Tag Archives: subscriptions

Ten Reasons You Shouldn’t SPAM Follow Me

Sorry I had to jump on the bandwagon. With the recent hyper-activity of SPAM followers going around WordPress and with no noticeable solution on the horizon, I figured I would take the situation into my own hands. So, here’s a post that hopefully will deter some of the Spammer’s out there from clicking my subscribe button.

Ten Reasons You Shouldn’t SPAM Follow Me:

10. I don’t have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I will admit to having suffered with hemorrhoids occasionally but definitely not Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  Sometimes the morning after drinking too much I feel like I might have it, but that usually goes away in a few hours.

9. I don’t need any more credit cards. I have enough of those and I typically pay them off every month. I appreciate your concern with my financial well-being but so far I am in good shape with only moderate amounts of debt. I’m sort of old-fashioned too. You would have had better luck if you had sent me an envelope with one of those cool, fake credit cards in it. That would have piqued my interest a little more than you following a blog about goats and such.

8. I don’t speak any languages that fall in the categories of Asian or Arabic or even European. I especially don’t speak Indonesian-ese. See, I don’t really know what language they even speak in Indonesia, but seems I have become a popular blog in that region. In fact, I’ll admit that I really don’t even know where Indonesia is and if it’s a country or just a region, or perhaps just an area. I only speak English and even that I struggle with sometimes.

7. I’m not a believer in God or really anything religious.  If you were subscribing to my blog so that I might join your legion of brainwashed followers, well sorry, you’re definitely wasting your time. Why I haven’t been struck down by lightning yet, in the 45 years I’ve been around is a popular question.

6. I don’t buy much clothing and I’ve never, ever bought myself a women’s purse or women’s jewelry. That’s not really my thing.  In my younger days, I did used to be a little bit metro-sexual, but the whole country life has kind of kicked that in the ass. In fact I haven’t even purchased new underwear in several years. I’m not really the best candidate for your retail operations.

5. In a similar vein, other than my wedding band, I don’t wear any Men’s jewelry either, especially a watch.  I understand that there are a lot of really cool, imitation watches out there, that would perhaps make me look like I am very important and wealthy. But I just find that I don’t really need a watch anymore. See, I have my phone and it tells me the time all day long. In fact I think it pulls the time from somewhere up in outer space, where I guess there’s some kind of super clock that is always right. I don’t really know how it works but it’s very smart and it even knows when to change to daylight savings time, which is pretty cool. So, that’s working out pretty well for me.

4. I’m not much of a dieter. Especially healthy diets.  If your diet plan consists of pasta, hot dogs, wine and other food that comes from a box, including the wine, then perhaps I might be more interested.

3. I’m not in a position right now to be buying any new appliances. I will share with you that our dishwasher broke down about five years ago and we’ve never replaced it. We just do our dishes the old-fashioned way, in the sink with a brush and a sponge. Our Microwave just recently started acting up, not turning on and other strange behaviors. But we discovered that if you hit the side of it pretty hard, that seems to usually get it back on track. I think I’ll just keep doing that for a while.

2. This blog is not that popular. I know I like to toot my own horn and pretend that it’s very popular, but I still haven’t even reached the 500 subscriber mark. Now, I will admit that number is increasing exponentially with the recent influx of followers, but of those that are actually subscribed I think there are probably only about 30 that are reading actively. There’s probably other blogs that might be more lucrative for you. Perhaps you could find a good blog written by an Indonesian Credit Card Salesman who suffers from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

1. Frankly its CREEPING ME THE FUCK OUT!  This is a personal blog, GO THE FUCK AWAY!

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It’s Not the Size of the Ship…

Okay look, this is hard to admit… but I’ve admitted worse things here at Brown Road Chronicles… so I’m gonna just come right out and say it…

I’m starting to feel a little inadequate… okay, not just a little inadequate… totally inadequate… like really fucking totally inadequate… because mine just isn’t very big. In fact after seeing some of these other ones, I think mine is just plain small! Like… really freakin’ small! I’ve always felt so good about it too, like it was one of the bigger ones, something I could be proud of and show off… and even tell my friends about.  But lately I’ve seen some on-line that are just freakin’ huge! I don’t know how they grew them to be that big. I mean I’ve been working really hard on mine, but it just doesn’t seem to be growing. It was growing for a little while, but lately it has just sort of plateaued and frankly I’m coming to realize that it never really was that big in the first place. I guess I had just told myself it was big… huge even… but it’s clearly not.

My wife even said to me the other day, “Steve, it’s not really as big as you think it is, you’re giving it a lot more credit than it really warrants, and I’ve certainly spent some time with it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, its great and all and you do a great job with it… but it’s pretty small compared to what else is out there.”

Wow, talk about a blow to the ego… my own wife has even noticed. I’ve tried everything too, taken the recommendations of all the experts on ways to increase its size, did the exercises, spent the money on the gimmicks. But I guess those recommendations just don’t really work, well at least they haven’t worked in my case.  I don’t know… I’ll admit it can be a little frustrating. At least it hasn’t started shrinking yet.

I know, I know… I can hear you saying it… it’s not the size that’s really important. I know… really I do. What’s that old saying, “it’s not the size of the ship…” Okay look, I get that, I understand that it’s the relationships and the way you use it to develop those relationships. It’s the response you get to it. It’s the presentation. It’s making someone happy with it. It’s what you get out of it personally.  It’s the release you get from it. Sure, I know it’s all those things, but let’s face it… that’s all so cliché… we all know that the size is important… it just is… especially in this ego driven world we live in. The bigger the better, right?  We all may say the size isn’t important, but we all know it is. It’s what drives us, it’s what gets us up in the morning, it’s what keeps us coming back day after day.

I saw this ad the other day… It seems legit, so I was thinking I might give it a try.

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The 100th Subscriber Contest

Yesterday I received my 99th subscription.  I know you are not supposed to discuss your subscription numbers, that’s kind of like discussing salaries around the workplace coffee station.  But I am going to break the rules and do it anyway. That may sound like a lot of subscriptions to some bloggers and not much to other bloggers, but I thought it was a pretty neat milestone that I was on the verge of 100 subscriptions.

Other than a very small handful of friends and family (under 5 people) all of my subscriptions are folks that I don’t know other than through this blog. They come from all over the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and South Africa, which is really cool! I have never really opened this up to my local friends via Facebook, etc.  I have a reputation to protect, you know! I am proud to say I have earned these subscriptions through hard work, shameless commenting on other blogs, dropping a few f-bombs here and there, some cute little poems, and of course writing some pretty good posts (and admittedly some crappy ones as well) that have drawn people to hit the “subscribe” button. As well, because of the sauciness of some of my posts, I have not had the benefit of FP’d to bring readers to me. I’m not bitter about that… it’s okay… sniff… really… I’m not… sniff… seriously… not… sniff… bitter.

A few of my posts have been responsible for lot’s of subscriber activity.  BOOBS, of course, has brought me many readers.  Getting Fu…Fu… Freshly Pressed has brought me a good number of subscribers and is likely the reason I will never be Pressed… but that’s okay… sniff.  Most recently my post The Meaning of Life generated roughly 10 subscriptions. Apparently that struck a nerve with people.

So I’ve decided to hold a little contest to generate my 100th subscriber.

Here’s the rules:

1. You MUST be a WordPress user. It’s just easier to interact with WordPress users.

2. You must be the 100th subscriber.  Yeah, I know that seems pretty obvious! But if I don’t get a chance to announce who the winner is right away and you subscribe thinking you won and someone beat you to it… well… you get the picture.

3. You can’t be a current subscriber… yeah, I know… duh!

Okay, so those are the only rules.

What do you win?

Well, as soon as I can, after seeing that wonderful e-mail come in that tells me the 100th subscriber subscribed, I will edit this post and tell everyone who that blogger is and put a big ‘ol link back to their blog

Then, if you want to, you will win the opportunity to write one guest post on my blog (yes, at my discretion).  That will, of course, put you in front of 99 other bloggers.  Not that 99 are really reading, so maybe 75 other bloggers… or perhaps 50 other bloggers… or perhaps only 25… actually I don’t really know how many of those subscriptions are actively reading.  But in any case, I’ll let you write a guest post.

That’s all you get… sorry there is no money involved… no little graphic awards. You know how I feel about awards, right?  So let’s get this party started. Good luck.

Ready…

Set…

Go…

WE HAVE A WINNER!!

Sarah at Keeping the End in Mind is the 100th subscriber! A quick glance at Sarah’s blog and she appears to be very new to the blogging scene, so please take a peek and give her a warm welcome to our little neighborhood of the WordPress community.  Her theme seems to be about “self-coaching” which is something I think we could all probably do better.  I can’t quite figure out where she is from but some of the word spellings lead me to believe she is not in the U.S.  We’ll see!

Now Sarah, first I will encourage you to update your “ABOUT” page as that is one of the first places readers go when they decide to stalk your blog.  Then, if you’d like to write a fabulous guest post I will post it on my blog here for all these other fine folks to read.  So, introduce yourself, write about whatever you want people to read or know about you, whatever… just keep it… you know… mostly clean.  This is a family oriented blog you know! Yeah and don’t ask all those commenters about that… they don’t know what they’re talking about.

You can reach me by commenting here, or at stevetwarner@yahoo.com.

Thanks for visiting Brown Road… and for being my 100th subscriber!  Myself and 99 other readers look forward to what you have to say!

Steve

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Someone just subscribed to your blog…

Part of the Phone Calls to Julie Series.

Ring, ring…

WP: Hello, WordPress technical support, this is Julie, how can I help you today?

ME: Hi Julie, thank you for taking my call, I’m terribly concerned, Someone just subscribed to my blog.

WP: Ummm, okay…. uhh… congratulations?

ME: Oh… that’s what the e-mail said too, congratulations.

WP: What e-mail would that be?

ME: Well, the one that said that Someone just subscribed to my blog. It addressed me with the word “Howdy”. Do you think Someone thinks I am a cowboy? I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “Howdy” before.

WP: Is this the guy from Brown Road Chronicles?

ME: Yes, yes, you remember me? I’ve called you about my BOOBS. You have been very helpful the last couple of times I have called. Have you read my blog yet?

WP: No sir, I still have not read your blog.

ME: Oh, that’s too bad, it’s really great!

WP: Sir, I am sure your blog is great, but really, is there something important I can help you with? I am very busy today? We are getting a lot of angry callers because we changed the subscription function on all of our member’s blogs without telling anybody. Now everybody is mad and the phones are ringing off the hook.

ME: Oh yes, I did notice that as well. I think that’s okay, I don’t know what everybody is all worked up about.

WP: SIR, PLEASE IS THERE SOMETHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH?

ME: Oh yes, I’m very sorry, I’m terribly concerned, Someone subscribed to my blog today?

WP: Yes, you mentioned that… uh…and why is that a problem? Most bloggers are happy when Someone subscribes to their blogs.

ME: Oh my, does Someone subscribe to a lot of blogs? Do you know who Someone is?

WP: What does that mean “do I know who Someone is?”

ME: Well, it sounded like you maybe know who they were.

WP: Knew who who is?

ME: Someone.

WP: SIR… I am going to hang up if you don’t tell me how I can help you today.

ME: Oh, I am terribly sorry, please don’t hang up. You see, I got an e-mail today that said “Howdy, Someone just subscribed to your blog, Brown Road Chronicles.”

WP: Uhhh… okay… and what is wrong with that?

ME: Well, it didn’t tell me who Someone is… you know, and tell me what their blog site is. It just said Someone subscribed to my blog today and it had an e-mail address and where they were from. I thought that was kind of creepy. And it said “Howdy”. Do you think Someone thinks I am a cowboy?

WP: Sir, it’s just an automated e-mail when a reader subscribes to a blog. I don’t know why it says Howdy, but no one here thinks you’re a cowboy… and it said Someone because it was a subscriber that doesn’t have a WordPress account. So we don’t know who they are.

ME: Oh my… you don’t know who they are? Does that mean they don’t have an About page that will tell me if they are a stalker or not?

WP: No, there is no About page, but don’t worry, it’s probably just someone that read something you wrote and found it interesting.

ME: Oh yes, yes… the stuff I write is very interesting. It’s very funny too. Have you read my blog?

WP: SIR, I JUST TOLD YOU I HAVE NOT READ YOUR BLOG!

ME: Oh you’re right, I’m sorry, you did say that. I just got excited when you told me my posts were interesting.

WP: I didn’t say your posts were interesting, I said that maybe this person who subscribed to your blog perhaps thought your posts were interesting.

ME: You mean Someone?

WP: Sir, please stop it with the Someone! Yes, I was referring to this person who subscribed to your blog.

ME: So you don’t think there is anything I need to worry about?

WP: No, I don’t think there is anything to worry about. But remember Sir, blogs are very public spaces. Anybody can subscribe to your blog.

ME: Oh my… who’s Anybody?

Click

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