Category Archives: blogging

The place to be…

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In case you’ve missed it, Sundays are special here at jeffreytharp.com. They’re the day I get to mostly turn my brain off and post some of the gems from a bygone era rather than try dredging up new material. I like to think of it as being like a TV show in syndication, except for the part where people get residuals when those old episodes show up again. Here’s it’s mostly just a good way to get all of my posts back under one roof.

While I was tinkering around with a few settings this weekend, I gave my metrics a good hard look and was surprised to see the total number of posts here steadily creeping towards the 1000 mark. After looking at the number of old MySpace posts that still need to make an appearance and doing some back of the napkin math, I’m pretty sure I’m actually already past that milestone. Nevertheless, I don’t feel right about making that official until I see the official WordPress post-counter roll over that third zero. Even with my five-every-Sunday posts, it’s going to be a few months before we cross that bridge. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be sure you let y’all know when we get there.

Like your average nine-year old, I like having something to look forward to almost as much as I enjoy actually experiencing or getting the thing itself. Since it doesn’t seem like there are any exotic trips or new toys in the immediate future, I’m pretty much throwing my lasso around 1000 as the next big thing. I know Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, but those show up every year around this time, but how many times can you look back at six years of misspent time on the Internet and be truly amazed that you managed to come up with 1000 snarky, petulant, vaguely inappropriate, and occasionally heartfelt things to say. And it all started because MySpace use to be the place to be…

Zip…

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There are a host of things that have popped into my head as potential topics for tonight’s post – the upcoming debate, the fact that Comcast stopped by my blog today to offer assistance, the general batshit craziness that has been the office this week, or the fact that tomorrow is both a day off and also another trip to the vet. Talk about your conflicting emotions on that one. The truth is, I’m just not feeling all that motivated by any of those topics… or by any topic, really. Like so many things in life, sometimes no matter how long you sit here and strain yourself, nothing productive is going to come out. Usually it’s not worth blowing out a blood vessel in your eye trying to make it happen. On days like this, you pretty much just need to accept that you’ve got zip and move on to a more productive use of what’s left of our limited evening. I don’t like to think of it as being a quitter, so much as knowing when it’s time to defer any additional beating of a horse that’s already gone to the hereafter.

Breaking routine…

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Going for at least one post a day is a personal goal around here. I like to think I hit the mark more often than not unless there’s some intervening traumatic life event that gets in the way of sitting down and knocking out a few hundred words. Looking at the next couple of days, though, I’m just giving everyone a heads up that it might be quiet around here this week. Getting up early, driving to Baltimore, and getting home late for the next four days is going to put a squeeze on free time… and since writing occupies a big block of available time in the evenings, that’s pretty much what’s going to end up getting squeezed off the daily itinerary.

Being a dedicated creature of habit, you can well imagine how excited I am to have my finely honed scheduled screwed with for the rest of the week… and given my track record for tolerating dumb things in a training environment, I’m going to consider it a win as long as I manage to avoid getting thrown out or picking a fist fight (not necessarily in that order). Otherwise, I’d just like to get this week over as expeditiously as possible and get back to our regularly scheduled activities.

The only good thing I can think of when it comes to being stuck in training for the week is that it gives me a whole new crop of people to observe and make snarky comments about. I might not get to post these little gems right away, but rest assured I’ll be taking copious notes and the whole story will come out. Eventually. Unless the room we’re in has wifi of course, and then it’s game on from the time I walk through the door in the morning.

More posts from the old school…

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Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of Stuff Jeff Wrote Six Years Ago that it Might be Funny to Repost Here on WordPress. For your reading enjoyment this Sunday, I’ve posted another selection of MySpace original blog posts from mid-June 2006. Tomorrow we’ll get back to original content, but in the meantime, check out the new old posts here: https://jeffreytharp.com/2006/06/

Auld lang syne…

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I was rummaging around my old files looking for something this past weekend and ran across something unexpected. I had been under the impression that the posts from my original blog, hosted on MySpace back in the day, were lost amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the interwebs. But no, there they were, every post from June 2006-October 2008 safely tucked into a 147 page Word document just waiting for me to find them.

It could just be that I’m always critical of my own writing, but I’m pleased to see that there’s been a marked improvement in the style and substance of my writing over the last six years. I was certainly less circumspect back then, and a few of the posts I’ve read so far have a certain raw quality that surprised me… It’s hard to believe I said some of those things out loud right there on the internet for everyone to see. Still, there are a few real gems in the mix and it was something of an odd comfort to see that I’m still basically the same person I was back then at the ripe old age of 28. I’m a little older now, a lot more cynical, but the posts are unmistakably something that came from my keyboard.

I had planned it to be a surprise when these old posts started showing up, but I think some errant clicks Sunday may have let the cat out of the bag for those of you who get email updates whenever there’s a new post. So here’s the big announcement: Starting this coming Sunday and continuing every Sunday until I clear the archive, I’ll be making every effort to add five “new” old posts to the mix here. I’m going to edit them a bit for grammar and punctuation, but otherwise in the interests of preserving history as it happened you’re going to see them just like you would have on MySpace back in the day. Join me, won’t you, in this trip down memory lane.

Repeating myself…

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This is my 709th post, not including the two years worth of material I lost when MySpace when the way of the dodo bird. After more than 700 posts, across six years, two blogging platforms, and in excess of 15,000 page views I worry sometimes that I’m repeating myself. Part of that stems from just not being all that creative and part of it is that as an adult productive member of society most of days tend to be pretty similar – which means I have a tendency to have the same experiences over and over again. I mean when you spend five days a week doing some variation of get up, drive to work, work, drive home, make dinner, go to bed there’s an upward limit of how many new experiences you’re going to have.

That of course is a little troublesome when you make your bones trying to write things that people will find interesting. Honestly, I never thought I’d still be blogging this far along. If I did, I would have been anal retentive enough to build some kind of index so I could try not to repeat myself too often. Since I didn’t do that and we’re too far along to start now, you’re just going to be stuck with whatever random idea happens to pop into my head on any given day… and when I repeat myself just smile and nod the same way you would when your great aunt Fanny tells you the same story for the 273rd time. I’ll do my best to self edit that sort of thing, but won’t make any promises. Since my routine isn’t apt to change any time in the near future, you’re pretty much stuck with it, so don’t go complaining now that you’ve been warned.

The best thing…

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The best thing about running your own blog is that when you don’t want to write, no one is standing over your shoulder forcing you to do it. Sure, there’s that nagging voice in the back of your head telling you what you “should” do, but listening to him is pretty much an optional exercise.

Since I’m basically vamping this whole post and have no idea why or what it’s going to be about, how long it will last, or what I really want to say, here are some fun facts for you to consider. Since September 2011, I’ve written and published somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 words for books that I’m secretly selling on Amazon under an assumed name (and that are doing respectably well since they’ve had basically no marketing at all, thank you very much). In the same 8 months, I’d estimate I’ve written another 40,000 words here for your reading pleasure. That 40,000 number assumes I post 20 times a month and each post is 250 words, so it’s a lowball to be sure. Add in the few other odds and ends I’ve written for other blogs, and the endless stream of memos that come off my desk at work, and I’d I’m somewhere well north of 300,000 written words in the last eight months.

You’re just going to have to take my word for it that 300,000 is a metric shit ton of words, ok? But you know what? For the last month I feel lucky when I can string a sentence or two together without drooling all over the front of my shirt. I love writing and the sheer power of the written word, but I feel like I’ve poured alot out of my brain and need to take some time and let the well refill. I don’t know if it’s possible to run out of words, but it feels like it is right now. So yeah, I’m officially in recovery mode from a great spurt of fantastically productive creativity. I like to imagine that I’m going to take a month and not do any more writing than is required to keep a fresh face on the blog, but really that’ll probably last all of three days before I have some other slightly warped idea that I can throw at unsuspecting consumers thanks to the wonder of electronic publishing.

Good and bad…

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Sorry about that get rich quick post that showed up around 12:30 this morning. It’s safe to say that my password was compromised and that wasn’t me trying hook you on some kind of scheme. I just changed my password and deleted the post from here and from Facebook, so hopefully that will be the end of it. Just from an abundance of caution, I’ll probably spend the next hour changing every other password I have. Losing control of you online life, even momentarily, is enough to give my inner paranoia room to stretch its legs a bit.

On a positive note, That most brought in an extra twelve hits before I sent it kicking and screaming to hell… so it wasn’t a complete waste. Happy Saturday, gang.

Post in which the author lets it slide…

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OK, ok, yeah. I know it’s been a few days since I did anything even remotely close to looking at the blog. Writing is one of those projects that requires some kind of internal motivation and for the last couple of days we’ve been smack in the middle of a confluence of busy and unmotivated. That’s not a recipe for good (or even marginal) blogging, so like any good man I simply chose to ignore the problem until it went away on its own. And since I’m here pecking at the keyboard this morning, I suppose that was a successful course of action… Even if it only results in a 199 word update about the recent lack of words.

I know most people won’t believe it, but I generally only talk when I have something to say. Sure, that’s usually more often than not, but I’m not the kind of person who is unduly bothered by long, awkward silences. Hopefully the week ahead will end up giving me a few more things worth talking about, because frankly it’s hard to run a blog when you just don’t have much to say. Maybe we can just chalk it up to general summertime laziness.