Ten Questions with Payne by Name

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
Payne by name charts the weekly highs and lows of a typical 30-something British male. It’s peppered with insightful, entertaining, albeit sometimes totally un-PC observations and musings of life today. PBN doesn’t hold back, he readily opens up his life (and his head) to the unsuspecting reader who quickly gets to know in passing his views on all number of diverse topics. The prose is light, though not unintelligent or lightweight, and while some will be daunted by the sheer length of his entries, those that are capable of reading more than one paragraph will find treasure hidden there.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.

http://www.paynebyname.com/page16.htm

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
Honesty and sincerity. A belief that content is ultimately more important than presentation.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
It was at the end of 2005 when a work colleague bought me a ‘create your own website’ package. To be honest it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given. Something that gave me a voice and an online presence.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?

The reverse chronological order of a blog. You randomly stumble on a blog and have to gauge whether to invest the time reading more by the very last entry. You are then basically reading everything in reverse. What I like about my site is you can go straight to categories such as movies, women, relationships to get an idea of the kind of person I am and then if interested can tackle the journals.

Also the whole tally of comments and hit counters one-upmanship. It’s almost like the amount of either determines whether someone should read your blog. In reality though it’s the most popular ones that don’t have the time to genuinely interact or connect with others. They might be entertaining but they are almost run more like a business than the musings of a genuine person.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
This is where I demonstrate my lack of knowledge. I work on my site and web surfing at work so don’t really use any of the above.

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?

Never sure about the whole guest blogging thing. If the blog is meant to be your online presence or persona then getting someone else to do it seems wrong. From a purely selfish point of view it would probably be Sylvester Stallone. I find he is much misunderstood and dismissed by too many kudos seeking, chin rubbers. Whenever I’ve seen him interviewed he comes across as intelligent, funny and self effacing. Yet many want to label him a fool to curry favour with those individuals equally unwilling to give someone a chance. I think his blog entry would be fascinating.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
I think it’s helped my writing and it’s given me a place that I can say to people if you genuinely want to know me then paynebyname is me. So many people on the web are insincere or want to paint a false picture of themselves. My site is me, warts and all. Some will like and some will not but at least it’s an accurate representation of my thoughts and opinions.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger.
Write more about yourself and don’t be afraid to open up. People want to feel a connection when reading a blog so you need to engage them with from the heart stuff. Also if you going to have comments enabled, take the time to reply to them otherwise it’s clear that you only have them for ego massage.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
I read Kentucky Girl a lot. It’s well presented and well written. It probably isn’t that unique but that’s what is at the heart of blogging. I don’t read certain blogs because I want others to see that I read the ‘coolest’ blogs. I just want to keep up with genuine nice people. Kentucky Girl is one of them. She sometimes contributes to a blog review site and along with others caned me when I submitted my site for review some time back. Unlike so many others though she took the time to look below the surface and beyond the fact that it didn’t conform to the normal blog format. After a year of keeping a watching brief she contacted me.

One has a website / blog for some kind of approval that maybe you aren’t that bad a person. Her eventual appreciation of my site and in turn me as a person was a shining moment for the notion that someone had understood me and validation for all my efforts.

Categories: Personal, Ten Questions

10 Questions with Mitchell of Juiced Sports Blog

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
It’s a sports blog with three writers who all try to be funny. I try to be controversial as well, and some of my posts like “Virginia Tech: Not America’s Team” have really pissed some people off, but that’s just from me expressing my opinion. We try not to do the same damn thing as every other sports blog, so a lot of the posts are “out there.” I often mix sports with politics, for example.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
Here’s the Virginia Tech post: Stop Supporting Those Trendy Causes. I was sick of ESPN commentators talking about how VT’s football team needed to win to rebuild the school. The massacre was terrible, but it had nothing to do with sports! Even worse, VT was playing LSU, a team that ESPN crowned “America’s Team,” after Katrina, and New Orleans was still in bad shape, so wouldn’t LSU still need to win to rebuild LSU? According to ESPN, anyway. Unfortunately, the comments didn’t get imported when I moved from Blogger to Wordpress.

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
Just look at the post above. Not many other bloggers would write that even if they thought it. Also, that post is pretty long. All of our posts are longer than regular blog posts. I don’t like reading a 2 paragraph post that just links back to a news story, and I think my readers would like more as well. That’s why JSB writes long and original content.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
When I was like 13, five years ago, I read Maddox.xmission.com and thought he was hilarious, so I decided to start my own blog and found Blogger. I didn’t update it very often, but then I started writing sports for various websites, then I started my sports blog last year when the fantasy football site that paid me went under. I saw that you could make money from a blog through John Chow, so then I started my own blog.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
Blogs that don’t add value. Often you will see a blog that has one or two paragraphs about a big story that everyone is already talking about then it will just link to the news source. Great, I already know about that story. I got into the blogging biz to entertain my readers and give them something to think about. I hope that each post they read is worth their time.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live
without.
Is StumbleUpon a service? They offer the best quality visitors of any social media site. Their visitors stay longer and view more pages than average visitors, and the traffic continues coming forever, though it dies down after a few days of Stumbling.

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
Frank Deford. He went into journalism writing news but then he started doing a lot of sports writing when he started writing for Sports Illustrated. He comes from a better time when journalism had values. Sports writers traveled with the team and respected the athletes. They wouldn’t take a single quote and twist it out of context for instant gratification.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
It has taught me a lot about marketing and promoting. Not sure how that makes me a “better person,” but it is good experience for future jobs or whatever I end up doing. I don’t think blogging has made me a “better person,” I just try to be as good of a person as I can be day in and day out.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
Unfortunately, it is not always true that content is king. Marketing is king. You can have the best content, but if no one knows you have it, you won’t build readers. It’s like if John Chow writes a post on the side of a tree in the forest, will anyone read it? Well, now that I invoke John Chow, now, he doesn’t have good content either, does he? He used to.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it
unique?
Mixed Market Arts with Colin LaHay. It’s another make money blog, but LaHay is young, and his blog is new, so he still has good content. He doesn’t update every day, but that means that when he does update he usually has good content. For example, he has found a lot of places to build links that I haven’t heard of anywhere else.

Categories: Sports, Ten Questions

10 Questions with Hibs Blogger of Hibs Blog

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
News and views about Hibernian Football Club. It’s been running a short while now and is getting more popular every day. I try to update it as regularly as possible to keep it fresh and interesting.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
George Foulkes’ Buffoonery

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
My subject matter is unique. There are no other active Hibs blogs.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
Having read other people’s badly written rants, I eventually decided to do my own.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
Spam, spammers, not having enough readers, the usual stuff really.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
Wordpress Sitemap Generator - geeky huh?

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
Franck Sauzee - Hibs legend. Selfish reasons, it would mean I might get to speak to the great man.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
It keeps me out of the pub.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
Write regularly and don’t be scared to promote your blog in any way you can.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
The Tears of a Clown - unique because I know him personally.

Categories: Sports, Ten Questions

10 Questions with Olivia of High Culture on a Low Budget

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
As a former employee of the fine arts and a lifetime traveler, I often find that culture and hopping a plane/train go hand in hand (for me at least). Yet I also hate the misconception that the fine arts are for fine budgets. So when I got into travel writing, I really strove to make the “other” side of high culture known to people going through Europe on a shoestring budget. There are cheap opera tickets, free days at the museum, public concerts, etc., and High Culture on a Low Budget is a haven for all of those goodies (plus the occasional splurge). In addition to being breathlessly plugged-in, it has also recently launched weekly columns for travel playlists from some of the best-known travelers, ask a local Q&As, and cheap dates for the weekend warriors.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
That may have to be my first post, which was Vienna’s Universitat Grosser Festaal with its gorgeous Klimt ceilings. I love Vienna; if I had to live in one city for the rest of my life I’d park my derriere on Mariahilferstrasse and be quite happy. And, since the University is closed to the public, you kind of have to use some fancy footwork to get in there. I’m all about being a little sneaky to get some great art. However, my most popular post remains the Paris: Opera Garnier and Beyond so I guess I did something right there, too—I’ve been told your most popular posts are generally the ones that are most “you” (as it were).

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
I used “blow job” in tandem with a post on a Polish art gallery. Take that, Fodors. Like I said, I try to give high culture a spin for the Gen X and Gen Y crowds. We didn’t necessarily grow up with weekends at the philharmonic or afternoons at the museum. So it’s about making that part as exciting as the part where you can do it all on 10 Euro.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
I think like most teenagers in my generation, I must have played around with Blogger in high school. But my first major blog was started when I moved to Italy. It was an easy way for me to keep in touch with my friends (all five of them) and to get in daily writing exercises. I wound up getting some recognition for it in the blogosphere and in the Rome edition of Metro for having a no-holds-barred view of my travels (including a few wild nights around Europe). I had fun with that for about a year before turning to service-oriented travel blogging.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the Internet?
“Or the Internet?” Wow, that’s a wide range. I’m going to go with Tila Tequila here. Seriously. What the hell? Another pet peeve I have as a writer is how easily others can rip off your work and how flimsy your side of the argument holds up without any hard copy proof. I’ve pitched via e-mail to outlets that have in turn rejected me and then assigned my story idea to an in-house writer. I’ve seen some of my posts (which, in the interest of full disclosure, will occasionally include sentences lifted from press releases, event details, etc. Which, coming from a PR background, I can tell you is exactly what they’re there for) lifted into other blogs and websites. That sort of pettiness frustrates me, but you learn to develop a thick skin.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
I’m addicted to my WordPress blog stats page. It helps me figure out what I did on what day to make my hits jump (or plummet), I can monitor which posts are the most popular over time (which is what led to the playlist inception). And it also helps me monitor where I get my incoming links, etc. It’s a pretty simple service, but one that helps a great deal.

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog, who would it be and why?
I’m kind of with Barry (of Inn of the Last Home) on this one; HC/LB is my baby and I’m a little protective of it. I’m the mommy that will listen to the advice from other mommies on the playground, but the minute one of them tries to otherwise shape my kid directly, I’ll probably be the one smacking her down in the sandbox with my tweed handbag and leather boots. I am, however, all for interviews and guest contributions (vis-à-vis playlists) to my blog, and I have a long wish-list for travel mix-masters for the latter. Off the top of my head: Anthony Bourdain, Cedric Klapisch, Barack Obama, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Julie Delphy, Eric Ripert, the folks at Hidden Europe magazine, Takahashi Murakami, Tim Gunn…they all travel, right?

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
It’s taught me about the communal/community aspects of writing. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. And my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake. Oh, wait, I think that may have been how oil has made me a better person. But there are some communal/community aspects of writing that can only be learned through blogging, I believe. It creates a dialogue that can go almost instantaneously between blogger and readership, and that encourages honesty and authenticity from bloggers. I always take the extra five minutes to make sure I’m giving out the right information; I’m not too proud to e-mail an institution or put off a post to make sure it’s on pitch (as it were). And then I drink your milkshake.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
Discipline. If you say you’re going to blog every day, blog every day. That doesn’t mean that each post has to be on par with Hemingway or Tolstoy, but you’ll get in the groove of writing on a set basis and it will make the process much more natural and easy. If you’re blogging to further your writing career, this sort of daily exercise will help you exponentially. Also, look for ways to make your blog engage with your readership if you are looking to build a large fan base. Starting this month (April), I’ve been emphasizing the community aspect of HC/LB and am excited about the turns it’s taking. While I am not entirely for someone else writing my blog, I love the idea of someone else speaking on it.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
Being a displaced New Yorker, I’m all over New York Magazine’s blogs — Daily Intel, Grub Street, The Cut, etc. I feel like they keep me plugged into my home and give me a mix of politics, fashion dish, cultural goings-on, foodie news, and New York gossip. I was also really happy to see Alex Robertson Textor launch Spendthrift Shoestring last year; he’s an amazing travel writer and was one of my first editors, so I already have some built-in loyalty. Bias aside, he has a great sense of style when it comes to writing (and 80s Europop) and constructs engaging narratives on a word budget. No small feat.

Categories: Ten Questions, Travel & Culture

I found the Snuggles Podcast sort of by accident when she uploaded one of my free blog themes. I had met Annette already, we hang out at a lot of the same wahm themed places, and we both hang out at Mom’s Morning Show on weekday mornings. But, somehow I didn’t realize that Annette had this adorable podcast for kids! How cute is that?

Welcome to the Snuggles Podcast - the podcast for little ones and the moms and dads who love to snuggle with them ….. out of a love for the bedtime story time and out of a love for babies, toddlers and preschoolers, the Snuggles Podcast was born. Each week we’ll post a great bedtime story for you and your child to snuggle up and listen to.

That is just awesome, and it makes a bedtime story really super easy for the parents and the kiddos. I love bedtime stories, but I’d much rather be read to than do the reading some days, you know?

I’m not going to bore you to death with lots of fuzzy details and boring review chatter …. go get in your jammies and listen to the Snuggles Podcast. It speaks for itself. You’ll love it, I promise.

Categories: Family, Reviews

My husband’s mother immigrated directly from Norway when she was a young girl which means that my husband is a large part “Viking” as he laughingly puts it. That also means my daughter is also, and with my hobby of dredging up family history - I am always interested in anything Norwegian.

I’ve been visiting Photos from Northern Norway - A Photo Blog for a while now and have enjoyed some of the most beautiful photography you’ll ever see. I wish I could insert some of the photos here but because of copyright laws, I will only link to some of my favorites.

The author if this blog is Thomas Laupstad, who lives in Northern Norway. He is interested in preserving nature and so enjoys photographing his favorite subject…Norway. And it is spectacular! Some of my favorite photos are the Northern Lights, Snow covered Forest and Village, and an old Fishing Boat.

Interestingly, he also takes pictures of Norwegians insects, and other wildlife. Even pictures of flies and snails are artfully done!

I really enjoy this blog. It’s very simple, the pictures load quickly and it’s a quick browse with instant gratification. If you’re interested in any of his photography, it is for sale as well.

This is a beautiful and tasteful blog; an extraordinary little niche in the large photography blog market. Keep the beautiful art coming, Thomas!

Categories: Art & Music, Reviews, Travel & Culture

We were recently contacted about this awesome site and how the authors would be interested in a review. Well, we’re always in search of good blogs to review, so by all means…let us know if you’d like us to feature you!

The authors of technoNix have been busy for the past year building up a great site for everything technology! And who isn’t interested in technology? If you’re currently on your computer, then this blog will apply to you!

This blog has a community feel, which is always great for a blog author. The more “at home” you can make your readers feel, the more frequently they will likely come by. The way these authors have addressed that is by creating a forum for discussions of various current technology issues. I think that’s a terrific idea and it looks like it’s been pretty popular! Way to go!

Additionally, technoNix has addressed a wide gammit of topics, and among some that piqued my curiosity were these:

Track Your Friends With Your Cellphone - for the stalker side of my aberrant personality (lol): this is a funny post about how Sprint is offering a service where it can tell you where your friends are every 15 minutes (yeah, I just don’t know how I feel about that!)

Microsoft Maps in 3D - Microsoft, via Virtual Earth, has launched, at the time of the original post, what was a beta program to show cities, along with buildings and topography in their 3D form. I’ve always been curious about what cities really look like, mainly ones I’ve never been to of course, and so this item was particularly interesting to me. IE and Firefox can view these maps but evidently only when the add-on’s been installed. Cool!

Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion - this post was just representative of all of the “newsy” topics that technoNix offers about the industry.

And, if all of the above doesn’t tempt you to visit this blog, a giveaway surely will. technoNix is giving away a free game of Star Fighter! To enter the contest, go here. Good Luck!

Categories: Technology, Ten Questions

I actually don’t remember how it was that I came upon this blog. I just remember that I completely forgot about whatever it was I was originally looking for and got lost in the humor.

Pranks.com is produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. Here you will find insights, information, news and discussions about pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world - past, present and future - mainstream and counter culture. You are invited to contribute to its development. May your journey be filled with more than your expectations.

Just reading the “about” in the sidebar had my interest upon the first reading. Of course, a story about a zebra inside a school down in Oxford, Georgia was a pretty good attention grabber too. Not every day you see a zebra getting wrangled out of a college. No, the zebra was not hurt. It’s pranksters were careful and gentle with Bar Code, yes the zebra had a name! How cute is that?

Now that I’ve distracted you with talk of adorable zebras and funny college students let’s get back to the topic here. Which, in case you have forgotten is The Art of Prank. What makes a good Prank? Joey Skaggs has some easy to follow do’s and don’ts for all your wannabe pranksters out there. Stick to these guidelines and hopefully no one will want to hurt you!

Yes you fill find this blog funny, but there is a serious side to The Art of Prank. First Amendment Issues, ah yes, I’m sure you’ve heard of that beloved First Amendment of our United States. Just in case, here’s a refresher;

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Good stuff to know right there. And it seems that more and more every day the sanctity of this amendment is being questioned in the news, along with the rest of the top amendments that someone is always wanting to change, challenge, ban, edit or whatever. Hold this right dear to us and love it, for it allows your crazy use of pranking and keeps you from going to jail. Prank on fellow pranksters, prank on. (and don’t forget to blog about it and entertain the rest of us too!)

Categories: Humor, Reviews