The Sims, Separation, Roy Rogers and Blogging

I just got back from eating breakfast at the Roy Rogers across the street. In case you’ve never heard of Roy Rogers (the restaurant, not the TV cowboy), they were once owned by the Marriott Corporation and were spun off from their Hot Shoppes Jr. failure. Most all Roys were eventually converted into McDonald’s. It seems the one across the street is one of the few survivors. A good thing too, since my only other alternative for breakfast would be the WaWa gas station down on the corner.

The staff is real friendly over at Roys and they play Country Western music in the background. To paraphrase the old joke:

“If you play a CW record backwards, you’ll get your wife back, your house back, and your dog back“.

I really do miss my dog.

My wife and I separated this past Thursday.

It’s been a long time in the making, but the actual process of moving out from the house that I purchased 15 years ago, was tough. It was also hard to leave my wife forever despite the fact that we had long gone past the point where living together was no longer an option.

It’s tempting to use this event, which really isn’t that uncommon for many married people, as an excuse for why I’ve let my posting here lapse. It’s certainly partially to blame, but I’ve also come up a bit empty on topics to blog about lately.

I recently received an email from a marketer whose list I’m on and who I respect a great deal, regarding his opinion on blogs and bloggers.

He essentially said blogging is a huge waste of time and a distraction from your primary goal, which should be making money. He went on to further state that most people aren’t smart enough to blog intelligently on something everyday — not even he.

I sort of see his point to a certain extent, but I don’t agree with his position on blogging.

Sure, there are a lot of spam blogs out there, but I don’t think that’s what he was referring to. It’s blogs like mine here that he was targeting I believe.

Now, I’ve never been able to blog everyday and I think for me anyway, that’s a very unrealistic goal. I think I’ve maybe seen only 2-3 bloggers in the IM niche who even come close to that frequency. It just takes way too much discipline, which frankly I don’t pretend to have.

I’m doing pretty good if I can post twice a week.

In the end, I think most everyone has a story to tell — no matter how mundane. As for my efforts here at IMMania.com, I’m looking forward to beginning the long process of rebuilding my life over from scratch.

The reason I’m eating out at the moment is because I don’t even have a pot to piss in, let alone fry an egg in. I’m getting a strong dose of reality about what I’ve always taken for granted when you’ve been living somewhere for a while.

I found myself at Target yesterday pushing a cart around and around the store like a zombie.

I had list of all the basic household items I needed, but for some reason I couldn’t focus long enough to actually find anything on my list:

-vacuum cleaner
-trash cans
-bath mats
-dish rack
-shower curtain (and don’t forget the silly hooks)

Forget about pots, pans, dishes, sliverware, glasses, and salt and peppers shakers!

The creator the “The Sims” computer game supposedly was inspired to create this now legendary sim game when his family was burned out of their home during the infamous Oakland Firestorm. They essentially had to start rebuilding their lives completely from scratch. I think this scenario also applies perfectly to the recently separated.

So, without a TV and the other distractions back at the old place, as well as feeling somewhat re-energized, I’m hoping to get back to my old publishing schedule here of 1 post per week. It’s quality not quantity that matters, right?