In America, "pissed" doesn't mean drunk

.

And it's a good thing, because that means I can use it to describe the buckets of irritation I'm feeling because of this link: http://funkymonkey155.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/kaku.jpg. Try clicking it. What do you get? Something akin to crap, am I right?

That's the link that I attached to the Muppet Show in yesterday's post.

I don't understand why a site would not want to be linked to, why it would redirect traffic to something worthless.

I had the same trouble with the closing link to the LMNOP post (no, that lame, lame, lame link at the end was not the intended link; the intended link was funny and cool).

After all, if I'm going to write online, I ought to use the medium in a way that nonline writing does not allow. And that means links.

(There are other unique featuers to blogging to be sure -- its serial nature, the way bloggers can riff off each other, et cetera, but I'm talking about linking!)

Links can serve many purposes -- ironic commentary, further explanation, background information, visual punchline -- but not if they don't work. Then their prime purpose is ticking me off.

I'm still a newbie at the blog form. I still haven't really figured out how to stick the ending for instance. But if it's going to happen for me, it's going to happen with links. In part because one of my first online reads was Suck and in part because, as I've said, if I'm not going to use the unique strengths of a medium, why would I use it at all? Why write a play if it's not going to work on the stage?

It's like when I was writing a newspaper column (which, sadly, was much too short a gig). I had to figure out who my audience was, what they expected, how to blast those expectations in a way that was rewarding rather than disappointing, and how to use the strengths of the medium to my advantage and, thus, to the advantage of my audience.

(Of course, you never can tell which efforts will succeed. One of my worst columns [in my estimation and also Master Fob's] compared leadership styles to rain. It now hangs on a wall in our ward building for the Saints' edification. Or perhaps so they can appreciate just how lousy a writer I am. I hadn't thought of that possibility before.)

I'm done. Feel free to insert your own hilarious/poignant/stimulating ending here.