Woe is the Cantaloupe, Published by the Ink of Dying Souls

The Cantaloupe

The month of May is a crazy month is a person's life. Not only does a person have to do things, but they have to not do things as well. How do they know which things to do and which things to not do? Well somehow it's in our nature. Oh yes, and you need to remember the girlfriend's birthday or you will die. Die a terrible death!

The deep and terrible thoughts of one who lacks insight

One thing I have noted about the internet these days is it seems people like to tell other people about their own lives. I suppose I'm not too different in that regard. I like me and all the better to tell you about me, right? Well a lot of people (like me) think they are the most important person in the world and thus everybody else wants to hear that they brushed their teeth with petroleum. Oh now that's exciting (sarcasm intended)....(no wait, was the sarcasm intended?). Now blogs are fairly amazing or exciting or exazing if you're Tom Hanks, but how do you exaze people when you're not Tom Hanks? Here's a few rules that you need to know if you haven't ever done a blog before, or even if you have.

Be as depressed as humanly possible
Everytime you mention how much woe is in your life you gain a reader. People like to hear stories of people who have it worse than they do so they can feel better about themselves. When you read how a person is on their wit's end and they can't survive much longer you think "Great! I can still drop further to hit that level!" Then you cheer up. So if you want your blog to be read, whine about everything and talk about all the struggles in your life.

Blogger Bobger- Hmmm....it's been a fairly good day. I won the lottery, met the love of my life, was thrown an appreciation party for my recent volunteer work. What should I write about?
That part of you that helps you write blogs- Well you see, things will never be as good as they were today. Write about how it's all going to be downhill from here and it'll never get as good.

So you see, the more you hate life, the more people will like you. Or something like that. What if you have nothing to complain about? Life is peachy for you and you can't seem to find anything to complain about. Well guess what? You can't write a very good blog with that kind of life now can you? Blogs are status symbols and all so you won't be very cool anymore. There, now you have depression.
Another good thing to remember is to build your life around your blog. Make sure to act desperate around the opposite sex so that you don't get a girlfriend/boyfriend. Make sure you don't get too many friends so that you can spend time alone and brood. These are small sacrifices to make if you want to have a good blog.

Use a whole bunch of fruity metaphors and such
People who are struggling can't simply come out and say, "I'm struggling." Nobody wants to read that. How will you attract pity from your fellow man that way? The answer is you can't. Nobody cares if you're struggling. What you should write is that you're "bubbling in the cauldron of despair". That way people will say, "Oh no, Bobger is going to be part of a stew" and that's a reassuring thought. Make everything sound more dramatic and embellish things. You got a papercut? No you didn't. You stabbed yourself with the fiber of the earth. If you use normal language, why do you need to blog? Why not just talk to people? Convenience, simplicity? Nah! Blogs are popular and you must bend to such pressure.

Toss in random Links
Links are fun because they bring you to other places on the web. They don't really do much other than make your blog SUPER AWESOME! Why do they do this? I don't know, but maybe it's because they distract people who go and look on other sites from the fact that your blog isn't that exciting. But they're also fun.

Throw in the most pointless details ever known to mankind
Blogs are about details and you can't just tell someone the straight story. You need to "spice" it up by adding stuff. If you want to describe your day, here's how it should be...

Bobger- At 7:30 a.m I opened my eyelids. This caused the dim light of the room to fill my eyes and I gained vision. I proceeded to shift my weight from my bed onto the floor by moving my legs over and downwards. Thus I stood up. I noticed I was in my underwear which looked as if I had owned it for 300 years of hard labor. I thought, "maybe I should purchase new underwear". I stood there deep in thought for about two seconds. If you had been there you probably would have been like, "dude, you're off in space again!" That's how bad it was. Usually on a day like this I would look around the room starting from the north side and move my eyes in a counter-clockwise direction, but today for some reason I moved my eyes clockwise starting from the west side...

You see, if you want to have a popular blog, you need to add color and flesh things out.

Be confusing
Unedited thoughts are the norm. What's the point of a coherant blog? Coherancy is the devil's plaything or so it is in the blog world. If you ramble on without any point you'll confuse people who can't figure out where you're going. It also creates an illusion that you're smarter than people. If you tell them, "Ulrich J. Deirhoffen was the greatest philosopher of our time, talking about how people philosophize and then he died." they will be like, "I don't get it. He was a philosopher and then he died. How does that make him great?" They'll be just about to tell you about it when they think to themselves, "Wait, what if this guy I've never heard of IS really great. I'll look stupid!" Since they can't reason with you, they'll assume you know what you're talking about. Thus you'll be the greatest thing since sliced turkey.

So without further ado I am going to demonstrate how to write a great blog by writing about an actual occurance in my life using all of the points listed above. Yes, I'm going to write about the wedding I went to over the weekend involving two good friends.

The Wedding that Put my Heart in a Wood Chipper

Over the weekend I got to attend this wedding. It was at Grace Baptist Church. The ceremony was supposed to start at one o'clock, but I bet it only really started at one sixteen. A few things struck me during this ceremony. One thing that struck me was a foam dart. It hit me with the force of fifteen elephants jumping off a trampoline into a brick wall. I wish I could be married. As I watched the bride in her dress as beautiful as a sunset holding a bouquet of flowers walk down the aisle, raising her left foot and putting it down and then her right, I thought how cool it'd have been if I had been the one in the dress, I mean not the one in the dress, but the one on stage. I became terribly depressed that day, but not depressed enough to be sad, just depressed enough that it wasn't the greatest day of my life. Depression is the act of depressing which means a lot to me, but it doesn't mean much to other people. All in all, it was a fantastic day for Nathan and Lauren, but not for me. You see they were the center of attention and I wonder if I ever will rule the world with a fist so iron-clad that not even Superman could break it. As I was going to bed I stuck my head onto a pillow, one that I had used for many years. My hair moulded to the shape of the pillow, it didn't go throught the pillow. On top of me was a blanket, blue, but it may as well have been the blanket of sorrows, burying me underneath it's weight. This day was a 8.5 out of 10. Would I ever have a day that got a 10 out of 10? My days are simply awesome when they could be totally completely awesome.

On to the Ridiculous

Yes, that's my life. It's complicated. Now you see why I don't write "blogs" very much? It's because I would put you all to "shame". But here's your chance to make up for it. If you give me a paragraph blog about something that happened to you using the five rules of blogs I have given you I will reprint it. That can be a substitute for the Question of the Day feature I have in a usual Cantaloupe issue. That question is "Can you please do what I told you to do?"

Yemen, Oman and possibly Saudi Arabia

Remember always to live your life as if it is a blog. I'm a terrible model. I have fun in my life and you guys shouldn't. Fun does many bad things like put you at risk of dying. Why would you want to die? No fun for you. Fun is bad, living is good. Smiling takes muscles. Don't use them. Keep a straight face. Seriousness does wonders for your energy levels. Etc.

Trevor YVR Plett

(I am awesome, awesome, I am the awesomest! No no no, you can't handle this. A subtitle? You can't handle a subtitle? That is awesome, but not the awesomest like you could be. Work on that.)