Last Update: May 12, 2008
May 2, 2008
Welcome to the re-launch of Eric's blog. I'm sure you are all wondering where I've been, why I'm back, and what exciting new things I have planned for this blog.
WHERE I'VE BEEN: It has been an *incredibly* exciting four years for me, between my last blog posting and this one. When I stopped blogging in 2004 I suddenly found myself with an immense amount of free time on my hands. The long hard hours I used to devote to my blog and to staying current with fast-moving blog technology were now void of activity. What was I to do? For a month or so, I sat around doing not much of anything, and feeling purposeless. I contemplated doing charity work but that seemed like a lot of work. I tried running a blog about my contemplations of doing charity work, but after a few dozen postings I realized I really didn't have anything further to say on the topic.
Then, one day while I was opening my neighbor's mail that the mailman had accidentally put in my mailbox, the phone rang. The caller said his name was Tom.
Tom: Hello?
Me: Hello.
Tom: How are you?
Me: Pretty good.
Tom: That's great. Can I have a moment of your time?
Me: Definitely, I'm just sitting here doing nothing.
Tom: Do you like Chinese Restaurants?
Me: Yes.
Tom: Do you like Mexican food?
Me: Yes.
Tom: Do you like making money?
Me: Yes!
Tom: Do you like making money even more when you don't have to do A THING and the money just pours in?
Me: YES! YES!
Tom: Then I have the opportunity of a lifetime for you. Chopsticksican.
Me: Chopsticksican?
Tom: Yes, we take the best of Chinese Restaurants and the best of Mexican Restaurants and *BAM*.
Me: Bam?
Tom: Picture this. You walk into Chopsticksican Restaurant. The decor is Chinese but the music is mariachi. The utensils are chopsticks but the food is Mexican. The placemats are Chinese zodiac placemats, but the napkins are the color of the Mexican flag. Instead of hot sauce, customers douse their burritos and tacos with soy sauce. When the meal is over, you get a fortune cookie, but ............ the fortune is in SPANISH!
Me: (so excited I can't speak)
Tom: You there?
Me: Yes. Where do I sign up?
Tom: Simple. How much expendable money do you have?
Me: I could probably scrape together about $22,000.
Tom: Then it's your lucky day. I'm offering you 50% ownership of Chopsticksican for the bargain price of $21,999.
Me: Wow that does sound like a bargain.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
May 3, 2008
Dear Reader: I've decided not to continue telling you about my experience investing in Chopsticksican. While the story is extremely exciting and I am certain you would be captivated by it, when I ponder the events that occurred, I realize that to somebody not intimately involved in the situation, knowing how things unfolded might make you think less highly of me, and make you question my judgment. And since it is of utmost importance that one's blog readership have complete respect and admiration of the blogger, I believe this is one story best left untold.
I am aware that in the posting of May 2, 2008 I also promised to reveal why I have returned to blogging and what exciting new things I have planned for this blog. Patience, my friends. In future blog postings, all will be revealed.
May 5, 2008
Today I received some extremely unsettling news. The traffic to this blog has decreased dramatically recently. I hired a consultant to examine the reasons for this and to propose ideas whose implementation could regain said lost traffic. The first consultant I hired was completely incompetent. He spent merely 30 minutes examining my blog and then concluded that the decrease in traffic was due to the blog content not being of high quality. I immediately fired that scam artist. Apparently the old adage that you get what you pay for is true, so this time I hired a much more expensive and high quality consultant. That consultant spent a solid 16 hours studying my blog and blog traffic and various other analytics and then proposed that I switch to haiku format. That's one of those solutions that looks totally obvious when you see it but you could never have come up with yourself. In the future, my blog postings will be in haiku format. Dear readers, you have voted with your feet and I have listened.
May 6, 2008
It is extremely // hard to shape one's thoughts into // a haiku. Cha Cha.
But if that is what // my readers truly want then // I will do it. Cha.
I have nothing more // to say today Cha Cha Cha // Cha Cha Cha Cha Cha
May 9, 2008
The traffic numbers for this blog have declined precipitously since the switch to haiku format. As a result, I have decided to abandon haiku format in favor of the more traditional non-haiku format for this blog.
May 10, 2008
I am thrilled to announce that we are going to begin having some very high profile guests contributing to this blog. Our first such guest is Sue, who will from time to time be offering us insightful book reviews. Sue has read a relatively large number of books and owns more than five different Norton's Anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of American Literature, the Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Version, the Single-Volume 8th Edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, the Norton Anthology of World Literature and the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Sue also wears relatively thick glasses.
It is with great pride and more than a little giddy excitement that I now present Sue's first book review:
The Appeal, by John Grisham: I started reading it, but after about ten pages I realized that I wasn't really paying attention to the book because it was very hard to concentrate on the book with the television playing so loudly in the same room. So I stopped reading it. The cover is nice and the first ten pages were rather enjoyable.
May 12, 2008
I've struggled for weeks trying to understand the puzzle of how the quality of this blog can be so excellent and yet the readership is quite low (so far, we've had 2 page views this month and I think one of those might have been me testing the page). Clearly, I need to do a much better job marketing this blog. For that, dear readers, I need all of you to join together to help me. I have a simple plan to drive up the readership of this blog: every time you visit this blog, please hit the refresh button a dozen or so times prior to reading the contents of the blog. I thank all of you in advance for your assistance on this matter.
==========================================================================
My Old Blog Postings:
(Also, see my other blog at http://ericbrill.spaces.live.com/).
December 29, 2003
Today I woke up and brushed my teeth. Then I drank approximately 3/4 of a cup of water. Then I went to the bathroom. The toilet paper was almost out so I went to the closet where we keep our toilet paper and retrieved a fresh roll. I put on my clothes for the day and went downstairs to eat breakfast. For breakfast I had a bagel with cream cheese (I believe it was Trader Joe brand cream cheese, but it is quite possible that I am mistaken) and a cup of coffee.
December 30, 2003
Today I woke up and brushed my teeth. Then I drank approximately 3/4 of a cup of water. Then I went to the bathroom. There was still plenty of toilet paper left. I put on my clothes for the day and went downstairs to eat breakfast. For breakfast I had a slice of toast with cream cheese (I believe it was Trader Joe brand cream cheese, but it is quite possible that I am mistaken) and a cup of coffee.
January 2, 2004
I sincerely apologize to my readership for my negligence in missing yesterday, but I had a very busy day and could not find time to break away to work on my blog. Some interesting things happened in the news over the last few days. I'll provide insightful commentary on a select few of these topics in upcoming blog entries.
This morning I woke up and brushed my teeth. I didn't drink any water. This is uncustomary for me. Then I went to the bathroom. Last night I decided that I would always keep a spare roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, so needless to say there was ample toilet paper. I put on my clothes for the day and went downstairs to eat breakfast. For breakfast I had a bagel with cream cheese. I only had 2/3 cup of coffee. Our coffee maker makes 2 cups, and this morning we had a guest, so we (the guest, my wife and myself) all had 2/3 cup of coffee. I didn't put cream or sugar in my coffee. I never do.
January 5, 2004
I sincerely apologize to my readership for my negligence in missing January 3 and 4, but I had two very busy days and could not find time to break away to work on my blog. I will describe the occurrences of those days in some detail at a later time.
This morning I decided to jazz things up a bit by postponing the brushing of my teeth until after I ate breakfast. Upon waking, I drank some water, although perhaps this event is not of interest to my readership. Then I went to the bathroom. Again, absolutely no problems with toilet paper supply. I put on my clothes for the day and went downstairs to eat breakfast. For breakfast I had a plain bagel. One of my new year's resolutions was to lose weight and I decided that having my bagel without cream cheese would be considerably easier than exercising. Then I brushed my teeth. Another of my new year's resolutions was to jazz things up a bit. To date I'm doing quite well as far as new year's resolutions go.
January 9, 2004
I sincerely apologize to my rapidly growing readership for my negligence in missing January 6, 7 and 8. I really have no great excuse for not doing blog entries those days. Quite frankly, blogging is a considerable time commitment and perhaps some of my initial excitement toward this endeavor has worn off. Still, I owe it to my readership to carry on.
Today I woke up and brushed my teeth. My toothbrush was quite worn, so I opened a new one (blue, if memory serves me) and threw the old one away. Then I drank approximately 3/4 of a cup of water. Then I went to the bathroom. To avoid the uncomfortable issue of running out of toilet paper at a most inopportune moment, I moved our spare rolls (42 rolls total) from the linen closet down the hall into the toilet room in our bathroom. We have one of those small toilet rooms, approximately 3 feet by 3 feet. It is quite cramped in that room with the 44 rolls of toilet paper (42 from the linen closet, plus one spare I had put in the toilet room earlier, plus one that is currently on the dispenser). I probably need to think of a more optimal solution.
I will not bore my readership with details of this morning's breakfast nor with the intriguing email I received yesterday from a rather rich Nigerian fellow.
I almost forgot to mention to my readership the fact that we bought new tires for our car yesterday. Driving feels no different but supposedly the car is now considerably safer, as the treads were quite worn on the old tires.
January 13, 2004
I'm reading a truly excellent book at the moment, that I would highly recommend to my readership. The title and author slip my mind at the moment. I will post this information in a future blog entry. It seems I have nothing more to say at the moment.
January 26, 2004
In reading through other blogs on the web to get inspiration on how to improve my own blog, I came across one blog where the first sentence of every entry was a thought provoking question, which I thought was a very effective means to engage one's readership and something I will try in today's blog entry?
I sincerely apologize to my readership for my negligence in missing January 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. If I may be completely open and honest with my readership, I am growing weary of maintaining my blog.
I received an incredibly rude and shallow email from one of my readers. I have changed his name below to protect his identity:
Dear Eric, I think your blog is really stupid. I mean, what's the point? Did I mention that I think your blog is really stupid? -Tom Dennison
You can imagine how hurt and saddened I was upon reading that email. Luckily, only five minutes after receiving the email above, like a breath of fresh air I received the following email, which I think is much more representative of the thoughts of my readership. Again, I have changed the name to protect the identity of this loyal reader:
Dear Eric, Your blog is both intellectually stimulating and inspirational at the same time. I'm not just saying that because I'm your mother. -Sally Barill
I have much to add to this blog but no time at the moment.
January 27, 2004
I am very excited about this new blog software I just purchased and am trying out for the first time with today's entry. The astute reader might notice something different about today's blog entry. (For the not-so-astute, look at the date). I really like this new software. I think it will result in a significant improvement to my blog and enhance my readership's enjoyment in reading my blog. It is such a joy to use this new blog software, that I have a rekindled enthusiasm toward diligently maintaining my blog.
January 27, 2004 (Afternoon)
I'm just so excited about this new blog software and all the amazing features it offers, I couldn't resist an afternoon blog entry. Please forgive my indulgence.
January 30, 2004
I apologize to my readership for my negligence in missing January 28 and 29.
January 30, 2004 (Afternoon)
I apologize for again flooding my readership with two blog entries in a single day. I promise to show greater self-restraint and refrain from double-entry days in the future.
February 9, 2004
I apologize to my readership for my negligence in missing January 31, February 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Today I bring my readership some truly sad news. I just do not have the time to continue actively maintaining this blog. Therefore, this will be my last blog entry. I would like to sincerely thank my readership for their support -- I have received thousands of letters, and a few of them were even positive. That is extremely touching.
I have recently become really excited by the new read-only wiki technology. I have set up my own read-only wiki. Check it out here.