Thursday, November 08, 2007

Most Pointless Blog in the World

What is the most pointless blog in the world?

No, no, no. I'm not angling for you to say that Proper Course is the most pointless blog in the world. Please read on and contain your anger at me for a while.

This whole blogging thing is pretty pointless, when you think about it. Sure, sure, sure, there are some blogs about science and history and the environment and so on that are worthy and educational. Political blogs help to stir the pot of our great national debate and/or give millions of readers validation of their prejudices. Some blogs even manage to break some news or reveal stuff that the main-stream media missed. And b
logs with a theme such as cake-icing, dog grooming, or even Laser sailing satisfy the multitude of minority interests with which many of us choose to occupy our time on these potentially monotonous annual elliptical rides around the sun.

But 99.99% of blogs are just daily journals written by ordinary boring people like me and are only read by the writer's relatives, three friends, and that guy in Croatia who has nothing better to do. However even those blogs have some merit. Every human life starts from a tiny seed planted by God that grows into a beautiful flower that blooms in the sunshine and provides ineffable joy to every passer-by that gazes on its beauty....

What? Where was I? Where am I? Where did that last sentence come from? Am I channelling Oprah Winfrey or St. Francis? Where is the whisky bottle?

Anyway. Forget about blogs with genuine themes that are of interest to as much as .000023% of the human population (including the guy in Croatia). Forget about ANY blogs that are daily journals of an individual's boring job or unfulfilled social life. At least it's a life. And ignore the 27 million blogs that start with a post saying, "I've decided to start a blog," and then stop.

No. To qualify as The Most Pointless Blog in the World, a blog must...

  • have been running for several months at least

  • have several dozen posts at least

  • have a theme

  • but the theme is the most useless, pointless, nit-picking, tiny, worthless, uninteresting subject you can imagine.
Let me put it another way. If you met a stranger at a party and you asked them what they do and they said something like, "I teach Zen," or "I play the guitar," or even "I sail a Laser," and, "by the way I write a blog about it," your reaction, even if out of politeness, might be something like, "Oh, that's interesting. How did you get started in that? Where do you do it? I have a friend who does that. Please tell me more."

To qualify as The Most Pointless Blog in the World, the theme of the blog must be something that if someone at a party said, "I do 'theme of pointless blog'," you would immediately blurt out, "Ohmigod, is that the time? I forgot I have an appointment with the dentist for a root canal. I must rush. Nice meeting you. Bye." And you would be thinking, "Geeze. Is this guy off his meds? How could he be interested in that? If he spends even ten seconds talking about that I will die of boredom."

A couple of examples to give you a flavor...

Why a Tittle? A blog devoted to examples of writing where i's are dotted when they shouldn't be. (Hmmm. Can a blog be pointless when it is dedicated to pointing out the existence of points that are pointless? Oh, never mind.)

Change is Good
A blog that reports nothing more than the loose change that the author has found, mainly on the ground (posting almost daily since September 2003).

Let's just play out that party conversation test. You meet the author at a party and the conversation goes something like this...

You: Hi! I'm Joe.

Him: Hi. I'm Brian.

You: Nice to meet you, Brian. What do you do?

Brian: I pick up loose change.

You: Hmmm

Brian:
On Sunday I found two cents, amazingly, given that I barely saw the light of day. The first penny was on the ground in the parking space next to mine at work. The second was on the ground inside work.

You: Really? You work Sundays? What do you do?

Brian:
On Monday I found eleven cents--a dime and a penny--on the ground in the locker room at the gym.

You: Fascinating! You work out? Which gym do you use?

Brian:
I didn't find anything on Tuesday. Liza found a dime at CVS, but I'm not yet certain if she's going to donate it to the quest.

You: Quest? Ummm. Ummm. Liza, is she your wife?

Brian:
I didn't find anything today. Liza found a dime yesterday, at CVS, and is donating it to the quest.

You: Yes, you said. Ummm. Ummm. Oh, I think my wife needs some help over there. Will you excuse me?

You get the picture? There must be other Brians out there. Please submit your suggestions for the title of Most Pointless Blog in the World in the comments.


17 comments:

EVK4 said...

Holy cow, the loose change blog is incredible. His friends even mock him about it by planting dimes. That rocks.

One time I bought one of those joke coins that has a nail glued to one side of it. I pounded it into the stairs to my flat before we had a big party. I then amused myself by taking pictures of people trying to pry the nickel out of the stairs. I'm going to ctrl-c this story and post it on the loose change blog.

Zen said...

$667.95 Dude!

this guy FOUND $667.95

that is nothing to make light of.

This guy ROCKS!!

He need a link!


Hmmmmmmmm
what about people who go looking for totally boring blogs...

things that make you go hmmmmm....

Carol Anne said...

Why a tittle, indeed.

Maybe I'm wrong; I haven't gone to the dictionary to confirm this. But at least in the terminology I learned long ago, the dot over a lower case i is a jot. A tittle is the crosspiece on a lower case t.

Thus, when someone says he or she has gone over "every last jot and tittle" in a piece of writing, that person means that all of the i's are dotted and all of the t's are crossed.

Tillerman said...

Hmmm. So maybe the writers of the two example blogs I chose would not fail the "would I want to talk to this person at a party?" test. Zen would flatter Brian about his financial acumen and ask for tips on how to make money the same way; while Carol Anne would chat for hours with Bob about the meaning of words like tittle and the origin of the phrase "jot and tittle".

So what does this mean? There's no such thing as an uninteresting topic, no such thing as a pointless blog? It's all in the eye of the beholder? Only boring people find tittles and loose change boring?

Or is there really a most pointless blog in the world but we just haven't found it yet? The search goes on. Help me people. Please.

EVK4 said...

Unfortunately, your blog now resides at the top of the google search for most pointless blog in the world. There are others with that claim that you can click on for research purposes.

Anonymous said...

Yeehow. And Proper Course is on the first page if you google Fish on Fridays. I am the king of pointlessness and fishiness.

Mondale said...

Wow! I was going to rave about 'Change is good' and how it's an amazing, incredible blog but it seems that I was beaten to it. Shucks.
I did once stumble upon a quite marvellous blog (not dissimilar in tone to CIG) where a fellow wrote about the song that was in his head as he left his home each morning. Entries along the lines of "It's raining men". Good Lord no!

Anonymous said...

Are you thinking of Wild Song of the Day?

Anonymous said...

I was quite used to being the only "Brian" I know. I often apply this line of thought to everyone around me.

Recently, I moved. Now I am one of 4 Brian/Bryan/Bryants on my hallway of my floor. Not sure just how many we have in the building.

From my old perspective, I'm concerned about your use of the hypothetical "Brian" and a possible implication that my meager blog has been deemed pointless.

From my new perspective, I'm hoping you just know more Brians!

Tillerman said...

If you are the Brian who writes Loose Change then I think the overwhelming vote of my readers is that your blog is not pointless at all. The critics say your blog is "incredible" and that "it rocks".

If you are the Brian who writes lasersailor's blog on yahoo then you are right, it is meager, but as it's about Laser sailing it can't possibly be pointless.

If you are the guy in Croatia, then I didn't even know you had a blog. Is it pointless? Isn't Brian an unusual name for a Croatian?

If you are offended by my use of the hypothetical name "Brian" to refer to as yet undiscovered authors of very pointless blogs, then you should get a life.

Pat said...

I once went to a wake for a guy named Brian. At the wake, he shared some nice whiskey. (He really wasn't dead, it was just that the Social Security Administration had decided he was deceased, so he decided to host his own wake and invited all his friends and some reporters.)

Anonymous said...

Does the undead Brian have a pointless blog?

Amy said...

Definitely eye of the beholder. I love blogs about bad apostrophes and I bet I'll like the loose change one. I think the gimmick is what keeps you stopping in once in awhile. That or it's redeeming to know there are at least a few other people who share your pet peeve.

Maybe someone should study whether more people would continuously read about Laser sailing or about finding loose change? Could be great data!

Anonymous said...

I'm a fan of everyday joe's/jane's writing about their daily life. Minus the part where they describe what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

-Dude in Croatia

Anonymous said...

Sorry about commenting on an old post, but it was funny and well-written and new-to-me.

Very nice blog.

Anonymous said...

Most pointless indeed.

ZEN, you are right, some people just need pointless things to do and read. My search was pointless blogs in the interest of finding a pointless blog. :)

Anonymous said...

allmost as pointless as www.giveahighfive.com

Post a Comment