Chasing Unicorns

Yesterday we played the Silly Spam Game. I challenged my followers who were pre-approved commenters to make silly comments that my spam filter might catch. Thank you to all who tried their hand at spamming. Unfortunately, only one succeeded.

Colin, from A Dog’s Life? (Stories of me and him) created the perfect mix of spam, with a comment that looked sort of like something from a mad Russian hacker. And my spam filter grabbed that comment and stuffed it deep into its hidden spam dungeon.

And so, Colin, you are the winner. Today I crown you King Spam.

Ta-ta-da-dahhh!

A runner-up who I think merits mention is the Nowhere Tribune. He created a comment that consisted of three successive links to his blog. My spam filter didn’t quite stop it, but I did have to approve his comment before it would appear.

And so, Nowhere Tribune, you came in second. I crown you Viceroy of Spam.

Ta-dahhh!

Joyroses13, nrhatch, and Gibber, thanks for trying so hard. But it looks like you’ll have to eat more spam to improve your spamming skills.

And me too, because try as I may, I couldn’t even spam myself.

A few months ago, joyroses13, one of my more annoying pleasant followers, made the following silly comment: “…..!!!!” In fact, she made three such comments. All three were caught and flagged by my spam filter. As far as WordPress was concerned, joyroses13 was a spammer.

This left me wondering what the heck is going on with WP? Doesn’t WP realize she’s an approved commenter of my blog? So why would WP flag any comment from her, or any other of my approved commenters? Because this sort of thing has happened to others, as well.

There’s something fluky going on with WP’s spam filter. And that gives me inspiration for a little game. How about if we use this post to see how many silly “spam” comments we can make?

The way this game works, is rather than make a normal comment, try to make some crazy kind of silly comment that WP might flag as spam. Because this blog is about unicorns, which are unique creatures, your comment has to be substantially different from anyone else’s. So you can’t cheat and repeat joyroses13’s “….!!!!” comment.

Whoever makes the most amount of unique, silly “spam” comments, that are flagged as spam by WordPress, wins. How about if we make the prize a photo of a can of spam? I can post it tomorrow, with the name of the winner beneath it, along with a link to the winner’s blog. Wouldn’t it be a great honor to win such a fabulous prize?

And I’m going to see if I can spam myself, with this silly comment: &&&&$$$$whoooowheeee?????….

Alright everyone, let’s get on with the Silly Spam Game. Try to spam me.

Go ahead. I dare ya.

We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own “to do” list. ~ Michelle Obama, First Lady

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This will be my last theft of a quote. I’m walking the strait and narrow from here out, and leaving alone the pearls of wisdom uttered by others.

My life has become a blivet bag. I’ve been trying to stuff 10 pounds of life into a 5 pound bag, and something has to give. And so I’ve decided to give up on the daily Stolen Quote.

It’s time I get my priorities straight, and put myself higher on my “to do” list, as Michelle Obama advises.

This blog will continue, but I won’t be posting on a daily basis anymore. I love sharing the unicorns that I catch, and I enjoy reading and responding to your comments. But the thing is, I need more time for the chase. Spending too much time on my Catching Unicorns blog can ironically keep me from catching unicorns.

This blog has also been remodeled. I do that from time to time in an effort to keep things unique and interesting. Unicorns love change, and hate constantly familiar surroundings. It’s hard to keep them captive in the same old, overgrazed pastures.

I hope you like the changes. If you have any suggestions for additional changes, please put them in the suggestion box. It’s located about one-inch past the right edge of your monitor.

Okay, okay, you can leave them in a comment.

My light-fingered ways can’t resist stealing just one more quote, so I’ll finish with this purloined gem, from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick:

The Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now by counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! Throw all these thunderheads overboard, and then you will float light and right.

In yesterday’s post I hinted that some changes were in the works for Chasing Unicorns. Yessirree there are. Because I’m not a business-as-usual kind of guy. Nosirree.

But I hope I didn’t leave you with the wrong impression about me. I do like change, this is true. Change is wonderful. I love the refreshing novelty of doing something new. But what I don’t like is having to work hard to achieve change. That’s because I’m a business-as-snoozual kind of guy.

I want to rest and relax and let other people achieve change for me. I want to enjoy all the neat, new things people provide. As long as they don’t disturb my nap. That would be anathema. (And you know what anathema means, don’t you Just Joan 42?)

They say the smartest people are the laziest. That’s because they come up with all kinds of ingenious ways to get out of work. So, lazy as I am, I put on my thinking cap the other day and tried real hard to be smart. It hurt. Thinking is not a practice I approach lightly. I don’t allow myself to think this hard except maybe two or three times per year.

But ala kazam and zippedy doo! What do you know? A 14-watt, LED 100-watt equivalent light bulb switched on above my head. I got an idea!

My idea is to let my followers help me out with my blog.

My blog is about chasing unicorns. Unicorn is code for unique. So the purpose of my blog is to chase after uniqueness.

That’s why my posts tend to be eclectic. One day I might post about fabric softener. Some other day I might post about Trump, or a national park I visited, or something historical. I aim for variety. I try to keep my posts unique, just like a unicorn is unique.

And when my lazy, lame brain can’t come up with anything unique, I steal a unique quote from some unsuspecting celebrity.

Uniqueness is all a part of change. The more change we experience, the more uniqueness we experience. This is where you, my followers, come into my brilliant, 14-watt, LED 100-watt equivalent idea. You can provide change to my blog by submitting unique things, that I will post for you.

For instance, if you have a unique question, or a unique idea, or maybe you’re in a unique situation, you can submit it to Chasing Unicorns. Or let’s say you’ve had a unique experience, or you recently learned something unique. Or whatever the heck it is, as long as it’s unique, you can submit it to this blog.

I’ll post it for you. And I’ll even post a link to your blog, to give you some free advertisement. Then the rest of us can look at the “unicorn” you sent me, and make smart-ass wise-ass dumb-ass unique comments about it. In this way, we’ll be creating more unicorns, with our comments.

There will be no rules, except the ones I make up as we go along. And I’d rather not make up any because I’m too lazy to enforce rules. So please try to keep it halfway civilized.

This I think, could be a perfect plan. Just let my wacky, nutty, crazy followers write my blog for me. What could possibly go wrong?

There are two new pages at the top of this blog that explain the whole unicorn submission process in detail. The page entitled, What’s a Unicorn? will hopefully give you a better idea of how I define a unicorn. And the page entitled, Unicorn Teleporting Pod will explain how to transport your unicorn to my blog.

But if you’re as lazy as me, and don’t want to read those pages, I’ll make it real simple, right here. Just send your unicorn to the following email address:

And I’ll take it from there.

Alright, enough of this chit-chat. It’s time for my nap, and it’s time for you to start chasing unicorns. Get on out there and catch some one-horned beasts for me, and teleport them in. Hopefully the fun can begin tomorrow, with a brand new, unique post from a follower.

I’m really looking forward to the changes you add to my blog. But as for now I’m feeling sleepy. So it’s time for me to get right down to some business.

Business as snoozual.

Chasing Unicorns is movin’ on up. I’ve upgraded to WordPress’s Premium Plan.

After eight years of freeriding off WordPress, and four or five or six different blogs—heck I can’t even count them all—I’ve finally stumbled into a blog that I’ve stuck with longer than it takes snow to melt from a hot pile of manure.

For some reason Chasing Unicorns has grown on me, and I think I’m going to keep it around a while. So why not reward this blog, and my loyal followers, by bedizening it with an upgrade?

The Premium Plan costs $96 a year. I’ve felt a little skeptical about what I could get from prying my wallet open that wide, and that’s one thing that was holding me back.

But so far it seems worth the dough. One of my favorite things is the unlimited Premium themes. These themes, that you have to pay for, seem to come with more versatility and better artistic design.

I opted for the Broadsheet theme. It’s priced at $79 for those with the Free or Personal Plan. But it’s nothing extra when you’re a Premium Plan subscriber.

I love the Advanced Design Customization. You can tweak the hell out of your theme, and come up with all kinds of unique designs. In fact, I’ve tweaked my Broadsheet theme so much, you’d swear I was a meth head.

I also got a new domain name. Now my blog can be found under two domains–the one I’ve had all along, and a new one with “wordpress” removed. And so now you can find me at https://unicorniks.com, as well as https://unicorniks.wordpress.com. It ain’t no big deal, just snob value, really. But somehow it seems to add legitimacy to a website. By the way, you can also get this feature with the Personal Plan, which only costs $48 per year.

I get 13GB of storage space also, as opposed to the 4GB that comes with the Free Plan. This helps me relax. I use a lot of photos and have been getting worried about bumping up against my top limit.

Something that puzzles me is that I’m now paying for “Advanced Social Media”. This allows me to schedule my social media posts in advance. Hmm, I’ve been able to do that all along, with the Free Plan. Has WordPress just not noticed, and let me get away with something? Or has WordPress hoped I wouldn’t notice that I’ve had this feature all along, and they think they’re the ones getting away with something?

All in all, I’m very happy with the upgrade. And I hope you will be too.

And now that Chasing Unicorns is upgraded, it’s also going to change directions a little. Sometimes you have to zig, zag, and jink around to catch more unicorns. This change is still in the works, but I think I’ll be introducing it very soon.

Thank you from the calcified chambers of my heart for following me. I hope you’ll enjoy the new flavor of my blog.

Please stay tuned, and always keep up the chase!

FIRST DRAFT! KEEP REVISING. DON’T POST YET.

So you want too be a blogger?

Theirs nothing harter than writing a goddamned post. 1st you got to spell things rigth corectally. Than you got to corect all the grammer. Otherwise the spelling Nasis and Grammer Nasiz will be all over you.

The wurst thing about riding a post is all the reriding. It take me about a 100 drafts to get it rite.

Blogging is all about removing your bra unbosoming and revealing the inner depths of your heart. Its about telling spreading propagating you’re personal take opinion viewpoint — ah fuck this, check the thesaurus — weltanschauung to the world utilizing simple, easy to understand language.

Then, after youve’ composed a whole danged article, you now have to compost a title. And it better be good, otherwise noone will read or like the post. It doesnt not have to have anything to do about the actual article, but it batter be creative.

I try to follow the examples set by other bloggers, such as

Note: Change names to avoid a lawsuit.

Goober, A Lease, Vick’s Toe, Joneses, Mr. Hatchling, Smile Alarm, and Trench. There stile has inspired me manny times.

So iff ewe want to try blogging, just understand how difficult hard it can be. Hours and ours of labor go into it. You must polish, polish, Polish. Other bloggers rarely like wat you right the first time. What you write.

But if you get just one like, even if its just you’re own. Than its worth it.