The Crab Has Landed!

Vacation is over, and soon Cranky Fitness will go back to normal. (Not normal in the normal sense of normal; just "normal" for Cranky Fitness). There will be posts having at least something to do with health and fitness, and Crabby will stop making her readers write all of them.

But not quite yet.

Tomorrow there will be a product review or a bit of health news or more advice you don't need, but today, sorry--it's just an end-of-vacation ramble. Crabby is in Transition, and as a Crab who is easily overwhelmed, she does not tend to "hit the ground running." She hits the ground with a plop. It takes her no small amount of time to hoist herself up, get pointed in the right direction, and start putting one foot in front of the other again.

And yes, Crabby realizes that Cranky Fitness really should be posting about the Environment today because it's some sort of Coordinated Blog Thing.

But she doesn't have anything sensible to say that you all don't already know. Cranky Fitness readers tend to be green or at least greenish; you folks are eco-runners and composters and recyclers and animal rescuers and are often far better informed than Crabby is on the nuances of conservation. It would be silly of Crabby to attempt any lectures on that front.

And actually, it's interesting to watch the whole "lets stop trashing the earth and really think about the environment" movement get trendy again. Everyone's becoming fluent in Greenspeak, even the worst of the polluters and politicians. Is serious change going to happen before it's too late? Lets hope so. There seems to be some real momentum going lately and it's very encouraging.

Yet Crabby lived through the Seventies and this all has a familiar ring. When smart choices start costing big money and result in actual taxes that people have to cough up themselves; when the pop culture moves onto the next Big Thing and "green" starts sounding so "last year"; when fossil fuels start costing us what they actually cost the earth to use them, will we all happily pay up because it's the right thing to do? We'll see. Crabby remains skeptical, but is quite willing to be delightfully surprised if folks are actually serious this time.

Anyway.

So Crabby is way behind in her blog duties and may need a few days to catch up. There are emails to answer, dear blog friends to visit, and wonderful new visitors to get to know better. There are posts to write here and guest posts to write for other places. (Also, and this may be TMI: there is a pile of funky smelling laundry that won't just wash itself, real estate documents to contend with, and empty cupboards to stock with yummy cupcakes and cookies healthy whole grain foods).

It's also possible that even when she's back for real, Crabby may not be able to go back to the old policy of responding to every comment left on the blog. Which sucks! How do other bloggers manage to answer some but not others? It seems so arbitrary and Crabby knows she will feel guilty about it. She hopes that people who leave great comments will continue to do so even if sometimes those comments just sit there, being admired and enjoyed but not acknowledged. Comment fall-off is bound to happen, which is horrible to contemplate. Crabby will miss those of you who bail very much. But she can't blame readers for seeking other blogs with more dedicated and efficient hosts.

Gosh, this is indeed a rambly post! But one last thing: On this Six Month Anniversary of Cranky Fitness, Crabby can not thank her readers, commenters and guest posters enough. And thanks too to all the nice blogs that have linked to her. Your collective patience during the Crab's long weeks of vacation was so very much appreciated!

Cranky Fitness readers truly rock.

Thanks everyone, it's great to be back!

Bad News for Crabs!

Horrors. Crabby has just discovered she is less credible that a creepy-looking talking ketchup bottle!

At least according to this recent study of how much people trust various computer avatars. (And they have a picture of the yucky condiment, so you may just want to take a quick peek).

And those of you who think you don't know what an avatar is? Yes, you do. It's just a fancy name for those little pictures or cartoons or, in some cases, sophisticated 3-D animations, that people use to represent themselves on the web.

Like, for example, Crabby McSlacker. The grouchy little Crab who brings you all the Weirdness that is Cranky Fitness.

The study was really more focused on androgyny. Researchers randomly assigned avatars and had volunteers pair up and chat online for 20 minutes. Then people rated their partners on how credible and how androgynous they seemed. And guess what? Avatars like a Cute Blond with pigtails were more trusted than androgynous avatars, like the freaky-looking Ketchup Bottle.

But the least trusted avatar, the one that came in dead last--was a lizard!

So sure, Crabby is not a reptile, but she is a cold-blooded crustacean. And the lizard was called "intimidating," whereas Crabby is perhaps more accurately described as "crotchety."

But Crabby can't escape the sad conclusion that she is way more like an Intimidating Lizard than a Bottle of Ketchup. And she is even less like the Perky Pigtail Girl!

Sigh.

However, she is quite happy being a Crab. It suits her. So she is not going to transform herself into a Perky Pigtail Girl no matter how much you beg her.

Anyway, this study brings up some interesting questions. Others of you must choose how to identify yourself here and other places. We have Bunnies and Chickens and Royalty; we have Goats and Bananas and Cats with or without headphones. We also have brave folks who use regular names! But even doing that, there are decisions. Use your own, first and last? Or something else? And are you always the same person wherever you visit?

So Crabby is quite curious to see what you all think of avatars and how you decide how to represent yourselves on the internet. Does your chosen identity reflect something important about you? Do you give a crap what other people think about it? Ever tempted to "go wild" with something new?

Smart Readers and Blog Comments

This is one of those weekend posts with no actual health information in it. If you're visiting Cranky Fitness for the first time, you may prefer something with a bit more substance. So feel free to grab some healthy and tasty antioxidants! Or you could go do some interval training or even just sit quietly and attempt to meditate. Or heck, visit Diet Pulpit where there a ton of resources for weight loss, or consult Marijke: Nurse Turned Writer who has lots of interesting medical information to share. Because Crabby just plans to yammer on for a few paragraphs about how wonderful her readers are and how grateful she is to have them.

Crabby has visited other blogs, bulletin boards, forums, and places where discussions happen on the web. And while some places are much like Cranky Fitness, many others are not!

Some High Traffic sites feature virtually no reader discussion at all. Theoretically, lots and lots of other people are visiting, but you don't know who they are or what they think. (As a side note, Crabby spent years visiting various blogs without ever commenting at all--she thinks reading without commenting is a very reasonable thing to do! She's just glad that so many of you here at Cranky Fitness are willing to take the time to do it). Places where no one comments sometimes feel a little lonely, at least to Crabby. It's like everyone else but her has something better to do than plop down into the comment section for a chat.

On the other hand, some sites get hundreds and hundreds of comments every day. One could spend hours reading all the comments on just one post--and for Crabby, that's too many! Crabby, both as a blogger and a reader, loves to feel like she "knows" the regulars. So Crabby loves that her readers provide a "just right" feeling of busy-ness to Cranky Fitness. Though she can't always reply to every comment (and she will likely get worse and worse about this as time goes on, sorry) she loves reading them all and knows other people out there lurking are enjoying them too.

Crabby has also noticed that some sites have really contentious comments with all kinds of personal attacks and flame wars and alliances of various sorts. There is much discussion of "trolls" or a common variant, "concern trolls." People are often warning other people "don't feed the trolls!"

No thank you! Crabby loves that you are all nice to each other. No one gives anyone else grief if they have a different opinion. Crabby's favorite thing of all, especially if it's a post she hasn't been able to tend to properly, is when you comment on each other's comments in a supportive way. It makes Crabby feel all warm and fuzzy. What a great community! What awesome readers!

Another nice thing about Cranky Fitness readers is that while they're all amiable and easy to get along with, they're all different. Some sites attract a very narrow age range, or income level, or geographic area, or special interest. Here, there's a nice variety--some of you are health freaks, some not so much; some of you are still in college while others are great-grand parents; etc, etc. It makes discussions so much more interesting than if we were all 23-27 years old; ate solely organic food, and were all eagerly training for our next Ultra Marathon.

And finally, what Crabby likes best about her Smart Reader's comments is their Quality. You folks are funny! And helpful. And thought-provoking. And poignant. Crabby always ends up learning something, and laughing, and thinking, and sometimes even changing her minds about things, which is a very hard thing for a Cranky Crab to do!

So thanks everyone!

Housekeeping

This is the sort of post Crabby would normally save for a weekend, because other than one sad little research citation, the whole thing is about blog "housekeeping," not health. But she wants to catch all her Beloved Readers before they scurry off to enjoy the long holiday weekend, leaving Crabby alone by herself in her Crab House, pretending she doesn't notice it needs dusting and vacuuming.

Anyway.

Crabby had planned to be discreet and low-key about the Recent Changes at Cranky Fitness around commenting. She did not want to get anyone who may still be lurking out there too riled up. But then she decided what the hell. Readers knew something was up.

So Crabby has decided to stop being all mysterious about it. It may in fact be a good time to set forth a few Blog Commenting Policies, just to prevent any future misunderstandings.

As Alert Readers may have noticed, the Comments, formerly unrestricted, are now being "moderated." Moderation just means that Crabby gets your Comments in her email and has to approve them before they are released for public consumption.

Moderation is annoying from both ends, but probably worse for Readers. Crabby at least gets to see her words in print as soon as she hits Publish, while you all have to wait and come back later.

And then what happens when you come back? Maybe Crabby is still off doing Crabbish things so you have to return yet again. (Or worse, you might decide Crabby's blog is just not worth the effort!) And then when you do return you find Crabby has released a whole bunch of comments at the same time, many of which appear before yours does. And maybe some of those comments say the exact same thing you did! But no one knows you thought of it first! Or whatever--you may not be nearly as neurotic as Crabby. But in any event, it's a pain.

We'll dump Moderation soon, but if necessary, it may return.

Basically, what happened was that a new visitor did not believe it was fair of Crabby to delete his comments, and so he vowed he would outlast her and keep putting them up over and over again until she relented and let him air his thoughts.

But Crabby didn't like his thoughts much, nor the way he expressed them. And Crabby was too lazy to keep deleting the same comments over and over, so instead she enabled moderation.

Crabby wants to be the first to point out that she was indeed being arbitrary and possibly unfair. If hers were the only blog in the world, it would be inexcusable for her to say "some people may speak and others may not."

But since there are something like 75 million blogs out there, Crabby isn't too worried about this sort of unfairness. Those who find Cranky Fitness an unfriendly forum can find plenty of other places to make their points. There is no First Amendment Right to air your thoughts on someone else's "publication," whether that publication be a small blog or Fox News or the front page of the New York Times.

That said, Crabby really does want to keep an open mind about allowing a variety of different points of view. She lets stuff slide in the Comments section sometimes that others might delete as offensive. But then every now and then a comment seems to "cross a line" and she deletes it. It is her blog and therefore her line. (And these sorts of comments have never been from regular visitors; only first timers with no previous connection to the blog).

So for clarification, Crabby reserves the right to be completely arbitrary about deleting comments. But as examples, here are some things she might delete:

1. Spam. (Which does not mean Reader Recommendations. Crabby loves these! She means things that appear out of nowhere and don't seem to have anything to do with health or fitness). If somehow she messes this up (which she may have actually done once before) and you're a regular reader and she mistakenly deletes you as spam, just come back and make it clear you're really Cranky Fitness fan and are not here trying to sell something.

2. Insults or threats directed at other Commenters or Crabby;

3. Graphic sexual discussions that seem to have little to do with topic at hand; (and sometimes our subjects are quite racy, so context is everything) and

4. General inappropriate weirdness of the sort that suggests that you are (a) mentally unbalanced; (b) intoxicated or (c) at the wrong blog.

(Note: there are some #4 type comments scattered about that Crabby let slide; if you're ever REALLY bored and decide to prowl around the archives some of them are quite amusing).

Does this all make sense?

And now it is time for Crabby to direct you to our Health Research Study for the day, a random and not particularly recent paper chosen only because it involves Housekeeping! Or at least the study of "structured tasks such as cleaning dishes and clothes." This thing is so pompous and pointless, that Crabby can't even bring herself to make fun of it!

It starts off: "As the prevalence of obesity has increased, so has sedentariness..." and doesn't get any better after that. She won't even tell you what it concludes. Crabby's hoping a brave reader or two will take a look here and report back to the class what they think of this ground-breaking research.

So, Crabby hopes you'll all be patient with Moderation just a bit longer until it is gone. We have some posts coming up in the following week that could be considered offensive or controversial, so Crabby may leave it on just a bit longer. Or she may take it off and put it back on again as needed. Either way, she hopes this will not keep you from Commenting on Commenting, or on anything else that occurs to you!