As kids we get told a lot of lies, and we don’t have the wherewithall to sift the BS from reality.  Of course, I’ve known a lot of adults with this particular handicap too, but that’s beside the point.  The truly scary thing is, when we become parents, we often spout the same nonsense.

“Chewing gum stays in your digestive system for seven years.”  Chewing gum stays in your digestive system for an average of about 20 hours…. like everything else you eat.

“If you don’t wait an hour after eating to get in the swimming pool, you will get a cramp and die.”  I’ve never understood why parents insist on predicting horrific death to children, especially because children aren’t afraid of death anyway.  This is BS, by the way.  Find me ONE person who has died from food-related cramp.  There are none.

This is one I ran into after moving to Scotland.  “Eating cheese after dinnertime gives you nightmares.”  No, but eating cheese does give you high cholesterol.  Don’t think it depends on the time of day.  Why, oh why do we tell kids cheese is good for them?  Don’t give me that calcium BS.. there’s more calcium in brocolli than in milk.

“Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll stay that way.”  A true disservice to cross-eyed kids everywhere.  Not to mention the fact that most kids I know found this an incentive to try to do just that.

“Masterbation will make you go blind.”  Yeah, we’d much rather you go out and have sex at 12 years old, because that, after all, won’t make you blind.  And let’s be sure our kids think sexual feelings are bad.  That sets them up for a healthy adulthood, huh.

“Because I love you, that’s why.”  Translation: “Because it’s easier for me and I don’t want to have to explain myself.”

“Nobody asked you. “  Now this one was usually true, but it’s rude anyway.  What’s wrong with treating children like… oh.. I dunno… people?

“Who do you think you are?”  This is a really weird thing to say to a kid.  Kids don’t sit around and think about who they are.  That’s the job of angsty teens.

“Don’t EVER let me catch you doing that again!” — Yeah, it’s fine, as long as I don’t “catch” you.  Sneaky lessons 101.

“What will the neighbors think?”  Interestingly, studies have shown that your neighbors, like the rest of the world, doesn’t give a shit what you do.  They have their own problems.

“Sit like a lady!”  Telling girls to be ‘ladylike’ is the root of ALL evil.  Being ladylike usually involves looking pretty and shutting the hell up.

“Do you want a time-out (spanking, etc)?”  Now that’s just cruel.  There’s no correct answer to it.  Shall we all just quit asking questions we don’t want answers to?  Kids don’t understand rhetorical questions.

“If God had intended you to wear pierced earrings, He would have made you with holes in your ears.”  Babies also aren’t born with clothes on or speaking “proper” English, but we insist kids do those things.  Don’t try to con your kids.  They really are smarter than that.  If they aren’t, then you have bigger problems then pierced ears.

“Don’t put that in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.”  They also don’t know where their brussel sprouts have been. 

“Stop your crying before I give you something to cry about.”  What the hell?  Translation: You’re upset/confused/tired/overwhelmed, and therefore I’m going to hit you.  Yeah, let’s teach children good coping skills here.  I really want to take a frying pan to parents who say things like that.

“I would have never talked to MY mother like that!”  I’ll bet if you asked her mother, you’d get a surprising answer.

“Wear clean underwear in case you get in a car wreck and have to go to the hospital.”  Why not just “Wear clean underwear because shit-stains are disgusting.”  Oh yeah, because we have to threaten kids with bodily harm on a regular basis.

“You’ll thank me later.”  This statement is usually a pretty good BS indicator.

“You won’t always be annoyed with your brother.”  Big lie.  In fact, sometimes your brother grows up to be a jackass and a sociopath, and “annoyed” doesn’t begin to cover it.
 

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I’ve been reading guides on blogs, blogging, and how to get more traffic to your blog.   After all, no one wants to write and write and write if no one is reading it.  Right?

Here are some helpful hints for my bitter fans:

What They Won’t Tell You In Guides For Bloggers

1.  Most Guides About Getting Traffic Are Written To Get More Traffic For The Author.  While in general it’s understandable, you have to keep in mind that they don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about.

2.  Most Guides Are On Sites I Wouldn’t Go Back To.  Seriously.  Before you start reorganising based on someone else’s advice, you might want to see if their site is all that. (Shut up.  I know no one uses that expression anymore.)

3.  Most of These People are Relentless Ass-kissers.  I have no idea why, but they don’t seem to tell you what doesn’t work… only how great such-and-such a service is.  My guess is that they use that service and are hoping that if they can get more people to sign up, it’ll boost their traffic.  See a trend?

I haven’t been doing this all that long, but I do watch my stats to see what works and what doesn’t, and I’ll share with you the little tidbits I’ve found:

1.  Not all blogger networks are worth your time.  If you’re going to clutter up your sidebar with tacky widgets for them (hey I do it too), don’t waste the space on ones that don’t work.  I found that Blogcatalog.com, MyBlogLog.com, and to a lesser extent TheGoodBlogs.com all are decent.  I wouldn’t bother with Blogorama.  I’ve tried about 10-15 different ones, and those were the only ones that brought me more than a couple clicks.    (Oh, and avoid “Others Online”.  I dunno if they work or not, but they make you install a toolbar in your browser.  It made my browser SO slow, and I found it difficult to turn off.   I have a word for that: spyware.)

2.  Put a widget on your posts to allow people to Digg, StumbleUpon, etc your posts.  Yesterday someone put one of my posts on SU, and I got 400 new visitors just from that.  I was so encouraged by that, that I’ve started trying to build up my Stumble Upon network.  You can find me at http://jaynemc.stumbleupon.com/  Feel free to add me as a friend.  If you do, I’ll visit your blog, and if I like it, I’ll Stumble it.  If you’re funny enough to like Bitter Women, no doubt I’ll like your blog too.   SU does require a toolbar, but it doesn’t seem to slow down my browser or cause any problems at all. 

3.  Sponsored Listings: Not worth it!  I put in a bid to be a $15/month sponsor of the ‘Humor’ category on BlogCatalog.com.  I thought that surely hundreds if not thousands of people would come rushing in.  It did NOT work.  In four days of having it up, I’ve gotten only a small handful of people that found me that way. I wish I’d saved the money and bought myself a Boston Cream Pie or five.

4.  Most people so far  have found me through me leaving comments elsewhere.  Yeah, looks like the old-fashioned way of making friends is still the best.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though.  I’ve found some awesome-funny blogs out there. 

Let me know if you have helpful hints!  We can help each other a lot better than these so-called “experts” methinks!

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Here’s additions to my list of things on blogs that make me crabby:

1.  Pop-up adverts.  I wish there was a way to perma-block myself from accidentally returning to blogs that do this.  I’m thinking of getting my firewall involved.  I don’t mind advertising, but pop-ups are just annoying.

2.  Restricted Commenting.  It cheeses me off when I find a blog I like, read an interesting post, and then go to comment (I love to comment) and then find that they only accept blogger.com comments.  I don’t mind if I have to be approved or some such, but this is too much!  And then there are a few weird blogs out there, and even a few really funny ones, that don’t accept comments at all!  WTF!  But I have things to say!

3.  Pet Blogs.  Thanks to Wendy for reminding me of this in my previous post about Blogs I Hate, but Pet Blogs are pretty hideous.  I have a cat.  She’s funny, charming, engaging, and snotty all at the same time.  But, sadly, she isn’t interesting.

I’m as yet undecided about blogs where people post for money.  I see a lot of adverts for that on sidebars, but not very many actual paid posts.  I’m not, as I said before, opposed to people making cash on their blogs.  In fact, I’m downright tickled with the $1.47 I’ve earned for my 284980924832 hours work on this blog.  And, if someone were to offer me $100 to post something about them on my blog, I really think I’d have to say ‘hell yes’, because that would pay for my hosting for a year!

So, I think my general reservation about this is unrestricted jealousy.  The best offer I got so far was the folks over at Associated Content were prepared to give me $3. 

So out of sheer jealousy, pettiness, and bitterness, I’ll add:

4.  Pay Per Post Blogs.  Cuz I’m a bitch.

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Today I have to study for my Britishness Test.  Which, erm, I take this afternoon.  I’m relying mostly on the fact that I like taking tests, but I suppose this isn’t going to be like the ‘How Emo Are You’ myspace poll quiz thingmy.

Therefore, there will be no bitter rants today. 

Okay except one.  I’d love for the current MP’s to take this damned test.  If they don’t score the requisite 75% pass rate, they should have their asses kicked out.  A lot of it isn’t that hard, but some is quite obnoxious. 

If you’re British (and without googling, please) tell me if you know the following:

1.  A Quarter of the population of UK are children and young people up to the age of 19 (T/F)

2.  When did Britain become part of European Economic Community? (Mulitple Choice: 1979, 1949, 1973, 1987)

3.  What is the ethnic minority population in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?

4.  What percentage of the British population is Christian?

5.  What percentage of the Christian population of Britain is Roman Catholic? (There are also questions on other religions and sects that are smiliar.)

These aren’t the most obnoxious ones… just the ones off the top of my head. 

I really don’t mind taking the test.  I think it’s a good idea and promotes Britishosity and all that jazz….

But I think they should only ask questions that, umm, British people would be able to answer easily.  If they can’t… either the British education system isn’t what it should be, or the test isn’t really what it purports to be.

/end rant
/begin study

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In browsing the Blogosphere lately, I’ve run into some really obnoxious crap, and wonder if I’m just crabby beyong belief, or if this stuff is as annoying as I think it is.  I wasn’t going to write about this at first, for fear of alienating all those people out there who are visiting my blog for the first time, but then I decided that I can live with it.

Blogs I won’t go back to:

1.  Mommy goes on and on about trivial crap their kid does that annoys them.  Yeah, I have a kid too.  They all do it.  It isn’t interesting.

2.  Person whines about …. well…. anything.  No whining!

3.  Person advertises humor blog, but then lapses into blah blah blah about how their life sucks.  (See #2). 

4.  Details about surgery / medical procedures / bowel movements / you get the picture.  We.  Don’t.  Want.  To.  Know.  If you write about crap like that, please don’t advertise your blog on one of the big blog networks as “funny stories about life”.  Your ass isn’t as funny as you think it is.

5.  Blog posts are 30 paragraphs long.  This isn’t literature, and it isn’t ace reporting… it’s you talking about yourself.  It’s like having an annoying aquaintence that talks incessantly and doesn’t even pause for breaths to let you get a word in edgewise.

So is it just me?  Or do these things annoy you too?

Don’t worry.. I’ll go back to being funny tomorrow. 

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