A few years ago… maybe in 2004 or so… my niece Jill told me that she communicated with her friends primarily through instant messaging. She would sit at her computer for hours just typing away to other teenagers out there in internetland somewhere. I thought it seemed weird. Why wouldn’t they just talk on the phone like normal people?

Then a couple months later, my pal Ev told me about his blog. He and his friends were posting personal stories and whatnot on some random website every day for complete strangers to read. Super odd. Why would anyone want to share their personal shit with the world? And who cared enough to read about it?

And around that same time in my life, I had one email account that I checked maybe once a week. If someone needed to reach me, it would be more efficient to drive to my house and knock on my door than to email me. They’d get a faster response anyway.

I really don’t know what changed, but it happened very quickly. I joined Ev’s blog, then another, then started my own. I set up separate email accounts for my various websites. I tested the waters with a few different instant messaging systems. Blah blah blah.

Now I’m fucking addicted. I have a cell phone that buzzes every time I receive an email to any one of my 5 email accounts. I have profiles on who knows how many social networking sites (MySpace is the only one I pay any attention to). I communicate via IM every chance I get. I far prefer it over the phone. In fact, my entire relationship with my fiancee Lulu was forged via IM. And even when I do use my phone, I almost always send a text message instead of calling.

I have a few friends that are like me in this sense. Web addicted. And there are others who still check their email maybe once a week or don’t necessarily respond to emails when they read them. Somehow I’ve lost that ability. If I get an email, I usually respond within minutes.

I really had no idea where I was going with all of this rambling… but I just thought of a good way to wrap this all up: If you are my friend and I don’t call you as often as I probably should, maybe try sending me an email or a text. Or look for me on Google chat. Or hit me up on MySpace. Or leave a comment on my blog. I’ll respond.

How to increase your Google PageRank:

• Step one: Get all your blogfriends to link your website. Make sure the name of your website is part of the text in their hyperlinks.
• Step two: Return the favor by sending a handful of readers in their direction.

It really is easy. Well, step one is sort of easy anyway. All you have to do is send an email to any of your dorky friends who have their own websites saying something along the lines of “Hey, link up my website you silly goose. The Codes will one day rule the earth, muthafuckas!”

Step two feels like an aching hemorrhoid. You know you’re going to need to get that fucker lanced eventually, but instead, you just keep living with the itch and rubbing cream on it every once in a while. Okay, that simile sucks. Too bad. You’re not going to get much better from me on a Monday morning.

Anyway, a bunch of my friends linked my band’s website and now it’s payback time.

MacBros’ Place:

This guy’s a real problem. First of all, he’s got a fetish for middle fingers. I think he likes to use his flip off finger for the ol’ dirty sanchez. I swear I do not know from experience. That’s just the word on the street.

The other thing that bothers me about this guy is his Canadian heritage. When I was a kid growing up in the south, adults always warned us youngsters to steer clear of Canadians. There’s just something shady about them. Take one look and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Oh - And if you’re ever completely bored, you can watch this Canadian sit on his couch and guzzle beer in his underwear. Yippee!

Pointless Drivel:

You know how I just implied that MacBros is a real freak of nature with an attitude problem? Well, this next guy is the pile of shit festering in MacBros underwear. He goes by the name “Mr. Fabulous”, which reminds me of Paul Orndorff. I wonder if Fab knows he stole his nickname from a washed up wrestler/Florida bowling alley owner.

Shit, I just remembered. I’m supposed to be pimping Pointless Directives, not Pointless Drivel. Both sites are run by the Anti-Christ, and both are laden with bullshit. But there’s one major difference: Pointless Drivel gets crazy traffic, while Pointless Directives has a small devoted audience of Islamic fundamentalists (it’s only real function is to allow Al Qaeda sleeper cells to pass messages back and forth). Subhan Allah wa Bihamdih!

The Trouble with Angels:

I’m not sure why Diane and Mel call their site “The Trouble with Angels”. I think maybe it’s based on the porn movie with the same title. The film is uber-hardcore, with a vague plotline about two mentally challenged women who escape from an institution and go on a muderous rampage while boning every man in their path. It’s a real heartwarming adventure tale.

One of the more popular series’ over at TTWA is the Dead Guy on the Sidebar. It’s morbid fun that rewards people who have a little bit of knowledge and some mad Google skills. I played along for a while, but never came close to guessing the right answer. And I’m a poor loser. I think at some point, if you lose enough times Diane shows up at your doorstep with a chainsaw and you become the next “dead guy”.

So odd… I started this site as a place to vent my perversions and to silently judge people behind a pseudonym. But soon I realized I’m really just a nice guy at heart. And somehow, instead of attracting an audience of perverted male 20-somethings, The Churning has become a haven for young ladies with self esteem issues.

Some of them are self-concious about their nipples, others want to know why their boyfriends look at so much porn, and some just want to know if their back dimples look funny. If only I could think of a way to use this to my advantage…

In other news - The Codes are regrouping. Our bass player is moving away, so we need to stop playing shows for a while and get a new guy (or gal) up to speed. During that break, we’re hoping to get a shitload of work done, including our first CD, a website redesign, new t-shirts and stickers, etc. Also, keep an eye out for updates on a super secret punk rock side project. I’ll let you know when the shit is about to hit the proverbial fan.

For now, you’ve got one last chance to witness the debauchery that is The Codes before Jay takes off. Friday night at The Fire in Philly. Do it.

Blogging is so weird. When you start, you’re testing the waters. You’re writing for no one. You can be honest and you can be silly and stupid, because your only readers are the random strangers who happen to drop by (mostly other bloggers).

Pretty soon you’re entertaining hundreds of virtual friends on a daily basis, revealing certain dirty little secrets that you might not share with your casual real-life friends.

But then you realize… If you’re going to be completely honest on your website, odds are you don’t want your boss/parents/friends to read it. Too bad you mentioned your blog to your closest friends and your boyfriend/girlfriend. Because maybe they happened to mention it to a mutual friend after they read something particularly funny/revealing. Soon your coworkers are reading it and your Mom stops by from time to time.

This is the point in the blog’s lifespan where you have to make a decision:

Do you write about the cockjowling that took place Friday night? It would be hilarious for the hundreds of daily visitors who know how much of a fucked up freak you really are. But then again, do you want your coworkers to know what kind of person you are when it’s 3:30am and you’ve had half a dozen wine spodiodis and twice as many Magic Hats?

Tough call.

I’m questioning my internet motives today, after reading Ev’s recent post about the sorry state of blogging. I used to write stupid shit on a daily basis for fun, knowing that only a few good friends were paying any attention. Then more people started reading, and more, and more, and before I knew it I was playing a game.

The goal of the game was to get as many readers as possible. Then it morphed into a contest to get page views (without posting porn). Page views went up and I figured, “How could I let this traffic go to waste? Time to post a few ads!” Fuck that. Ads don’t pay shit anyway.

Somewhere along the line, the game turned into work. I wouldn’t post unless I had something I was relatively proud of. My daily posts withered to weekly. Now I’m just bored with the whole thing.

So after reading Ev’s post, I made a realization. I’m finally apathetic again. That’s what made blogging fun in the first place - I honestly didn’t give a shit if anyone was reading. When I started caring, I stopped enjoying the process.

As of today, I no longer care how many people are reading this piece of shit blog. I’m taking down the ads. I’m posting more often. And I’m posting stupid short entries that make me laugh. Fuck it if you can’t take a joke.

It’s been oh so long, baby.  Mmmmhmm, yeah.  Awww yeah.  Let’s start this up, huh?  Maybe a few light keystrokes.  Hell yeah.  That’s nice.  Now, let’s punch them a little firmer, huh?  Yeah, right there.  That’s fucking sexy.  Uh-oh.  I’m gonna…I’m gonna..

Let’s get this started.

Here’s the thing….Often, I think about a significant return to blogging.  I think of creating a new site, pimping it out, gaining a small readership and showing them cartoons and hi-fucking-larious posts(No shame.).  Often, I think of inviting some of the quality funny guys I know to blog with me.  I think of the good times we had and wish I could have them again.

Then, I slap myself for being a woman, and then roughly feel myself up. This makes me, myself, feel degraded and violated.  But don’t get all “Call a rape center!” on me.  Because I was asking for it, in fact, I deserved it. 

Why?  Because Characters from TV shows have blogs.  Retail Corporations have “news blogs”.  For Fuck’s Sake, JJ’s goddamned DOG had a blog.  Sure, it’s cute and novel for a few days, but then when you look at it…it’s like they’ve taken away something that was a tool for people to maybe express themselves in a way that was previously non-existant. 

Now, sure.  There are definitely people that should not have access to any kind of audience, lest they shatter that precarious self-image they have deluded into seeing.  But thanks to Reality TV, lots and lots (and I mean LOTS) of those people are being smashed into tiny pieces on camera and then slow-churned into nice little bits of voyeurism for all of use to gorge ourselves on.  We can taste their failure, self-hate, misery, and complete breakdown of mind. 

But it wasn’t all “The misunderstood ramblings of a girl on the world” or “Edges of Darkness layered in Dark Corners of Dark Crybaby emotions and endless hours of The Cure.”, was it?

There were some badass bloggers back in the day.  Like this chick Goldie from Austrailia? And This crazy kid, G-fry who went off to college.  or Tubbs from Lousianna.  Or Maine, from you know, well Ladytown, VA.  Shit, what about Mikey? And the entirety of QW’s and The Churning link lists?

And while I was thinking about how great these blogs were, I realized in that moment, that we, ourselves, killed blogging.  Not corporations, not television show producers.  We did it.

We did it by allowing ads.  We did it by subconciously (however remotely) expecting that we were all clever, intelligent and talented people who “just hadn’t been discovered, yet.”  We did it by allowing things like BlogExplosion to breed.  We took something that could have legimately been a resource for better understanding of our fellow humans, and tried to squeeze a few bucks out of it.

I always said, when I started the QW! with J (not JJ mind you, he was last on the cast), we would write things that make us or our friends laugh and nothing else.  We would never censor ourselves, or be fake.  And we didn’t.  And while not everyone liked the QW!, we did have a pretty large readerbase.  I think in a lot of ways, we were inspirational. 

And we killed it.  Because apparently, liking guns, making dick jokes, and running a joke campaign for the presidency is considered “being a dirty terrorist”.  Yes, folks.  One of our own was insulted, threatened and otherwise abused for having an internet blog and just sharing thoughts, fiction, for entertainment purposes.  And we gave up.  We all quit and headed for the hills.  Out of fear for our friend, and maybe REALLY because we were afraid for ourselves.

 I looked at blogging in that moment, and I saw a dream, a chance and a hope shredded, splayed wide open, viscera and sinew stretched.  Blogging was dead.  As it lay there, clawed at, and fed upon by carrion vultures of our society, I could have wept.  Had I any part of me that was not cynical or bitter or just malcontent, I would have wept.

Sure, maybe I was an idealist, maybe I was an idiot for buying into an idea and believe that people at their core were not just rotten and self-centered. 

Maybe next time, we’ll get it right.

I have a proposition for you. If you accept, your website will get a link here at The Churning, which has a 5/10 page rank. But first, let me start by admitting I totally stole this idea from blog maven Tricia, who runs Tricia’s Musings.

Most of you know that in addition to The Churning, I also run a website for my band, The Codes. The trouble is - that site isn’t really a blog (even though we do add new content on a regular basis). And since it’s not a blog, it doesn’t have a blogroll. And since it doesn’t have a blogroll, it’s not easy to trade links with people like I do here.

No links for The Codes = zero Google page rank = low search engine rankings. Basically, I’m fucked. That’s where Tricia’s solution comes into play.

I want you to include a link to The Codes website (http://thecodes.net/main) in one of your upcoming blog posts. In exchange, I will include your site in a blog review here at The Churning. And I promise the review will be positive. I don’t necessarily need you to tell people to visit http://thecodes.net/main, or add the site to your blogroll, or even post the link prominently. This is all about page rank, not exposure.

The easiest way to participate would be to make a passing reference to my band in one of your blog entries. Like “So I was masturbating this weekend and suddenly I started thinking about JJ’s band The Codes. I came immediately.” You know, something like that. After you publish your post, email thechurning[at]gmail[dot]com to let me know (or just leave a comment here on this post).

And while you’re at it, be our friend on MySpace. All the cool kids are doing it.
(more…)

I got the idea for this list while reading through a classic post from Samantha Burns titled Sam’s 10 Commandments of Blogging. Sam’s advice could help you earn a better reputation in the blogosphere… My advice is a little different.

I just want to help stat whores like myself increase their blog traffic. I can’t guarantee you’ll get more people to actually read your blog, but you will get more hits.

1. Write about things people are interested in.
   I know you want to write about your home improvement project or your children or your pets and that’s perfectly fine. But there are millions of people out there who just want to read about sex, celebrities, and celebrities having sex. At least make passing references to celebrities or sports stars on occasion. Web surfers will love you for it. You won’t believe how many hits I get every single day from people searching for Britney Spears’ twat.
2. Post pictures - lots of them.
   And make sure to include descriptive alt and title tags. That helps search engines index your pictures. I’m getting several hundred hits per day from Google image searches. Obviously, it helps that I’m posting pics of Anne Hathaway’s nipples, pubic hairstyles, and camel toes.
3. Join blog traffic sites like BlogMad and BlogExplosion.
   Here’s how it works: You log in and surf blogs. The more blogs you surf, the more times your site appears when other bloggers are surfing. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. (I wonder how many times can I use the words blog and surf in one paragraph…)
4. Leave comments on other blogs.
   As you surf BlogMad, be generous with comments - but don’t spam anyone by leaving pointless comments that are unrelated to the topic. Read at least a little of the latest entry on a blog. If it’s halfway decent, leave a comment about that topic. They’ll probably check out your site to learn more about the mystery commenter (you), and their regular readers might check you out too.
5. Be generous with your blogroll.
   When you come across a site that you find moderately interesting, link to it. A lot of bloggers regularly check wholinkstome and Technorati (aka an Egorati search). They’ll see you linked to them, read your latest entry, and they may link to you out of courtesy. If your blogroll starts getting out of control, you can put it on a separate page.
6. Tell your friends about your blog.
   I’m not necessarily talking about co-workers. I’m talking about the kind of friends who might actually be interested in your daily bullshit. And if you write about something that happened to you and your friends, email them the link - especially if the story involves naked lesbians. Everyone loves a good naked lesbian story.
7. Join social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube.
   Whore yourself out online. All you have to do is create a profile, upload a little content, link to your blog, and add your readers to your “friends” list.
8. Allow readers to Subscribe to your blog.
   I use FeedBlitz for this (at the top of my sidebar). Readers enter their email address and they get an automatic email every day that your site is updated. People can also subscribe by adding your site to their feed reader. Just add a link to your RSS or Atom feed on your sidebar.
9. Connect with your regular readers.
   Don’t be shy. If someone visits your site regularly and leaves comments, they probably would be happy to get an email from you. Again, don’t spam anyone. Just send a little note like “Hey, thanks for stopping by my site. Hope you’re doing well.” Or even better, you can reference something they wrote about recently on their site. It will either open a line of communication with a potential new friend - or they’ll want to retain their privacy and they’ll ignore your email. No biggie.
10. Ask successful bloggers for advice.
    People who have been in the blogging game for a while are usually very happy to share some advice on web design or writing, etc. I’ve gotten some great tips over the years from fellow bloggers like Mojotek, MacBros, Jackie, Diane, Sam, Sar, and Franky. I know that’s a long list, but I really do ask for a lot of advice.

This was only a matter of time: http://payperpost.com/

I was watching the Today show this morning, and may I say that Meredith does not have the spunk that Katie does.  However, she is an ok replacement, but I am pissed that her name gets used before Matt’s.  That is some bullshit, and not because I am a male pig.  Matt has put in the time and has been there for years, and he is still considered second fiddle.  That is some bullshit.

Anyway, I saw all these folks with their signs that they made for the show.  Half of them had signs with borders advertising Pay Per Post.  So the PPP guys gave out free signs with there logos all over it and Sharpies.  Good fucking idea, since I am a lazy bastard and it grabbed my attention.  Anyway, you get paid to post and I guess the advertisers put ads on your site, maybe you blog about their products.  Not really sure, but this was bound to happen.  And I’m sure they are not the first to try this, but its the first time this blogger has seen it on the Today show.

Its interesting none-the-less.  And…damn JJ!!!  The fucking dolphin lost his tail.  Cut him some slack…….no pun intended.  If you take a break from stabbing homeless people and kicking babies maybe you would feel differently.

Listen, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but just a few years ago, no one knew about blogs or ‘bloggin’. When I started my site (on blogger in the beta stages of what has now become the true bane of my very soul), it was about entertaining my friends. My buds, who were just as bored at work as I was, joined me. We wrote to make each other laugh. I never really gave a fuck what readers (that’s you) cared or thought. We had a solid run. We started gaining readership and readers, who we abused regularly. We bought a domain, got new hosting software, and basically invented the “blogreview” (We nothing, it was all Maine.)

And things were good. We had 5 authors at our prime. 5 of my best friends. And they made me laugh daily, and in Elwood/Jason’s (not JJ, for the uninitiated) case, sometimes 50 times a day. Man, that guy posted a lot. Eventually, we had to stop doing the QW! site. Basically, someone lost a job over it, and was then threatened to be blackballed by certain government organizations. So, when we quit, some of us branched into other sites.

Fast forward a few years. Now, it seems that everyone and their brother (including fucking characters from tv shows) have a blog. I imagine these individuals rushing home to blog their thoughts (which are, at most times, neither interesting nor entertaining), and show the world “just how special I am”. I imagine them with smug little looks on their face as they spout out their “Mundane Ramblings On the Edge of Reality from a Crazy Girl/Guy On a Quest to Find Himself/Herself”. (Did I miss any shitty blog titles? Come the fuck on, people) I imagine them fastidiously clicking the “Get Mail” button to see if anyone commented on their funny post about how people in the coffee line are really dumb and how Sheila, the bitch at the office, pissed off the wrong person today! I imagine all of this with clarity, constantly reminding myself that the world is full of fucking retarded, trite, ignorant, callous and decidedly petty people. Am I dismayed at this revelation? Not quite. Do I liken the blogging world to an adult High School? Fucking Absolutely.

Which brings me to today, on one hand, I can name at least 8 ‘die-hard’ bloggers who have ‘quit’ blogging. Usually with some dramatic statement, indicating just how profound they really were. It is these people, who have renewed my dream of the End of Days. Am I a dick? Absolutely. But are you not entertained? Wait, let me put on my gladiator’s costume and scream that, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!!?”

The thing I love about guys like JJ or Maine (from that QWMaine site) is that while they put a lot of effort into their “Insane Ponderings of A Girl in the City”, they take it with a grain of salt. They’re self-deprecating, and aware that their blog is just as stupid as any other, and not some Tome of Lore that will be mulled over by Bambridge Scholars.

But you see, that’s what seperates the cream from the whey, as it were. These guys are truly like that. When we get together, we might talk about some existential theory on the true meaning of life (thanks, MaryJane!), but at the end of the day we know we’re abso-fucking-lutely retarded and no one cares about what we think. Does it stop us from being ourselves? No. But we’re not going to be winning any Nobel Peace Prizes anytime soon, either.

“So, Ev”, you blithely ask, “What’s your fucking point?” My point is merely this: No one cares about you, your life, or your blog. The only readers you ever really had, were most likely friends of yours (or friends of friends). Anyone else, just came to your site to get traffic, or spam ads for penis enlargement, free prescription medications, or games of Texas Hold’em. To quote Tyler Durden: “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying matter as everything else. You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” Get the fuck over yourself.

Incidently, if you now hate me and want to tell me off, please feel free to do so. Just don’t be surprised if I don’t care.

Comment spammers are silly fucks.  For some reason, they’ve set their spambots to attack The Churning, even though Askimet cockblocks them every time.  Usually, we get a dozen or so spam comments each week, but over the past three days we’ve snubbed more than a thousand dummy comments.

Being under attack sucks, but there’s one positive spin to this story.  Before this recent shitstorm, the spam around here had been deadly-dull.  “Discount valium”, “bargain viagra”, “penis enlargement pills”…  I was beginning to think spammers had no imagination.  At least this time I was entertained.  Check out a few snippets from recent spam comments.  These are actual excerpts:

first sex anal loli avi her video starr socal boys prostitute woman after symptoms pregnant free toon strips guy man my teacher-mrs mcqueen teacher and mrs filmore

in paris ms storm virgin video my lesson our girls decribe hayes teen tinkerbell illustrated stories

late period after first sexual experience vogue tutor video cannon trailer teacher sample movies sexual movie

stories of expierance gay time first sexual contacts

incest stories of expierance stock teacher eporn

bleed lesbains mrs carmen hayes mrs sanders video clemens my galleries

Sexxxy!  Thank you for piquing my interest, spammers.  Now go home, insert a catheter into your tiny cock, and pour Drano into the tube.

A friend just sent this email to her co-workers and CC’ed me:

Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 10:26 AM
Subject: the churning has been unblocked!

Yet another way to waste time at work.  We’ll see how long this lasts before it falls under the cult/occult status again.

Looks like the webfilter at her office has dropped us from the list of banned sites.  This is the same webfilter that had The Churning listed as cult/occult for the past three months.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, I’m glad The Churning Loyalists will be able to bask in the awesome re-design of this site while they’re sitting in their miserable cubes, watching the hours tick away, picking their noses and crossing their fingers hoping the boss doesn’t walk by.  But on the other hand, I was super-pumped to be classified as unacceptable.  It’s fulfilling to know someone out there (or rather someone’s web crawling, database driven filter software) noticed me and this shithole website.  I matter enough to be fucked by the man!

So enjoy it while it lasts.  The webfilter is daring me to cross the line again, and I’m up to the fucking challenge.  God damn fucking shit sucking cunt licking cock gobbling albino midgets!  There.  That’s a start…

Please welcome The Churning’s newest author: Barndon (from the now defunct Quietwater). Barnd is the guy who Photoshopped the pic of MacGyver shoving his cock in my ass. Or maybe that wasn’t Photoshopped. I can’t really remember what happened after I ate all those roofies.

Here’s a pic of me and Barnd during his last trip to Philly. Sorry there’s no gay sex in that pic. I know it’s probably a let down after seeing the MacGyver pics again.

We’re all going to work together to help our dear friend Sar.  She’s the mastermind behind Belle of the Brawl, and her site’s been nominated for Best Political Blog in the Blogs of Summer contest.

1. Go to Third World County
2. Scroll down and look for the poll (in the first post or on the left sidebar)
3. Vote for Belle of the Brawl

The poll looks like this:

Now go say hi to Sar if you have time:

Check out the list then read Blogebrity’s blog about blogging.