Blogs on Blogs, a Weblog Review
(Learning Journal Week 5)

My students have regularly used blogs in New Media Studies and in other Literature courses at Stockton for reading journal assignments, as a portfolio-building tool, and for special projects. Ken Tompkins, the senior faculty member of the LITT program, was an early adopter of weblogs and has long advocated the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool. This semseter was however the first time that my NMS class studied weblogs as a literary genre alongside hypertext, kinetic poetry, interactive fiction and the other evolving forms of electronic literature we study in the course. One of the questions we asked was whether or not weblogs can be considered a "genre" in the same sense as we understand other literary genres, for example confessional poetry or the historical novel. I think our conclusion was that weblogs might be thought of as "formal" genre -- the majority of blogs share certain technical characteristics (regularly updated, posted in reverse chronological order, various types of engagement with the larger network as detailed in Dr. Walker's weblog definition) -- and perhaps these technical commonalities define blogs as a genre in the same way that 5/7/5 syllables define haiku. Blogs cannot however be defined as a genre by virtue of content. Weblogs are as varied as their authors. Some weblogs are much like epistolary novels, some like confessional journals, some like newspapers, some like scrapbooks, some like writing portfolios, some like research papers, some like cookbooks. There is a seemingly infinite variety of approaches to blogging. (http://caxton.stockton.edu/BlogOnBlogs/)

Origin of Blogs (http://www.andreas.com/faq-blog.html)

In August 1999, Evan Williams in San Francisco figured out how to update his website by just typing text into a text box.
Normally, to update a website, you use an HTML editor, edit the text and add HTML formatting, use FTP to upload it, and the page is then available.
But his new method allowed him to open a webpage, type text into a text box, click Submit, and it was instantly available as a webpage.
This makes it easier to add content to websites without having to bother with HTML.

Jorn Barger coined the term weblog in December 1997 for his Robot Wisdom Weblog, which still exists at robotwisdom.com.
The first hand-made blogs showed up in early 1999. The first use of "blog" also appeared.
In August 1999, Evan Williams (at evhead.com) released what was to become blogger.com.
In January 2003, blogger.com reached one million users.
In February 2003, Google.com bought Pyra, the makers of blogger.com
I should also mention several more people who have been significant in developing blogs. Dave Winer created the Radio Userland blog tool radio.userland.com. Meg Hourihan megnut.com is the co-founder of Pyra (blogger.com) and she got together the funds that kept the company alive.

Origin of the word Blog

If a diary on the website is a log entry on a website, then it is a web log. This was shortened to weblog, which soon became blog.
There's also the verb, as in "she was blogging all morning."

This week, we have to find a blog and share it with others.
so, here's one i've found, it is one of the funniest blogs i
have read, it describes someone's liberal attitude to life
but more importantly presents issues of freedom of expression
we are entitiled to on the web. Enjoy!

An Expat Goth
viernes, marzo 02, 2007 (http://spanishgoth.blogspot.com/)
My Name is Not Earl

I started this list after watching My Name is Earl which simplistically, involves creating a list of everything bad you have ever done in your life that you feel you ought to correct before Karma takes a big royal shit on your head. The first portion of my list, My Name is Goth contained only 7 entries so I still have about 6......thousand to go.

Number 8 - Caused someone to stamp in dog shit -
hell, it seemed funny at the time. Dark winter evening, bored, as nothing was happening, collect a steaming dog turd in a piece of newspaper. Carefully position on an evil neighbours doorstep, set fire to the newspaper, ring the door bell and retreat, fast, to a suitable viewing point. Laugh hysterically as miserable neighbour appears at the door in slippers and attempts to stamp out the fire.

Number 9 - Took the piss out of foreign people -
not big, not clever, but velly funny (at the time). Cue chinese chip-shop assistant asking if I want salt and vinegar on my chips... me -> "Portion of chips please" "No ploblem, you want sore finger?", "I want sore finger?No thanks, my finger hurts already", "So you no want finger", "I want vinegar, but not on my finger, I might need it later", you want finger to tek home? "No, I want vinegar on my chips, does your daughter want finger?", "No, you want finger on your flies?", "I don't want flies, I want chips""So you want sore finger or not?", "No, I don't want sore finger"...etc (meanwhile, in the kitchen the chef is pissing in the wan ton soup smiling and saying "we make special soup for you, velly funny, velly funny".....)

Number 10 - Encouraged a moron to cheat - and fail an exam -
so IM kept looking at my paper for the answers during an exam and yes, I was pissed off and so in the multiple choice part I deliberately kept holding my pencil to my mouth before circling, very clearly, the wrong answer to every question knowing shit-for-brains would copy what he could see I was doing. 10 minutes before the end I stood up, as if to leave and moron followed suit "have you finished?" asked the teacher, "Yes", said moron and looked to me for confirmation "ok, you may leave" said the teacher and moron started walking away. "No" said I "just got pins and needles in my legs" and sat back down and then corrected all the answers on my paper.

Number 11 - Electrocuted my brother -
frequently. Unfortunately for my little brother, who is and always will be, three years younger than I am, I discovered one of the basic principles of electricity before he did. Namely that a current travels as far as it can before inflicting pain. To test this theory I pretended to change a light bulb, knowing the power was on and asked him to hold my hand to steady me. Lo and behold, when I touched the live circuit, I felt a slight tingle whereas it was his hair that went vertical and with a yelp of pain he ran away. I repeated this trick about 6 times before he learned not to trust me. Probably explains why people being interrogated him now have such a bad time.

Number 12 - Stabbed someone -
although in mitigation, said someone was attempting to mug me at the time but maybe a slight over reaction on my part. The muppet held a knife in my face and demanded my money not knowing that a) I studied martial arts for years and b) I was in a very bad mood. A split second later, he was on the ground with the knife stabbed very firmly into his thigh. In retrospect, I didn't need to stab him but then again he didn't need to try and mug me.

Number 13 - Ran my fathers car out of petrol - always.
My father begrudgingly admits I have a sixth sense when it comes to how much fuel is left in the tank. So much so that he always has at least two containers of petrol, one in the boot of his car and one, hidden.....now. The reason being I used to borrow his car but never put petrol in it. Didn't seem any point as there was petrol in it already. Bearing in mind that he lived 5 miles from the nearest petrol station this could prove slightly annoying to him. For example, the time when I went on a 200 mile triip, returned the car to him and left. When he decided to go to the shops, he got in the car, started it up and got precisely 4 metres before the car spluttered to a halt, still on his driveway and blatantly out of fuel.So now all I have to do is figure out how to "undo" these things on my list, well that's what Earl does. Then again, he won the lottery and I haven't so.....maybe I won't, yet.buen fin de semana y besos a todos,Sps will be quiet (blog wise) this weekend as I am going to see my angel, Mini-Gothess for her birthday.
Happy Birthday my beautiful princess. XXX