What does a sane, rationally-minded person do when one notices he has a piece of bacon that could arguably be divinely crafted in the image of the Virgin Mary or perhaps Mother Theresa?

He creates an altar, lights candles, charges admission, enjoys 15 minutes of fame in The Enquirer and ultimately sells it for a nice tidy profit on eBay, that’s what he does.

What does the author of Oh Me Nerves! do? He nukes the bacon and eats it.

Yummy. Tastes like chicken.

Isn’t this pretty?

This is taken from NTV’s Skycam on Signal Hill, at about 5:15 Newfoundland time on Nov 6, 2007.

Quite a breathtaking view.   When I see pics like this from this webcam, especially knowing it’s a live feed, I really miss home.

I’ve said that keeping expectations low will reduce cause for disappointment. This works when you adjust what you expect from others. This has been good advice (almost cookie-cutter for me lately) in helping to cope with actions from others over which you have no control or influence. If you don’t expect anything from anyone, then you won’t be disappointed. In fact, even the slightest considerate gesture will be a pleasant surprise. Easier said than done, but that’s been one of my mantras.

But I’ve never personally approached it the other way, at least not intentionally. My latest blog discovery is from my niece, Melissa. Her blog “I May Be Small…” describes how she perpetuated people’s lowered expectations of her by playing down her assets relative to those of her older brother. She believed that his qualities overshadowed hers, allowing others to expect much from him and mush from her. But now she’s out and she has warned us to expect more of her. She’s going to show the world that she’s bigger than we thought she was. She plans to chronicle her ascent to greatness in her blog.

So, now Melissa, you have both of my readers and all three of Ronnie’s readers. Feeling the pressure yet? Show us all that you may be small… but your heart is big! You GO girl!

P.S. Melissa: I picked that photo of you and your dad in honour of your approach in life. I figured with that pic, folks won’t expect much from your blog. Won’t they be surprised!

Samual Johnson, an 18th century author, is quoted as saying, “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

Dr. Johnson has gotten inside my head. To summarize so succinctly my angst in being the author of this blog from more than 2 centuries in the past is truly mind boggling. But what he doesn’t elaborate upon is that sometimes the effort itself is a hindrance to the creation of the written word in the first place. It would be easy to spew drivel about the humdrum of daily life simply for the sake of journalizing it. If this blog-o-mine wasn’t put on public display, perhaps it would be a diary of the monotony of daily life spattered with the occasional highlight interesting only to myself and those directly connected with my life’s events.

But it is put on public display. For that reason, there is a certain pressure to provide something worth reading. This pressure translates into effort. This effort is what, according to Johnson, allows me to write something pleasurable to read. But this pressure can also be paralyzing. This pressure can cause a performance anxiety of sorts. This pressure to perform, to entertain, to appear competent can be self destructive. The world will see this. Actually, only about 1 billionth of the world’s population will actually read it, but the pressure is there nonetheless.

For this reason alone, I have a level of respect for anyone that attempts to do this. I admire anyone who attempts to publicly display their thoughts, their words, their feelings, their sense of humour, their goals, and even their vulnerabilities.

My nephew entered the blogosphere today. He did so without fanfare. He didn’t publicly announce it. But as wonderfully vast as the web can be, it is impossible to hide. You are out there Ronnie, and now I’m telling others! I admire your courage as you publicly display your wares. Good luck, and welcome aboard. You are now one of us. I hope Flip or Fantasy becomes a regular watering hole for those of us thirsty for a pleasurable read. If your first post is any indication (cleverly titled by the way), good ol’ Sam Johnson has some good readin’ to look forward to. And so do I.

At least when it comes to smartass remarks.

There’s a number of blogs that I read daily through my Google Reader. Some are friends’ blogs, some are news feeds, some are from fellow true Newfoundlanders ranting & roaring. Some I read just because they write about blogging and the interweb and they occasionally strike onto something that I find interesting or inspirational. I’ll list them all in a posting some day, but I’ll mention How To Change The World right now. The author, Guy Kawasaki has had quite a career including authoring books, working at Apple and running several companies as well as writing the blog How To Change The World.

To celebrate his 53rd birthday, Guy wrote a post called You Know You’re Old When: and he started his list, encouraging others to add to it. I offered my two cents. The next day, he posted an audio clip of him reading The Best Of “You Know You’re Old When:” and guess who’s comment was number one! That’s right, yours truly was the smartass of the day! Give it a listen and hear him chuckle at the end! He actually thought that maybe the comment came from Steve Wozniak or Steve Jobs!

Thanks, Guy! Keep up the good work!

A friend of mine, Ian McGrath sent me a facebook message this week with an interesting observation. He discovered that when you do a facebook search for my name, the search results also include the group League of Benevolent Dictators.

That’s it, there’s no other point. This is just plain funny!