Monday, Monday (na na, na na na na...)

Yes it's a lovely Monday morning... and the afternoon is creeping up on me, dogging at my ass to do something productive. I keep telling Mr. Afternoon that it is my day off work, that I have been woefully ill, and that I deserve to search the blogoshpere for entertainment. Mr. Afternoon is not buying it - he reminds me that were I at work, I would be sooooo very productive, and then Mr. Afternoon and I have a good laugh and refill our coffee mugs.

I spent the better part of the wee hours combing the Internet for blog stuff and happened upon some really interesting things. You'll see I have a new pet on my sidebar - I stole him from my lovely friend at The Dog's Breakfast. That makes us co-mommies... except when he stays with her, he notes he has far more visitors than at my place. Well... she is really cute, this panthergrl. Speaking of co-mommies, if you want to laugh (and you know you do) please go check out this post from a sitcom writer in LA.

I am still angry at Blog Explosion. They do not like Funky Bug's place. They say I have pop-ups, which I thought I removed, then they said my content is objectionable, which of COURSE it is. Until they accept me fully for who I am (too much therapy coming through here) I am not putting their little banner back up. Blog Clicker on the other hand is fabulous - sort of. It certainly has increased my traffic, but not my readership. Certainly, 30sec on my homepage is not enough time to blow coffee out your nostrils and type the phrase, "What are you, some kind of ass?"

Here's something worthwhile that I did discover while roaming the net - Michele's Place. If you want to increase your traffic, go for the aforementioned communities. BUT if you really want to find some good blogs to waste time at, while getting a few honest readers over to yours, this is the blog you want to utilize.

Oh, and I have a political rant, thanks to my visit to my pal Lorraine's blog. So this soldier, he does his time, and he comes home, only to get re-deployed. But this soldier, Benderman, he sees things in Iraq that he's not happy about. Take this, for instance:
"It's difficult for him to pinpoint exactly when it happened. Maybe, he said, it was when Iraqi children repeatedly climbed onto a wall and threw pebbles at his unit, and his commanding officer ordered the troops in the area to shoot them if they climbed back on the wall."
Fair enough... ain't gonna shoot no kids. So he tried to file for conscientious objector status, only to get railroaded by everyone all the way down the line to the chaplain, who tells him he is ashamed of him. So yep, I'm a bit more than ranty - I'm sad. You know, it's one thing to drive around with a yellow magnet on your car that says, "I support the troops" and another thing entirely to DO so. Support the ones who do what they must - whether they must go, or they must risk jail time to say, "Been there, done that, can't do it again." Supporting the troops and supporting the war are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS, people! So the rest of the article is in Salon, and I encourage you to go read it. It's OKAY to tell people the truth about the situation in Iraq... there still aren't any children throwing flowers...