Activity, activity, activity. Just as in the real estate world it's all about location, location, location in the blogosphere it's all about activity. The more active a blogger is the more readers they get and yes, while I do understand that there are people out there who aren't at all interested in having many readers some of us are quite vain and love readers almost as much as they like watching us dance like monkeys and do summersaults just to get that one more view. We're like spoilt attention seeking brats really ...

But it's not just about activity, it's important what kind of activity you have. For example you can post every day, even more than once a day, and if what you're posting are just copy pastes of images or videos and your posts rarely contain any real content there won't be readers because, let's face it, they need to have something of value to read if you want them coming back. Don't fall into the quality over quantity scham though, there won't be any readers if they don't have something new to read at least a few times a week either.

Another important aspect of getting a high readership is reading other people's blogs and commenting! Comments are good because they get your name out into the aether, alert other bloggers to your existance and, most of all, tell readers of blogs that hey, there's another guy out there whom they can check out.

A good tactic, also, is getting a Technorati Profile, which gets your link out as well, also notifying other online aggregators can only be good. In fact I'd venture to say that the more aggregators that know about you the more readers know about you and there's bound to be some who decided they like you.

A few weeks ago I decided it was finally time to stop prancing around the issue like a goddamn pony and start doing something about it. There was too much fat on my body, my weights training hasn't been going anywhere for several months and I was generally displeased with my body. So it was time for a radical change in my dietary habits because there is just so much you can get out of training. Food is the rest.

The biggest issue with what I wanted to do was that I needed to get slimmer without losing weight, in fact, with increasing my weight. And that's hard to do because most diets you read about will tell you how to lose extra weight, no matter whether it's fat or muscle, just as long as it's gone - the stupid masses even fall for that. They lose some weight but they're still fat, so they spend more money on more diets.

Obviosly, since I'm smarter than everyone else, the only solution was to devise a diet of my own. The first order of business was increasing the amount of food I ate in a day. That's right, I eat more now. See the reason this had to be done was that before I was used to eating a few large meals a day, but what this does is trick your body into thinking it's starving and so it builds up more fat deposits. Instead of one or two large meals a day I now eat three regular meals.

Next on my TODO list was cutting most fat and all crap food out of my diet. No more cookies, no more chocolate, no more frying, only boring things. I've decided to still eat nearly anything I damn well please over the weekends because, frankly, life isn't worth living if you can't ejoy eating just anything a few times a week. Ok, so my diet has changed, but somethign more is needed.

Now that I was eating differently the problem was getting enough nutrients to build my weight up while losing fat. So what I did was buy protein powder to make protein shakes right after every workout - this has the double benefit of being very convenient and having just the right amount of protein and carbs while having very little fat. Next to this evening meal and the normal dinner I have there was a need for a third meal somewhere in between. Since I'm not at home during the day making meat or other proper food was out of the question so I opted for protein bars. Half of one for lunch and you're full all day.

With this changed diet I noticed my belly and arms started having less flab in a mere week! A week people! It's gonna take a while longer to get where I actually want to be, but this is looking promising. Just remember the golden rule about diets, don't go on a diet, change your habits.

Last night the girlfriend and I had a deep and serious conversation that bordered on a fight over IM and when I discussed its particulars with Norwaylass today the issue of whether it can count as our First Fight or not was brought up (by me of course, I'm always interested in statistics). Now the thing is that we may well have had a first fight already and I just didn't perceive it as such, should really ask miss girlfriend about it.

Now there's no doubt the whole ordeal would have been a fight had it happened face to face, there was just so much pent up stuff flying around that surely one of us at some point would break into uncivil discort or worse. But it happened over IM where everything is rather safe and impersonal to an extent. So was it a fight or was it just a bitter argument? The conundrum is deeper than it might seem at first glance because it strikes right at the core of IM versus face-to-face.

Personally I've grown so used to IM that I find typing out my words easier and more natural than saying them. I don't like talking, talking makes me nervous and very self-conscious because it feels odd how my lips move when I say something ... typing is just so much more natural. But on the other hand typing doesn't convey emotion as well and body language is very important in fights and interpersonal relationships, however well I've grown used to deciphering the body language of text, yes it does exist, the problem is always on the other end. Are they using the same methodology to convey emotion through text? Is the other person articulate enough to properly convey what they're feeling through text? It feels sometimes people have a hard time even putting their thoughts into words without aide of subconscious signals, so what hope is there for such people to ever put them into writing properly?

Well I wouldn't know, but I do know other things. We need to talk more, the girlfriend and I, we need to assume less, we need to say what's bothering us instead of always looking out to keeping the other person happy, we need to be more direct in our dealings with each other and most of all we need more honesty and less of the unfun kind of games if we are to have any hope of making it for as long as we'd like it to.

Another conclusion I've drawn for the whole thing is that, still, inexplicably to me, making people upset is tremendously fun.

Last night my girlfriend came home from the trip to Amsterdam, which ended up lasting exactly a week instead of almost two that she first thought she could pull off. Money conquers all I guess. But anyway, you might remember my bemoaning of her cheating on me over there a few days ago, well guess what ... it was all a prank!

She didn't cheat on me at all, she just made me think she did and when I found out all I could feel was immensely proud of what she did. Yes, the girlfriend finally beat me in my own mind games, what's more, in a single swipe she got me back for every time I ever scared the shit out of her or made her think there was something amiss with our relationship.

Hell, it brought a tear to my eye! You might be thinking right now that I'm a lunatic for being proud of my girlfriend for causing me several days of severe anguish, but I'm not a sore loser. In fact I cherish my losses because it means I had a worthy opponent, or even, if I dare say so, that my opponent has grown as a direct result of being my opponent. Now that's achievement! On top of it all, besides sex, what better fun can a couple have than fucking with eachother's minds? I sure can't think of anything ...

However, all is not as crystal clear, my jealousy sensors did go off for numerous things that she said she did, like for example being drunk and stoned all night with a couple of guys ... yeah, totally unsuspicious, BUT, this morning I received final proof that nothing went wrong and she's still all mine. I'd tell you how to tell if your girlfriend has cheated on you, but it's a trade secret of an evil scheming bastard.

While we're on the topic of scheming, my master scheme surrounding the trip worked out. The idea was to let her go even though I was thoroughly upset by her going without me and not even inviting me, to even encourage her to go because I want her to be happy even if it's without me and such bullshit, but at the same time mention just a few times, in a few passing remarks, a serious word here and there, how much it bothers me that she's going ... all with the evil plan of letting her realise on her own that she'd much much rather go on vacation with me.

The scheme worked, she learned what I intended her to learn and professed never to go anywhere without me again ... never again of course means until we get kind of sick of each other in 20 years, but I can live with that.

And people say women are complicated! HA!

Sometimes I deal in divination by coin, that is to say I ask the coin yes or no questions and it does its best to answer. I'm not exactly certain how it works but I think it's a combination of omni-connectedness, will and subconscious. My theory is that the coin doesn't really know anything but is rather an aide in communicating with one's subconscious through small and uncontrollable muscle twitches. The idea is that your subconscious mind knows the answer to just about anything and is pretty unspoilable by what the conscious mind is thinking therefore what you ask of it is usually true.

But it's always rather difficult to say what exactly is true because the coin does get it wronga dn can sometimes be affected by strong enough fears and expectations. So it's important to do cross-examinations and ask it questions in such a way that after a few tries you can be certain the answer you've got is correct.

But even then there's still the seed of doubt. However I've gotten proof once and for all that what the coin says is correct. My girlfriend's in Amsterdam and so out of worry I've been doiung coin divination quite a lot lately ... it's the bad kind of worry by the way, the one where I think she'll most certainly cheat on me. And you know what? She bloody did!

I asked and asked the coin whether she would or already did cheat on me and after I got quite worrying replies I decided to confront her about it via sms and she replied that she did in fact make out with somebody who wasn't me ... the girl she went to amsterdam with! Bloody thing! And she had the audacity to brag about it, almost as if I'd be delighted that she recorded a video of her making out with her friend.

Well what's worrying now is that the coin says they didn't just make out, but had lesbian sex and that she liked it more than she likes having sex with me. Which I must say bothers me a lot. Oooh there's going to be some heavy chatting with that girl when she comes home next week.