6 months of blogging - That went quickly!

Time has flown and I can't believe it's about 6 months since I started this blogging malarkey.

It's been an experience not beyond, just very different to, all my expectations. And I didn't really have any expectations, if you know what I mean. I had been lurking and reading blogs, mostly the Sri Lankan ones, for a while before I started mine. They are strangely captivating, paticularly my favourites:

http://londonlanka.blogspot.com/2006/05/best-blogs-in-world-ever.html

It's funny how I feel as if I know a lot of the bloggers yet

a) I haven't met the majority of you and
b) you may well be writing total bollocks about yourself and therefore I, or any other readers for that matter, don't actually know the real you. Unless we have met you through another medium and have got to know you that way. But then you might have been putting on a big act in that medium and we might have not seen the real person as well. So quit the charade, the game's up.

I have some regular commenters, or is that commentators, such as childof25 (http://childoftwentyfive.blogsome.com) and Thena (http://poetlost.wordpress.com) There is also Savi3, who seems a frequent comment maker on many blogs, but alas hasn't got her own one.

When I began it was more of an experiment to see what would happen. I remember driving to work one Monday morning and pondering, as one does, about everyday stuff like drums, heavy machinery, why guitarists are so annoying, who actually buys Elton John's music and blogging.

At some point during my 20 minute commute I made a decision. I think it was when I was going along the Wellington Road in Hounslow, which is incidentally where I had a head on collision a few years ago, a scary experience indeed. It was the first and only time I had seen an airbag in action. I'll give you a tip here. When an airbag deploys an explosion happens to make it inflate. So, immediately afterwards, there is a strong smell of smoke and it would appear as if the inside of your car is on fire. It all happens so quickly that a normally calm, cool and stylishly good looking person may jump out of the car really quickly in a slight panic, thinking that the whole motherfucking thing is about to explode. There is no need for all this drama, the smoke clears in a couple of seconds and the burning smell is just the airbag. Not that it happened to me and I panicked and pooed in my pants and jumped out of the car or anything like that of course.

The decision I had made was that I would start a "dummy" blog for a bit, just to see if I could write anything that might sound vaguely amusing or interesting. With hindsight I can see a massive flaw in my plan. That word "dummy" is the clue. I never intended to publish it so I would never have known if anyone would have liked it. Cunning eh?

But within about 45 minutes of making that resolute decision I somehow had a real live blog up on the net. While playing around with blogger and looking at how to do things and the like it was all too easy. I clicked a mouse here, typed a name in there, tapped a password in here and bang, I had a real blog.

Fucking hell. Now what? So I just introduced myself and began to write. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what people would want to read about. This is very hard when you don't know what readership you want or who your existing readership actually is. I made a decision that I wouldn't inform those friendly kottu chaps (http://kottu.org) or the zsri lot (http://zsri.com) of my existence until I felt ready to reveal myself to their readers. But they found me anyhow, and that was a great thing. Before I could say House of fashion, I was syndicated, I think that's the terminology, and my readership shot up to about 2 people a day (including me).

I can't pinpoint exactly when but, at some stage, I realised that I should just write my thoughts. Rather than think about what people may or may not enjoy reading it is more satisfying to blurt out what comes into my head and see what happens. This has resulted in long rambling posts about exploding washing gel and narratives about my dreams of Jennifer Aniston and Vicky Butler - Henderson fighting. And lots of stuff about drums and drummers and music. And lots about Sri Lanka.

I've also made a lot of new friends. I've met up with Dave A, who bravely tried to get some useful information from me about my background and upbringing for his Phd. I don't think I helped him much but I enjoyed talking to him.

So, all in all, I think this blogging stuff is quite cool. As I distinctly remember Nazreen Sansoni saying in her blog at some point that it can become all consuming and that is not so good.

So I intend to continue this, as soon as I get back from my week's sojourn in Colombo. Meeting up with any of you lot would be an honour, just email me or leave a comment and I'll be in touch.

Thanks for reading.