NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday.
The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was linked to by several thousand sites, including Daily Kos, Digg, and The New York Times.
"Wow, what a special treat this was for all of us," said Talking Points Memo head blogger Joshua Micah Marshal, who, along with all other bloggers, checks Tiedemann's site every day just in case something monumental occurs. "I thought I was going to have to wait until Monday to find out if Ben decided to put [the shelf] in his bedroom or the living room. The pictures were great, too."
Within two hours of going live, Tiedemann's 15-word post received 34,634,897 comments.
I have found it strangely liberating not to feel the pressure to come up with something creative or even remotely interesting this past two weeks. Because sometimes, I'm just not interesting. I'm pretty sure my devout readership-all eight of you-can appreciate my desire not to let you know the most enthralling activity I completed this evening was cleaning out Van's bottles and relishing an hour of "alone time" while Derek snoozed on the couch.
But perhaps this recent blogging malaise could be attributed to my realization about my personal blogging motivations. Because, I recently recognized a feeling I hadn't experienced in quite some time... feeling unpopular. Blogging definitely creates a sense of importance; as well as provides quantitative measurements (comments, visitor counts) for your success or failure. This motivation to be "the best" or "most successful" can bring out some of the worst qualities in me.
To be clear, I'm not down on blogging. I think it can be a fun hobby, and I can't pass up the opportunity to share pictures, videos, and stories with my friends and family. But at the same time, I must profess (for myself more than others) that I am not competing to have the most exciting blog on the block. This blog is just me, "deciding where to put up that shelf."
We were driving home from church today, and about four houses we passed had already put up Christmas lights! Thanks to this website, I found out it still is 40 days, 1 hour, and 54 minutes until the big day. So, as it is now socially acceptable to start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving, I thought I would outline my Christmas wish list. What is on your list? Have you been nice?
Belkin Cush Top: It matches my chocolate brown laptop. Nuff said!
Video-Capable iPod: After I found out that my Adobe Premiere software converts home movies into iPod formats, the idea of toting around captivating footage of my baby is all too tempting. I think the people at work could get sick of this one. I don't want one of the new fancy iPods, an older model will do. Perhaps 60 GB?
On a side note: You know what I also just discovered this week? Audio books. THEY ARE AWESOME! It is like watching TV at work. What am I reading/listening to? The Golden Compass. Yeah, I know there is a lot of theological hoopla surrounding this one, so I decided to check it out for myself. My opinions for this matter are being saved for another post.
Corelle Ware: My beautiful wedding plates are getting trashed. These look light, easy to clean, and perfect for displaying my culinary artistry.
Gift cards: I'll take plastic over paper any day. I am not the least bit offended by "thoughtless" gift card giving. My favorites? Any restaurant or home decor store.
Here is your moment of zen (it is a soda from Pops!):
So I made this comment to Derek last night, "I'm so glad it is the weekend, we can go to bed early." What? Apparently, long gone are our days of staying out late and playing Karaoke Revolution, as they have been replaced by getting in bed before 10:30! So what is the appeal? Apparently when you have a baby, they feel the need to get up at the same time every day. What is the preferred wake-up time of our perfect little biological clock? 6:30 am. Sometimes, if we trick him by not turning on his bedroom light and reinserting his pacifier, he can eek out a couple more hours. But, that is a hit-or-miss method.
For another sleep related story, after pulling two almost all-nighters, I slept from 6 pm to 7 am. It was AWESOME!
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