by gummo

The following is a special guest meta post by Gummo Trotsky
(which does make one pine for the 'potemkin.)




The Top Ten Things I’m Not Missing

I’m in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, at the fringe where suburbia dissolves into the sticks, dog-sitting. It’s very quiet, Carruthers, too damn quiet. Will this accursed silence never cease? The natives are restful tonight; I’m not. Damn this silence; I want traffic noise! Will they never start driving so I can get some sleep?

That state of mind is what got me back onto the web in the wee smalls of this morning, lurking a few of the blogs that I used to be so scrupulous about visiting daily and finally dipping my toe in the water by posting comments at a couple of sites. Then it occurred to me that this was a little like dipping your toe in the waters of the mythical Amazon where the legendary piranha fish hang out, or half-consciously relaxing your urethra in the real Amazon.

A few weeks ago, Your site host Ms Boynton suggested I might like to do a guest post on the things I don’t miss about blogging; I gave her a sincere non-promise to do so. Today, I’ve decided to get my bum into the typing chair and deliver, if only to remind myself of a few of the reasons why I’m not (really) doing this blogging thing any more.

1. Waking up to AM every morning, so I can pick up something topical to write about.

2. Resisting the temptation to slip in the “I shoved John Hewson under the tram and he still wouldn’t bloody shut up and then I woke up and he was on the radio” anecdote.

3. The sneaking suspicion that I must have slipped it in to a post, but I’m not sure which one.

4. Searching the damn blog archive for “John Hewson” just to make sure I haven’t ever used it.

5. Getting a hot topic from AM which you know you can turn into a real linkage puller with a brilliant punch-line and then forgetting the punch-line.

6. Writing a brilliant linkage puller, posting it, then checking round the blogs later that day to discover that everybody’s decided to write about Britney Spears instead.

7. Cat blogging. Except for the stuff I’ve done myself which is witty, insightful and in no ways sentimentally self-indulgent.

8. Setting out to do a top ten post and getting stuck at nine.

9. Finding Evil Pundit’s name all over every comment thread of every damn blog you go to like a graffiti tag and the inevitable arguments over whether it’s art or vandalism or good art but very shoddy vandalism.

10. Having to choose between the very obvious stop at nine gag, the equally obvious going up to 11 gag, changing it to a top 40 and putting aside all the other good material for a later post with the working title The Top Ten More Things I’m Not Missing.

- posted by Gummo Trotsky

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Comments: by gummo

gummo - good to see you're back (not "your back"). I did notice you snuck in a late comment on the music questions on my pages. I thought of you the other day for the music thingo while I was cooking up a Corned Beef. On special at Bi-Lo, only $7.50 a kilo. Bloody bargain.

Welcome to Melbourne's Leafies. I can't help but agree on the cat blogging. I have found that in my few attempts at cat blogging I too find myself thinking that .."Except for the stuff I’ve done myself which is witty, insightful and in no ways sentimentally self-indulgent"

Thank you too for a new word "linkage puller". You never know, it could enter the lexicon as a name for a few bloggers I know. Merchant Banker. Linkage Puller.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at June 27, 2005 11:28 AM

Aaaah, cherchez le Gummo! Seek and ye shall find. (Comes over all gratefully nostalgic-like, thank you Boynton thAnk you ball boys, thank you linesm ... well, it is the season of the Wombles of the late night Channel IX common.)

John Hewson, the Lib's Alician (perchance Elysian) cheshire cat. I did but see it passing by ... I think ... in a fading sort of way ... and yet I love it till I die.

(Mind you I've always lacked the requisite vote-winning 'incentivation' so what would I know? F'tang, f'tang, oompa-loompa short and stout ... Guinness ... 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.)

Posted by Flange Desire at June 27, 2005 07:21 PM

Came here to state for Comrade Trotsky, how sorry I was for him needing traffic noise in order to sleep . .and needing AM (whatever that is) to inspire a blogpost . .then got totally distracted by FX's 'linkage puller' as in 'get your hand off it' and further distracted by Ms Flange Desire whose Comment was really impressing me as in 'who is this, obviously too clever to be reading blogs, should be running the damn country sorta thing' but Flange honey, you rooned it by explaining (the brilliant) Alician -never 'explain'- let 'em go without, and Comrade T, suburbia 'dissolves into the sticks' like lava flow thanks, and....what was my punch line? *tunes radio*
Posted by Crystal at June 28, 2005 09:14 PM

I'd be lost without a canine number seven myself, but even as a sentimental soul, I'm starting to think my own dog blogging has lost its bite.
Posted by boynton at June 29, 2005 12:24 PM

Here! Here!
Posted by at June 29, 2005 04:06 PM

1. Great to see you out and about in the blogosphere again Gummo, you old so-and-so Ent you.
2. Which reminds of something I completely forgot.
3. Which is that the last stuff you sent me I should do some stuff with.
4. And that I should also my extract my digit and send you some of my stuff so you can do stuff with it too.
5. Your email adress remains unchanged? If not, let me know at my unchanged email address.
6. Great to see you out and about again - as per point one.
7. See 6.
8."Steamboy" is OK, but not as good as "Spirited Away" or "Princess Monoke".
9. See 7.
10. There is no point ten.
Posted by at June 30, 2005 02:50 AM

11. Remember to put name to comment.
Posted by Nabakov at June 30, 2005 02:51 AM

Cheers Gummo. Hope you get some sleep.
Posted by cs at June 30, 2005 11:38 AM

Good night ... But, where is evil when you need him ;-?
Posted by Jozef Imrich at July 2, 2005 07:50 PM

This just in:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=carruthers%20too%20quiet&btnG=Search&meta=
Posted by boynton at July 5, 2005 11:10 AM