Blog Envy, Springsteen & The Superbowl

It is heading towards midnight and I am sitting in a dark room trying to decompress after a very busy weekend. Radio Nowhere is playing and I find myself trying to decide what it is about Springsteen that resonates with me. I think that it is a combination of the passion and the music. The Boss is not just a performer but a master storyteller.

Just for the heck of it here is a partial list of some of my favorite Springsteen songs:

Brilliant Disguise
Tunnel of Love
I'm On Fire
Secret Garden
Streets of Philadelphia

Everyone of those songs holds special meaning to me. Each of them is tied into a memory or two of a person and or place that has been or still is a major part of my life.

Anyway, Springsteen put on a fantastic half time show. The best artists sound better live than in a studio recording.

I didn't have a dog in this fight, speaking of the game that is. I have been a Raiders fan for more than 30 years, followed by the Rams and then the Cowboys. But the Superbowl is one of my favorite events and it is a guarantee that I'll watch regardless of who is playing.

The game itself was great. All too often we have been forced to witness a blowout in which the outcome is decided long before halftime. Tonight was fun because of how exciting the fourth quarter was.

I played around briefly with the idea of liveblogging the game. I thought that it might be kind of interesting but opted not to. I wanted to enjoy the game as a fan and really participate in it and I knew that liveblogging was going to blow that right out of the water.

But I did manage to check into Twitter and let off a couple of tweets about the game. I am a newcomer to Twitter and still getting my sea legs there. I haven't quite decided what to think about it and that leads into the topic of blog envy.

It is something that I have discussed here more than once and had numerous conversations via email and in person as well. These conversations typically start in one of two ways. A newer blogger asks me for blogging advice or a non blogger wants to know how I feel about other blogs.

For those who haven't received the dime tour let me offer some clarification. I blog for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that I blog for me. I find this to be relaxing, enjoyable and at times therapeutic. I'd love to be paid to do this full time. It would be very cool but I don't have any expectations that this is going to happen any time soon.

There have been times where I have looked at other blogs and wondered why people like them better than mine. They have more readers, they have more commenters etc. Most of the time I don't care, but I am human. There are times when I shake my head and wonder. Reminds me a bit of a time in high school when Ann Stacey asked Tom Stelling to escort her to a dance instead of me. I looked at him and thought that she must have been blind, deaf and dumb.

FWIW, she later told me that she regretted not asking me, but I digress.

Blog envy happens. I sometimes wonder why people stop reading, unblogroll me or stop following me on Twitter. Most of it is curiosity. I wonder what they didn't like. What weren't they getting.

But since I write for myself it really doesn't matter. If you ask for my unsolicited opinion if you want to be a successful blogger you have to do it because you want to. It has to be something that you like or it is doomed. And really, if you don't like blogging why are you here. There are lots of ways to spend your time, don't waste it doing something that you don't enjoy.

Anyhoo, it is after midnight now so I think that is beyond time for me to go wrestle with old man insomnia. This time I think that I know how to beat him. See you in the A.M.