Average Jane

Average Jane Loses a Blog Friend

I was shocked to learn yesterday from Mac at pesky'apostrophe that blogger Star Foster of Sarcasmo's Corner passed away on Sunday. According to The Phillyist:

Star had been complaining of a pain in her foot, which she thought had to do with some bad moves she'd made at dancing class, but it turns out there was a tumor in her leg which metastasized and went to her heart. She had a seizure this morning, her boyfriend Mike called for an ambulance, she had another seizure on the way to the hospital, and then died of a pulmonary embolism.

You can read more about her here.

I never had the opportunity to meet Star, but she's been on my blogroll almost as long as I've been blogging.

It's hard to sum up how I feel about this news without sounding like a cheesy inspirational book filled with photos of sunsets, but it is a reminder of how fleeting life is and how important it is to make every day count.

Average Jane's Weekly Web Finds

I'm a little too tired to write a coherent narrative today, so here are the latest additions to my del.icio.us bookmarks:

• New York Hack - A female cab driver in New York City.
• The Escape Plan - A couple's 40 day project to "escape adulthood."
• 15 Megs of Fame - "Discover and share new music."  I'll definitely be uploading some of my band's songs when we're finished recording and mixing.
• McSweeney's - Always something new and amusing.

Enjoy your Thursday!

Average Jane Recommends...

I'm still woefully overdue to update my blogroll, but I've been adding as many as a dozen blogs a week to my Del.icio.us list.  Here are some that have caught my eye recently:

• The Joy of Six - Jory DesJardin's mother, Joy, started her own blog this week!
• Conversations with Famous Writers - "Amusing banter with cool writers"
• Lifehacker - Lots of interesting information on a variety of topics
• My Life as a...Gas Station Attendant - I think of it as "Zen and the Art of Dealing With Convenience Store Customers"
• David's Journal - Interesting observations about pop culture, media and other subjects from David Byrne

Have a great Wednesday!

Search Average Jane

While this blog may provide the occasional moment of mild amusement, it's far from being a fount of useful information.  Nevertheless, many visitors arrive here every day thanks to extremely specific but ultimately fruitless keyword searches on a variety of topics.

Here are some of my favorite search phrases from the past couple of days:

"Jane magazine January 2005 the one thing she won't take off" - One proper noun short of a successful search.  I wonder what the one thing is?

"jessica simpson 2005 haircut" - Did Jessica Simpson change her hairstyle this year?  I hadn't noticed.

"shopping list for a new chameleon" - My shopping list of weird stuff tied with my purchase of chameleon-colored Thinking Putty.  Your new chameleon isn't going to appreciate that, though.

"monkey hate clean saturday night live" - This one actually makes sense and contains a good link to the video clip in question.  You're welcome!

"i dressed my husband as a bride for Halloween" and "paris hilton donatella versace" - Both of these come from my description of a Halloween party I attended last year.  One husband and wife were dressed as "Kill Bill" characters Gogo Yubari and The Bride, respectively.  Other costumes included Paris Hilton (complete with stuffed chihuahua) and a drag Donatella Versace.

"lakes andes sd wpa" - This one is a little weird in that I know I've discussed the WPA in the context of a local park, but I can't remember ever mentioning Lake Andes, SD.   Oddly enough, my great-aunt lived in Lake Andes much of her life and we used to go there in the summertime when I was a kid.  I'll make sure to do a blog entry about those trips sometime soon - I remember them well.

The majority of my search traffic still comes from queries about beta fish.  If you find your way here in the hope of learning something valuable about the well-being of your beta fish, please visit BettaTalk instead.  Faith at BettaTalk has more knowledge about betas than I ever will.

Okay, fellow bloggers, what are your favorite search phrases that have turned up in your referrer logs?  The more random the better...

Average Jane on Blogging

I just happened to start my own blog in 2004, the year blogs really took off and the Merriam-Webster dictionary selected the word "blog" as its Word of the Year.  By then I'd already been reading James Lileks' blog, The Bleat, for a number of years.  I'd also posted a little on H2G2 and Diaryland, but it wasn't until I learned how to use TypePad for work that I got serious about maintaining a regular blog of my own.

Of course, the minute the general public started hearing about blogs more frequently, various language snots decided they hated the word and wanted to banish it from use.  I think "blog" is a perfectly reasonable truncation of the more awkward "weblog."  It's THE commonly agreed-upon name for the phenomenon.  I'm sorry, but you don't get to decide to change something's right name just because you don't like the way the word feels in your mouth when you say it.

Then the Pew Internet & American Life study results came out that revealed that "62% of internet users do not know what a blog is."  I think, deep down, every blogger suspected as much.  It accounts for all of those friends and relatives who know we "have a website" but have never been there.  Maybe they're the same people who think there's nothing on the internet but p0rn, so they don't visit our blogs because they're afraid they'll see nekkid pictures of us.

I've thought long and hard about whether Average Jane should change, mainly because personal journal blogs are the red-headed stepchildren of the medium.  I came to the conclusion that it's fine the way it is.  I use it as a daily writing warm-up before work and the subjects open to me are as unlimited as my sleep-befuddled brain can stretch.

I'm glad to have found such an interesting collection of daily blog reads (see right column and scroll down) and I look forward to adding to the list in 2005.  I'm also pleased to have watched my readership inch up to an average of 62 people per day (don't laugh, Charlie).  I know many of them came from Google searches about betta fish, cranberry sauce recipes and prom dresses (and see, I'm making it worse!), but I'm grateful for everyone who's stumbled across the site and come back again to read more.  Tell your friends!