Note to self - do not send "White Album listening party" invitation to Half Moon Bay

If you think that this mrontemp blog was based on the book Abnormal Psychology, you're sadly mistaken.

It's actually based on the album The Beatles.

This album is by a band called the Beatles. They used to be popular.

And I've talked about the album before.

What I love about this album is the jarring way in which it switches from one song to another. Take side four, which starts with a mellow little ditty about the futility of pushing Chairman Mao down people's throats. It's followed by an old style 1920s ditty ("her kind of music"). An electro rock song about truffles and ob la di ob la da follows, and is in turn followed by a very English folk song about tea and seances. An uncredited folk blues number is next, succeeded by the most avant garde song the Beatles ever recorded, which is immediately followed by Ringo's voice cracking over a lushly instrumentalized traditional standard.

This blog is like that. Or at least I hope it's like that. My entries during the first five blog entries in June talked about a fire in Universal City, California; applications of Blogger's scheduled post feature; a portable toilet; a Cracker Barrel restaurant; and a short (short short) theatrical production entitled "Webelo."

Now I'll be the first to admit that this is not the roadmap for blogging success. That's why I have other blogs that are dedicated to specific topics. If you want to find an Inland Empire blog or an NTN Buzztime blog, you can find them.

But here at mrontemp, a blog which functions as my personal blog, everything is discussed. And, when things are going really well, they kind of meld together. Note that this blog post itself has several labels, because it spans a lot of topics. When I started this blog and instituted labels, I didn't envision this, but it happened. I've talked about this previously.

[T]he one thing that I didn't realize back in February [2007] is how often my posts overlap multiple labels. Rather than categorizing each post into the most appropriate label, I have tended to apply all applicable labels to a post....[T]his has resulted in some interesting behaviors. Although I haven't measured it, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of my "business" posts also have a "technology" label on them. This merely indicates that I'm primarily interested in technology businesses, or in the impacts of technology on business. Whether this detracts from the usefulness of the labels is up to you.

But wait, it gets better. Before I explain how it gets better, let me quote a comment from a FriendFeed thread.

Hutch: no, it's more about having separate audiences that are passionate about different things. For instance, let's say I participate in a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog. Those have three separate audiences. If I mix them all together I'm going to be much more careful about what I discuss than if I participate in all three separately. - Robert Scoble

Now I'll admit that I myself perform some segregation, and there are some things that I won't discuss on here that I will discuss in other places. But a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog don't necessarily HAVE to have three separate audiences. Various combinations of those topics can result in some interesting interactions; if you don't particularly value this blog, be sure to take a look at RedBlueChristian, which attempts to combine politics and religion into a single discussion.

I think you can predict my response to this idea of three separate blogs and three separate audiences.

"let's say I participate in a religious blog, and a political blog, and a business blog." Actually, while I have some vertical blogs that are laser focused on specific topics, my most popular blog is my personal blog, which covers religion, politics, business, and several other categories. Often there's rampant cross-pollination; just today I inserted a video of Chromeo's "Fancy Footwork" into a blog post about General Wesley Clark. Rather than segregating the audiences, I believe it's fun to bring them together and see what happens. Again, my personal opinion - segregation makes you successful, but mixing things together is pretty danged fun.

If you didn't see my post in which I inserted the "Fancy Footwork" video, it's here.

Now perhaps you'll recall a previous brouhaha about the mixing of topics; specifically, Howard Rogers' displeasure in seeing a technical information source overrun with personal "eight things" posts. Of course, in that case, Rogers was reading something that was advertised as a technical service.

So let me officially set the record straight here.

This is an announcement to the readers of mrontemp.

Some of you may have been under the impression that the mrontemp blog is solely devoted to a discussion of Tracy Simers. To that end, I would like to officially advise you that this is a blog that covers a variety of topics, including such diverse topics as Natalie Sawyer and, in a change of pace, Kiira Korpi.

So if you were looking for a blog that was completely devoted to Tracy Simers, please look elsewhere.

Thank you for your attention.

P.S. I also talk about a woman named Katrina.

There, I feel better already.

And at least I didn't base this blog on the Grey Album.

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