The simple fact is that I generally get more pimp-mail than I do comments. My site states tell me that, yes, a few folks still dutifully drop by instead of using Google Reader or another news aggregator. But still, traffic has slowed down over the years. Long story short, I’m not your best bet, especially considering that I’ve made it clear I refuse 99% of any offers like these.

When I started blogging it was the wild west out here. Everyone had an opinion and everyone built a blog to share it. Over time, though, while the amount of individual blogs has decreased (drastically!) the number of PR-type folks glomming onto bloggers has skyrocketed. Which leads me to questions. Are bloggers really so influential? Or are we just an easier, cheaper way to schill products no one really needs?

We need to get on a Do Not Pimp List. Either that or I just need to suck it up, go all in, buy a cane and a big-ass hat with a feather in it.

July 2003 marks my entry into the blogosphere. Happy blogaversary to me!

It’s been eight years and a lot has changed. We moved out of that small yellow house. Mia and Owen came along and the cats sadly died. I gained a few pounds, bought a few suits, grew quite a bit of gray hair and worked myself into a senior management position at work. I read less now, maybe a book a week if I’m lucky. The Playstation is sitting in the basement replaced by a Wii and an iPad. But the blog is still going…looking exactly the way it did in 2003.

And in those eight years, I’ve written 11,296 entries and received 250,391 comments.

What’s amazing to me – aside from the fact that I’ve been doing this eight years and thought that it would last about a week – is that so many of you still read. And there are quite a few of you who started reading on day one and never stopped.

Blogs are on their way out. This is obvious. There are fewer and fewer and while bloggers remain an influential presence on the internet, we’re not what we used to be. But I’ve never been in it for fame and fortune. I just wanted to share myself and my life. And I think I’ve done that. I’ve thought about slowing down or even stopping. Frankly, this post-a-day thing can feel like a job and the expectation that I’m going to chime in at 7:00 in the morning and say something hilarious, witty or insightful can be a bit overwhelming. But I’m still here, trudging along, writing about my life.

So here’s to another 11,296 posts and another 250,391 comments. But most importantly, here’s to you for sharing your lives with me and stopping by to read what I have to say.

1. I am, most likely, in the company of better writers. I say most likely because I haven’t actually read many of their blogs. I really don’t read blogs much these days. I’m tied up with parenting and working and occasionally watching bad television. And drinking beer. Yeah. I do that sometimes. Anyway, if they can string two sentences together and actually take the time to edit their posts, they’re already a couple steps ahead of me. If they’re just posting pictures of their kids doing cute shit, well, we can all do that.

2. I love reading to my children but some nights when I’m reading to Owen and he picks an incredibly long book to read, I’m thankful that he insists on having me read only the pages with pictures. I’m even more thankful when it’s a book with a mere handful of pictures.

3. I’m not sure I’m a daddy blogger, in the true sense of the term. Yeah, I talk about my kids. My family’s the most important thing in the world to me so sure they get a lot of airtime. But I also talk about midget zombie hookers a lot too. You wouldn’t call this a midget zombie hooker blog would you? Now there’s an underrepresented demographic.

4. When my wife is home, I play good music around the house. When she’s not and the kids and I are home alone I blast old-school Genesis and other similarly long-winded progressive rock masterpieces. That has to be considered cruel and unusual.

5. I don’t know the difference between mischievous and mischevious. Although my spell-check is telling me that second one isn’t actually a word which makes me feel even dumber.

6. Speaking of dumb, Beth and I have a list of categories of things we’re each responsible for teaching Mia and Owen. It’s based on our strengths. Hers is full of cool shit like art and English and history and math while mine has precisely two things on it – music and fart jokes.

7. I enjoy watching the video monitor in Owen’s room when Beth goes in, tucks her hair behind her ears, bends over and gives own a kiss on the forehead before we go to bed. I enjoy it not because it’s a touching moment – which it undeniably is – but because she has a great ass.

8. I liked Ishtar. I’m not really sure what that has to do with anything but liking what is arguably the worst movie ever made can’t be good, right?

So there you go – eight reason why you really shouldn’t vote for me as a top 25 daddy blogger. Go vote but make sure it’s for someone else. Really.

Looks like I’ll be doing a little damage control here. On top of the whole day-job thing. And parenting. If I don’t make my regular Friday “weeklies” appearance, forgive me. If I disappear again, check Facebook.

It’s time for another beer.

Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I can’t promise that I’m going to write a post a day for the rest of my life but I think I can keep it going for a while longer.

Some days I draft and redraft and scrap entire sections or entire posts, while other days what I want to say comes naturally so I slap something very stream-of-consciousness together. Some days I get cocky and try to write something arty and serious. Other days I just pick a fight to see how many people are listening. And while I try by best not to half-ass my writing, I will totally admit that I’ve half-assed a lot of the interaction with the folks who are kind enough to stop by and comment every day. And I very rarely reciprocate with a visit.

As it turns out, not as many people are listening as there used to be. I’m curious as to why.

The blogoverse is much more compartmentalized than it was when I started eight years ago. You’ve got mommyblogs, daddyblogs, workout blogs, book blogs, sex blogs, vegan midget blogs…is the general here is my life blog dead? Or has the 140-character social media revolution made 2500-character blog posts obsolete? Or, finally, has life just gotten more complicated for us all?

I’ll admit that I’ve thought of throwing in the towel. Writing everyday is tough and it takes a discipline I didn’t know I had. And I don’t necessarily subscribe to the typical blogger mantra of I’d write even if no one was reading. Quite honestly, I value the interaction and the feedback. That said, I look back over the eight years of stuff I’ve written and I have this narration – sometimes serious, often times insane – of my life that I’m very thankful for. And I’ve met a lot of astoundingly awesome people along the way.

Some of you are bloggers. All of you are blog readers. What do you think is happening to the blogosphere?

For the first time in a very long time, I’m unprepared. I didn’t jot down notes or half-formed thoughts much less write a brilliantly authored post to share with you this morning. Instead I had a jam-packed weekend and a late night last night which has resulted in this ill-advised, poorly-developed post quickly written on-the-fly.

The weekend? It was packed with celebration. Eleven years (and two days) ago, you see, Beth and I stood before a frighteningly large crowd of people, exchanged vows and rings, and got ourselves hitched. We celebrated this weekend. No gifts, no cards, just a nice evening out together. Beth picked dinner, I picked the movie. Beth did a great job. I did not (author’s note: Case 39 is a shitty movie). On Sunday, there was a festival two dinners out (I sat in on one then jetted to attend another) and bed. Sweet, sweet bed.

And now you’re here and caught up.

So, how are you?

• Big massive buffolow asses. I like big bison butt and I cannot lie…
• Awesome mullet. That’s something of an oxymoron but I’ve got to admit that if any mullet could be considered awesome, it’s mine.
  

• Fear of shipwrecks. Yeah. That’s me. Spiders and shipwrecks. No clue why.
• Tinkerbell upskirt. What the hell is wrong with you people? And, um, do you have a link you can pass along?
• The sweetest little bathroom story. Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention. I have no sweet bathroom stories. Only terrifying ones.
• Unless that is Spider-Man if Spider-Man were a backyard wrestler or Kurt Cobain your costume looks shitty. Nothing about that sentence makes sense and I’m now pretty convinced that a serial killer visited my site sometime in July.
• Cheesehead panties. I don’t think I want to know. You Green Bay fans are a dedicated bunch aren’t you?
• Dirty white trash neighbor won’t leave us alone. We had one of those once. We found that there wasn’t a spray for that. We had to move.
• Good things about Friday. I think the more appropriate way to think of that is what is not good about Friday? And the answer to that is nothing.
• Pepper Sparklepants Montana. Is that Hannah Montana’s older gay cousin? Actually, I have an older gay cousin who fits that bill (really).
• My son constantly says inappropriate things. Mom?
• Midget brothels. I’ve heard rumors but never actually gotten independent confirmation or irrefutable proof. What do you know?
• Sweat snot fetish. If that’s the next big thing in porn, I’m out.
• Does fish oil pills make you fart? Yes. Don’t ask me how I know that…but..yes. Oh, and holy bad grammar, Batman.
• Inappropriate preschool songs. I’ll take Soundgarden’s Big Dumb Sex for one-hundred, Alex.
• The shocking rude hidden message behind Disney movies. There’s a hidden clip in ever Disney movie that plays quietly after the credits are done rolling. In it Mickey Mouse is holding a gimp mask and a baseball bat and, while aiming the bat towards the audience, he looks out a parents and quietly says “we own you bitch”. And Mickey is so, so right.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen on the net lately?

Seven years ago we moved into a cute little yellow house that we almost immediately outgrew. When we moved in we didn’t have much furniture. We improvised, using a couple of outdoor chairs and a sheet-covered vacuum box as our living room furniture. We now live in a house with actual storage rooms and have grown-up furniture.

Seven years ago my hair was wonderfully brown, with no traces of gray Now gray accounts for maybe 35% of the hot follicle action on my head.

Seven years ago, I could see a little better. I now own reading glasses. I don’t use them but I own them.

Seven years ago, I’d just entered my thirties. Now I’m marching quickly towards my 40s. There are black balloons and over-the-hill coffee mugs in my near future.

Seven years ago I got this bizarre idea to get online, set up a website and write about my life. Despite the fact that I didn’t think it would stick – I’d never before exhibited any will-power when it came to keeping a journal or writing anything – I bought the server space, built the site and started writing. And when the whole site crashed and burned a month later (which is why, if you look at the archives, everything seems to start in August), I rebuilt it and started again. 3,082 entries, 77,937 comments and 2,506,266 hits later I’m still going.

While the design has stayed almost exactly the same, lots of things have obviously changed, not only in my life but in the way I write and how I use the site. I’d be at least partially lying if I said that I’d do it in a vacuum with no readership. The truth is I like writing with an audience and I appreciate the feedback and validation I get. This place lets me be funny, uptight, political, scared, creative and even obnoxious when I can’t in real life. It is a true outlet.

I cannot possibly say this with more honesty and conviction – thank you. Thanks to all of you who have read over the years. I’ve gotten to know quite a lot of you and made some wonderful friendships that might not have otherwise been possible I’ve appreciated everything all of you have shared with me over the years. The fact that each of you take time out of your busy days is incredible to me. And I am thankful for it…and you.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers….Bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

And here’s what I said about it back in August:

While I respect the end-game – to protect the consumer and encourage full disclosure – I don’t want that infringing on my right to express myself and my opinions. It should not impact my writing – either the content or style – and I’m damn well not going to preface everything I say with an exhaustive accounting of why I’m saying it or the factors that could potentially influence my decision. Because that’s stupid.

I bring this up again for several reasons. First, it’s still bugging the hell out of me. And second, I’m getting constantly bombarded with offers to review stuff that someone somewhere thinks you would be interested in. And regardless of origin, each of these proposals is followed by a near-identical blurb that kindly informs me that the offeror is very concerned about FTC regulations and hopes that I, too, will comply.

Nine-point-nine times out of ten I say no. Why?

Primarily, I’m concerned with maintaining my personal privacy and only reluctantly divulge my last name and mailing address. (Yeah, my last name’s not Cactus, I know you’re shocked.) Next, whatever it is is probably of little interest to either you or me. And, finally, I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for anything. So I lay out these rules:

1. If I like it, I’ll say whatever the hell I want about it.

2. If I don’t like it, I’ll say whatever the hell I want about it.
3. If it’s not something I’m personally interested in, don’t bother. I mean, why would I want another sex swing since I already have three in my dungeon basement and have neither the space nor structural integrity for another?
4. If it isn’t right for you – the people who read my site – I’ll say absolutely nothing about it at all.
5. If it’s something completely and utterly ridiculous – like the recent spate of space pioneer vampire romance novels I’ve been getting press releases about – I will mercilessly make fun of whatever it is until I realize that it’s someone’s livelihood then I’ll just feel bad.

I’m afraid this is often too much of a gamble for my marketing friends.

All of these things tend to get me out of the hassle of posting my opinions on stuff I’ve given – the hassle imposed by the FTC and the hassle that requires me to apply the coordinates of someone else’s moral compass under the assumption that my own is somehow flawed and I, as a result, have to be told how to express myself.

Most bloggers – those who run personal sites like mine – should be perceived as experts on only one thing. Themselves. Unless they’ve hit the big time, they’re not paid spokespeople or compensated product reviewers. They’re just people, like me, with opinions. And I’m not sure we, as a group, need to be told what to write. I carved out this space six or seven years ago as my very own with the intent on saying whatever the hell I wanted to say, however I wanted to say it. I naturally bristle when I feel as though my freedom of self expression is in any way infringed upon. And honestly, I know a lot about books and music and I always give you my honest opinions on everything but if you make a decision to go buy a Camaro only because I drove one for 48 hours and thought it was cool, well, that ain’t my fault.

What do you think? Is it really an imposition on self-expression or is it, overall, a good thing for consumers? Where should we draw the line with the concept of full disclosure?