[Friday, July 7, 2000]

5:26 PM In response to my previous post, I have realised that I require some guideline that i must stick to lest I fall further into the Abyss of Weblog addiction. The Distant Thoughts Declaration of Principles 1] I will never go a whole day exclusively linking to other weblogs, and will try to keep links to other weblogs to a minimum. 2] I will never leave the Webloggers webring, even if I get really, really popular. <stiffles a laugh> 3] I will never have a webcam, or even put a picture of me on this site. 4] I will keep shockwave and images in general to a minimum. 5] I will always put truth before humour value. Sometimes. 6] I will never use smilies, abreviations like "LOL", or misspellings like "Kewl". 7] I will not make this site of interest to exactly one person in the universe. Other sites, yes, but this site is for everyone, not for me. And anyone emailing me and mentioning this viz a viz a certain scene in a certain film by Orson Wells will be added to my Blocked Senders list.

4:58 PM I explained to my brother about the webloglog (and various other meta-weblogs). He said that this was nothing to worry about - that the three levels of comentary - content, talk about content, and talk about talk about content - were ubiqutous through all things, not just the web, and that a weblogloglog was not a serious possibility, that only the very worst of the Kewl people would try actually making one. Yes, I suppose that is so, because a weblogloglog would only have about five or so webloglogs to log. But as the number of weblogs increases, and it does so with terrifying swiftess, the number of meta-logs will also increase. About fifty meta-logs is probably more than enough to sustain a serious weblogloglog, so, by my estamate, once we reach three thousand moderately serious weblogs, there will be space enough for a real weblogloglog, not just a joke one. When will this stop? (If ever?) Assuming everyone on the planet gets a weblog (something we're not likely to see, but if that does happen), then a meta-meta-meta-meta-meta-meta-weblog may become a serious possibility. You go to your top-level log, which gives you all the one-less-meta gossip, and directs you to the best sites that can direct you to the best sites who can give you breaking news on the best sites which give you the best links to sites that can direct you to the greatest weblogs. Probably wouldn't bother actually following any weblog links out into the web, though. There wouldn't be time to check all your favouite daily webloglogloglogloglogs if you did that. My guess is that a new term will be coined to indicate a variable meta-level for a log. Since the word webloglogloglogloglog sounds like someone drinking out of a bottle, I'm guessing the term used will be "Glug". A top-level log would be considered Glug-Six, the ones below them Glug-Five, and so on. The lowest of the low, the common weblog, would be Glug-Zero, and the world-wide-web would be Glug-Negative-One. The lower a log's Glug Number, the lower it would be in the scheme of things, until the web itself would be beneath contempt. Gods, I hate weblogs. All of them.