Blogging

I’m An Inspiration!

Fandango15 Comments

F68E54F8-7523-4FF4-B127-BEB75E540323It’s always nice to learn that someone appreciates you and what you do. Sadje, herself an inspiring blogger, has gifted me with The Inspiration Award. This award was created by John, The Eclectic Contrarian.

Sadje wrote, “The Inspiration Award is a token of appreciation to blog authors who have inspired you, your blog, artistic influence, and writing.”

And when she gifted me, and a handful of other bloggers, with this award, Sadje wrote, “I want to gift this award to the following bloggers for their positive role in inspiring us all in our part of blogosphere. I admire their dedication towards promoting the community spirit. And their exceptional talent and creativity.”

Aw, I’m blushing. 😊

I generally don’t pay these award nominations/gifts forward by naming other specific bloggers, since I’m inspired by all of you. But I’ve recently discovered two bloggers whose posts have inspired and informed me. So I am going to gift The Inspiration Award to:

Jill Dennison at Filosofa’s Word, and

Paula B at The Temenos Journal.

Please take a look at their blogs.

No Rules Blog Award

Fandango20 Comments

7DA5FA7E-46AA-447B-B4EA-F1A564BD5598Imagine my excitement when Rory, a Guy Called Bloke, gifted me with the Blogger Leadership Award.

“But, Fandango, isn’t yours an award-free blog?” you ask.

“Indeed it is,” I answer.

“So why are you so excited about getting this award?”

“Well, according to Rory, The Blogger Leadership Award was created this past July by Nova of Nova’s Namaste 365 Online. Nova said that the award ‘was created to nominate 1-2 individuals who have exemplified noticeable and noteworthy leadership. That could be in any way. There’s no questions or need to thank me. I also don’t require you to nominate others, although I think it would be a kind gesture.’”

“Please do go on, Fandango.”

“Thank you, I shall. The beauty of being gifted this award is that there are no rules. No questions to answer, no other bloggers to nominate. All you need to do is sit back and appreciate the gift.”

“That’s true, Fandango, but Nova did suggest that it would be a kind gesture to nominate some others for the award. So don’t you think that would be a nice thing for you to do?”

“The problem I have with specifying one or two bloggers to pass this award on to is that there are so many deserving bloggers. So many, in fact, that I just can’t choose. So instead, I’m going to award it to every single blogger who feels that he or she would want it. Including you!”

“Me? Really? Thank you, Fandango. I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, to take a page from Nova’s book, there’s no need to thank me.”

This post includes daily prompt words from Daily Additions (excitement) and from The Daily Spur (page).

I Was Not Nominated and I Will Not Run

Fandango14 Comments

…From These Questions

DFC224F5-CCE0-4C7C-A354-C2F80546A733Di, at Pensitivity101 was nominated. And so was Kristian, at Tales From the Mind of Kristian, were. Yes, both of these magnificent bloggers were nominated for the coveted Mystery Blogger Award. And both dutifully came up with their own questions. But rather than specifically nominating other bloggers to answer the questions, they opened them up to any blogger who read their posts and wanted to take on their questions on. And I’m down with that.

So here are Di’s questions:

Are you an only child? If so, do you wish you had siblings? If not, do you wish you were?

I am not an only child, but I was kind of raised like one because I was the baby of the family and my two older siblings were a lot older than me — one 15 years older and the other nine years older.

Do you do your main shopping on the internet?

I do almost all of my shopping online, except for groceries and prescriptions.

What kind of vehicle do your drive?

A 2012 Mini Cooper Countryman

If you were a color, what would that be?

Fifty shades of gray.

How many awards has your blog been nominate for?

I have no idea.

And here are Kristian’s questions:

If you were offered £/$100,000 to sleep in a haunted house, would you? How would you cope?

Sure. I don’t believe in ghosts, so why not?

What was your favorite show as a kid?

“Make Room for Daddy” with Danny Thomas. 

Do you have any weird habits?

Define “weird.”

If money didn’t matter, what would you do with your life

Never ending travel. 

What is your favorite thing about yourself?

My greatest asset is my incredible humility.

Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming In

Fandango20 Comments

Wow, last night before I went to bed I went to check and clear my spam folder and I saw something that I hadn’t previously noticed. My blog, in its 27 month existence, has received 50,500 comments!ACDB98D0-10C1-43B2-836F-F0087097AADBOf course, 12,013 of those comments, or almost 24%, were comments I made in response to comments others had posted. But that still means that you folks have commented on my posts 38,487 times!

I have nothing to compare these numbers to, but they sound like high numbers. According to my stats, my average comments per post so far this year is 17, which doesn’t sound that high to me. But I suppose, since I post anywhere from three to five times a day, they add up quickly.

Whatever the numbers mean, I want to genuinely and sincerely thank those of you who regularly read my blog and I really appreciate it when you take the time and make the effort to leave comments on my posts.

I’ve been kinda of critical of WordPress and all of the glitches and issues that keep surfacing on the WordPress app for iOS (since I do almost all of my blogging from my iPhone). But despite my whining about the WordPress app, the WordPress community of bloggers is the best.

I love you guys!

Apparently I Comment Too Much

Fandango27 Comments

89A3898D-1086-495D-9E49-DCEC7C6863F5I mentioned in this post yesterday that at least a half a dozen of you told me that my comments have ended up in your spam folders. Well, it continues to happen, as three more of you have told me today that you retrieved my comments from the fiery depths of spam hell.

So I decided it was time to address this conundrum head on. My bright idea was to reach out directly to Akismet to review my account and find out what’s going on. And that was when I discovered that around 13 months ago, in late June 2018, I contacted Akismet with the same problem. I even posted about it here.

Here is how Akismet responded last year:

Looking at our logs, it looks like you’re leaving a lot of comments in a very short amount of time, which imitates the behavior of a spambot, which is why Akismet keeps catching you as spam.

I suggest you to slow down a little bit with the rate of commenting to avoid this inconvenience in the future.

Akismet must have jiggered something last year because my comments on other bloggers’ posts stopped winding up in their spam folders.

I don’t mean to sound plaintive, but saying that I was commenting too much and too frequently was so not true then and is so not true now. And that I’m mimicking the behavior of a spambot? Seriously?

I think perhaps another blogger with whom I was having a bit of a political debate about the role of guns in mass shootings may have gotten pissed at me and tagged my comments as spam, which would be a cruel thing to have done. Although the guy’s an asshole, so it wouldn’t surprise me. But that’s just conjecture on my part.

In any event, I just contacted Akismet again and am awaiting their response. I’ll let you know when I hear back. In the meantime, this is a wrap.

Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (conundrum), Daily Addictions (bright), Your Daily Word Prompt (review), Ragtag Daily Prompt (plaintive), Word of the Day Challenge (cruel), and The Daily Spur (wrap).