What’s My Line?

A good name can get you far in life.  Apple.  Elvis.  Madonna.  Nike.  But, a great tagline can get you remembered.  I am not a crook.  You like me, you really like me!  I’m lovin’ it.   Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

In the Blog-O-Sphere, you need to have a great title to attract readers to your sight.  Even with posts, you must be creative, witty, and informative when labeling each and every article.  “A Post About Doctors” is not nearly as fun and enticing as “Turn Your Head and Cough.” A great title can help or hinder a sight from rising to great heights.

When thinking up a moniker for your site, however, there is a sub-title which can be applied, as well.  This is called the tagline, and it serves to offer another label to define your blog.  The taglines I’ve seen have typically been humorous, or even straight to the point.  A blog about travel.  A site for mothers.  Straight from the horse’s mouth.  Over the river and through the woods. A few more words to leave you with to give the blog more character.  Simple and effective.

For the past 2 months, Miracle on 32nd Street has exhibited a very festive holiday theme, which was retired for the season this past Monday.  I also updated my blog picture, opting to also store away the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree logo until next November.  I’m beginning to take down the rest of the holiday remnants, which will be completed by the end of the week, but there is one item that leaves me scratching my head:  the tagline.

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What the #FF?!?: My First Guest Post!

Guess what?  I’m taking the day off!

No, not that kind of day off…I’m guest posting for the very first time over at www.educlaytion.com!

Clay was kind enough to invite me over for the day to guest-post on his Friday Flick Face-Off.  In the post, I wax nostalgic about my love for movie composer John Williams, and offer up three of my favorite Williams’-scored movies as contenders for his head-to-head-to-head battle. 

If you’re unfamiliar with my weekly “What the #FF?!?” post, I make a few shout-outs to the websites and bloggers who rock my socks, and give them a little love, via my site and Twitter. 

Clay’s been an awesome friend during my early days in blogging (which, okay…I still AM in my early days of blogging, this being the third month).  His writing style has a wonderfully witty voice, intermixed with humor, poignancy, and more knowledge than Wikipedia and Alex Trebek combined.  And hey, he also knows how to rock an 80’s sweater and hair style like no other.

Be sure to check out his Wiki-Wednesday feature, where he takes a variety of events that happened on a specific date and connects them all together…think like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with no Footloosing, Kira Sedgwick-loving star.  He also can be found on Twitter.

Why don’t you join me over at www.educlaytion.com today and vote for your pick in the Friday Flick Face-Off?  Will it be Hook, featuring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman?  Or Jurassic Park, where the dinosaurs steal the show?  Or is it the baby of the bunch, Harry Potter the Sorcerer’s Stone?  Only YOU can decide the outcome!

Happy FF Friday!

What the #FF?!?: My First Follow Friday

Twitter, to all intents and purposes, is sort of like a secret society, which you are slowly inducted into through public humiliation and hazing.  Okay, maybe they don’t make you run through the streets naked while chanting “BANGARANG, RUFIO!”, but you certainly have to make a complete fool of yourself until you’re well-acquainted with the guidelines and slang terms of Twitter.

@….Mention…Re-Tweet…Tiny URL…Small URL…Hashtags…180 Characters…Trends…Following…Followers…Lists…DM…PM…and there’s probably a BM, too…the list goes on and on…

I pride myself in knowing almost all these terms, and today, I take that last step in becoming fully initiated in the Twitterverse:  I will finally use a hashtag, and I will know why.

Hashtags are applicable labels to your Tweets which sort of act like tags on blog posts.  They organize ideas/thoughts/trends/topics all over Twitter so that you can search for, say, #ripePeruvianmelons, or #ChristianBaleRants.  You simply apply a "”#”, or a hashtag, to your topic, and boom…instant organization.  You are now a responsible Tweeter.

Most topics are pretty straight forward (#parenting, #beverages, #movies).  However, there has been one hashtag that has continually perplexed me, and it’s time I put a stop to the madness.  I present for your examination…the elusive hashtag:

#FF

So, you’re probably asking “What the FF?!?”, especially those of you who do not Tweet or cannot Tweet due to a pre-existing medical condition.  “FF” stands for Follow Friday, Friend Follow, or even Followable Folks.  Allow me to open your eyes, ears, and other orifices to what #FF really means, through the use of a brilliant comic from my new favorite website, The Oatmeal (copyright Matthew Inman, 2010):

Coming ‘Round the Bend

Well, here we are…December 24th. My favorite day of the year, aside from the first day of autumn. A day where excitement is high and “Scrooges” are few.  A day where children reach their height of anxiety and where parents reach their height of insanity.  A day where we allow ourselves to feel a tingling of anticipation for what’s to come…Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve also ushers in another milestone for me this year as well.  Tomorrow, Miracle on 32nd Street will have been in operation for 1 month and 22 days…not a tremendous milestone in terms of length or significance…but an important reflecting point because of the original aim of this site.

Back on November 2nd, I laid out my goals and aspirations for this blog:  to perform one random act of kindness, every day, up until New Year’s Eve. These “random acts of kindness” quickly became labeled as RACs, or Random Acts of Christmas.  Through my purposeful actions, I wanted to inspire “Christmas spirit” within myself, and, most importantly, within those whom I interacted with.  I had spent far too many Christmas which fizzled out by the time the Big Day rolled by, and I wanted to find a way…any way…to revive that long lost Christmas cheer I had harnessed so long ago.

An experiment.  A challenge to fulfill.  A place of laughter.  A hobby.  An outlet for “do-gooding” and creative writing.  These are all labels which have fit my blog along its short journey thus far.  And, as New Year’s Day gets closer and closer, I wonder what other labels my blog will take on once the original project has crossed the finish line.

Originally, I never intended this blog to document anything but my RACs. As I got lost in the world of Blogging, however, I became a member of a much larger, funnier, more poignant picture.  I began to frequent other blogs which made me laugh, cry, think, and re-think.  I developed a core of “friends” on Word Press who have stuck by me through good posts and bad.  I have learned some of the necessary tools to be a good blogging friend (i.e. re-blogging, re-Tweeting, commenting, trackbacks, etc), and have become entrenched in a reciprocal world of writers, photographers, humorists, and thousands of others who claim a small home in the Blog-O-Sphere.

In other words, I got hooked.  I no longer had a blog with a time-sensitive goal…I became a blogger, through and through.  I have subscriptions, and I subscribe to sites.  I have followers, and I follow others.  I “Like” great posts, and re-blog about the ones I admire.  I manage my site comments, while simultaneously tracking my own.  I check the Freshly Pressed every day to find new writers and offer my two cents on their offerings.  I tweet.  I Facebook.  I StumbleUpon.  I go through all of the motions a hard-core blogger partakes in…finally, I’m a real blogger!

Top Ten Reasons You Should Take a Day Off From Blogging

Top Ten Reasons You Should Take a Day-Off From Blogging

10.) When friends ask you to hit the town, you tell them that you can’t, because the hours between 12:00 AM-2:00 AM are now dedicated to finishing up that pesky post in time for an 8:00 AM posting.

Consequently, bags begin to form under your eyes, normal sleeping patterns are interrupted, hair becomes a tangled bird’s nest, and you enter into a zombie-like state once situated at your computer.  At this point, chocolate is the only life source.

9.) You personally know every “Freshly Pressed” blogger by name, age, height, Zodiac sign, and food allergy…AND you’re now following them all on Twitter.

You know, there is a fine, fine line between admiration and a restraining order…

8.)  You’ve developed a callous on your index finger from pressing the “REFRESH” button on your keyboard so much.

Dude, if there was 67 hits thirty seconds ago, chances are…there are STILL 67 hits.