Interested in the blogging scene? Confused how to go about setting up your very own blog? Follow these fifty-one easy steps and you’ll be a l33t blogger in no time!
1. Find a free blogging service, such as www.blogger.com
2. Register a catchy yet philosophically deep name for your new blog: “lifesucks”; “All Things Me”; “Lifehacker”; “Playing With Matches”; “The Internet Slacker”, “I Stalk David Hasselhoff”.
3. Consider one of the many pre-made website templates offered by the blogging service, or one created by you.
4. Turn your nose up in disgust at the thought of using a pre-made template for your blog.
5. Spend the next seventeen hours creating a functioning website from scratch. If using Microsoft FrontPageTM, relocate all children and elders to a safe area out of your “profanity zone”.
6. Complete your self-made blog template by clicking on the “Publish Website” command in Microsoft FrontPageTM.
7. Watch in shock as the aforementioned seventeen hours of hard work gets permanently deleted off your hard drive by Microsoft FrontPageTM.
8. Swear so loudly all dogs within a five block radius begin running in circles and howling.
9. Declare “Screw It” and choose from a pre-made template. Always choose one with lots of kittens and flashing animated gifs.
10. Make sure the template is ready for your first blog entry. You can do this by going to your new blog’s URL address and seeing if the page loads properly. It will have no posts yet, of course, as you have not actually written your first blog entry. (If you do see a post written by yourself at this specific moment in time, read it! You’ve traveled back in time to warn yourself about the “Publish Website” command in Microsoft FrontPageTM).
11. Click on the “Create Post” selection. The window will reload with a box for you to type text in.
12. Put fingers to keyboard in preparation to type your first blog entry.
13. Realize in horror that you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to write about.
14. And you’ve got a whole blog ahead of you.
15. Stand up and get an alcoholic beverage to calm you.
16. Pace back and forth while racking your brain for a great post.
17. Cast resentful looks at your computer monitor while drinking the alcoholic beverage.
18. Come up with a touching yet funny childhood memory you can write about, like when you and all the other fat kids in the neighborhood used to take down the ice cream man not unlike a pack of lions ravaging a wounded gazelle.
19. Or, make your first post about how much you love pets. Remark on the fact that you let your pet pit bull out of the house every night to get some freedom and exercise even though the sirens from the ambulances tearing through your neighborhood constantly interrupt your sleep.
20. Or, make a heartfelt confession about how guilty you feel that you could never be a vegetarian because you salivate every time a nature documentary appears on the television.
21. Sit back down at your computer desk with your great idea.
22. Complete your first post.
23. Experience a fleeting sense of satisfaction that you now have a blog with an actual entry, even though it details your sexual attraction to Yoda.
24. Immediately phone all your friends and family to tell them the URL. Remind your grandmother that ‘stiffwoodysdiary’ in your blog’s address is spelled “all one word”.
25. Reload your blog incessantly every two minutes to see if anyone has made a comment.
26. Become enraged when the very first comment made on your very first blog entry is “yuo are teh sUxx0r!” from Anonymous
27. Go outdoors to calm down and get some fresh air, since you’ve spent twenty-two hours now working on your blog.
28. Tell every person you encounter – jogger, police officer, frantic paramedic – your blog’s URL.
29. Head back home when an idea for a blog entry comes to mind, such as the rudeness of paramedics who can’t be bothered to talk about your blog because they are busy helping some whiner with pitbull bite wounds on his throat.
30. When back at your computer, immediately refresh your blog’s page to see if any more comments were made while you were gone.
31. Grip the edge of your computer desk when the second comment reads “I said yuo are teh sUxx0r!” by Anonymous
32. Click on the “make new post” button on your blog.
33. Realize with horror you’ve totally forgotten the good writing idea.
34. Stand up and get another drink.
35. Sit back down at your computer desk.
36. Write your second post: how people who make dumb comments on blogs should be strung up by their genitals with barbed wire.
37. Complete the second post.
38. Stand up and get a third drink to calm you down from the blogging experience.
39. Watch TV while thinking you shouldn’t watch so much television since experiencing life would probably make for a blog that’s actually interesting to read. By going out more, you’ll be able to continue to spread the address of your blog to bemused strangers, too.
40. Accept phone call from your grandmother asking you to change ‘stiffwoody’ in your blog’s name to something more polite.
41. Refuse and hang up phone.
42. On the way back to the television, refresh your blog’s page again to see if there are any more comments.
43. Experience relief when third comment is a non-abusive one. Become incredibly depressed when you discover it is written by a fellow blogger asking if you ever fantasize about wearing lederhosen while flailing midgets with kielbasa sausage, and if you’d like to meet up with him for same.
44. Stand up and get a much larger, stronger drink.
45. Consider making your third post. Repeat verbal declaration made in step #9, forget blogging for now, go to bed.
46. Just before you fall asleep, realize with horror you’ll need to repeat steps #11 to #45 daily to keep your bragging rights about owning a blog (which, ironically, nobody reads).
47. Slip into an uneasy nightmare about being forced to type the word “sUxx0r” on a flaming keyboard while chained to Jabba the Hutt, who keeps demanding “More! More! Jakatooie Blogga Dooie! More!!!”
48. Wake up in the morning. Scream.
49. Read the new comments posted on your blog. Scream again.
50. Repeat for the rest of your life.
51. Welcome To Blogging!