The blogosphere has spoken. For two years I have kept up this blog to little acclaim, and now that I’ve taken a step back for a short while, barely blogging once a week, I have won not one, not two, but three prolific blogger awards! So now that the blogosphere has spoken, what is it saying, that I’m more interesting when I don’t blog? That I should hurry back and refocus my energies on blogging again? I hope it’s the second. Perhaps by the end of this month I will be able to return to a more regular blogging schedule, but until then, you should check out the blogs of those who gave me the awards. They really are prolific and terrific bloggers!
Joylene Nowell Butler, One Moment at a time on Cluculz Lake
Congratulations are especially in order since blogging on a regular basis is giving way to microblogging on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster, particularly among young people. Apparently, the long form of blogging, which tends to be 300-500 words, is way too involved and time-consuming for the younger set. Those of us over thirty are still plogging away.
And while I have your attention: are you a romantic who loves baseball? Be sure to enter J. Conrad Guest’s contest, and you might win a signed copy of his novel Backstop and a signed baseball. All you have to do is write 200 words about a romantic baseball date, either real or imagined. 200 words? Not much for all you prolific bloggers out there! Send your entry to secondwindpublishing@gmail.com. I’ll put in a good word for you. (Now you only have to write 199 words!)
Bertram's Blog 
Even Comment Spam Can Sometimes be Tasty
February 4, 2010 — Pat BertramSpammers have discovered one of my more obscure blogs, but some of the spammers got wise — instead of the usual gibberish (which I was going to post here to show you how totally giberishy it is, but decided I’d better not attract their attention) these spammers post quotes, and it works! I don’t delete them. Just goes to show that not everything is all bad, not even comment spam. So, here are a few of the quotes left on the blog, author unknown (at least to me):
I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters.
The ‘Net is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about it.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Memory feeds imagination.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.
Get pleasure out of life…as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
I write because I’m afraid to say some things out loud.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
Part of being creative is learning how to protect your freedom. That includes freedom from avarice.