Blog Therapy and Movin' Blues
It's 4:30am and I've exhausted my capacity to sleep for the night. I've been wound like a clock lately. I'm usually laid back and even keeled, but I'm starting to stress with the vision of what my next few weeks and months are really going to entail. As therapy, I decided to visit Felicia's blog as she is one woman that is unapologetically and unabashedly wound. It was just what I needed. The blogs I gravitate to most are those that give me a strong sense of the writer. There are now plenty of non-blog sources of poker information. If I want hand histories and bad beats, any forum will do. I read poker blogs, for the most part, to learn more about other people who have been drawn to this game; their motivation, their learning process, their background, and what point in the fulcrum they've chosen to balance life and poker. I'm a blog voyeur which means you really have to expose yourself in your blog to float my boat. Felicia kicks ass in this regard.
Although I had been a long time reader of Felicia's blog, I hadn't met her until the 2005 WSOP. Within the first two minutes of conversation, I could feel a smile creep over my face. I think I actually blurted out, "Oh my god. You're just like your blog." In retrospect, I think that is probably the highest compliment you can pay a blogger. I hope she took it that way.
I've thought a lot about this as I rebirth my blog and luckily there's been some nice guidance recently about what makes a good blog from some of my favorite bloggers; High on Poker kicked off a good discussion, Bill Rini had a nice part one and two, and Felicia weighed in with who she likes and why.
As further therapy today I took Sammy to the vet, cleaned the bathrooms,went for my daily walk before the sun scorched the earth, and closed with quality time in the jacuzzi. I feel a little better now.
Part of my angst is finally coming to terms with the fact that my blog home is just temporary. I really have to move it to my own domain, something I've been in denial about since it's rebirth. And if I'm moving domains, I might as well bite the bullet on transitioning to a new software platform. I know all of this will drive me nuts (short drive) and be an inconvenience for y'all. I promise to contact linkers and leave my new home address here when the time comes - which could be very soon. Another part of my angst is obsessing about the WSOP. Last year I worked fourteen hours a day for forty-seven straight days. Lou Krieger still likes to tease me about how bad I looked towards the end. If it wasn't for Cyndy Violette and her chef Sassy nourishing me every day, I would have collapsed. And if it weren't for Otis, Pauly, BJ, Jen, John, Jay Greenspan, Steve Hall, Dan, and my family away from home, LasVegasVegas, I would have gone insane. I'm not working as many hours nor as many days this year, so that should help. And just reading Pauly's post about the 2005 WSOP was even more therapy. I went from stressed to stoked in just one blog read; I can't wait for the group grope.
Oh and btw, Wicked Chops featured Jen in their BlogFiles this week. It's superb. There are so many great lines but my favorite was when they asked Jen what would indicate that poker had jumped the shark and she responded, "When Mike Paulle replaces Phil Hellmuth Jr. as the analyst on Celebrity Poker Showdown." She's a peach. But I can't believe they didn't tell the story about Jen, this guy, the go-go dancer and the best $10 I ever spent in Vegas.
As Scarlett said,"Tomorrow is another day." And thanks to some great blog reads today, I'll be ready.
posted by amy at 6/13/2006 08:48:00 AM
5 Comments:
I'm rarely offended by anything, believe it or not. The things that offend me are so bizarre that most people never even realize it. Honesty has never bothered me.
Oddly enough, the blogspot site is way less intimate than the LJ site, lol. If you really want to gag and spit, come on over to that one sometime!
Try to stay healthy this year, and I'll see you at Rio.
Hey Felicia,
You bring up a pretty interesting concept and one I had not really considered. While almost every other software platform is more able to be customized than blogger, I hadn't given much thought about that impact on content; how the content is presented to the reader and how a writer adapts to format/presentation.
After only one cup of coffee this morning, that's a little mind blowing.
I was just thinking about the mundane - like the fact that Wordpress doesn't have spellcheck. As an outed dyslexic, I was thinking that might drive Steve Brecher to the brink:)
I'm looking forward to seeing you again this year at the WSOP and requisite blogger bash.
Hey Amy. Thanks for the mention. I'm with you on what I find interesting in blogs. I like to know what is behind the writer. I'd rather read about a blogger's mood at the table than about how they play a hand.
Good luck with the domain name thing. I bought HighOnPoker.net from godaddy.com and then just forwarded it to my blogspot address. So far so good. It's certainly the effortless way to go.
Felicia's LJ should come with a warning label.
** NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART... OR STUPID **
Which is why its one of my first reads every morning.
My blog entries are definitely affected by the format I use -- Apple's iWeb software. My entries are more like separate articles, rather than one entry on top of another. And this format causes me to work WAY too long on each post.
It's also interesting to see how a new blog evolves. I'm new to the blogging scene, after covering poker tournaments for Card Player for a year and a half. There were the visions I had of what my blog would be, and the realization of what it's becoming. (I'm using far more photos than I originally planned, but I might as well play to my strengths, right?) It'll be even more interesting (to me) to see what my blog becomes during the WSOP.
A blog is ultimately like everything else -- you can't force it to be something it's not. But it's definitely influenced by its surroundings.
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