Tag: Blogger

  • Tax Day and Some Other Stuff

    This seems appropriate…

    Really, I’m using this as an excuse to play a Beatles song.

    But taxes are due today, as I am sure everyone is aware. Funny how with everything going on in the world today, and also in a Manhattan courtroom, no one is talking about “Tax Day.”

    Also, and this has nothing to do with anything, as I know only four of you are seeing this, but I think that I want to start branching out with the blog into using different media for expression. I have been putting up more and more videos of late. Though I haven’t done this in a while, I was putting my sketches up on my IG, and now I’m thinking I might move them over to this. I haven’t found the knack of creating memes, but if I could, I think I would put them up here as well.

    I guess what I am saying is that this blog will always be that; a blog – written posts covering my personal observations and reviews of whatever media I take in that garners a reaction from me. But occasionally, I will be adding other things, to add some variety and keep me on my toes.

    Yeah, that sounds good.

  • I Pay Attention to What You Look At

    I would be telling a huge lie if I said that I don’t look at th analytics for my blog. Somedays, it is like a score sheet to see what works and what doesn’t. The one thing I have learned in the last year is that people only pop on my site to look at the Short Story Reviews. I have also noticed that in the past year, the average time on my site went from 15 seconds to 1 minute. I am flattered that people are spending their time here.

    The other thing that happens is every now and then, an old post will get a couple of hits, and I have to remind myself what I wrote. Some of my old reviews can be rather cringy, a little too harsh, or just wildly off base. I try to leave them alone, not make any edits, as a testament to the moment that I created the piece.

    I am surprised when a non-review post gets a couple of hits, which I take as a very high compliment. I can’t shake the fact that when I sit down to write a blog post, I still think of it like 2000 and I just started my first Blogger account. You know, in the Wild West days of overly confessional bloggers sharing every aspect of their life. That trend came and went, along with the literary glory that came with it. But still… posting is like reliving the creative enthusiasm of a twenty-five-year-old trying to connect with other people, and especially writers, all over the world.

  • The Nap Backfired!

    I just want to sleep forever somedays.

    I just took a fifteen-minute power nap, which normally does the truck of zapping me back to normal. But today, my nap back fired in my face.

    I didn’t get a great night of sleep, and I was up early as the kid needed to be at school early. Then there was alt side parking, and grocery shopping, and I made lunch for me and the wife.

    As I sat on the couch to eat with her; WOOSH! All my energy just sloughed off and out the door.

    Thus, I thought the power nap would do the trick.

    Now, I’m just sitting on my bed, forcing this out because I will stick to my… Habit? Routine? Goal? I can’t even think of the word that I want to use…

    Anyway… I just have the foggy head, and everything seems a little far out of reach.

    I am beginning to see that Mondays and Tuesdays are difficult days for me to do all the chores, blog, journal, write and read. Something has to give, and I always pick working on fiction as the disposable one.  I’m not sure what that says about me? Or if maybe it says nothing about me and I’m just over thinking everything? Should I forgive myself, and try again tomorrow? Or is this one of those “you only got one shot at this life, don’t waste it,” moments?

    I should do dishes and pick up the kid from school.

  • Nothing in Particular

    It would be easy to write something about Valentine’s Day. I could put something down about my amazing and wonderful wife. I could write a quick whim about my daughter and her excitement this year of buying cards for us, and her school party. That would clearly be the easy choice.

    I could also talk about the anniversary of the Pale Blue Dot photograph, but honestly, there is no way to top let alone approach what Carl Sagan already wrote about it.

    I even thought about working on something about a couple of new bands that I have started listening to of late: The Hails, Sure Sure, and Kid Bloom. But I have never felt very confident in writing about music.

    What I am is wishy-washy today.

    I spent a good hour at a local coffee shop this morning after dropping off the kid at school, just writing in my journal, and that kind’a zapped me. Which sucks, because I have a good bit of free time today, and there are several things I want to work on. So, I need to push through this block. I’m at 186 words before I started this sentence, and I aim for at least 250 for a post, which means I’m closing in on my goal.

    And I have a storage unit project that I need to start on. That’s just finding a new, cheaper unit that’s closer to our apartment. But I have to look, and make phone calls… That feels like a Thursday thing.

    Anyway, this post is clearly going to be a part of my Greatest Hits Blog book.

  • Matthew Groff Blog – The Best of 2023: An Introduction

    It’s that time of year again, when I post the “best of” of my blog for 2023.

    As in previous years, I am presenting the most popular posts in terms of views, and only the top 5. Sure, I have a few blogs that I put up that are dear to my heart, but I prefer this format as it showcases what the readers were most interested in.

    As such, this list owes its existence to you, the followers, viewers, and the friends of this blog. This year had the largest amount of views I had ever received. In fact, if you added together the previous five years together, that total would still be smaller than all the views for 2023.

    So, thank you, all of you, for spending your time on this little blog.

    And enjoy The Best of 2023!