFUCKINGCD. I love Randall Munroe ❤ I bought the “My Normal Approach is Useless Here” shirt. I need to go geohashing sometime; it looks fun 😀
Wow. Somehow the internet ate the first part of my comment. Anyway, the blog is a journal of an organic garden in southwest Michigan. She grudgingly respects tomatoes for their staple status, which is sort of my stance on that particular food (very healthy but I hate the taste therefore grudging respect).
I do this all the time: I LOVE that little random button. You find some great stuff that way.
The best thing I found via the random button was the (completely random) Dr Boli:
http://drboli.wordpress.com
Alo alruiceis… I really like that site. I’ve been taking a lot of garden photos lately so it’ll fit in nicely with my photo-blog.
Yaw Raincoaster… Dr Boli introduces an interesting point. Most blogs never gain a readership because the people running them never learn how to use the category / tag system, and they really don’t ‘get’ how important the Settings are. I went back almost to the beginning of Dr. Boli’s blog and as far as I can tell you’re the most frequent commenter at (maybe) four… somehow, however, his PageRank is five. Weird.
But when I find these sites I always want to copy and paste the basic WP instructions into their About Page… especially when I come across a blogger who keeps referring to “dear readers” when it’s pretty obvious there are none.
That Dr. Boli PR5 thing is just odd… obviously he has a lot of links to his site, but almost zero comments. It’s a really cool blog though, thanks for the link.
Thanks for putting my blog in your recently found section. That was pretty cool to see this blog show up in my “referrers” and not know how that happened. Well, nice to meet you.
It’s nice to meet you as well. We kind of crossed paths on Peepers’ blog during the recent flame war. I know there’s a few people in my blogroll who will enjoy your blog as well…
Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me. 🙂