My Dear Hard Drive

There’s currently 2 discussions about the handsomest / most beautiful blogger on BlogCatalog.com. This made me think about the importance of letting your readers know what you look like. I don’t know if it is that important to other people, but to me it is… For one thing, you can tell a lot about the person by the photo. The age, the style, the gender - you might be surprised how often people think you’re the other gender if you don’t have a photo of yourself! Some topics are gender biased, like… Environmental issues, girly stuff. Fashion, definitely girls, technology, boys, without question… If a blogger doesn’t constantly tell you that “I’m a guy” the visitor will create an image which will effect the way they read your posts.

I know it is daunting to put your photo up there. I chose to use a series of photos, as currently, after having shaved all of my hair off when I turned 30, I am now growing my hair and I bloody well hate it. Having a series of random photos up there, will give me the satisfaction of telling people that I haven’t always had bad hair! Anyway, I would still put my image up there even if I was’t happy about the way I look, or have ever looked, because it gives people an idea of who I am, and why I think this way. Believe it or not, the way we look will also have an effect on how we view the world. “All men are pigs” will sound different when women looking different say that, don’t you agree?

If you have the looks, don’t hide it! You should not underestimate the value of good looks when it comes to attracting readership. People will deny that they would read blogs based on the good looks of the blogger, but deep down we all know we do… Not that it would be nearly the only thing that matters, just that it has an effect that is important enough to take a note off. Let’s put it this way; having the right meta tags will not bring you as many readers as your good looks.

One more thing that speaks for portraying your image; trust. If you have the guts to put your photo up there, and still say what you say, it gives the impression that you do stand behind what you say. We all know what anonymity does to you online. When you comment on discussion boards or to an article, if you are ashamed of what you say, you won’t be posting that thing with your name attached to it, let alone a photo. What ever you say with your name and face attached to it creates trust. Quite frankly, I don’t really give a damn about what some flower or cartoon character says on a discussion board, but I will take a good look at posts that are decorated with a real face.

If you want them to take you seriously, show them your face.

UPDATE: I just joined a fashion network and searched through the local people. There waren’t many so it was quick. However I found a couple of models that didn’t have an avatar. I almost bursted out laughing. I mean seriously, what does it tell about a model if she doesn’t have an avatar?

This here is my dog. Cute, isn’t he? Looks very friendly and cuddly, doesn’t he? Most of the time, that is exactly what he is too. He is the most loving and friendly dog with adults and over 7-year olds or so, which would be all that he should be fine with in his every day life. He is not at all used to young children though, especially toddlers… And that is where we constantly get into trouble.

Now, this would not be any kind of a problem if people would just listen to me… But here’s what happened today - and this is not an isolated incident.

Me and the dog were sitting outside at a café minding our own business, when a father carrying about a 2 year old son came to us. Without warning or questions, he shoved his kid into Primo’s face. I told him to be careful, as my dog isn’t used to kids, but the father smiled with the most heart warming smile and said “that’s fine.” Now I repeated myself, putting my hand out in the gesture, that to most people say “stop, stay away, don’t come close” and told him again, that my dog is not good with kids, and that he might bark. “That’s fine”, said the man, and pushed his kid closer, while Primo was escaping further down under the table. “He’s not used to kids” I said the third time, and he repeated, for the third time, that it was fine, and moved closer following the dog towards the depth of the table. I heard Primo letting out a low growl as he was pressing himself against my leg, so I informed the man, who I wasn’t sure heard it from the general noise. I can’t recall what he said, but my guess would be “that’s fine”. I expected that the announcement that the dog is growling, a generally understood message of aggression, would make him go away but no.

I was trying to speak calmly to the father, and reason with him and make him understand that the situation was not “fine”, because I didn’t want to scare the kid by starting screaming myself. Obviously that is what I should have done, because at that point Primo was already freaking out, and let out a huge German Sheppard size bark, that is supposed to say: “Get the fuck away from me before I bite your freaking head off!” The kid got it. He certainly got it. He started screaming, and I could make out the words “he will bite me”. All I could say was “that was what I meant” and look at him apolitically. “That’s fine” he said again, and continued to the kid “That’s fine, he’s just not used to kids…” (Like it would matter to a two year old WHY the big bad dog barked at him.) “Oh, you heard me after all?!” I thought to myself, but just clenched my teeth and tried to smile for as long as he went away. What I wanted to say, was that “No, you stupid idiot, it’s not FINE. It’s not even in the same ball park as FINE. If it would have happened, that my dog would have bitten your kid that you shoved in his face regardless of my warnings, it would have been my dogs fault and he would have ended up dead in this FINE situation. It is not FINE, because your kid will now grow up thinking that dogs hate him, when in fact it is nothing but their uncertain movement that makes dogs nervous.”

Dogs react to toddlers differently to other people. Toddlers are almost without an exception scared of dogs at some level, and therefore they approach with hesitation, even when they do it themselves. That makes the dog assume, that the kid is up to no good, and he wants to HARM ME. That is when they can react unexpectedly, by barking or by biting, and neither one is a good outcome.

What I have found, is that this is so very often a situation with men with their sons. For some reason, I’ve noticed that little boys are more scared of dogs than little girls are, maybe because it’s a male thing to see animals as beasts instead of cuddly toys, or possibly because their dads keep shoving them into faces of strange dogs. Is it some sort of a male ego thing, that you have to force your toddler to pat a dog he’s terrified off? “No kid of mine is scared of a spaniel!” And at the same time the twit makes things worse… And then they have to get out of the situation with a bit of an embarrassed look on their faces as they must admit that their kid was, after all, afraid of a spaniel. (Mothers usually ask if it is fine for the kid to pat the dog and when I tell them “probably not a good idea” they move away, which is all I’m asking.)

I was already thinking of getting a fucking pepper spray to protect my dog and their kids from stupid fathers with a point to prove, but I think I’ll just have to find that tone of voice that says: “I am fucking not kidding, man, keep your kid away from my dog or I will bite you.”

I am often complaining about all the things my mom did wrong raising me. But there are some things she got so very right. I was just reading a parenting blog as I was invited… As a childless woman parenting blogs are not my usual reading material… Anyway, the topic was nutrition. Mom was never an excellent cook, but she is the most fabulous baker around. That is beside the point though.

I was born in 1976 and crew up during that perfect era, when things were in balance. There was some bad influences (more…)

Have you ever thought about the pressure that men are under when growing up to become good men? Us women are giving them hell about things. They need to perform in bed. They have to last long to pleasure a woman. They have to learn what each woman likes in bed. They have to be loving and caring to make us love them and at the same time be masculine and scary to turn us on. They have to open doors, pay the bill and carry bags for us. They have to be taller than us and dress nice. They have to earn a good living and be home by dinner. They have to (more…)

I have a bit of an identity crisis. The first three identities I had were easy to swallow, and digest.

Identity 1.0

Child. A calm, good girl, mother’s precious, active, good at school, shy.

Identity 2.0

Teenager. Pimple faced. Awkward, unpopular. (more…)