400 posts of Talkin’ ‘Bout Practice: a reader’s perspective

Though I’m now somewhat of a writer of this blog, I’ve spent most of the past year or two as a reader of the blog. It’s been one of my favorites, I’m a little bit ashamed to say. With four hundred posts now notched on the blog’s belt (is that even a figure of speech?), here are some of the things I’ve learned from these five wise writers:

• Cheerleader pictures, even if they’re unrelated, make everything better.
• If you include a big picture or video, readers won’t notice that you didn’t actually write anything. (They might even prefer it that way.)
• If you include the name of a popular/attractive female athlete (essentially synonyms) or cheerleader  along with any of the words ‘pics,’ ‘nude,’ ‘bikini,’ or ‘tattoo,’ you’ll get thousands and thousands of site hits from skeeve-balls. Like the writers of this blog.
• It’s okay to discuss repeatedly one college and to act college-aged, but don’t you dare suggest that any of these writers, well-guarded behind believable aliases, might attend that college!
• No matter how often you get it wrong, you’ll get it right eventually.
• Over-linking is tedious and taxing to read, but occasionally very effective and even moving.
• A funny or minimalist or intriguing or bizarre or awesome or unbelievable headline is essential. It can even forgive an insubstantial or absolutely terrible post.
• Sometimes only WTF ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? is a valid response after reading a blog post.
• There is such a thing as too much talk about Derrick Rose, but no such thing as too much talk about Candace.
• If a bunch of ragtag and underqualified writers put their thoughts down often enough with enough effort and consistency, a few genuinely interesting and thought-provoking ideas will emerge.
• Lastly, and most importantly, these are the wisest words in the English language: “I love women. I love basketball. I love women’s basketball.”

Shamm, thanks for always writing, even the posts are short and you whine a lot. Capital, thanks for hating the Cowboys and for coming up with good post ideas. SoCal, thanks for bringing some legit knowledge to the blog. Eags, thanks for making me appreciate D-Mac a little bit more and hate Philly a little bit less. FingerWag, thanks for having an awesome screen-name.  Here’s to another several hundred more rambly, aimless posts.