All right, I'm getting some of the ol' blogging feeling back in my fingers. I've seen more end-of-year retrospectives than I can handle out there on the web. Get over it. Now. The other thing that's beginning to irritate me is the number of "blogging manifestos" or "blog creeds" that I've noticed. This one originally was a post on this Metafilter thread. This one is a particularly bitter one by the Virulent Memes guy, although he swears he's kidding. Creedalism is about where Christianity went wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Each person on this planet is very different, thinks different, and has different tastes and preferences. If people want to write crap, let them. No reason to stay. That doesn't mean we can't make fun of them, for as far as I'm concerned the Web is public space, and if you put your contribution out there, hey, go nuts. But the idea that Wise Authorities can hand down the Mystery of bloggage is crap. This is an art form, a new way to publish, and we're on to something. I'm not sure what, but I know that I'm not listening to anyone on how to do it. Put me on your pages that suck list, I dare you. You'll just increase my hits. One last creed example: This one at least has some helpful comments on those writing a web page. Some of the ideas are very very good, such as a cast list. Once I figure out how to start new pages off this server, I'll do it. However, the appeal to authority is RIGHT THERE in the beginning of the piece: "I've been doing this since 1996." Sorry. Unimpressed. The beauty of the web is the diversity, and I get the idea that we're the proverbial monkeys sitting at the typewriters. Sooner or later, one of us is going to write War and Peace and I doubt anyone will know it at the time. But later. . . .? I think the best thing about weblogging, and what I said on the Metafilter thread mentioned above, is that tens of thousands of weblogs out there are chronicling people's lives to some degree on a daily or weekly basis. This has become a big diary project, valuable anthropologically as well as personally to all the people out there. The Web records things and does it fairly permanently; I can find items I wrote five years ago, removed from context, and pretty bizarre taken apart not knowing what I was thinking. However, with the blog I write my own context, and it becomes much more important in the future. I keep thinking as I write this that in ten years or so during political campaigns the candidates are going to start being harassed about the stuff they posted on the internet as college aged kids. Take this post I wrote April 20, 1995. A) My alias, Chairman Gonzalo, is in "real life" the leader of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Uh-oh. I must be a communist. B) I argue that artificial life is inevitable. I must be a crackpot. If everyone were to put the things they posted to the history standard, I bet a lot less crap would get put out there. My mook buddy Nathan (see below) is never going to get elected to anything.

Inevitable sideproduct of the "blogger creed" movement is "blogger awards." I've seen two just today: The Bloggies and the Millenium Medley Awards. The latter is just some gal giving out awards; go for it. The former is a popularity contest. I think it's pretty lame, and not just because I will win nothing.

Speaking of the monkeys writing War and Peace, I now have a group of authors assembled for the Dynamic Storytelling Blog. My Portland buddies Aleava and Haygruh are going to do it, as well as my wife Maggie, Sean, and maybe Krista, my sister-in-law (she didn't agree but I think I can bullyrag her into participating). I'll put it together this week and we'll be underway. Write me if you are committed to participating and I'll fit ya in. Also wanted: a topic to begin with. I know it's going to go in bizarre ways.