On blogs and stuff

So, I have been in this blogging business for 2 years now. It started out when I was on an internship is some weird ass foreign country where I couldn't speak the language and had no friends (not that I do have now, thats why I blog) and was very desperate and lonely and the whole shebang. Ok. You get the picture? Right, now where was I? The blog thing. So this blogging was some random timepass and the only useful purpose it was to me was that I became one of the first people to get a Gmail account!

*Digression* Getting the email account was the most fun thing. For once, I beat out my geeky compatriotes in the ultimate geek quest. Yeah, I got a cool id as well. *End Digression*

So the basic problem was that I didn't really know that other people blogged, and that you could actually link other people's blogs, and wonder of wonders actually read them. Even if you did read them, I used to think it rude to comment. I was alone in my happy universe. My loneliness was disturbed once in a bluemoon when some equally lonely friend who decided to drop a comment, mostly out of politeness to me. Then sometime last May, during another blah phase, I realized that there were other people in the universe who also blogged.

I also found out that it was socially acceptable to comment on other people's blogs. It was weird that it was A-OK to pour your heart out to complete strangers. Essentially some kind of therapy that comes for 50 cents an hour (to me it's free, graduate students are technically below poverty line, and thus eligible for free internet). You will have a bunch of people therapizing you, and the only catch was that you need to therapize this bunch of people in turn. Now that sounded like a way better deal than the 50$ an hour or so you paid to your usual shrink. So, I realized that I really did need a shrink, and considering my monetary situation, this blogging thang did fit my budget pretty well.

So, I began blogging and reading blogs. And reading blogs. And reading blogs. Yeah, I read a lot of blogs. I started reading so many blogs that I considered going to another therapist to get me off this blogging therapy addiction. Thankfully, nightmares about my bank account force expediated recovery, and now I am in a post addiction 'steady' state. I am still guilty of reading blogs -

- First thing in the morning. When I get up, I don't brush my teeth, I don't check for emails from my advisor which politely say 'Dude you better get locomoting and git some work done!'; I check blogs for replies to my comments.

- During class. Of late, the only thing that I do in class is read blogs. In one way its good, see its an incentive for me to actually make it to class. However, the downside is that, none of the course material actually makes it to me. It makes it through me. Yeah, not so funny joke. Think about it? What do you prefer? The latest scandalous escapades of Hawt Chick 143 or some gyan on the optimization of twice differentiable convex functions?

*Digression* What is slightly irritating about engineering courses is that they make extremely unwieldy conversational material. An English major who decides to pout un-encumbered on Vikram Seth vs Rohinton Mistry is actually going to be considered erudite, cultured and sophisticated. What about me? How many people would want to listen to this really clever thing I did to tie in a hidden markov model and a regressive model? *Sigh* Of course, the upside is that, you can start another company like Google and become quite well off. Not that it will actually happen to me. However you need to keep saying stuff like that to keep yourself going. Its an art. See dude, if you can lie to yourself you need not lie to anyone else. *End Digression*

- After coming home on a Friday or Saturday 'evening'. Reading blogs on 'weekend evenings' is the biggest sign that.....you (no insult, as in I) need a life!!

So, by now you would have got the picture that I read a lot of blogs (apart from a lot of not so flattering things about me). A little while earlier I had done this post classifying blogs. Now, after the ten or so months that I have spent timepassing blogs, I have come to realize that, blogging most closely imitates life.

Firstly, lets see what is need to make a blog popular.

1. The most important thing is that you need to be a chick.

2. The most important thing number 2 is that you need to be a chick. This is incase you didn't understand 1. The key word here is chick. I really do hope I am getting my point across.

3. If you aren't a chick. You need to get everyone to think you are a chick.

4. Once that task is done, to get down to business, you need to get down to writing some scandalous stuff. Scandal usually attracts a lot of attention, and, all the guys who could never have spoken to you in real life, let alone had access to this scandalous information, are going to be on your blog. See, this has presented a legitmate haven for them to pass comments, and actually even get a reply. Make a lot of 'friendship'.

5. Keep repeating 4. and you are home. No not literally. Duh! Figuratively.

Analogy in real life - Paris Hilton is far better known than Warren Buffet. Capiche?

*Digression*
Jon Stewart : Which is the only Hilton you can get into for free?
Answer : *Loud cough with a few hiccups and a sneeze*
*End Digression*

We know that in real life, for every good looking girl, there are 1 (or two?, if it's one of those nasty egoistic types) 'friends', 10-20 admirers and whole lot of stalkers. Now using the principle that there ain't nothing like a free lunch, and that you can seldom have the cake and eat it too, if and when you decide to be 'attractive', you should be prepared to attract everything from lions to locusts. So, the downside to this whole attention thing is a swarm of psychopaths with a whole lot of free time and a whole lot more 'advice'. This is where the therapy thing goes wrong, because the cardinal rule is that you pay the dude 50$ an hour to listen and not hurt feelings and stuff. He deserves the money. Anyway, my point is, once people stop listening to you and start saying mean things, its almost like you are paying (for your internet connection) to be traumatized.

Paris Hilton Analogy : When she decided to become famous, did she realize that every tabloid is going to report the fact that she has lost her..mind..errm...cat.

So, finally, which are the blogs that nobody reads?

- Mine.

What does that mean?

- I am Warren Buffet.