Blogging - Some Observations

Firstly, I wonder about my place in this whole thing. For my first months blogging I was casually posting about twice a week with only a few loyal friends who would check it out. Since I discovered the Montreal Metroblog and YULblog, I have become a contributor along with becoming closed to obsessed with this new world. Before I would spend my computer time checking out the weather, the Cubs, sports, Mt St Helens, Hawaiian volcanoes, earth quakes, tropical storms, Chicago News, the Onion, and occasionally Wikipedia. Now it is almost exclusively about blogs, checking on this one, checking others in Montreal, and trying to come up with posts for this blog and the Metroblog. So I'm wondering, will this last? Will I keep up this interest? Will it naturally slow down into a normal hobby? Or will it be a flash in the pan and I lose interest completely? Most likely my interest and involvement will wane down to a natural hobby. It has filled a void that has been missing since I left Chicago. I have finally started meeting others outside of family and co-workers. And I really enjoy the conversation at YULblog. Something we used to do regularly back home.

In doing some research looking through the nominations for the Canadian Blog Awards I have had some interesting observations. First the caveat that the blogs that I know of outside of Quebec are those nominated for the awards. The ones inside Quebec are primarily anglophone members of YULblog. Also I have tended to read primarily blogs in English only for the reason of expediency. I have so much that I want to read that I tend to read that which I can read fast. I know I will have to overcome that if I want to advance my French.

So my observations are these. There are an awful lot of political blogs out there and there are none that I have seen coming out of Quebec. Writers here mention politics, but there are not blogs devoted to it. Also there are a lot of stay-at-home moms writing blogs. Sometimes they are some of the more interesting personal blogs and they usually don't concentrate on their kids. Maybe it is their outlet. The Montreal blog crowd has a high concentration of those into computers and those into video games. Again, that may have something to do with YULblog. My personal preference is personal blogs that are varied whose author obviously has similar interests or outlook on life. But they also must have some commentary on culture and politics. I will soon list the nominated blogs I think are the better ones and they will likely have those qualities. I also like really well done photoblogs.

Lastly there are generally three types of commentors who I will relate to birds. First there are the birds that take it all in and don't say a peep. Second, there are the songbirds who take it in and respond with a sonnet. Lastly, there are seagulls that eat everything in sight, make a lot of noise, crap everywhere, and leave never to be seen again. I have been fortunate not to have many seagulls. Myself, I am a bit of a comment whore. Something inside me makes me want to comment very often on other blogs. I really don't know what it is, but I do try to limit the comments to only the better ones. Also since I like to comment, something in the back of my mind makes me wonder whether my posts are decent due to lack of comments. Anyhow enough rambling.

In the meantime, I hope you find this interesting and feel free to leave comments.