Should I keep going with the new blogging strategy I was trying out before I went on vacation?

Or: ready for some navel gazing?

Previously, my general Rules for Writing went:

• Be original: don’t just write about the same crap as everybody else. Or, if you can’t avoid it, at least don’t write the same damned thing about the same crap as everybody else. Or, if you can’t avoid that, at least don’t write the same damned thing in the same damned way as everybody else.

• Be amusing: people can read boring, clinical crap anywhere.

• Be honest: the easiest way to keep track of what lies you’ve told is not to tell any.

The problem with the first rule being: I was missing out on stories that were generating mucho traffic for others. The Anthony Weiner story, for example. Sometimes, everybody’s writing about the exact same story because everybody’s interested in the exact same story.

Plus, my traffic had kind of hit a ceiling. I wanted to shake things up a little, somehow.

So, I made a pact with myself: I committed to blogging the top three stories on Memeorandum every day, even if I’m not interested in those stories. Thus, Rule #1 became:

• Be original: people can read the same old crap somewhere else. You write some brand new crap.

See, I can make myself interested in any topic. You think I was interested in everything people sent me, back when I used to do Eyes It Willies? Nope. But you find some angle, make it fun. It’s a challenge, see. Like reading Camp of the Saints or Daley Gator when your wife and/or kids are in the same room.

But today presents a new problem. The top stories on Memeorandum today:

• Boring;

• Horrific, but about to become boring if the finger-pointing goes on much longer;

• More boring.

I’m so sick of the debt ceiling. “Crisis.” Dear God. What morons do we have running the country when they can’t figure out how to avoid a financial default without borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars?

I left for a whole week. I wanted this damn thing done by now.

So. There. I found a way to write about it. Happy?