Tag: #Blogging

  • Best of 2025: Most Viewed Post that Wasn’t a Review – An Open Letter to the Bots from China Flooding My Site

    FYI – My site is still being bombarded by bots from China.

    Greetings Bots from China,

    Welcome to my blog. I know you have been poking around her for the past month and a half, but we haven’t formerly been introduced to each other. So, hello! I’m Matthew Groff.

    And you are? (Please feel free to leave your answers in a comment.) (In fact, anyone who is reading this should feel free to leave a comment.) (And feel free to subscribe as well.)

    Like I said, I have noticed that you bots have looking at all of my posts, and also have been doing searches on different topics. I hope you are finding my posts interesting, and if something does tickle your interest, please give it a “like.” It helps drive traffic, I get a little more money, which will allow me to post more. You, you get how it works.

    I know that there is a chance that you bots are scrubbing my site, stealing my words, ideas and thoughts. If true, it’s not the nicest thing to do, especially if you reuse my intellectual property and try to pass it off as your own. Not cool, and I would hope that you stop.

    But there is a chance that you bots are AI training, and I would like to suggest that this might not be a good idea for you. First of all, I am flattered that you would think that my site would be positive place for your AI to get a better understanding of the world, and how humans think. But if you do go back to when I started the blog in 2017, you’re going to find a bunch of type-o’s and some really bad sentences. (Type-o’s are still a problem if I’m honest, so beware…) I say all of this because you might be teaching your AI to be rather quippy, to use too many non-sequiturs, and share lots of references to shit no one cares about. The again, if you want your AI to sound like an early middle-aged Gen-X white male who grunged too much in his teens and twenties, then you might be in the right place.

    Anyway, I hope you bots found what you’re looking for, and move on your way. I don’t know if you know this, but there are a ton of people out there that blog about home improvement stuff, which I’m sure will be fertile ground for you.

    Wish you the best but please go away,

    Matthew

  • One More Before the Year is Over

    I have a good feeling that I won’t get back to blogging until the New Year. Even then, the first week back, I’ll post all the “Best of…” for 2025. So, it’s more like I won’t really be back to writing for about two weeks.

    It’s time to wrap up 2025, and I did just get back from Christmas in Texas. It was a good trip. Got to see all the family, and even had a chance to hang out with the old college gang. The only thing that wasn’t so great was the fact that it was in the 80’s the whole time we were there. It was Summer in December. And all we had to wear was winter clothes. Oh well… I just can’t escape the heat sometimes…

    As for 2025 –

    Personally, my life is pretty good this year, and I really can’t complain. We’re all healthy, doing well, getting by, and having fun.

    Professionally, things aren’t too bad either. Blog is still growing – this was the best year in views and visitors, “likes” were up compared to last year, and the number of comments were exactly the same as the previous year. I got a review published at Split Lip, and though I wrote fewer stories, I felt that my quality is improving.

    Doing all of this probably will never not feel like screaming into a void, but I do appreciate those of you that took the time to read what I wrote. You shared with me the most precious thing of all; your time. And for that, I am deeply honored.

    Moving on to 2026 – sure would be nice to get another thing published. Oh, getting out of debt would be cool, too! Completing the writing of a book, maybe losing ten pounds, getting to see a World Cup match live would be neat. But I think I would like to improve as a husband, and as a father. Also, be a better son, brother, and uncle. Oh, and growing and being a better friend as well. I guess I would like to be the type of person I would like to hang out with. Oh, and read more. Always could read more.

    So, I hope 2025 wasn’t too hard on ya, and I sure do hope your 2026 is a hell of a lot better.

    Thanks again for reading this little squeak is a world of squawks.

    • Matt Groff
  • An Open Letter to the Bots from China Flooding My Site

    An Open Letter to the Bots from China Flooding My Site

    Greetings Bots from China,

    Welcome to my blog. I know you have been poking around her for the past month and a half, but we haven’t formerly been introduced to each other. So, hello! I’m Matthew Groff.

    And you are? (Please feel free to leave your answers in a comment.) (In fact, anyone who is reading this should feel free to leave a comment.) (And feel free to subscribe as well.)

    Like I said, I have noticed that you bots have looking at all of my posts, and also have been doing searches on different topics. I hope you are finding my posts interesting, and if something does tickle your interest, please give it a “like.” It helps drive traffic, I get a little more money, which will allow me to post more. You, you get how it works.

    I know that there is a chance that you bots are scrubbing my site, stealing my words, ideas and thoughts. If true, it’s not the nicest thing to do, especially if you reuse my intellectual property and try to pass it off as your own. Not cool, and I would hope that you stop.

    But there is a chance that you bots are AI training, and I would like to suggest that this might not be a good idea for you. First of all, I am flattered that you would think that my site would be positive place for your AI to get a better understanding of the world, and how humans think. But if you do go back to when I started the blog in 2017, you’re going to find a bunch of type-o’s and some really bad sentences. (Type-o’s are still a problem if I’m honest, so beware…) I say all of this because you might be teaching your AI to be rather quippy, to use too many non-sequiturs, and share lots of references to shit no one cares about. The again, if you want your AI to sound like an early middle-aged Gen-X white male who grunged too much in his teens and twenties, then you might be in the right place.

    Anyway, I hope you bots found what you’re looking for, and move on your way. I don’t know if you know this, but there are a ton of people out there that blog about home improvement stuff, which I’m sure will be fertile ground for you.

    Wish you the best but please go away,

    Matthew

  • ODDS and ENDS: Real Spring, Writing in Cafes, and Teaching My Daughter Important Stuff

    (What you tryin’ to hand me…)

    Well, today felt like the first day of Real Spring. Not that fake Spring where it’s warm for like an hour or two, and then it goes back to being cold. No, Real Spring is when it’s cool in the morning, sunny sky, and you know that by afternoon you will need to take off your coat. Yeah, flowers are coming up, and a few buds are showing up on trees. I even saw a squirrel waving at people. I will be happy to have the windows open again, and there is something reassuring about sleeping with the windows open at night. The kid is excited because she says that she will be able to start wearing shorts again. (She equates Spring as a lower version of Summer, but who am I to burst that bubble…) Real Spring does mean that change is on the wind, and life is about to renew. It’s also when the wife and I switch from sipping bourbon to enjoying a gin and tonic after work.

    I have started writing in cafes and coffee shops again. I’m not a huge fan of it; the act boarders on the side of performative art. But I have to also admit that writing at home has become a difficult situation for me. Difficult because Mario Cart is so tempting, and sitting in the apartment reminds me of how many home improvement projects I haven’t finished. So, to the neighborhood cafe I go. Luckily, I am not alone when I work there. I have been arriving at the same time each day, but haven’t discovered any regulars. As far as I can tell, I think I am the only writer. Seems like everyone else is working on code. And they all seem younger than me.

    I am still trying to figure out this parenting thing. Most of the time, I do believe that I am doing a good job raising her, making sure she is prepared for the world that she will enter sooner than I would like. And I do drop the ball from time to time, and make mistakes. But, I have learned to own up to my mistakes, and apologize to her when I do fail. And then on other days, I make her sit and watch the MST3k episode of “Bride of the Monster,” because I want her to be funny. Or at least appreciate weird funny stuff. She seemed to have enjoyed it. I just need to wait and see if I hear her make Lobo jokes around her friends.

  • Site Redesign… Eventually

    I have been thinking about this for awhile now; I need to redesign the site here. It feels like I need to update some stuff, maybe make it look a little better. To be honest, I have never found a layout that works for me, in all the years that I have tried creating a blog site. Even going back to 1999, and my first Blogger page. Building a page and site and all of this has never produced a site that I was comfortable with.

    I know the first question one needs to ask themselves when they start building out their site, is what is the purpose? What is the point? Well, I want to place that I can write daily.

    Okay, mission accomplished.

    But… I must say that the reason just about all of you come to this site, talking like 75% of you, is to read the reviews I write. So, that would lead me to believe that I should play up the review stuff, and not do too much of the “personal blog stuff.”

    I don’t know… I never feel comfortable with building this thing. Makes me feel a little selfconscious, and also rather clueless to technology.

    You know… I’m just going to copy Fox Reviews Rock layout. It’s simple, effective, and rocks. It’s a cooI site and I like what they do.