1. Quantify, even if this means repeating yourself: “17 Ways to Write a Killer Blog Post.”

2. Reference tangentially-related current events. “31 Ways to Write a Killer Blog Post in a Recession.”

3. Assure readers of their own innate ability to write killer blog posts. “23 Ways You (Yes You!) Can Make Money With Killer Blog Posts”

4. Lists are your friends: “How to Write 97 Killer Blog Posts.”

5. 7 Signs of a Weakening Mind: Number 1. Reading self-help blogs.

6. 51 Ways to Fail to Recognize That Writing Self-Help Blogs Probably Means You Need More Help Than Your Readers.

7. Should you really accept money, even from faceless corporate advertisers hawking things no one in their right mind would buy, for basically working out your own problems, day after day, ad nauseum, in a public forum? Shouldn’t you yourself be paying someone for this?

8. Free advice is worth the price. You don’t really have any qualifications for this kind of thing. It’s pretty much the blind leading the blind. More accurately, since this the internet, the ironically depressed leading the silently desperate.

9. Are you even going to get dressed today?

10. People used to get paid per word for getting this kind of mulch printed in magazines, and I bet they were never up all night trying to code their columns to display properly.

11. You have to post something, don’t you? Traffic is up 3% this month, people in boring jobs are depending on you. People who have lost their boring jobs are depending on you. You really don’t have anything? Can you just run a “One Year Ago on ‘How to Write A Killer Blog Post'” again? Any sites you need to plug? Mailbag post? Have any more of those a-holes from your high school friended you on Facebook?

12. Who do you think you’ve helped? You’ve just really created this solipsistic little world just to boost your ego, haven’t you? If you want to help somebody, get off your ass and volunteer at a soup kitchen or give blood. Donate a kidney.

13. Or worse, college friends. Do you know anybody who isn’t a PhD, MD, or travelling the world? No, no, and no. Anybody not married, with kids? Okay, sure, but anybody not incarcerated?

14. You and Mad Men: Bringing back the two-martini lunch! You should really start keeping olives in the house.

15. “25 prime numbers between 1 and 100.”

16. “One Year Ago Today on “How to Write A Killer Blog Post.” …maybe a shower would help.

17. How to Write a Killer Blog Post is popularly served in a stew with lemongrass, thai basil, and tripe.

(Sometimes it also involves kitchen utensils…)

Most people, in fact, are taller than me.

I was in like the third row at the Apocalyptica concert (because I’m good at shoving people who are much taller than I am) and since they travel around the stage a lot I think at one point I was probably a bit less than 10 feet from Perttu but I think that’s as close as I managed to get.

He’s been rocking a top hat lately, but given that hair-whipping thing they do the top hat only lasted about 5 minutes.

Secondly Mig, if it makes you feel better, your blog is one of only two that I read at all, and the other belongs actually to a friend of mine who is living in Mexico teaching English to several other friends of mine, so I read her blog mostly to stay updated on the goings-on in Toluca. Yours is the only blog I read that I stumbled across totally on accident belonging to a random stranger (I do believe I was searching Apocalyptica at the time) that I have returned to ever… much less as often as I return here. That’s gotta be worth something, right? :)

Oh, and also I am terribly jealous of you for having been that close to Perttu Kivilaakso. Just thought I’d let you know.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. Dickens was paid by the word sometimes. I don’t think it hurt him too much.