Web site news

An almost three-year-old poem and the by-now-weekly update on Da Blog

Here’s a poem I wrote in Summer 2004:

45 Degrees on Port

It is sunny.
Several families watch
For the cargo to approach.
A boat rocks
Over the horizon.

It is rainy.
There will be no sailing today.
Far beneath the waters,
A school of fish waits
For their catch for a change.

It is cloudy.
Sailors don’t know what to make
Of the white sky,
For the old saying about red skies
Never said a thing about white.

It is snowy.
No sailor has been here
For two months.
Beautiful patterns appear
On the water.

Gripping, isn’t it?

Well, since I’ve only gotten a smattering of responses, it’s not as though I’m really catering to very many people. In fact, while I’m extending my request to find out what projects you’re interested in (two posts down) for another week, I’m also taking a special sample poll, available on the right side of Da Blog, to find out if I’m even going about this the right way.

I’m a root beer guy, myself…

The random, venting, irrelevant to anything post you have to read

There are a lot of things I don’t take well. Imperfection is one of them. Brain-dead idiocy is another.

I don’t always react to such things, but if I’m already in a bad mood, I might. Generally speaking, if I lash out about it, it’s usually with a bunch of random finger gestures thrown vigorously in your direction.

If you feel threatened, don’t be. No matter how vigorous it gets, it almost never gets more extreme than that, and you’re in no danger if no one takes it to some really dumb extreme. Also, the mere act of doing that is a form of calming me down in many circumstances.

If it isn’t, though, and I don’t storm out of the room, shut up and don’t say anything that might make you look stupid. And don’t dare try and suggest you have a problem with it, that’ll just make me madder.

Because you shouldn’t have a problem with it. You shouldn’t have a problem with anything anyone does. I don’t believe there should be any one definition of “normal”, and I think people should be open-minded enough to accept anything that doesn’t kill them.

The original topic poll I refer to in various posts below is now closed with no resolution, so if the results of the new poll in the post immediately below raise too many problems with me, I’ll reopen it. Also, I’m modifying Da Blog to show 10 posts per page instead of 7, and I should be hitting 100 page views any minute now.

Update on the future of Da Blog

Of the three total responses I’ve received, I received two requests for more information on my “grandiose projects”, one of which actually contrasted it to mere coverage of sports, as though covering projects precluded covering sports.

Getting grandiose projects is a given no matter which topic gets chosen. It isn’t really a topic in itself, and I don’t know that I’m confident enough to simply lay them all on you, not to mention that I wouldn’t know where to start or what to put on or anything. (By September at the latest, you’ll have a very good view on just how grandiose my projects can get, regardless of final topic.)

So what I think I’m going to do is extend this another 24 hours, looking for some clarification as to what projects I would want to post. But I’m also instituting a new poll. Below is a list of just some projects I have and are working on. It’s far from an exhaustive list, but it’s intended to provide a list of options and provide a feel for what I mean. Tell me if you want to see any of these projects or any similar ones you want to suggest in an area of your interest.

  • Ranking the presidential candidates (see the post immediately below)
  • Whether Sports Watcher should continue
  • Ranking America’s professional sports leagues
  • A different, maybe insane, method of determining champions in certain team sports, closer to the methods used in combat sports like boxing and wrestling
  • Determining the greatest movies of all time from a composite of other similar lists (I can also come up with other “greatest lists” even if they’re limited to my own opinion. Inquire within!)
  • Any kind of simulated tournament, or any kind of simulated game.
  • Or you can help me iron out the rules for a new sport I’m developing.
  • I actually have already written some short poems and stories.
  • And the proverbial much, much more!

I’m setting the deadline for this new poll for Friday night at midnight Pacific, with an option to extend if I get another dearth of replies.

Well, this is embarassing…

I was going to make a final decision on the topic of Da Blog on Friday (today, as most of you read this), but I’m instituting an extension because I just recently advertised my prior posts on the topic in the “About me” section on the right sidebar, which in turn was because 43 visitors to Da Blog have added up to one comment so far. You can now make comments until 9 PM PT (midnight ET, since New York Is The Center Of The Universe) on Sunday. (I might not collect the votes until later, though.)

You can also comment on what you want Da Blog to be about to this post. I will post a preview of what will happen if you don’t comment later on Friday. If it lines up with what you want, comment on it anyway, because I will only institute it if I get 0 acceptable comments, so even a tie only means I’ll probably institute both.

(Note that, as they say on Wikipedia, “this is not a vote”. I am ultimately the final arbiter of what I post on, and I will always dip into fields different from my primary focus. As time passes that sharp focus may fade as Da Blog becomes more general and I begin to dip into a wide variety of fields on a regular basis.)

Also, I’m switching Da Counter to show unique visitors rather than hits (which have reached the 70’s), because hits by now are a given – I’ll probably hit 100 by this time next week. I’ve gotten at least two hits for at least the past seven days and have been stabilizing at 4 a day recently. Unless the counter is misinterpreting people without cookies as separate people, which can’t be the whole truth, most of these people appear to be first timers. Which, you know, is good for a number of reasons, but it is also kinda bad, because now only 40% of my hits over the life of Da Blog are repeat customers. Which makes me worried that people are stopping by but aren’t intrigued enough to come back! Which comes back to my blog topic poll, where you can give them a reason to come back.

State of Da Blog moving forward, and a way to affect its history!

I have a few things I’d like to catch up with at this moment.

First, the counter. No, there have not been 34 visitors to Da Blog over the last week. I could set it to display the number of unique users, but I think the number of 13 that would appear is a little low. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Second and more importantly, I’m starting to worry that my lengthy third post is obscuring the first post for all of the people who are discovering Da Blog suddenly. That means missing the backbone of that third post, but it also obscures something else. The posts I have now aren’t really emblematic of me (obviously), or of what I envision Da Blog becoming. While some blogs are little more than diaries and only a few blogs go beyond personal, a lot of blogs comment not only on happenings in life, but in whatever else interests the person who posts them. People often talk about their thoughts on whatever they feel like saving space on their blog for, and sometimes dedicate their entire blog to a single subject.

I want to talk about me, of course, but I also want to talk about more than me. And while I have no shortage of things I’m already interested in, I’d like to hear your suggestions. Is there something out there that’s going unblogged? Something you’d like to hear my thoughts on? Considering the likelihood that I may have something insanely complex that would constitute a radical new idea, maybe you’d like to see that, and gain a new perspective? Or maybe I’m just begging for something that would hook the most people into making Da Blog a destination. Or, since there’s a positive spin for anything, maybe I’m trying to gauge the interests of my audience so I can tailor what I write to them.

What are you interested in? While you’re here, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. If you don’t have a Google/Blogger account and “Other” doesn’t work for you for some reason, post anonymously; you can still identify yourself in the body of the post.

Woo, second post!

I feel obligated to post that I added a counter to the right side of Da Blog yesterday, since I was unable to find out if anyone other than me has been here. Blogger keeps track of how many people have viewed my profile but not who’s viewed my blog. Strange.

Since I suspect no one was here between the 22nd and now, the below post is far more important than this one, and this one can be safely ignored. Move along, move right along!

In the beginning…

…there was a little blog.

With this, I officially do not think there is anyone left in my age group without a blog, MySpace, Facebook, full-fledged web site, or other centralized place of expression and/or networking. I’d certainly be surprised to find anyone in that category.

I mean, if I’m joining some craze it must have legs of some sort. I’m normally a severe nonconformist: if some fad is all the rage with my peers, that deters me from joining it. You won’t see me get a MySpace or Facebook account. But, you know, I’ve always thought about getting a web site some day, and maybe spouting off on there on whatever is going on or is in the news, which is basically what a blog is for, and I don’t consider myself quite ready to go “all the way” yet, and the drive to begin spouting off… it’s been strong recently.

So I’ve started this. What can you expect? Well, I’m not sure (more on that later), but you’ll get my opinions. Sometimes they’ll be offbeat, sometimes colorful, sometimes even mainstream. You’ll probably also hear what’s going on in my life. If you’re lucky, you’ll get more than my opinions or life story. You’ll get other stuff, some of it quite informative.

But wait, you say – who the heck am I? Well, that’s a good question. My name is Morgan Wick, I’m 18 years old and I’m a freshman at Seattle University in Seattle, Washington, USA, North America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way. Except for a one-year interregnum in Los Angeles I’ve lived in Seattle or thereabouts my entire life, and I’ve never left the Pacific time zone at all. My interests are too numerous to mention, as are my hobbies. I hope, one day, to be notorious enough that this blog will become rather closely watched by media types, or at least I hope not to be dirt poor and needing to sneak in time at libraries to post when I grow up. This blog will serve as a journal of my quest from muddled confusion and procrastination to some sort of success.

I have zero friends, zero chance of making friends, and less than zero desire to make friends. I’m abrasive, crusty, self-centered, and prone to temper, at least in person – just like humanity.
That’s because I have (or at least have been diagnosed with) Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of “high functioning autism” (to quote one of my teachers who probably quoted someone else) that’s not as debilitating as might come to mind when you hear the word. Describing its core is probably impossible in a few short sentences, but one leading scholar in the field (or so I’ve heard – man, I’ve really been reduced to repeating this teacher!) defined it as “the pursuit of knowledge and truth” with “alternative priorities and perceptions”.

If it weren’t for the necessities of life I’d probably live completely alone and spend my days eating, drinking, sleeping, and playing games on my computer. I often start grandiose projects I have no chance of finishing and tire of them, many involving an elaborate alternate universe (or several!) with no bearing on my real life. Those and the strong desire to have fun often distract me from my schoolwork. I often think in very logical terms. I often think of grandiose questions of philosophy (human nature is a favorite) and also think of far more vulgar things. I am incredibly shy and rarely converse. Sometimes when I’m stressed out I’ll pound on a table, a book, and anything else nearby, and you’ll probably think I’m on the verge of flipping out (and believe me, I CAN flip out) when in reality doing all that took me off of that verge and doing anything based on that assumption will succeed only in driving me back to that verge.

I’m a perfectionist and have little tolerance for mistakes, especially stupid ones. I don’t care whether something is a small issue – small issues get too little love! I don’t intend to fix my warts because I don’t want to become like everyone else. If you met me and you heard all my thoughts and saw what I do in certain situations you might think I was insane.

I’ll post more about me as we go along.

But you know, I don’t want to post just about me. I have a lot of interests and I like to study them intently. Anything I’m interested in, I’m probably keeping something that deeply explores it. I’d like to share my opinions, and I’d like for this to be a source for more than my ramblings. I’d like people to come here for some reason. I’d like this blog to have a topic that’s not just me, though I will post plenty about me and I will branch out into other fields as we go along. And because I have so many interests, some of which my parents don’t know about and which I hope they don’t know about (I don’t spend all my time staring at porn or smoking dope!), I’d like to turn it over to you. What do YOU want this blog to be about? You can choose just about anything. If you want some ideas, some of my interests are on my Wikipedia user page, though that’s far from a complete list, and you don’t have to choose something I’m interested in. Maybe I can be introduced to a new interest for me to get incredibly wrapped up in. Go ahead! Sound off by leaving a comment on this first entry.

2007 will come with a new blog on the scene, and it will be the start of a journey for me and… (looks around, hears crickets chirping) well, probably just me for now, but as we go along this train, I hope, is going to pick up some passengers and start being read by some people, and maybe even a significant number.

Which will probably compound my embarrasment in my later years looking back on some of the stuff I’ve posted, but…