The story was written in 45 minutes, edited over a few days, and submitted to Writer’s Digest with a strange (but misplaced) sense of confidence. The story failed to make the top five, but I figured I’d post it here before I lose the original text file.

Comments, edits, and miraculously combined swear words are welcome.

The Ladybug

“I never would have purchased this house if I’d known that you were going to do this again, Nicole. Not in a million years.”

“Keep your voice down. Emily’s sleeping.”

I lifted my head off of my pillow, straining to hear my parents’ muffled voices on the other side of the wall.

“Why don’t you explain to me how you rack up forty-five grand—”

“Forty-two.”

My father practically yelled, “Are you kidding me?” Well, that’s not exactly right. He put a swear in there, but I’m not saying where. I had never heard my father swear before—not even when someone accidentally burned down our shed last summer. I wiggled out of the tangled covers and leaned my head against the cool bedroom wall. I tried not to breathe.

“Forty-two, forty-five, Nicole. It could be half that and we’d still be sunk.”

I looked over at my piggy bank. I knew I had ninety-three dollars and eighty-two cents in there that I had been saving for an iPod. I would’ve given them the whole thing if they’d just stop fighting.

My dad started again. “I’m eating brown-bag, store-brand baloney lunches and unwinding in front of a twenty-seven inch tube TV when I get home. You know who watches tube TVs and eats generic baloney these days, Nicole? Yea. No one. Even inmates have flat screens now. And you…you somehow blew through forty-five grand—”

“Forty-two.”

“Well, look who’s suddenly interested in tracking expenses. Oh, please excuse me. You blew a mere forty-two grand, and I can’t begin to figure out where. I mean, where did the money go this time, Nicole? I’m dying to know.”

“You want to know where? You want to know?” I heard their closet door slide open, and the crinkling of overfilled plastic bags thumping on the carpet. “Take them all, Mr. Tightwad. Take my credit card. I don’t care. I stashed a few things away because I was sick of you climbing all over me about every single dime I spend.”

“A few things? You call this a few things?”

“I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry. I was going to pay it off before you found out.”

My father laughed. “When? When aliens in diamond-studded space ships landed in the backyard and made you their queen? Seriously, what planet are you living on? There had to be some point where you knew—without a doubt—that you were too deep in the hole to climb out—”

“Maybe, but—”

“and you just kept right on digging.”

“I—”

“And for the second time in five years I’m living with a financial terrorist.”

“And I’m living with a miserable jerk.”

“Maybe not for long.” My dad growled and stomped into the hall. “I’m not your father, Nicole. It’s not my job to follow you around cleaning up your messes. We have a daughter already.”

As I waited for the soft, muttered apologies that usually fill the loose pauses after their fights, the front door slammed shut. The house was suddenly math quiz quiet. I was scared.

When my friend Allie’s mom and dad got divorced, she had to live part of the week at home and part at her dad’s. She said that her dad lives in this tiny apartment that smells like sad, old sneakers, and there are no kids there at all. I didn’t want to spend half my week breathing loneliness and foot stink, but what could I do? I was only eleven.

I hugged my knees until I could hardly breathe. When I let go, I quietly took my stuffed ladybug from the nightstand. I know it sounds babyish, but when I really don’t know what to do, I sometimes ask my ladybug. I know it’s not alive or anything, but an answer always pops into my head somehow.

I stared into her black bead eyes and asked, “What should I do, Ladybug.” When the answer came, I felt myself well up. I shook my head and asked again. I could hear my mom start to cry in the other room. The answer repeated.

“Please, no,” I whispered to the ladybug before asking once more. For a third time I heard the same rhyme: “Ladybug, ladybug fly away. Your house is on fire and your children are burnt.”

I wiped my eyes and crawled back under the covers. The ladybug was always right. I’d rather have no home than a broken one. That’s why tomorrow I’m setting it on fire.

749 words, submitted 7/7/10

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When I started this blog, my dad used to come home from work with stories about this guy names Jon Dyer who cracked jokes and seemed to think of himself the leader of some corporate resistance movement. He used to frustrate the shit out of my father, but I thought the stories were funny.

Then about eight years ago, he just quit. No explanation, no more stories, and a very happy dad.

Soon after, I had an English assignment at UConn (Go Huskies!) to write a diary from a character’s point of view, so my roommate suggested that I write a blog as if I actually were Jon Dyer. It was a harmless assignment, and I thought it might be fun.

By the time the assignment ended, that little Blogspot blog had unexpectedly snowballed into something a lot larger, and I found that I couldn’t let go of the character I had created. I began throwing real details (such as him quitting his job) in with the fiction, and before I knew it, he had a girlfriend, a baby, and a beach house.

I enjoyed the popularity until recently, when I got a note from the real Jon Dyer. He had found out about the site, and the fake Facebook profile (as well as most of the other fabricated social networking profiles), and suggested that the site was akin to identity theft. He asked that I take the site down before he was forced to take legal action.

I was afraid this day would come, but with the millions upon millions of blogs in the world, I didn’t think that this one would ever be popular enough that someone would make a connection between my character and the real person that it was based upon.

After explaining myself to Jon (and apologizing a LOT!), we came to a compromise. Dyers.org will remain up, but it will have to shift focus. The archives, unfortunately, will have to be shut down, and all the social profiles will be transferred to Jon’s control. As part of the agreement, I also have to tell you emphatically that the Jon Dyer that you’ve been reading for the last few years is almost entirely fabrication, born in the mind of a college student who didn’t know any better, and eventually, an adult who did.

Even though I’ve enjoyed all the reader feedback on characters like Jon, #1GF!, ROCKET CAR!, and the robot, what I have done is wrong. I’ve mislead you, the reader, and I’ve created unintended problems for the real Jon Dyer (as he said, “Try getting a date when people think you’re already living with a woman and have a baby at home.”).

I’m sorry for creating trouble for a seemingly nice guy, and for misleading you, the reader. I never meant anyone harm. I’m not sure what the future of this blog can really be, but I hope that you can forgive me.

Sincerely,

Adriana Steffy
The artist formerly known as Jon Dyer

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I had to drop to a weekly posting schedule to make room for a book and new baby, but 548,083 unique visitors still managed to drop by here in 2009. Even though that was down from 1.3 million visitors in 2008, I still feel the same awe that I felt in early 2002 when there were twenty-nine people a day reading along: I still wonder who those other twenty-six people are.

So, Thank You (Yes, You)!

The blogsphere is now packed with leaner, funnier, and better marketed blogs than this one, so I want you to know that I appreciate you spending some of your time here sifting through the literary rubble for something amusing to pocket week after week. I really do. So even though I can’t pay you in money, when you die, on your deathbed, you’ll receive total consciousness. So you got that going for you…which is nice.

Whether your one of the site’s 400 subscribers or just someone who checks in once and a while, thanks for helping to make this another great year.

Gunga galunga…gunga — Gunga galunga.

-Jon Dyer

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Two main updates went into Better Blogroll 3.0. First, the plugin now includes the ability to display link ratings as defined in your WordPress Links Manager.

More and more people have been using the plugin as a replacement for the default WordPress links widget, and many have been asking that the plugin be available without the link randomization that Better Blogroll was originally written for.

Randomization is still available, but now the links can be sorted by title or rating as well. With the addition of category groupings introduced in version 2.9, the plugin can act like a very configurable version of the basic WordPress Links widget.

For more information about Better Blogroll, head on over to my Better Blogroll Widget for WordPress Page.

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Instead of testing my widgets live, I test the underlying PHP in a designated test area that his hidden from regular readers. That way, if PHP barks at me for missing an underscore, it’s more of a private message to me, and not a public broadcast to all of my readers.

Creating a WordPress test area is a simple addition of a page template and test page to your WordPress theme files. Any PHP that you put in the test template can be executed by refreshing a draft preview of the page assigned to it. Because the test page is never actually published, there’s no possibility of it reaching your readers and interrupting the flow of your site.

Want to set up your own WordPress PHP test area?

Using A WordPress Page Template As A PHP Test Area

1. Put the following into a text file and save it as phptest.php:

   <?php
   /*
   Template Name: PHP Test Template
   */
   ?>
   
   <?php get_header(); ?>
   
   <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">
   <h2>This is a test File</h2>
   
   <?php
   //PHP test area
   ?>
   </div>
   
   <?php get_sidebar(); ?>
   
   <?php get_footer(); ?>

2. Upload the file into your current theme. These are typically located in /wp-content /themes/ [theme-name]/ under your WordPress installation directory.
3. Go into your WordPress admin panel and click Editor from the Appearance menu on the left. Make sure that you can see the PHP Test Template listed on the in the template list on the right hand side. If it’s not there, you might’ve uploaded the file to the wrong theme directory.
4. From the Pages menu in the left side column of your WordPress admin panel, click Add New.
5. Title the page something like “PHP Test Page” and leave the post area blank.
6. On the right hand side, under Attributes / Template, Select PHP Test Template from the drop down menu.
7. Click Save Draft.
8. Click Preview.
9. Now go back to the PHP Test template in your theme by clicking Editor from the Appearance menu on the left side of the admin panel.
10. From the list on the right, click PHP Test Template.
11. Add your PHP code to the line of the test template that reads //PHP test area.
12. When you’re done, click Update File.
13. When you refresh the preview of your draft PHP test page (that you opened in step 8), any PHP that you put in the template will execute.

Once you’re satisfied that the PHP has been tested, it can be moved out of the test template and into a production template or widget with the confidence that it’s going to behave within the WordPress framework. You can clear your test template and leave the test page dormant until your next idea comes along.

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Around 150,000 unique visitors stop by here every month, and the most visitors I’ve had storm the castle in a single day was 85,424. That’s just shy of the population of the city of Quincy, Massachusetts. I wish it was because I’m extremely clever or a master of internet marketing, but the truth is that I don’t know why people show up here.

I’m really, really glad you do, though. The blogsphere is so crowded that attention has become a precious resource, and I appreciate you stopping by to spend a little of yours on me. Without you reading this nonsense, I’d probably end up shouting it on a street corner or on top of a desk, and that tends to freak people out a little.

Thanks!

Thanks to the thousands and thousands of people behind the sites who have linked here over the years, and a big, fat thanks to Dave Masters and Louise Brown for putting my beardsanity into three major newspapers. I really spend a lot of time trying to keep track of you all because each link is a small gift that can lead to some interesting relationships.

My thanks also go out to folks like N0ia, M-shel, Keidra, Brian, Tankboy, Sarah Veale, BonzoGal, KF Chud, Macoosh, Digitaldarryl, M, V, JR, Jo Jo Monkey Man, Jo, Pablo, Doles, Erin, Joyce, Palsh, Svalka, Tara, The Finetunettes, and the entire cast of The MaBeGroMo Beardos for keeping the discussion lively and validating the unique brand of crazy around here.

And my most hugest thanks goes out to #1GF! for editing all of my stupid misteaks and giving me all the encouragement that I couldn’t give myself.

And thank you. Yes, you. Just because I don’t know your name, don’t think that I feel that you’re any less important. I know you’re out there, and I’m glad you stopped by.

Thanks for not making me look as crazy as I feel.

-Jon

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With the Best Foot Forward widget, you simply tag your top posts with a specific keyword (like “favorite-september-08″ or whatever you prefer) and then tell the plugin to show all posts tagged with your keyword. When you want to add a post to the list, you simply add your keyword to the post’s tags. This means you can create “best of” lists on the fly without wasting time creating and formatting lists of links.

WordPress 2.6.X now saves multiple revisions of posts, and Best Foot Forward was updated to version 1.2 to stop those revisions from showing up in your sidebar.

For more information, head over to my Best Foot Forward WordPress Widget Page.

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No More 200 Friend Limit

Most people will be really happy about this because they can have more friends, but I have mixed feelings. I regularly bumped off the limit, and would have to make room for new stumblers by weeding out inactive stumblers or those who no longer focused on content that I was interested in. The constant revision was a pain, but it made sure that I got the most relevant content for me. Removing the limit certainly creates less work, but it also removes the reminder to let go of stumblers who have moved on to other topics.

How Similar Are You?

Normally, when someone visits my StumbleUpon page, I go through a few of their pages to see if they stumble the same geeky humor that I’m into. If I laugh a couple of times, I find a place for them on my friends list. StumbleUpon will now save me some of the legwork by calculating exactly how similar users are in the form of a percentage score.

The feature not only gives me a single number to gauge how similar my stumbles are to someone else, but it shows what stumble categories we have in common. If the score is relatively accurate and is used as a guide and not as a hard rule, this could save me from looking through pages and pages of stumbles that ultimately have no relevance to what I like.

Friends and Subscribers Are Now Different

StumbleUpon wanted to separate out the social networking portion of the site from the content subscription portion, so now when you follow someone, you are no longer a “fan” of them, but a “subscriber” to their stumbles. If you know them personally, you also have the option of adding them as a friend.

Separating the content from the people allows me to keep connected to good people who stumble topics that I have absolutely no interest in, but I have to ask whether a system that is so easy to use needs another layer of complexity. When should someone go from being a subscriber to being a friend? Is there some sort of criteria for that jump? And why do they have to be notified of my intention to be their friend and wait for confirmation? It seems to add a FaceSpace level of complexity to the whole process that doesn’t need to be there. I mean, do I really know the 400 people on my friends list? I probably haven’t even met one of them, so are they friends? Are they just subscribers? Should there be an acquaintance category?

I sort of liked the old idea that you’re only as good as your last stumble and that I had a bunch of “fans”. Don’t get me wrong: I like subscribers, but having “fans” was sort of like being a rock star without all the practice and smelly leather pants. With this new differentiation between what you do and who you are, I’m concerned that people are going to figure out that I’m just some nerd who has some funny stumbles and not the rock star that I make myself out to be.

What do you think? Do you like the new system or do you have mixed feelings about it? Let me know in the comments.

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Version 2.8 was written in response to a user request for the inclusion of XFN data in the blogroll links. XFN stands for “XHTML Friends Network”, and it’s a way site owners can specify what type of relationship they have (such as friend, co-worker, neighbor) with the people they’re linking to. The format is built into the WordPress link manager, but I never included it in Better Blogroll because I didn’t think people used it.

If you specify XFN data in the WordPress links manager, Better Blogroll will now display it. If you don’t use XFN, your links will look the same as they did before. Because “nofollow” and XFN both use the rel tag, setting links to “nofollow” in the plugin will override XFN data.

If you’d like to know more about XFN in WordPress, check out the WordPress XFN page. For more information about Better Blogroll, head on over to my Better Blogroll Widget for WordPress Page.

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If you have this issue, you can eliminate it by forcing search results to open in a new tab. It’s like a built in safety mechanism for absent-minded bloggers, and it’s really easy to implement through a simple change to the Firefox configuration page.

1. Open a new tab and type about:config into your browser’s address bar as if you were trying to go to a web page. If you’ve never seen the configuration page before, this is where you can make all the custom tweaks that can make Firefox into your own personal browsing machine.
2. There are a lot of properties, so type browser.search.openintab into the filter box to filter out everything except the property that we’re going to modify.
3. Double click anywhere on the line that shows up, and the line will became bold and the value will be set to true.

That’s it. Modifications to about:config are instantaneous, so you will no longer have to worry about losing whatever you’re working on to search results. If you ever give up blogging and want search results to show up in the current tab, just find and double click the property again to set it back to false.

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The RSS widget doesn’t include the option to set links to nofollow, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t add it. This is going to require a hack to one of the WordPress core files, widgets.php, which you can find in your wp-includes directory. Because you’re hacking a core file, you will lose these changes every time you upgrade WordPress.

Ready for a little WordPress hackin’? Well, let’s get to it.

How To Hack Widgets.php To Set The RSS Widget To Nofollow

These instructions were written for WordPress version 2.5.1, so if you’re using another version, your mileage may vary.

1. This is a really simple hack, but humor me and save a backup copy of widgets.php as widgets.old, so that you don’t spend the next four hours on a four minute hack because you missed an apostrophe somewhere.
2. Open widgets.php in your favorite editor and on line 1029, you will find function wp_widget_rss. This is the start of the RSS widget section. You don’t need to do anything with this line, but I wanted to include it as a reference in case future WordPress versions move things around.
3. On line 1069, you’ll find:

   $title = "<a class='rsswidget' href='$url' title='" . attribute_escape(__('Syndicate this content')) ."'><img style='background:orange;color:white;border:none;' width='14' height='14' src='$icon' alt='RSS' /></a> <a class='rsswidget' href='$link' title='$desc'>$title</a>";

If you want to get rid of the RSS icon and the linking title so that the RSS widget blends in with your other sidebar sections, you can either delete the entire line or comment it out by putting a // at the beginning of the line. If you like the way it looks, simply add rel='nofollow' to 2 places to the line so that it ends up looking like this:

$title = "<a class='rsswidget' rel='nofollow' href='$url' title='" . attribute_escape(__('Syndicate this content')) ."'><img style='background:orange;color:white;border:none;' width='14' height='14' src='$icon' alt='RSS' /></a> <a class='rsswidget' rel='nofollow' href='$link' title='$desc'>$title</a>";

4. On line 1079, you’ll find function wp_widget_rss_output. The next line we’re going to modify is under the section. Again, the mention of this line is only provided for reference.
5. On line 1157, you’ll find:

   echo "<li><a class='rsswidget' href='$link' title='$desc'>$title</a>{$date}{$summary}{$author}</li>";

   Add the nofollow attribute to this line by inserting it like so:

   echo "<li><a class='rsswidget' rel='nofollow' href='$link' title='$desc'>$title</a>{$date}{$summary}{$author}</li>";

6. Save the file and upload it to your server.

All your RSS links should now be set to nofollow. Remember that because you just hacked a WordPress core file, you will have to implement his hack the next time you upgrade. The only way to avoid this is to stop hacking core files or use a plugin such as Buddy Love that includes the nofollow option.

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If you’re running WordPress, you have probably seen the “Incoming Links” panel on your dashboard that lists people who are linking to you. With WordPress 2.3 and above, that data is simply an RSS feed from Google blogs. Because that same RSS feed can be added to your sidebar through an RSS widget, giving a link back to people who link to you is a snap.

Adding Your Incoming Links To Your Sidebar

Note: These instructions were written for WordPress 2.5.1 The idea is the same if you are running a different version, but the exact instructions may need to be adjusted.

1. Open your WordPress dashboard.
2. On your Incoming Links section, right click on RSS and copy the link by Clicking “Copy Link Location” in Firefox, “Copy Shortcut” in IE, or the appropriate link copying command for your web browser.
3. Now Click Design and then Widgets to go to your widgets page.
4. Scroll down and click Add next to the RSS widget to add it to your sidebar. It will then appear on the right side.
5. On the right side, Click Edit next to RSS.
6. Paste the feed you copied in step 2 into the box titled: Enter the RSS feed URL here:”
7. Add a title such as “People Who Link To Me” and set any other options you prefer.
8. Click Change and then Save Changes. You should now see a list of your incoming links in your sidebar.

Benefits and Drawbacks

The benefit of this is that as soon Google knows that someone gives you a link, they show up on this list with no effort on your part. That not only gives credit to those who already link to you, but encourages others because they know that you try to give back to people who are good to you.

Because the process is automatic, the major drawback is that you lose the ability to filter out links based on your personal preferences. As long as most people are linking to you because they like you and not just for the return link, this really shouldn’t be a problem, but it is something to think about.

If people are constantly linking to you from ad filled porn pages, or you feel the need to manually filter your links, you can always manually add links to your WordPress blogroll and use a plugin like Buddy Love to display them for you.

Note: Links in the RSS widget are dofollow by default. If you want to set them to nofollow, it requires a simple hack to a WordPress core file. See How To Set The WordPress RSS Widget To NoFollow for more information.

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Why Would You Want That?

A picture is worth a thousand words, really. As a commenter, having gravatar allows you to create a more recognizable online identity that spans across sites. As a site owner, allowing a commenter to have a picture next to their comment makes them infinitely more recognizable when you run across them in your surfing. Unfortunately, gravatars only show up on sites that have gravatar support enabled.

Since Gravatar.com is run by Automattic, the same company that runs WordPress, gravatar.com support was rolled into WordPress 2.5. If you have a WordPress blog, you can easily add support for gravatars by adding a few lines of code to your current WordPress theme. If this is something you’d like to do, the complete instructions are below.

There are four basic steps:

1. Backup your stylesheet and your comments.php just in case.
2. Turn on Avatar support in your dashboard
3. Add one line of code to your comments.php file
4. Add a section to your stylesheet to get the avatar looking the way you want.

1. Backup Your Files

Whether you simply copy the contents and paste them to a text file, or back up your entire site, backing up takes only a couple of minutes and could be the difference between 15 minutes of quick, happy little edits and 2 hours of chasing down a misplaced semicolon. I suggest backing up your comments.php and stylesheet before you edit them, but I leave this step up to you.

2. Turning On Avatar Support

1. Log into WordPress and click on Settings then Discussion
2. Scroll down to the bottom to Avatar Support and select Show Avatars
3. Set the Maximum Rating
4. Click Save Changes.

3. Add The Code To Comments.php

Click on Design and then Theme Editor, and under Theme Files (on the right) click Comments (comments.php)

When you find a section that looks something like the following, you’re seeing the start of the comment loop:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
  <li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
    <cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:

Insert a line before the line that starts with <cite>, and insert this line:

<?php echo get_avatar($comment,'50','' ); ?>

50 is the size of the avatar in pixels, and if you’d want to specify your own default avatar (as I did), add its URL between the final ''. If you choose not to include the 50 or specify a default avatar, the function will pull a default avatar from gravatar.com at 96 by 96 pixels.

You should now have something like this:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
  <li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
    <?php echo get_avatar($comment,'50','http://mysite.com/default.png' ); ?>
    <cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:

That’s it. Now click Update File to save your changes.

4. Style Your New Avatars

Now that avatars are enabled in your theme, we’re going to add a border to them to make it more like a photographs and set the comment text so that it lines up a little nicer.

Click Design, then Theme Editor and then scroll to the bottom and click on Stylesheet.

If you have a section called .commentlist li .avatar, then you just need to add in what's between the brackets to that section. If you can't find that section, find the .commentlist li section and insert the following section below it.

.commentlist li .avatar {
	float:left; 
	background: #fff; 
	border: 1px solid #bbb; 
	padding:5px;
	margin: 0px 15px 0px 5px;
}

Now that the avatars have a nice border and lined up, we have to make one more edit to stop longer comments from wrapping under them. Find margin: 10px 5px 10px 82px; in the .commentlist p section of your stylesheet, and change the fourth value (the left margin) to push the comment text out from under the avatar. For this site, I had to set it to 82px, but you might have to play with that number until yours lines up.

Now click Update File to save your changes.

You're Done!

Avatars should be working on your site now, but if you run into snags, you can check the WordPress Gravatar documentation, or drop me a comment and I'll do what I can to help out.

Wait Wait Wait! Where Do I Get An Avatar Of My Own?

Go to Gravatar.com and signup with the e-mail address that you usually leave comments with. Once you upload a picture, whenever you leave a comment on a site that supports avatars, your picture should show up next to your comment.

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With Best Foot Forward, you simply tag your top posts with a specific keyword (like “favorite” or whatever you prefer) and then tell the plugin to show anything marked with your keyword. When you want to add a post to the list, you simply add your keyword to the post’s tags. This means you can create “best of” lists on the fly without wasting time copying and formatting.

The plugin was updated to version 1.1 to fix a bug that created incorrect links for certain users, so if you had a problem with version 1.0, it’s time to upgrade.

For more information, head over to my Best Foot Forward WordPress Widget Page.

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1. Pick a subject that people are drawn to but have no expertise in like “How To Score a Porn Star Girlfriend In 5 minutes” or “5 Ways To Rake In Easy Money On The Web”. Who’s going to dispute you? Tommy Lee? Darren Rowse? Fuck no. Those guys are too busy banging porn stars and stuffing mattresses full of money to find the time to debunk your claims. And the average person wouldn’t be reading your list if they had any idea if you were right or wrong, so picking that obscure but interesting subject will allow you to kick back and snort a line of that ever increasing pile of stats that are at the heart of your very existence.

2. Make sure that your points are very general. Research and testing are for scientists and nerds. Do you have a lab coat or a twelve sided die there, Bilbo? Hell no. Being ambiguous will make it seem like you know what you’re talking about, while letting you spend less time writing, and more time compulsively checking your stats. The trick is to make statements that seem like good advice, but are really nothing more than logical generalities like “write good content” and “don’t forget to breathe”.

3. Have! An Awesome! Title! Write the best title that you possibly can, because most of the time, it’s the only thing people are going to see. If it over promises more than a pushup bra on Paris Hilton, so what? The web is powered by lies and promises. By the time people figure out that you’re full of shit, they’ve moved on and left you with another visitor to validate your obsessive stat counting.

4. Bold your points Here’s a secret for you: The modern world is a very busy place. Most modern web surfers skim through sites and bookmark things that they hope to have time to read later. The reality is that the only words that they will read before your post is forgotten in their ever-increasing list of bookmarks are the ones that are in bold. This isn’t to say that you should avoid plain text altogether, but if the general reader isn’t going to waste time on it, neither should you. Write only enough plain text to make it look like there’s more information to the average skimmer, but if you repeat yourself or use nonsense words like finchcrupper, who’s going to know? Who has time to read plain text? Not me, or any of my finchcrupping friends, that’s for sure.

5. Don’t go over 5 items People don’t become gurus by jabbering on and on there, Maharishi. Gurus attain their status by being very brief and stealing the credit when people figure things out for themselves. If you start getting into longer lists, a majority of your audience may figure out just how full of shit you are, and stop inviting you on their band retreats. Keeping things short will add an air of mystery that could keep people from publicly debunking your whole finchcrupping operation.

Consider bookmarking this post if you’re tired of list writers who think that it’s perfectly acceptable to intentionally over promise, consistently under deliver, and habitually waste your time.

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