Blog Tools

Most of you probably already know this shit or have even better tools for doing this stuff. But I would appreciate it if you UberUsers could just shut the fuck up for 24 hours and let me appear like a Blogger God to those newbies who haven't yet graduated beyond my lame-ass blog to more sophisticated fare.
(but please email me privately with urls for that other cool stuff! thanks! shhhh!)

KEEPING UP WITH YOUR BLOG BUDDIES
Do you use Yahoo Mail? See that little scrolling directory on the left? Look down to where it says RSS Feeds. You can add your favorite blogs there so that whenever they have a new post, the name of their blog is all emboldened. Checking every blog you love all at once is as easy as checking your email. You'll have to click on the appropriate links and figure out how to do it yourself (just like I did). This is Hip Suburban White Guy, not Nerds R Us.

KEEPING UP WITH YOUR BITCH FIGHTS
I routinely patrol my favorite blogs for interesting posts and look for opportunities to leave comments. I do this for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that commenting on someone else's blog takes a lot less thought, creativity and effort than dreaming up something clever to post on my own blog. Often, my comments can be as simple as "BUSH SUCKS ASS!" or, the ever popular and erudite "YEAH? WELL FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!!". Again, it's quick, it's easy, it doesn't take much thought and it lets people know you care.

The second reason I try to leave a lot of comments is incredibly selfish. If someone is following a popular blog with a well reasoned, critical analysis of America's foreign policy as it relates to macro geo-political concepts and the real consequences of strategic and tactical actions by current and former Super Powers, and they stumble across one of my comments that says "I LIKE PONY'S!!" or "I'M A GOOD LITTLE DOGGY!!", they will often click on my profile. If they read my profile and see that I have a blog, they will click and visit. That drives up my hit counter and makes me feel good about myself. I'm a cheap fucking whore like that.

The problem is that I'm often blasted out of my mind on paint fumes, prescription pain killers and Jack Daniels. That makes it difficult to remember what comments I left where (or, as I like to think of it, 'which punch bowls I plopped the turds in').

Luckily, the folks over at Blog Flux have a service called Commentful. After you comment on a blog post, you click on the permanant link to that post thread. Copy that URL and paste it into your Commentful Watchlist. Then you can just go to the Commentful website, check your Watchlist, and see who has added comments after yours! That allows you to make witty retorts such as "I ATE TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE AND HAVE A BAD CASE OF THE DRIZZLY SHITS!!", further confounding your critics and driving even more hits to your blog.

KEEPING UP WITH YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNTS
Most of us have multiple email accounts these days.

There is the "official" email account that you use for "official business". This is the one you put on your resume' and give to your family.

Then there is your "online dating" or "lying, cheating, affair-having" email account. This is the one with addresses like "lookingforlove@whatever", "lonelytoolong@imaloser" or "notawifebeater@dontbeafraid".

And of course, the address you use to sign up for porn sites. "imnotme@nowhere" or "notreallyintomidgets@justkidding".

There is a really cool service called "ePrompter". It's free and you can enter up to something like 16 completely misleading and incognito email addresses. The ePrompter will go out, log in and check all of your email addresses every 15 minutes and tell you which ones have unread mail. Each site has a color coded little ball so you can tell at a glance whether it is your wife or mother in law responding to your kid's latest school photos, or that sleazy little slut in Omaha who wants to rock your world and wreck your marriage. All with a click of a mouse!

Just thought you should know.