I’ve learned that writing a column can be like working at a sausage factory–use filler if you have to, just for God’s sake keep cranking the grinder. The upside is that sometimes the sausage comes tasting pretty good, even if you’ve run out of pork and had to use horse lips.

–Paul Mather, 100 Years of Subatomic Humor

That’s how I feel about writing in LiveJournal. I might not have anything to say, but I need to keep writing. Nothing bad will happen if I stop, but it becomes that much harder to start again.
There is another side to that thought process.

If your blogging software doesn’t have a built-in Whining checker, you should install it as a plug-in. It’s worth whatever you have to spend for the thing. Whenever I’ve written a new entry that pushes the self-pity button rather hard (why o why is everyone picking on me, why don’t things ever go my way, I’m so totally right and that person is totally wrong and you people can see that, can’t you?…that sort of thing) a little alert pops up with a “Stop” icon, accompanied by the text “Nobody gives a **** about this. They’re your readers, not your therapist, and they’re certainly not your ****ing Mommy. Got it?”
We have a modern digital analogue to getting drunk and phoning old girlfriends…and its name is LiveJournal. Fellow bloggers: I urge extreme caution.

–Andy Ihnatko, May 5th, 2005

I guess there is the light side and dark side of LiveJournal. Clearly my last entry was missed by the Whining checker. But sometimes all you have is horse lips.