Blog Hopping-will you see this event in Beijing?

What I love most about this new sport called blog-hopping is that it requires absolutely no discernible level of fitness or physical prowess of any sort!I've been training for that for several decades! Finally, my time has come...I, too, can be a star! I'm not sure what the events would be like. Maybe you could win a gold, silver or bronze medal for the longest period of non-stop blogging, or perhaps the most number of posts in the shortest amount of time, or maybe even for reading the most blogs and posting the largest number of comments in a specified period of time or for having the largest blogroll of blog buddies. Perhaps we could compete in categories like most offensive post, most politically correct post, funniest, most poetic, best music, best video, best photography, most readers, most profile views, the weirdest, the most disgusting, revolting, putrid, etc, etc.The possibilities are endless! We could have our own association or federation or something-just like the other Olympic athletes do! I wonder if we'd be tested for drugs, alcohol or steroid use? Hey, why not. A person has to keep their wits about them to spend such vast periods of time slaving away at the computer-we bloggers must practice safe computing!There has to be standards and these standards must be strictly enforced! We must have blog police or some such thing to make sure all bloggers are competing fairly and not plagerising or some damn thing like that. There needs to be some kind of security so that the Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan kind of deal cannot happen-like someone breaks into your house and smashes your computer because your blog is too good and they're afraid you might win!Also some kind of way to make sure other less-cleaver bloggers don't come along and steal your post ideas. Yeah, that's right!

Well, the sport of blog-hopping must have been going on for quite some time unbeknownst to me because, about a month ago, two really great people blog-hopped my humble site here at Compass Pointe. I can't even get some of my own friends and family to read it!  They read my posts and left very supportive, encouraging comments. As you know, us bloggers live for comments. No comments=no love. No comments=I SUCK! No comments mean you're talkin' to yourself, dude, nobody cares, nobody's listening,bro... So, that was especially meaningful for me that two complete strangers would even care about my obscure little blog. I discovered that one of the bloggers who generously stopped by was a very nice gal from The Philippines. Her blog is called euthymic. She is a fellow animal lover and has a big heart for family and friends. As you can see, those three things are priorities in my life, too. I am going to drop in on her blog as often as possible because I enjoy learning how things are on her side of the world. The world of blogs puts us all a lot closer to one another and relationships that would never have occurred without this technology can blossom. A whole new world of understanding.

Then there's PawPaDog. He's got two blogs: PawPaDog's e-den and The Independent Nation of Barbequia. There are some interesting links on his. Well, we both have the same wack sense of humor and PawPaDog lives in Portland, Oregon which is my home state and about 15 miles from my place of birth! We are both Geminis and share some common beliefs. He has a cute little house named Simon and a cute little family to match. He's somewhat of a mad-scientist, however, but anyone who is so passionate about family, food and gardening is alright in my book and is entitled to as much weird science as he can handle. Whatever trips your trigger there, PawPaDog! Point is, I really enjoyed connecting with these people and looking at their blogs.

So, I decided to venture out and do a little blog hopping of my own. First time out, I went to the blogger sign-in site and clicked on every blog that was currently updating. Here's what I discovered. About half of the blogs contained porno! How naive am I ?? For some reason it never occurred to me that such things would turn up on blogs. I thought that stuff was all out on websites with nasty names which betrayed their sordid content. Uh, NO! So, beware. If you decide to try this...you could get an eyefull of people's junk and their trunk and other things that rhyme with unk! Then there's all the commercials and blogs that are aimed at selling you things. Can't get away from it no matter where you go...there are billboards, there are advertisements on the backs of the stall doors in restrooms, the TV, radio, and even movie theaters are just full of commercials and sales pitches. Well, there are blogs out there like that, too! Then you've got the REAL blogs. The ones that belong to other citizens of the world. Believe me, they come from every corner of the globe. There are the generic family blogs, blogs about TV shows, soap operas, specific hobbies, travel, sexual preferences, music, movies, books, religious beliefs, blogs dedicated to biking, hiking, camping, drinking, pot smoking, deer hunting, anything you can imagine....

My favorite blogs were just regular blogs of regular people. Like mine. Like euthymic. Like PawPaDog. I will tell you what, I will never feel funny again about anything I write in my blog! There's every kind of opinion out there. There are swear words I've never even heard of and have no idea what they mean-and I'm nearly 50! So, if nothing else, this experience has freed me up to become more fully myself-NO APOLOGIES! Some of the blogs, even of the "common garden variety", were so creative and colorful and the writing is just fantastic. There are people out there that I could never hold a candle to-but the great thing is, there's room and a place for all of us out in the world of blogging! We all have a niche. We all have something to contribute. Boy, are there ever a lot of folks out there doing just that. Isn't it amazing that anyone can set up a blog in five minutes or less and immediately become a published writer?! Think of all the frustrated writers of yesteryear who could have been spared such angst! God only knows what Hemming way or Steinbeck or J.D. Salinger or Mark Twain and a host of others would have come up with had blogging existed back in the day. What about Andy Warhol? What do you think his blog would have been like? Or Pablo Picasso? It's just crazy to think about!!
So, if you have a little time to spare, go to google homepage and click on blogs. You can choose whatever topic or word you want and pull up blogs of every description! Or try the blogger sign-in page. I'm telling you, though, it's addictive. There are some very great blogs out there to be experienced!

In addition to the ones I've mentioned, check out my blog buddies on the sidebar of Compass Pointe. I found some others that I really liked too: Sweet Pea Wanderings, Living the Inspired Life, Seagus, Magicians Merger, Lobster Squad, Crunchy Chicken and tons of others. Once you get going you'll be hooked! By the way, if you don't have a blog yet, by all means, join us! If you do have a blog already, please feel free to leave your blogspot address in a comment and I will check it out! See all you blog-hoppers in Beijing!KEEP ON BLOGGIN' IN THE FREE WORLD!