Self-Help is Stupid.

So, remember that picture I put at the end of my last post? The teaser that was supposed to make you "tune in next week" to see what all the commotion was about? Well, prepare to be let down, because I'm feeling just like that woman with a big ol' question mark popping straight out of my mind. You see, I followed the link "What Should You Blog About?" in hopes of finding a list of interesting topics or ideas that I could incorporate into a colorful and creative blog filled with ingenuity and insight, only to find complete verbage. I literally sat through the most unnecessarily loquacious and unhelpful answers to the following questions:

1. What kinds of topics/subject should I write about?
This one actually made the suggestion of using Google as a launching pad. I felt used and slightly violated.

2. Should I only write on one topic, or many?
The author reminds me here that I have "freedom of speech" while blogging, but I should always keep in mind my target audience. Focusing too lightly on a certain topic might isolate my readers, and as such, shouldn't be done. This blog is about my followers, not me, remember?

3. Can I change my topic anytime I want?
Once again, I don't want to lose readers because I change my center of attention. So if I chose a topic like, oh say, "What Should I Blog About?", I'm stuck. Sweet.

4. Which topics are better for making money?
Wow, really? So it's all about making money. Now I'm not opposed to making money, per se, but if I wanted to piss off my readers by flooding my page with Google Ads, I would start using...Google Ads.

Besides, the author doesn't even address the main question. At no point are any topics mentioned; however, he reassures me by advising me to a 10 minute break before continuing on to "What Should I Blog About [Part 2]". I took the liberty of indulgence and am currently taking an indefinite break from the entire website.

Conclusion: What have I learned? That taking time out of my day to research topics is stupid and a waste of my time. Stay tuned for later developments.

P.S. I've officially switched back to my beloved search engine.
Screw you, Jeeves.

Ask.com -- Not the world's first ever "Decision Engine"

So, earlier in this here blog, you heard me extol Reference with kudos abounding, a decision I now question fully. It is not that I doubt the excellence of Reference and its wondrously helpful subdomains, I only ponder how such a jewel could descend from such a...lemon. As promised, I searched for answers to my confusion at ask.com, the parent site of Reference. Below is a screenshot of the horrors I found...


Now, the first thing you undoubtedly noticed in this picture was the change in "Jeeves". I'll be completely honest with you; I am like the rest of the world (in the sense that I use Google, of course, what am I, a hippie?), and as such I have absolutely no idea when this new virtual "Jeeves" was created. One thing I do know; however, is that I don't like it one bit, but I digress. Despite this atrocious change in graphical formatting, I implore you to focus on the search query box and to ask yourself, "What is wrong here?"

Well, I'll tell you what's wrong, the autocomplete box is what's wrong. I typed in "what should I blog about" and what is immediately returned to me? "No Search Suggestions Found"

Are you taking this all in?

Even ask.com, a search engine, the backbone of our internetical society, cannot give me the answer to the question I put through the wringer. You must be thinking to yourself, "Keaton, this must be where your journey ends! It must! If the search engines have failed you, there is no way you could possibly go on!"

No says I.

You see, the first webpage returned to me from that once-thought-failed search at ask.com (which, by the way, doesn't have an ''I'm Feeling Lucky" button, so I had to actually do this labor manually) was titled "What Should You Blog About?" Now, you'll have to come back for my next post to see just exactly what content this site contained, but here's a little sneak peak for you...

Oh yes. This looks promising.

Indecisiveness: An Intimate Look

Reference.com (the only reputable rhetorical information site in my opinion and the brainchild of a failed ask.com campaign) defines indecisiveness as such: 1 -- characterized by indecision. Awesome. 2 -- not decisive. Even better. 3 -- lacking definition. There it is.

There's the gold mine.

You see? Even an online dictionary as impressive as Reference can't decide on a definition to define a lack of decision. The research only goes downhill from there. I opened up a Google search and typed in "student blogging" only to find autocomplete giving me the words guidelines, challenge, sites, ideas, rules, and topics, respectively. I am obviously not the only student in the world who has trouble finding things to blog about. But my adventure doesn't end here.

Coming Up: Keaton takes on this guy in an attempt to find answers to his long-asked questions.

When last we met, our heroes were...

Refreshed after that last glass of lemonade? Well too bad because now you're in BLOGGER HELL!!!


On an unrelated note, I have yet to decide what I will blog about; nevertheless, the search continues! My next post will contain dedicated research on the topic of blogging and its perils, as well as some insightful information necessary to fully understand the predicament that someone in my position must face. Until then, Ciao!

What Should I Blog About?

Hello, dear friends. If you have randomly stumbled across my blog, I invite you to stay awhile. Pull up a chair, make some cool lemonade, and join me on my heartfelt and clearly not satirical journey through cyberworld as I search for identity among today's crazy reality.

In English classes across the world (I hear they're big in China nowadays), countless teenagers are forced to "adapt" to the technological world filled with jewels like Moodle, Criterion, and, now most recently, blogging! However, this new spark of intellectual ingenuity fails to take into account a new and terrible threat facing us now: the indecisiveness of today's youth. I cannot be held accountable for conceptualizing an entirely new topic to blog about when I, myself, cannot even decide on what color my prom tuxedo should be. And while a woman can pick (and already has, by the way) that for me, I don't think it would fly if I "borrowed" a woman every time it came down to some nitty gritty decision making.

From this I can draw only one reasonable conclusion. Seeing as I must blog about something (else I receive a zero on this grade), I have no other option but to blog about my task of discovering what I shall blog about. So I guess it's settled...

And so we go :]