Get Cynical

John Walkenbach finally made good on his threat of retiring his popular blog. Damn. The J-Walk blog was one of the first weblogs I visited on a daily basis and it was from his site where I discovered so many other other blogs that finally made me want to start one myself.

John is still posting wonderful links on Google+ for those who use that on a daily basis. I have an account but I’ve been a bit too busy the last few months to get on there and, unfortunately, there’s no rss feed to follow even public posts. (None that I’m aware of at least.)

Thank you John for an amazing blog that kept me entertained for years and influencing my own blogging experience.

Looks like a lot of websites offering free WordPress themes are loading them with malware.

It looks like I’m not the only blog who gets complaints from some readers who feel that everything should be custom fitted to their particular tastes.

J-Walk gets them too:

I started reading this blog several years ago. It was one of my favorites. Now it only seems to consist of three types of posts: 1) My God I really love banjos, 2) My God I really hate Christians and 3) one or two random posts leading up to either #1 or #2 again.

I’ll continue to read, hoping it will stabilize someday, but I hold out very little hope. It’s like J-Walk Blog has gone from being a seven course meal in a fine restaurant to being a bag of stale Fritos and a warm Coca-Cola.

If you have a blog and would like to share it with the rest of the class, please leave a link in the comments.

From Freesleeping.blogspot.com:

Glenn Campbell is this dude who used to work as a baggage handler for a major airline until he got laid off in September 2008. The good news: He can still fly for free anywhere in North America and Europe (for a while at least) without the inconvenience of working for it. The bad news: He has very little money and can’t afford hotels. The solution: He has become deliberately homeless, finding ways to live comfortably while paying little or no rent. When he is traveling, he sleeps in tents, hostels, airplanes and rental cars. When he’s not traveling, he camps on on a hilltop in San Diego. Along the way, he finds a lot of tips and techniques for comfortable homeless living anywhere. Turns out, you don’t need a fixed residence or a lot of money to be happy and healthy. It’s all about freedom, creativity, and finding clever ways to do what you want within the limited resources available.

A blog dedicated to fake tans.

(via Boing Boing)

Ruh-roh:

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday took steps to make product information and online reviews more accurate for consumers, regulating blogging for the first time and mandating that testimonials reflect typical results.

The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren’t typical.

I might as well come clean now. I’m currently paid by the Neon Association of America for Neon Nights, Cats of America for every cat post, and Jesus pays me money out of his robe for the Where’s Jesus page. Oh, and Deepsea and Gorckat have given me coin to not delete their comments.

Happy 5th to Shakesville!

Cool idea for a blog:

Letters of Note is an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and even emails.

Here is the Lindberg random letter:

(via Kottke)

These volunteers are heroes.

Hi, I am one of the Escort Volunteer Coordinators for the only abortion clinic in Louisville Ky. I have been escorting for almost 10 years and organizing for 6. Every Saturday Morning wonderful, brave, compasionate volunteers come out before the sun comes up to provide emotional and tactical support for women accessing Reproductive and Sexual medical care. We are a diverse group of people who all work together to make sure this resource is avaliable to our community. We are a decentralized group of autonomous individuals who come together to empower ourselves and others. This is the most effective and non-hierarctical work I have ever participated in and am constantly amazed at the intensity of it all. There are lots of days that I hate that this is even necessary, but it is. And we will keep going because Reproductive and Sexual Justice is essential to a healthy, empowered world.