I’m planning to upgrade wordpress and make some nifty changes to the blarg to keep it fresh, but for now you will have to get excited about a new plugin I put on today.

I want everyone to post a comment to this post, because if you don’t, you’ll never see the new plugin! Right now you will have 3 minutes after you comment to change what you posted. All you have to do is click on your post! This should come in handy for fixing spelling mistakes or if you decide that cussing me out wasn’t a good idea (or maybe you didn’t and it would be!), you can now go back and edit your comment before it becomes final. After the 3 mins the comment becomes permanent, but it’s nice to have the opportunity to fix them.

So post a comment and try it! If you want to add this plugin to your wordpress blog, visit the WP Ajax Edit Comments page.

A few days ago Lindsay posted about needing more motivation for making blog posts, and boy do I have the answer. It was staring me right in the face the whole time. You don’t need interesting stories, or a good sense of humor, just have a baby! Do it Lindsay, go make a baby, and then the posts will just fly off your fingertips and onto the screen. I pulled off 9 days of consecutive posts because of this little guy. He’s a bloggers dream. Yesterday was Easter, so that’s my excuse for breaking the streak.

The last two nights have been pretty good. We’re on a pretty flexible schedule right now, but he basically woke up twice during the night. His biggest problem is that it takes a long time to feed him. He’ll suck and suck forever and then act like he’s done and asleep, but the minute you put him down he’s awake and crying. Then it’s back to more sucking until he tops off the tank. It’s tiring for mom, so the last two days I’ve watched him in the afternoon while Stacie takes a nap. Last night I watched half of season 2 of The Office with him curled up on my chest. Good times.

Right now he’s upstairs sleeping, I’ve got our baby monitor in front of me, and Stacie is taking a shower. We got one of the fancy ones that detect movement, which I have to admit is pretty cool. Even if there are no sounds, I know he’s breathing and OK. I’ve even had enough time to plunk out a few sentences on the book this morning.

I’ve got some Easter pictures to post and a lot of video to edit, so maybe I’ll get to that this afternoon. To everyone on Spring Break, happy Spring Break to you. To everyone in Mexico without internet and not reading this, I hope you get lots of work done on the houses. To everyone wondering if they want babies, the answer is yes. Unless you’re crazy and psychopaths run in your family, then the answer is no. If you fall somewhere in between “well adjusted” and “crazy” on the sanity spectrum, please talk to my sister about whether or not you should bring a child into this world. Contrary to popular opinion, your baby should not be used as a sounding board for your conspiracy theories regarding radiation tainted trail mix. That’s crazy.

Tonight the blarg hits 50,000 visits! Granted half of those visits are from google images, but I will take credit for them! I’ve enjoyed the last 3.5 years of blogging since I started this site, and I look forward to many more years keeping in touch with people I otherwise probably wouldn’t communicate with much. See, the internet isn’t completely evil.

Chris’ recent struggles to create an interest in his Looney Tunes posts made me think about posting on the blogosphere. There are a lot of reasons people have for posting on their blog, and some encourage more comments than others. Just because you don’t receive any comments on a post doesn’t make it a bad post. Here are a few generalizations about different types of posts.

1) Diary Posts

This is probably the most common type of post. I usually make these when I have nothing in particular on my mind to write about. I’ll find a few interesting occurrences over the last few days, and ta da, I’ve got a new post. There’s nothing wrong with these posts, but don’t expect a flood of comments to roll in. The problem with a post like this is that it doesn’t invite very much discussion. To make a simple diary post more interesting, don’t simply recount what you’ve done like an encyclopedia, but make sure you mention how it made you feel. Give the reader some insight about why you felt it was important enough to share.

2) Creation Posts

These are really rare, unless your name is Paully Wally. These are posts where you’ve created something from nothing. Whether that is art, writings, video, or something else of that nature. I think these are fun posts because it takes the blog beyond just words.

3) Opinion Posts

I like these kinds of posts. They can cover a wide range of topics from politics to religion, and they are almost always passionate. These are usually a rant of some sort and always entertaining to read, whether you agree or not. These posts are great for discussion because when you’re passionate about something it can illicit responses from other people that either agree or disagree. You will most certainly receive more comments about your opinion regarding thong underwear than letting people know you went to the market yesterday for milk.

4) Discussion Posts

I would say these are similar to opinion posts, but with different intentions. Sometimes I’ll use an over the top rant opinion post to force people out of their shells to post, but a discussion post is a much more agreeable way to spur blog discussions. The most important thing in a discussion post is that it has QUESTIONS! If you’re tired of never getting any comments, then start asking people questions, and go beyond the basic yes or no variety. Force people to think about something they haven’t yet and some great discussions will evolve.

I’m sure there are more varieties of posts, so I will open the floor and make this a discussion post. What other types of blog posts are there that we can categorize, and what is good and bad about them? This would also be a great opportunity for people to share the ups and downs of posting on their blog. What has been rewarding about it, and what sucks about it?

There are a few people who I should be threatening with Dead Blarg status. My question for you is, how long until someone becomes dead? In the past I’ve used a month without a post typically…but that seems like an awfully long time. Should it be shorter? Three weeks? Two weeks? A month is nice because I don’t have to do any fancy math. I understand if someone has a busy week, or two…but a whole month?

Unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I think a month is a very reasonable posting length. After all, we are talking about DEATH. Anything shorter might be cruel.

Head on over to see some awesome stop animation from the Lunaverse!

Chris has finally joined the blogging community, and the last myspace link can be removed from my page!

Also, I’ve started putting recently undead people at the bottom of my friends list, so other than family at the top, eventually the list should be an indicator of who has been alive the longest. Go visit Chris at the Lunaverse!

It’s been over a month since my last blog trends update in our blogosphere group of friends, so here is a new one.

This past month has seen some very interesting new trends! Mike has actually made the list after coming back to life, and with a very respectable 8 posts in the last 30 days. Granted half of those were posts promising a post, but I won’t nitpick at this point.

With an even stronger showing is the artist Paul! At his current rate he could easily hit a once per day average.

Milky has even been able to keep up with an almost every other day post despite starting college. That’s very impressive.

And joining the list is a brand new blogger named Judy! It’s been a while since we had a new blog to read, and we’re glad to have you.

Overall I’d say we have quite the active group of blogging friends, and I enjoy every post.