Happy (I Think) Birthday, Blogs

Today, December 17th, is generally accepted as the "birth" of the term weblog, and in fact is the 10th anniversary of Robot Wisdom, Jorn Barger's blog, where he first used the term to describe his "logging the Web" as he surfed it.

Barger is a strange, and with his tendency towards anti-Semitic cant a not particularly likable, character making him the perfect Father of the Blogosphere. If you go to Robot Wisdom - a link I'm not providing, as it's masthead flies an example of the aforesaid cant, you'll find it not more than links to other content on the Web, without commentary, which is Barger's ideal of what a blog should be, which is not mine, and probably not yours.

As with about most things in the world, except maybe kittens, I have mixed feelings about blogs. Blogging has sometimes carried me through very rocky periods in my life. But, I also tend toward Leo LaPorte's only semi-tongue-in-cheek observation that most blogs and podcasts, "are a desperate bid for attention," which pretty accurately describes both fhb and Dreamtime.

Of late - and I mean the past few months - I seldom read blogs anymore, usually only going to one when I need a specific piece of information or want an update on that person. I leave the weblog list up mostly as a matter of convenience for that purpose. And certainly I don't blog in fhb as much as I did. Part of that is the semi-regular schedule of Dreamtime. Writing Dreamtime articles pretty well satisfies my writing Jones. As one of the things I get weary of reading is the periodic "I'm gonna stop blogging, goodbye cruel world!" that all bloggers seem to occasionally post, I've resisted writing one, and expect to putter along with fhb for the indeterminate future.