Blog Updates

Hey everybody! I hope you are ready for the weekend, as I know I am. My friends Kevin and Kristin are getting married tomorrow, the Phillies can clinch the NL East this weekend (I'll be going to Sunday's game so part of me hopes they wait until Sunday to clinch), and Penn State has a white out game against Illinois Saturday night. Oh yes, and the Eagles have a Sunday night match-up with the Chicago Bears. What a weekend we have in store!

The reason for this post is just to know of what I've been up to with the blog lately.

If you have been a loyal reader for a while now you may have recognized the number of changes I have implemented recently. It may take some getting used to as it now seems much more cluttered and disorganized, but let me explain to you what's going on.

You may notice the advertising that is now taking up space. You may think I have sold out, but I assure you I have not. The advertising is a qualification for me now being a part of the Yardbarker Network. I had mentioned Yardbarkers in a recent post (Yard Barker and the Madden Curse Quiz) and have worked to get this site affiliated with their network. While I don't always post about sports I do expect to make a more routine habit of doing so to ensure I can expose the site to more Yardbarkers and build a readership of some sort. If you would like to support my efforts you can help me out by stopping by each day, and if you want you can help out even more by clicking on the ads that pop up. I'll have a banner on top of the page and this one on the left of the page.

Scroll down and look to your left for the Yardbarker widget, which will share with you popular storied that are on Yardbarker at the moment.

If you are a Yardbarker and want to help me out in exchange for some help for your own site, send me a message on Yardbarker or e-mail me.

The addition to Yardbarker is just one way of expanding my network of readers. Any dedicated blogger probably will agree that, depending on your purposes for blogging, gaining a loyal readership is hard to do. In my trials and errors I am currently attempting to make it easy for people to access, or remember to access, my blog. If you look at the top right corner of the site you will see some buttons under the Subscribe section. If you use any of these services to subscribe to a feed, then by all means click on your choice and subscribe to Ramblings 1.5! Alternatively you can subscribe to an e-mail list which will send you my posts when they are published.

Below that is a rating system. If you want to take the time to write a quick review of my site, or if you just want to give it a rating, click on that box and it will take you to another page where you can do that. You can be honest. If you think this blog sucks than go ahead and say so! Say whatever you want, but I appreciate constructive criticism. Plus I'll get to see what you guys think!

If you scroll down a little more and look to the left you will see my Syndication section. This will be a list of various networks my blog is associated with. You can add my site to your Technorati favorites, and also link to any articles I have up on Associated Content. If you are on Facebook you can also join my blog's Facebook network. Through the Facebook application you can view other readers of my blog, rate my blog or view my blog's feed in Facebook. The only problem is some of those features won't happen until I have enough readers join the Facebook group. For the ideal settings to take place I need at least 20 people, not that I'm here begging for your help.

Finally I am experimenting with getting connected through some other sites such as Twitter, Digg, and Stumble Upon, but once I get more of a feel for those sites I will put a post up about my different online profiles that we can connect through.

I believe hat is all for now. I have a busy day ahead of me so if you are here for my daily Phillies opinions or my Six Pack of Picks for the Weekend then stay tuned. My Six Pack of Picks is auto-scheduled to post at 12pm this afternoon. I honestly haven't had a chance to talk about the Phillies yesterday or today but I'll give you my quick thoughts...

Phillies magic number is still 3 after the Mets won last night against the Triple A Cubs. The Phillies still have a one game lead on the Mets and therefore control their own destiny heading into the final weekend against the Nationals. The Phillies are going to the playoffs as NL East champs because the Florida Marlins will beat the Mets two out of three and the Phillies will win two out of three against the Nationals. The Brewers and Mets will play a one game playoff game Monday.

I hate Shea Stadium. I would love it if the Mets got eliminated on Sunday when they are having a post game celebration to close out the toilet stadium.

Oh and for all of you people who criticized Penn State's strength of schedule, take THIS!