CONGRATS, CONTACTS

Dearest Contacts,

You who read this have made it through the annual spring contact-list purge. Well, I shouldn't objectify it like that. It's just that I have found that I'm having less and less time than I have had in the winter months, and so with that comes cuts. I haven't been able to spend as much time online as I'd like, but I still have enough time to write the occasional blog, keep up on PMs and comments, and read some of my contacts' stuff. Thing is, I had 85 contacts. After some deliberation, I scanned my list a few time and here we are now, 36 contacts less. Now I'm at 59.

Anyway, I want you all to know that the reason I'm telling you about this. I pruned my list so that I could have more time to visit you 59, who I would classify as closer friends whom I see more often. I sent PMs to all 36 I removed, so please, I'm not the type to have a feelings hanging in the air between us. The only way to solve a problem is to acknoweldge it. Remember that about me!

So, you all know that I started Y!360 Refugees... well, I am a member of a group called "World Languages: Language Exchange." This group has a little over 2,000 members. Since I have a fair understanding of German, I was looking for a place where I could polish my skills a bit more. Frankly, this group is dead in the water. I contacted the admin to see if I could be added as an admin and he went ahead and did it. He said as long as I don't turn it into a spammy place or sell out, presumably meaning I using it for marketing, then I have free reign. I hope to get the group in better shape so it's much more active and basically better.

Y!360 Refugees is exactly six months old for the next twenty minutes until midnight. I posted a quick blog about it over at the group. I actually started the group the day after I set up my account, so this is the six-month-plus-one-day anniversary of "The Guilty Bystanders" on Multiply. Well, overall, I think it's been an awesome six months. I can't believe it's been that long. Does it seem like that long?

I have probably been to 360 less than a dozen times since Oct 16. I didn't think that I could let go of it that fast -- it just goes to show how good Multiply is. I've heard around that 360 has had another flare up of glitches. I guess that just reassures me why I am here and not there.

Retrospecting, I remember a few bloggers at 360 I knew who were particularly resistant to leaving. If you think you know who I'm talking about, well, I'm talking about them and plus a few other people. I think it was amusing how they didn't want to move -- wouldn't move! -- and ended up moving. I would bet my TV that they moved because their readership moved. There was no one to read their blogs!

I even know of a person who has since blocked me who cites their featured-bloggership on 360 here on their Multiply page. That probably gives it away. The point is, though, that that isn't relevant here. This is Multiply, not 360. But in a broader stroke, this is the blogosphere. It isn't a popularity contest to see who can get ahead. The vanity of it is what amuses me. How quick priorities change once the tides shift. I guess that's how people are, though.

I don't want to make any mistakes about why I'm here -- to get my thoughts in the air but also to get comments and see what other people think about what I have to say. The feedback is important to me.

I guess we're all here for different reasons. Opinions welcome, as always, but this is one's written more for myself. Contacts-only so I'd hope we can keep it that way....

-Ze Baron