By now everyone already knows that bloggers have a pretty exciting life! Exciting and relaxing. Just like Franky, I’m sitting here naked from the waist down and haven’t shaved for weeks.
But as if all that wasn’t enough, a Union to protect my rights, both on insurance and financial level is exactly what I still need! I want a Union! My kingdom (and the overused wheels of my office chair) for Unionized bloggers!.

Let me explain.

A blogger’s life is hard, it’s the epitome of every professionalized freelance dream. Unionized protection IS needed!
Here’s why.

Blogger’s wake up hours need to be protected
One of the biggest advantages of being a blogger is the freedom to decide my own working hours. And start working whenever I want. With the growing amount of wannabes, it becomes important to protect this advantage: no blog network owner should be allowed to impose me to publish entries before 6.00PM (my local time!)

Coffee is expensive and should be paid for by the network owner
Bloggers are notorious coffee addicts and belong, together with (web) designers, to the resident group of $tarbuck$ squatters. Both $tarbuck$ and good coffee beans are expensive. Those expenses have to be covered by the blog network owners. No coffee beans below Lavazza or Segafredo quality should be accepted. Daily at least 3 outdoor Mochaccinos should be paid for.
Every blog entry hitting the Digg/Reddit/Netscape/Techmeme front page should be rewarded with a bonus kilo of exotic Arabica coffee beans!

Fruity hardware, allowing anytime wireless access has to be provided
How can you call yourself a decent blogger if you use a box equipped with Redmond software? Of course you need the shiniest gadget, allowing you to be online at any time. You never know you might just get that stroke of genius while you’re in the middle of the pampas, far away from your internet connection. Your iPhone will save you and allow you to publish your marvelous entry at anytime. Fancy touch keyboard inclusive.
If you live outside of the distribution area of new, shiny gadgets, it’s the blog network owner’s task to hire a bunch of hackers and make sure anyone, anywhere can access and use those oh so shiny gadgets. And brag about them on their blog. Paid by the network owner of course.

Maximum working time has to be minimalized
It is important for bloggers to be allowed to whip out quick and dirty entries. Entries that only need 4 minutes of work, proofreading inclusive. Actually, the maximum time devoted to an entry should be limited to 4 minutes. If a blogger wants to work longer at an entry, this should only be goodwill-based, not expected.

At least 200 social contacts has to be provided by the network owner
To make sure that bloggers have enough of distraction and IM noise, every network owner has to provide at least 200 active social contacts to newly hired contributors. Minimum 40% of those contacts voluntarily have to cyber on cam whenever the blogger feels the need to go dirty!

Travel equipment and expenses have to be paid for.
Being the overactive, glued to the office chair or couch, blogging species we are, I demand that every 3 months a new set of pillows and ‘soft wheels’ for my office chair and couch are provided. More experienced bloggers will get a new duvet and new bedding every 6 months.

It is obvious that we bloggers, freelance contractors, special working requirements have and those need to be protected by our future Union!
Furthermore, we shall continue to enjoy the right to decide ourselves not to work under a certain rate/entry. But that… that’s a freedom we already have.
Maybe we can oblige blog network owners to include links to at least 5 of our own sites as well. On every network blog of course!

Please give me that Union now! Let my own voice, personality and (in)competence be oppressed (protected) by the strong voice of an Union, putting everyone on the same level. Obviously Union leaders will be the best paid ones among us

For a more serious take on the topic, go read Jeremy Wright’s view on the economics of unionized blogging.

I got enough of it. I’ve just lost it. Cut it. It’s boring, it’s annoying and it’s nothing more than backlink, social bookmarking and search engine driven. It’s all about getting on top in SERPs and not about the reader.

Lists.
Lists published at a high pace.

Everyone loves lists. Lists can be very useful. Lists and speedlinking. They can improve my productivity. But please… I can only digest so many platforms, applications and blog entries.
Last weeks I’ve seen an increase in the number of lists in my feed reader. And not just lists, but lists aimed at being complete, leaving little to add. Lists consisting of more than 30 items, links, platforms, whatevers.

How will I digest all this information? How long do you think it takes me to visit and check out 30 comment plugins for WP, 20 code beautifiers and formatters, learn 200+ hotkeys and test 40 PDF tools? Do you think I really have no life? Do you think all I have to do s check your lists?

Have you decided I shouldn’t keep up with your content anymore?
No????

Well trust me, I CAN’T keep up with all your lists! I am still working my way through that list you published 3 weeks ago. And what awaits me??? 540 more tips, all nicely made up as lists.

And what about the blogging part? Where has that gone? Did a memo not reach me, but have you all commonly decided to ditch sharing opinions?
I get it, I get it! Your lists are your opinions… it are THE best tools according to you!

My list? It’s a new one. Actually, it’s my wife’s list. She noticed how much lists interest me and just shove me a list under my nose. She actually send me an email. An email about lists.

Subject: You should check out this TOTALLY AWESOME list!

I’m a sucker. A sucker for lists. Big was my surprise when I read following items.

• Take the garbage out
• Fold the laundry
• Take the dog to the vet
• Clean the aquarium
• Buy new socks
• Pick up the kids from school
• Do the dishes
• Put the kids to bed
• Have fun with me

I put that list at the end of the list ‘lists to check out’. I wonder if it will increase my producitivity!

1. Warbucks, Oliver “Daddy” – $36.2 billion – 52 New York, N.Y. – Defense Industries
2. Burns, Charles Montgomery – $16.8 billion – 104 Springfield, U.S.A. – Energy
3. McDuck, Scrooge – $10.9 billion – 80 Duckburg, U.S.A. – Mining, Treasure Hunting
4. Rich, Richie – $10.7 billion – 10 Richville, U.S.A – Inheritance, Conglomerates
5. Clampett, Jed – $7.7 billion – 51 Beverly Hills, Calif. – Oil & Gas, Banking
6. Monopoly, Mr. – $7.1 billion – 71 Atlantic City, NJ - Real Estate
7. Wayne, Bruce – $6.8 billion – 32 Gotham City, U.S.A. – Inheritance, Defense
8. Stark, Anthony – $3.0 billion – 35 New York, New York – Defense
9. Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria – $2.8 billion – 37 Lagos, Nigeria – Inheritance
10. Howell, Thurston III - $2.7 billion – 60 Private Island, South Pacific – Howell Industries
11. Wonka, Willy – $2.0 billion – 57 Kent, England – Candy; aerospace
12. Malfoy, Lucius – $1.3 billion – 51 Wiltshire, England – Inheritance
13. Montana, Tony – $1 billion – 42 Miami, Florida – Cocaine
14. Croft, Lara – $1 billion – 37 Wimbledon, England – Inheritance, Antiques

“I played, like, a year of piano until I learned the Pink Panther theme. That was my goal. Once I was good enough, I quit. Now my music has to have some rock.”“I’d rather be the king of kids, than the prince of fools.“

“If Beethoven and Bach hooked up with Mozart and made a band, they could be a distant runner up to The D.“

“The moment you start analyzing your own rock is the moment your rock is dead. That’s why rock is now pretty much dead. Too much analyzation. No rockalyzation!“

“The movie Spinal Tap rocked my world. It’s for rock what The Sound of Music was for hills. They really nailed how dumb rock can be.”

“There’s nothing you can really do to prepare to rock. Do you prepare to eat a delicious meal? Are you hungry? Then you’re gonna eat it.”

“You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow.“

“You’re asking me to choose between two children, the one that pays more and the one that I secretly love more. With the acting, it’s somebody else’s brainchild, and I’m just sort of helping flesh it out; with the music, there’s a special satisfaction to being the brains behind the operation.”

[tags]jack black, rock, beethoven,spinal tap,famous jacks,school of rock[/tags]

“I’m complicated, sentimental, lovable, honest, loyal, decent, generous, likable, and lonely. My personality is not split; it’s shredded.”

“Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as the chief obstacle.”

“Poor people have more fun than rich people, they say; and I notice it’s the rich people who keep saying it.”

“One gets the impression that this is how Ernest Hemingway would have written had he gone to Vassar.”

“I have never seen a bad television program, because I refuse to. God gave me a mind, and a wrist that turns things off.”

“Doing the show was like painting the George Washington Bridge. As soon as you finished one end, you started right in on the other.”

“To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have a Hardluckland.”

“Statistics show that many people watch our show from the bedroom. and people you ask into your bedroom have to be more interesting than those you ask into your living room. I kid you not!”

“Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery”

[tags]jack paar,famous jacks,tonight show, televsion stars,zsa zsa gabor,david letterman[/tags]

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
– Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”
– Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
– Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
– William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
– Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
– Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
– Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
– Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
– George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…if there is one.”
– Winston Churchill, in response

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
– Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
– John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
– Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.”
– Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
– Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
– Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
– Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
– Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
– Thomas Brackett Reed

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”
– James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
– Charles, Count Talleyrand

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
– Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
– Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
– Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
– Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”
– Andrew Lang

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
– Billy Wilder

[tags]winson churchill,insults,billy wilder, oscar wilde,mae west,class,mark twain,robert redford, ernest hemingway[/tags]

A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks following a big schmuck dressed like a kid.

Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.

I don’t want to tell you how much insurance I carry with the Prudential, but all I can say is: when I go, they go too.

My wife Mary and I have been married for forty-seven years and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never.

[tags]jack benny, great comedy,bob hope, bogart, violins[/tags]

The Bloggy Network picked up an interesting blog last weekend at sitepoint. Quoting from the auction:

Buzzword Hell was a blog I started whose mission was to condemn all the buzzwords that floated around our industry. It’s a blog with a very unique system in that it “condemns” buzzwords to the circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno. Each buzzword is condemned based on the number of comments it has gotten.

It certainly is a very clever and original idea! And also some interesting backlinks; for instance from wikipedia’s page on buzzwords and an interview by Ben Bleikamp on his old College Start-Up blog.

Current “buzzwords condemned to hell” include-:

* Ajax

• Bandwidth
  
• Beta
  
• Blogosphere
  
• Folksonomy
  
• GYM Free
  
• Information Superhighway
  
• Live Search
  
• Meme
  
• Pagerank
  
• Paradigm Shift
  
• Progressive Enhancement
  
• Realign
  
• SEO
  
• Social Networking
  
• Spear Phishing
  
• Synergy
  
• Thought Leader
  
• Web 2.0
  
  

  BuzzwordHell.com is the creation of Bryan Veloso, known by his followers in blogosphere as “rock star”. Bryan is a member of the 9 rules network through his personal website: AvalonStar.com. He has worked for Facebook and Automattic, while achieving genuine “celebrity blogger” status through such landmark posts as his “Saying Hello to Aries” and the launch of his own WordPress theme: “Chaotic Soul“.

  
  

  Bryan has some good tips in his 9 rules interview for any wannabe “celebrity bloggers” out there. Amongst them, some modest advice-:

  
  

  I’m proud to say that I feel I have one of the most dedicated reader bases out there. For what reason? Why do they keep coming back? I really couldn’t tell you. I could assume, but then I could be making an ass of myself. Hmm… I try to talk to people like they’re right next to me, I try to be conversational. I don’t think there is any other way blogging should be. Blogging is a conversation between multiple parties. I’m a huge believer in transparency, which means that I never hide anything from my readers.

  
  

  [tags]bryan veloso,buzzwords,star bloggers, rock star,live search, web 2.0,9 rules,facebook,sitepoint,wikipedia[/tags]
  

Sometimes, in all that forewarded email spam, you get a gem…..

DR. PHIL:

The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he

must first deal with the problem on “THIS” side of the road before it

goes after the problem on the “OTHER SIDE” of the road. What we need

to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his

“CURRENT” problems before adding “NEW” problems.

OPRAH:



Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why

he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken

learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m

going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the

road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens!

GEORGE W BUSH:



We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want

to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The

chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL:

Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite

image of the chicken crossing the road.

ANDERSON COOPER/CNN:



We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet

been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE:

That chicken crossed the road because he’s GUILTY! You can see it in

his eyes and the way he walks.

JOHN KERRY:



Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against

it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the

chicken’s intentions. I am for it now, and will remain against it.

PAT BUCHANAN:

To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART:

No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a

standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price

dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider

information.

DR SEUSS:

Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad?

Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been

told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:



To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL:

Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth in

front of your face? The chicken was going to the “other side.” That’s

why they call it the “other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is

gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we

boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the

liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like “the

other side.” That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It’s

as plain and simple as that!

GRANDPA:



In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody

told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS:



Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the

chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it

experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its

life long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON:

Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together – in

peace.

ARISTOTLE:

It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

BILL GATES:

I have just released eChicken2006, which will not only Cross roads,

but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your

check book. Internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken. The

Platform is much more stable and will never cra…#@&&^( C …..

reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:

Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath

the chicken?

BILL CLINTON:

I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition

of chicken?

AL GORE:



I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS:

Did I miss one?

Look out your window, baby, there’s a scene you’d like to catch,

The band is playing “Dixie,” a man got his hand outstretched.

Could be the Fuhrer

Could be the local priest.

You know sometimes

Satan comes as a man of peace.

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue,

He knows every song of love that ever has been sung.

Good intentions can be evil,

Both hands can be full of grease.

You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Well, first he’s in the background, then he’s in the front,

Both eyes are looking like they’re on a rabbit hunt.

Nobody can see through him,

No, not even the Chief of Police.

You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Well, he catch you when you’re hoping for a glimpse of the sun,

Catch you when your troubles feel like they weigh a ton.

He could be standing next to you,

The person that you’d notice least.

I hear that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Well, he can be fascinating, he can be dull,

He can ride down Niagara Falls in the barrels of your skull.

I can smell something cooking,

I can tell there’s going to be a feast.

You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

He’s a great humanitarian, he’s a great philanthropist,

He knows just where to touch you, honey, and how you like to be kissed.

He’ll put both his arms around you,

You can feel the tender touch of the beast.

You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl,

Trees that’ve stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall.

Wanna get married? Do it now,

Tomorrow all activity will cease.

You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Somewhere Mama’s weeping for her blue-eyed boy,

She’s holding them little white shoes and that little broken toy

And he’s following a star,

The same one them three men followed from the East.

I hear that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

With thanks to the official site of the mighty Bob Dylan