Introducing the Tidbits System

I received a complaint about my blog the other day.

Well, that's not really news, since I get complaints about my blog all the time. (Such as: "Who taught you English? Some kind of weird alien from planet Talabojo?") The nature of the complaint wasn't new either: it's one that I get at least 20 times a day. The complaint was that, in a nutshell, my blog is kinda short on reading material these days - in other words, I should be posting a lot more often. But unlike all the other complaints I get of this nature, this one was different. This one was special. This one was unique because...

Okay, I lied. It frankly was not more special than the identical complaints I get from people all the time, who must have way more spare time than I do if they have been reduced to reading my blog as a way of killing time. Oh, sure, they claim they're just interested in knowing more about what goes on in my life. As if I'm really supposed to believe that, when I'm not even so sure I'M so interested in what's going on in my life...

But getting back to the complaint, it got me thinking (which I have to admit must take talent, since I'm sometimes accused of not using my brain often enough). I decided to analyze the situation, and here's what I came up with:

See, the reason I don't post that often is that I've kind of "painted myself into a corner", so to speak. I've gotten into the habit of making my blog posts into these long, 800-word articles, as if this were my own personal newspaper column or something. Which is all very fine and good, except that most topics don't occupy 800 words, even if you really stretch it. So I'm left with two options: either mention a few lines about that topic as part of another full-size post, or simply scrap that topic altogether. And more often than not, I end up going with option B, because it's much simpler.

But due to the aforementioned complaints, I've decided to make some serious changes around here, to accommodate more frequent posting. I will be starting a new category of posts called "tidbits". These will be kind of like mini-posts, possibly only a few sentences in length. The difference is that tidbits will have a "label" at the end of the piece declaring it as such, which you can click on to read only the tidbits. Likewise, ordinary full-size articles will have a label at the end of each one declaring it to be an article, and you can click on the label to view articles only.

Another difference is that tidbits will be announced by a different kind of email notification message than regular articles. You have the option of being notified of tidbits only, articles only, or both (or neither, for that matter). If you want to be added to or removed from either list, now would probably be a great time to let me know.

Anyway, I hope this new system will work out. If you have any questions, comments, or requests, post them in the comments section below.