Blog Clutter: Good, Bad or Doesn’t Matter?

I recently read a post over at Lorelle on Wordpress about blog clutter…you know, all that crap bling in our sidebars and any other stuff that isn’t inherently necessary to a blog’s existence.

Apparently, there’s a bit of a trend towards getting rid of all that stuff so that readers can focus on your content.

Content? Content? You mean people don’t care that I think free, unstructured outdoor play is good for kids? Or that I was the Parent Magazine podcast’s blog of the month? Or that Facebook Sucks? Or that Text link Ads can be rather lucrative? Or that we’re all invited to a fun blogger weekend getaway? Get outta here!

But seriously, folks, is the bloggy bling really deserving of the old heave ho? Personally, I have mixed feelings about it because yes, while it can be distracting and perhaps a little hard on the eyes, particularly when something is moving, twinkling or flashing, it can also serve the higher purpose of educating readers.

Yes, blog clutter can be educational in that 1) it helps us get a better sense of who the blogger is and what they’re all about and 2) it can help spread information about various causes, events and things you might actually WANT to know about.

On the other hand, however, having a ton of widgets and linky love things that send people off to other places probably isn’t so good for the blogger but if they don’t care, should we mind?

And then there is the never ending brouhaha over ads. Personally, I don’t mind them so much. Sometimes they’re even interesting but there remains a core of bloggers and readers who think content should be king and that ads have no business in the blogosphere. Bah! Tell that to the people who are known to earn a nice living from ads on their blog. I think it’s safe to say they aren’t going away anytime soon…

But alas, despite anything I’ve offered up in favor of ye olde blog clutter, I still find myself pondering the idea of having nice, soothingly tidy sidebars. In fact, I’m visualizing the sleek, milky white bars pared down to the barest of essentials and it makes me want to do it RIGHT NOW! But I’m awfully attached to my sidebar crap so meh. Maybe next month.

As a blog reader, is bloggy clutter perfectly acceptable, the worst thing since Carrot Top started wearing eyeliner or are you merely indifferent to it? What about on your own blog? Any plans to declutter?

In other news…I’m going on vacation for five days on Friday and I need a blogsitter or three. Anyone interested in writing a compelling, thought-provoking or humorous post (in other words something a tad more interesting than a post about blog clutter?) for me while I’m gone? Drop me an email — izzymom {at} g mail dawt calm.

God Save the Queen (of Spain) — From Ever Driving in Florida Again

So last night I had a hot date.

No, really. I did

With the Erin (aka the Queen of Spain). She’s here in my neck of the Devil’s Buttcrack with her kids, avoiding the smoke from SoCal’s unfortunate fires. And by my luck, she’s only staying about 45 minutes north of me (unless she ignores my carefully crafted driving directions via Google maps and ends up at the wrong mall, ahem, in which case, it will take a whole lot longer ;)

We met at a mall near my house because, well, I don’t get out much unless you count the little Thai place that we order takeout from every week so I really didn’t know where we should meet for dinner.

We settled on P.F. Changs (I think they have those everywhere, don’t they? It’s like an Asian Bennigan’s minus all the crap on the walls) and after we figured out she was at a completely different mall and then almost went over a very long bridge toward the beaches, she found her way to me and comes rollin’ up in a really nice ride that made my momvan look positively square. Well, MORE square, that is…

So anyway, we were promptly seated in a nice raised booth, above the noisy din of the masses (because she IS the Queen, after all) and we proceeded to talk NONSTOP, pausing only to order cocktails, eat some dinner and indulge in some kind of chocolate and raspberry sin on a plate.

We CLOSED the freakin’ place down and then we sat outside under a giant horse for a while longer until we looked at the time. It was after midnight and she had a post deadline to meet so we said our goodbyes and she headed on her long drive home.

So this morning I get an email and it seems the road I told her take to get on the expressway was closed and she got re-routed all over creation in yet another driving debacle (hence the title of this post) and yet? She still got home and wrote her post before her deadline. Amazing, she is…

Now, I’ve met Erin before and I read her blog and of course, I’ve always liked her and admired her moxie (who else would have the balls to form the Tit Brigade?) but now?

I’m in lurrrrrve. She’s so smart and down to earth and cool and on top of it all, very kind and compassionate so I’ve decided that if we ever end up relocating to California, as my husband insists we will, I’m moving right next door to Erin.

Thanks for a great time, your highness.

Stop back later for the pix. I can’t find the cord to download them from the camera and some husbandly intervention may be required.

•••

A not-so-happy happy pill withdrawal update… I’m doing better taking half (50mg) of a Zoloft a day but I’m still a little nauseated, achy and tired. It seems to come and go throughout the day but at least now I feel semi-human again. Thanks to everyone for your well wishes and advice. ’tis all greatly appreciated :)

It Was a Tough Decision But the Winner Is…

Hey— remember that caption contest I sponsored like almost two weeks ago? Well, it’s time to announce the winner!

I had a really, really hard time picking just one winning caption but here are the ones that repeatedly made me laugh, chortle, chuckle, grin etc. The winner can be found after the list!

Verybadcat “Silence, subjects! You is rub ma belly or ELSE!!”

dcfullest “I too sexy for my hair.”

Amie “My harbls. You has them?”

Plain Jane Mom “Hair. Do not want.”

Mary Mert “I can has tummy tucks? Oh, and hair transplants. KTHNX.”

Peach “No.More.Frat.Parties.”

Ali “no more yanky my wanky”

NotAMeanGirl “Jabba teh Kittay…”

And the winning caption is:

“My harbls. You has them?” by Amie!

In the event that Amie does not claim her free BlogAd, a runner-up will be chosen. Thanks to everyone for submitting an entry. Ya’ll funny!

•••

So hey, have you noticed that little blue icon at the top of my right sidebar? IzzyMom is Parent Magazine Podcast’s Blog of the Month. Weeehooo! I’m so excited.

You can download the FREE Parent podcast by clicking that blue icon or get the deets about it here and here. Thanks, Parent Mag!

•••

Thanks in advance. You so rock :)

O Hai You Got Capshinz?

Between my kids’ schools, Brownies, carpool, familial obligations and doing my own work, the very lifeblood has been sucked out of me this past week so in lieu of anything intelligent, funny, informative or heartfelt on my part, I’ve decided I’m going to have my very gifted and extremely attractive readers do the work by captioning this completely bizarre photo of a hairless cat.

Best caption wins a free BlogAd in my sidebar!

The rules are simple: Make me laugh (but please, nothing that even hints at cat-hating because I LOVE TEH KITTEHS!!!)

Click image to enlarge

I’m Number One and I Love You!

Okay, I’m not really number 1 on Technorati.

I know, I know…you’re shocked to find out it’s not true and that Technorati was merely having a brainfart but damn! It sure looks priddy, don’t it?

As it was clearly a mistake, I took a screenshot for posterity, kind of like when you go to the fair and stand behind the wooden cutout of a very well-endowed female figure and have your picture taken.

Look at me and my big cartoon boobs Technorati ranking! Weeee!

ORIGINAL POST TOTALLY EDITED ALL TO HELL. THIS IS THE NEW STUFF:

Since writing this post on the generosity of becoming a “do follow” devotee, Google has changed their policy on counting “do follow” acquired links and actually started punishing people for disabling the “do follow” code on their blogs. For that I apologize. If I’d had any idea they would decide to diss millions of users in that manner, I would never have recommended the blogger-friendly “do follow” policy. So please, if you have a do-follow plugin or if you altered your code, you may want to change it back so as not to be kicked down to a pagerank of zero. I know it sucks but it’s Google’s internet. We just live on it.

One thing you can still do to show some love to your commenters (if you’re on Wordpress) is install the Comment Luv plugin, which uses elfin magic to figure out a commenter’s last blog post and puts a link to it at the end of their comment. I actually have it installed on my blog, too, but had to disable it after moving to a new template. It wasn’t displaying correctly due to some modification I made and I haven’t had time to figure it out.

If you’re a part of the DO FOLLOW movement, let me know so I can list your blog here I’m going to leave these links here because even if they’re no longer doing “do follow”, at least they gave it a shot (and these link DO count toward their page rank):

IzzyMom
eMoms at Home
MomGadget
Scribbit
Tricia’s Musings
Pointless Drivel
Lifecruiser
Paula Neal Mooney
Polliwogs Pond
Empower Women Now
Temporarily Me
Assertagirl
Freak Parade
Mrs. Flinger
Absolutely Bananas
Oh the Joys
Mom on the Rise
Table For Five
Madness, Madness I Say!
Love, Laughter and Madness
Magpie Musing
Chaos Theory
Slackermoms R Us
The Z Files
All Things Angela
Devilish Southern Belle
O for Obsessive
Something Baby Blue
The Humble Housewife
Playgroups Are No Place for Children
Fenicle
Wandering Far From Home
Mommy Bytes
Blogversary
Hello Insomnia
Hola Isabel
The Metamorph
Boogiemum
Slackermama
Ruth Dynamite
Suburban Oblivion
No Place Like It
What Was I Thinking?
Candid Yammering
Taste Like Crazy
All About Diggy
OMSH
Much More Than a Mom
Tiny Mantras
Dr. MOZ
The Hotfessional
Most|Least
Up in the Night
Laura Lohr
Almost Somewhat Positive
Midwestern Mommy
Tales from the Dad Side
Savvy Mom

And for the LOVE OF GOD, people, if you’re part of that 30% contingency that’s STILL using Internet Explorer 6, do yourself and web designers everywhere a favor and please upgrade to IE 7 or even better? Switch to Firefox…the gold standard in browsers. (Yes, you can import your bookmarks from IE. It’s really easy)

Seriously, it’s almost impossible for me to see what my work looks like in IE 6 (because it’s OLD & they don’t even make it anymore for my computer) but I can usually count on it looking BAD because IE 6 does not properly interpret modern standards of web design. In other words, it SUCKS, makes everything look like crap and hello? It’s ancient. Just switch to Firefox. Or upgrade to IE 7 if you must. Please? I’m begging!