This week in the Blogerati Files - "scratch and sniff"

Describe your blog in 10 words or less.
decadent, depraved, indecent, occasionally funny and always lowercase.

Why did you start your blog? Blogiversary?
a friend had started a blog (funstuff.ca -- he's let it die) on typepad and i thought it looked really cool. the fonts. the layout. it just had a style that made me want to stare at it. except he didn't use colours i liked. so i thought i'd make my own so i'd have something nice to stare at in my free time. but then i learned i had to fill it in with stuff in order to have things to stare at. so i wrote some pieces. and then i started to like the creating the content and it just kind of snowballed from there.

going by the "you've been a member since..." typepad feature it looks like the indecency began in july 2004.

Has blogging changed you or enhanced a personality trait?
not really. i've always said what's on my mind. except now there's a permanent, google-able record for people to use against me. friends no longer have to carry pocket recorders to obtain their incriminating evidence.

Do you have a favourite post from your blog?
by far and away my april's fools joke from this year: wisconsin goes to war. i had my parents calling me all panicked with my dad going, "i think i know a good lawyer! don't say ANYTHING to them without having a lawyer review it first!" he was concerned i'd get picked up if i tried to cross the border. it seriously took my regular readers a few hours to figure out it was a joke. it was the end of series of posts i did while i was in wisconsin for a conference and it couldn't have been timed more perfectly.

it's going to be hard to top that in 2006. but i will...

Fav blogger(s)?

i am addicted to PostSecret.

and i'm a pc-user who lusts after a mac so i read DrukenBlog quite a bit. i'm particularly fond of his friday bug posts where the sheen and gloss of mac perfection is shattered as he reports on some bug related to the mac and mac software. it's nice to know "they're" not perfect either.

lacunae is also another blog i read fairly often. i'll tune out when he goes on and on about comics, but i'm back in when he's got something to say about music. his mp3 posts are usually way outside my normal listening realm and great.

otherwise it's mainly friends. since work has cracked down on instant messaging while on the job blogging has become a nice way to keep in touch. you don't want the stuff we talk about passing through the corporate mail filters. that would be a clm for sure.

Best blogger hangout in TO?
where ever my band is playing that night: [shameless plug] The Apollo Effect - new album will be out in december! [/shameless plug]

Ever met a stranger who already knew you through your blog? How was that?
no. i'm not completely anonymous but until recently (there's a link from my band's site to my blog that identifies me) i have tried and make it a difficult trail to follow. that's more my paranoid conspiracy theory personality than a personal privacy policy. i do have more and more friends telling me they read it on a regular basis. i'd be floored to hear someone quote me back to me unknowingly.

Lose any friends or muck something up because of a post?
i have no doubt i've pissed many people off. the guy who inspired this post never called again after that one went up. good riddance. actually, that post draws a fairly regular stream of hits from search engines -- people searching for bigdicks.com -- and now that you have that your site you'll get those hits too. ;-)

What's happening in Toronto right now that the rest of us should be watching?
screw montreal: if you make music toronto is the place to be in canada. you can't beat the selection of clubs to play at. the complete acceptance of all-original acts.

You wake up and discover you're a flesh eating zombie. Now that you're undead, who are you gonna mange first?
the guy who practices his bagpipes every saturday morning in the park across from my aparment. that fucker has got to die.

If your blog were a food, what food would it be?
a "special" brownie. tastes great. makes you feel sooooo good inside.

If you could gather all of the bloggers of the world together into one room and tell them one thing, what would it be?
don't be an observer. be a participant.