Of Cabbages and Kings: dos and don'ts of blogging

It's hard to believe, but as of today, I've officially been blogging for three years. Yep, newborns have grown into full-fledged, "NO!"-proclaiming humans in the time my first blog has been a virtual quickie-mart stop on the Internet Highway.

And in that time, I've learned a few things. Things which I will share with you today:

Spammers know no sense of irony. I have a Japanese spammer. She spams both of my blogs daily, in Japanese. My readers and I don't speak Japanese. She doesn't speak English. Each day she specifically spams the post about my deep loathing of individuals of the Spamacious nature, such as herself. Each day I delete her spam. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

When you discuss the film Aliens, do so with the reverence normally reserved for the Pope and crispy bacon. Back when I was just a baby blogger, I made the mistake of thinking I had some funny observations about the film Aliens. Due to the wonders of Social Media (meaning about 10 angry Reddit-haunters who apparently sleep under Aliens sheet sets on their parents' pull-out sofas, dreaming of how different their lives would have been if only Sigourney Weaver had gone to the prom with them), I learned that my observations about Aliens are, in fact, wrong and distinctly unfunny. So from here on out, I shall refer to Aliens as "That Space-Oriented Film Of Which I am Unworthy To Speak, What With Not Having Thoroughly Digested Its Entire Catalogue of In-Depth Mythology." For your own safety, I recommend you do the same.

No, they've already heard that story. No, really. Really. I'm lucky enough to have a few real-life friends who read my blogs. This, I understand, helps them keep up with all the fast-paced, budget-conscious, telemarketer-flaming, furniture-refinishing, anti-zombie activity that surrounds my oh-so-riveting life. This also means that when I see them in person, I begin to regale them with my latest plan for better human-zombie relations or, say, the cool new purse I thrifted, they cut me off quicker than the Stig test driving a Lambo on the Autobahn. "Yes, I read that," they tell me, offering the polite pained smile you give that aged relative with Alzheimer's who's just opened her birthday slippers for the fourth time. Let me tell you, the conversation dies quicker than Meryl Streep looking for another Oscar. Always have new material.

If they're not laughing at your jokes, at least you can't see their faces. Blogging has allowed me to share all the things that have struck me funny, some of them not even involving infomercials. But the best thing about blogging is, I don't have to see your faces. Not that you guys aren't all really beautiful people, who I wouldn't totally enjoy staring at until you started nervously sweating and tugging at your collar, because of the High Art involved in your perfect profiles. But 1.) I don't have time for that crap. And 2.) when I make a joke that totally bombs, I don't have to see your expressions of weary bewildered tolerance. This has been great for the ol' self-esteem. Thanks!

You can't turn back the hands of time on a bad post. Believe me, I've tried. I've scoured the city, looking for Doctor Who. And not just for a brief vacay of interstellar travel and cheeky banter, but also to intercept the latest, mutant blog issuance I'd given birth to. How do you unmake that three-eyed, humorless child you adored for 3.5 seconds? Well, you don't. You can't. You can unpublish, but it's already out there, limping through the cities and breaking up the place. So just slap a tux on it, sing a duet of "Putting On the Ritz," and move on. Maybe no one will notice.

Well, I could go on and on about this, but I won't because of the last thing I learned from blogging: