Instead of waking up early and preparing some blog entries to autopost, I decided to sleep an extra 45 minutes this morning. And by that I mean I slept through my alarm and ran through my house swearing as I frantically got ready to leave for Ohio.
So, open thread! Talk about whatever is on your mind, and feel free to shamelessly self promote.
I may or may not blog more while here – wifi doesn’t work and I’m going to be super busy, so we’ll see. Sorry guys, blogger fail.
Of course I’m not replacing PZ at ScienceBlogs! It’s like the person writing this article completely fabricated the whole thing. Journalism today, sheesh.
I mean, just think of the logistics. What would I post photos of every Friday, types of kangaroo rats? An army of adorable rodents doesn’t have the same power as an army of cephalopods. And would I have to grow a beard? See, it just doesn’t make sense.
Well, except for the last paragraph. That’s totally true.
It’s time for this blogger to go mad from sleep deprivation for charity! Again!
Those of you who have been here for a while (the “I read Blag Hag before boobquake” hipsters) may remember Blogathon from last year. Blogathon is just what it sounds like – a blogging marathon. Starting on Saturday, July 31st at 8am EST, I will make a new blog post every half hour until Sunday, August 1st at 8am EST. None of these posts will be made ahead of time or set to autopost at a certain time – I’ll be up blogging new material for the whole 24 hours.
But the purpose isn’t to spam your Google Reader; it’s to raise money for charity. You pledge on my behalf, just like you would for someone running a marathon. Except instead of showing my physical prowess, I’ll be sitting on my ass in front of a computer frantically typing away while consuming caffeine – an equally impressive display, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Like last year, my charity of choice is the Secular Student Alliance. I’ve gushed about them before, but let me reiterate what a fabulous organization the SSA is. The SSA aids secular, atheist, humanist, and freethinker student organizations across the US and the world. They help students start new groups at universities and high schools, provide information and event ideas to current groups, send great speakers to campuses, and encourage networking between the next generation of outspoken secular voices. If you’re reading my blog, I probably don’t have to explain why having these resources for young people is so important. For the sake of full disclosure, I am now a board member of the SSA. But that has just shown me how much hard work is going on behind the scenes at this organization.
Last year Blogathon was a great success. Not only did some of my readers have fun staying up with me during my increasing level of madness, but we raised $531.17 for the SSA! My readership has increased greatly since then, so I hope we can top that this year.
So what can you do to help?
1. Donate through this ChipIn widget, which goes to the SSA’s PayPal account. You can pledge a lump sum, or be more creative if you wish. Donate a sum of money based on my total word count, for every post you really liked, for every time you laugh, or for every time I say a particular word I overuse. Surprise me!
Oh, and $3,000 is kind of an arbitrary amount. I just think it’s fulfilling seeing that progress bar fill up, haha.
2. Spread the word! Post this on your blog, tweet it, tell a friend. And remind people to “tune in” on the 31st!
3. Inspire me! If I haven’t been answering your emails or questions on formspring.me, it’s because I’ve been saving up (sorry!). But I can never have too many blogging prompts. Ask me a question anonymously, or email me an idea at blaghagblog(at)gmail(dot)com.
4. Keep me company on the 31st. It helps knowing people are actually reading the posts I’m pumping out. And I try to keep them the same quality of my normal posts – I won’t throw up stupid filler just to meet my quota. It should be entertaining for everyone involved, especially since you can literally watch me get more delirious as the night goes on. And hey, it can get lonely at 5am. It’s good to know there’s another night owl out there.
So, help out a good cause and (hopefully) be entertained for a day!
Sorry for the dearth of blog posts lately. I’ve had horrible writer’s block, mainly because it’s the summer. I get most of my inspiration from classes or crazy campus antics – finishing research and playing video games isn’t as exciting. Just to give you an example of my current activities, I spent the last two days at my parents’ house watching them watch golf. Yeah, thrilling.
I’m also going to be out of town soon. On Wednesday I’m leaving for the Evolution 2010 conference in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be there for a week presenting my research along with a bunch of my lab mates and professor. This is a huge conference, with almost 2,000 scientists attending, and I had a blast last year. But unfortunately for you, it also means I’ll have limited to no internet access.
So, help me out. Ask me questions either in the comments, by email (blaghagblog(at)gmail(dot)com), or anonymously through formspring.me! That way I can keep you entertained while I’m gone.
It was brought to my attention that the ChipIn widget wasn’t updating, but it doesn’t matter – you guys obliterated my goal! I went to bed soon after making the fundraising post at 2:30am, and upon waking up at 10:30am you all had donated $1,562.
Holy fuckballs.
I’m seriously tearing up. I put a low goal for fundraising since I felt guilty enough asking, and thought maybe I could raise a couple hundred bucks, hoping that any little bit would help. Now I feel bad for underestimating the generosity of effectively strangers. It’s moderately terrifying to imagine what would happen if that post went up now, instead of in the middle of the night.
I took the ChipIn widget down since I now have plenty of money for TAM. Like I said, anyone who donated $50 or more will get an autographed copy of The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas once the American version (with me!) comes out in November. I’ll use some of this extra money to defray the cost of buying and shipping books. And any money that’s remaining after that I’ll donate to the Secular Student Alliance to start off my Blogathon charity fundraiser in July.
If you still want to donate out of the goodness of your heart and to support this blog, I’ve added a PayPal button in the right column. But more importantly, THANK YOU! I seriously can’t express how appreciative I am. Maybe size 60 font and animated sparkles would get the point across, but I’ll spare you. Seriously, you all have only confirmed that I have the most wonderful readers ever! I love you guys .
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go dance around naked. Weeeeeee!
Dear Internet:
Jen’s honors thesis is due Monday, but she thought it was due Tuesday. Jen is still analyzing her data, and the computer decided to crash and erase some of her annotations (but thankfully not the core data). Jen also didn’t realize that the Department head needed to read, approve, and sign said thesis before she could turn it in. Jen has no idea how she’s going to be able to finish it in time so said Dept Head has time to do this, and work on the improvements he’ll no doubt suggest if he doesn’t reject her outright for being a dumbass. Jen only feels slightly better after realizing other biology students working on their honors thesis also didn’t know this, and are now frantically screaming while typing as well. But then Jen remembers this means the Dept Head will have many theses to read Sunday night, and he will hate us all. Jen is now kicking herself for wasting today by working at Fiction for Fiction and blogging.
tl;dr FUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKK
I won’t be on the internet until Monday. Consider this an open thread.
Dear Internet:
Jen’s honors thesis is due Monday, but she thought it was due Tuesday. Jen is still analyzing her data, and the computer decided to crash and erase some of her annotations (but thankfully not the core data). Jen also didn’t realize that the Department head needed to read, approve, and sign said thesis before she could turn it in. Jen has no idea how she’s going to be able to finish it in time so said Dept Head has time to do this, and work on the improvements he’ll no doubt suggest if he doesn’t reject her outright for being a dumbass. Jen only feels slightly better after realizing other biology students working on their honors thesis also didn’t know this, and are now frantically screaming while typing as well. But then Jen remembers this means the Dept Head will have many theses to read Sunday night, and he will hate us all. Jen is now kicking herself for wasting today by working at Fiction for Fiction and blogging.
tl;dr FUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKK
I won’t be on the internet until Monday. Consider this an open thread.
Thanks to our new troll, I’ve set up a new comment system with Intense Debate. What does this mean for you guys?
1. No more trolls and spammers, yaaaay! Well, at least a reduced number, since now I can ban IP addresses and do all sorts of nifty things. Now those of you who subscribe to comments don’t have to have that crap cluttering your inboxes or RSS feeds as I frantically delete them.
2. Comment threading! Yes, now instead of having to awkwardly reference people that are 15 comments above you, you can directly reply to their comment. It’s like it’s the year 2010 or something!
3. Comment rating. You can now upvote or downvote comments. That way if you don’t want to miss some of the more awesome things that have been said, you can just sort by rating. I think that’s pretty cool, especially since 90% of the time your comments are more entertaining/insightful than my original post.
There may be some bugs in the system, so email me (blaghagblog(at)gmail.com) if something isn’t working out. I know I just accidentally sent someone’s comment into moderation because I had “of” listed as a banned word – whoops. Ah, user error.
So, try it out! Consider this an open thread. Oh, and thank you psychotic Canadian troll for making this atheist blog even better!
EDIT: Soooo, Intense Debate was being a piece of crap. Sorry to lose the comments you guys left on the last couple of posts. I think this has been the final push I needed to switch over to WordPress…
Hey everyone, this is just a friendly reminder to not feed trolls in the comments.
I’m “privileged” to now be trolled by the infamous DM/Dennis Markuze/David Mabus/nostradamus/etc, a literally insane Canadian that is fond of leaving crazed rambling and death threats on atheist blogs. Between my honors thesis, classes, and clubs, I don’t have time to fiddle with a new comment moderation. So until I’m able to do that, please ignore him and I’ll continue to delete his comments. I don’t want threads getting derailed because you guys want to respond to him.
In other news…I dunno, consider this an open thread.
Hey everyone, this is just a friendly reminder to not feed trolls in the comments.
I’m “privileged” to now be trolled by the infamous DM/Dennis Markuze/David Mabus/nostradamus/etc, a literally insane Canadian that is fond of leaving crazed rambling and death threats on atheist blogs. Between my honors thesis, classes, and clubs, I don’t have time to fiddle with a new comment moderation. So until I’m able to do that, please ignore him and I’ll continue to delete his comments. I don’t want threads getting derailed because you guys want to respond to him.
In other news…I dunno, consider this an open thread.
