House of Eratosthenes

SNUL: “Sorry No Updates Lately.” (n.): A post in a blog that is constructed for no purpose whatsoever, other than to take note of the author’s incredibly busy schedule lately, or loss of Internet connection, or taking on a second job, or what-not.

2. One who regularly writes and posts SNULs.

(v.) The act of publishing SNULs.

I don’t want to be too hard on the SNULs, because I have some very good blogger friends who’ve been known to SNUL from time to time and some of them do it in a way that it can be entertaining. I hope none of them come by, see this, and get their knickers in a twist about it…I don’t mean any offense to the individuals. But overall, I see this as a form of pollution. It’s like having a dog in a super-dense suburban neighborhood (more on this below). Or fisking, or phlacing, or WAGTOCPAN, or letting your child push around a shopper-in-training grocery cart at the store. These things all have it in common that they involve a magnitude of environmental damage on a curvilinear relationship with how many people are doing it. Two adorable moppets in a trendy upscale grocery store pushing “shopper in training” carts, cause four times as much destruction to an “environment” of sorts, as just one them would. Three moppets would do nine times the damage…four would do sixteen. The simple formula seems to hold, indefinitely.

Given that the above is true, then, each person who contemplates a prospect of engaging in any of the above, in order to be environmentally responsible, would have to first consider how many people are already doing it. If the saturation is already on the heavy side, the ancillary damage being done by each new participant would become considerable.

SNUL Saturation And so this blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, frowns with schoolmarmish disdain on the practice of SNUL. We note that the Internet as we know it in 2007, is saturated with godawful amounts of it already; therefore the ancillary damage done by each new participant is unacceptably high. The saturation that exists already is sufficient to elevate this allocation of Internet space, into the Big Six. There is, of course, porn; there are messages excoriating President Bush either for being evil, creative and sophisticated enough to fool everybody, or for being such a drooling idiot as to disgust everybody (oftentimes both at once, believe it or not); there are snotty atheist comments about my “sky fairy,” carefully calculated to inflict maximum insult on believers like myself, and holding the atheist religion as the one true religion, just because, while simultaneously scolding “real” religions for supposedly doing exactly the same thing; there are MySpace pages with horrible odious background music. There are miscellaneous items such as “Registry Cleaner Recommended,” how to make it bigger and give her the satisfaction she deserves, refinance your house, there’s the perky lady congratulating you for winning two iPod Nanos…and then there is SNUL. “Sorry I haven’t made any updates lately, but…”

People who say they hate blogs, are quick to criticize bloggers for daring to upload inane drivel along the lines of “I can’t stand Jack in the Box heads on car antennas” or some such. With the phenomenon of SNUL, the blog-haters do have a point. I might, conceivably, have an interest in reading about the pet peeve with Jack in the Box heads…but overall — and I realize this is a crass generalization, loaded with problematic exceptions — SNUL is bereft of value or purpose, and is just plain tacky.

Yoga Think of blogging as jogging. Yeah I’m a poet and I don’t know it…let’s say Eva Longoria is your next door neighbor, and of course she’s into physical fitness and so is jogging every single morning at six a.m. You like to get up at seven, but of course you’re going to adjust your morning routine. I mean, have you seen her on that show? Good Lord. And of course Eva knows you’re watching; there are very few people who are more appealing to the eye when exercising, than the lovely and talented Eva. So she conducts her little fashion show, and you continue to peek…all of which is somewhat tacky, but somewhat acceptable, what with it being a free country and all.

And then one afternoon Eva cruises by in her convertible with a bullhorn in hand and yells at you, “SORRY I HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO DO ANY JOGGING LATELY.” And the tacky-factor just freakin’ skyrockets. That’s how I see the “sorry no updates lately” thing.

Again, I have no criticism for the individuals. Some of them have managed to build up incredibly voluminous followings, and the argument could be plausibly made that in their place it would be tacky not to SNUL. I can see that. But the whole does more damage than the sum of its parts.

And so we don’t SNUL here. We loathe SNUL.

However — as House of Eratosthenes was relocated physically, as in street addresses, during the least convenient week-and-a-half imaginable, the off-line messages have been stacking up. People want to know where I’ve been. I can see I’ve drifted off into that territory, it could be said, where one may be accused more fairly of substandard manners by engaging lack of SNUL, than the SNUL itself. Perhaps it would have been considerate to have gone ahead and SNUL’d. Or it would’ve been just plain good manners. “The Blog That Nobody Reads” is, after all, just a figurative term, and I’ve been reminded fairly often that there are people who do read it. They were left out in the cold when I didn’t post something saying what I was doing.

Well, hey. Part of the reason it’s called The Blog That Nobody Reads, is it’s built for the consumption of people who are mature enough to cope with the world as it really is, not as they would like it to be. I think all the nobodies have figured this out over the years, and that’s one of the reasons why this pastime has resulted in some great friendships. But the flip-side of that, of course, is that my personal life is one of the things in this huge thing we call “the world,” and I may very well disappear again. That’s just life. But anyway, back to the subject at hand — heh. Sorry no updates lately. I’ve been moving my stuff.

And doing a fairly piss-poor job of packing dishes & nick-nacks in boxes ahead of the move, like I should’ve been doing.

Anyway, it’s a good move. The last one, three years ago, was for economy. This one was for comfort. Not that the old place was uncomfortable or anything, I’ve lived in much worse before. But by this time, I’m not too sorry to see it go; it was a good place to live at the time, value was alright, neighborhood was much better than it could’ve been. But over the last year or so, it’s started to go to the dogs. Literally. Dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs.

I don’t appreciate that one bit. I actually like dogs, but my feeling is they’re being mistreated if they lack purpose. People shouldn’t own them just because they like having a thinking, breathing being utterly dependent on them. That’s an ego trip, and it’s abusive. Once you reach the point where everyone has to have a dog as a matter of ritual, that’s unfair to the animal. I mean, think about horses in the same context and you might see what I mean. Horses require even more upkeep than dogs. What if everybody started going out and getting horses, just because they felt they had to have a horse.

While carrying my second load of boxes for yesterday out of my nearly-empty apartment, I had to stop, heavy box teetering precariously on my shoulders, and negotiate for right-of-way with a girl walking her dog. While carrying the third load, I had to stop and do the same thing with a professional dog-walker who was out walking three dogs. While carrying the fourth load, I had to stop and do the same thing yet again, with a middle-aged woman walking her dog. The issue, the theme of this post overall, is a whole being greater than the sum of its parts…and the place I just left, nice place to live as it is, I think is a great example now. They’re in a position to say — no more. All existing pets are grandfathered in; new applicants, with pets, need not apply. The saturation point has been met and surpassed.

And, of course, none of the dog-walkers I saw on my last day, looked the least bit ready to use a conveniently-located plastic poop-scoop dispenser, and that gets into yet another pet peeve of mine. But like Winnie The Pooh says, that is a story for another day.

[…] Zac Efron Contact the Webmaster Link to Article eva longoria I Made a New Word IV » Posted at House of Eratosthenes on Monday, August 13, 2007 SNUL :- “Sorry No Updates Lately.” (n.) A post in a blog that is constructed for no purpose whatsoever, other than to take note of the author’s incredibly busy schedule lately, or loss of Internet connection, or taking on a second job, or what-not. 2. One who regularly writes and posts SNULs. (v.) The act of publishing SNULs View Original Article » […]
- University Update - Eva Longoria - I Made a New Word IV | 08/13/2007 @ 08:54
Hey, man. “SNUL”. Only moving is a better (or worse, depending on how you want to look at it) reason for the NULling than I have. Although ultimately, it’s the rest of my life getting in the way — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not at all.

At any rate, you’ve introduced me, at the very least to the lovely Eva Longoria, whom I have never heard of but I can see why many have.

And I’m with you on the dogs, too. I like dogs. I don’t like improperly-taken-care-of dogs. Which includes basic courtesies all dog owners should acquire at the same time as, or before the actual canine acquisition.

So does it count if I “SNUL” on someone else’s blog? Especially if nobody reads it anyway?
- philmon | 08/13/2007 @ 14:56
Phil, I would have to say if it’s up to me you’re permitted at least one SNUL. I know you’re alive and well because of your off-lines and your comments here, but I keep hitting your page and nothing’s updated. Ah, I suppose it’s all about priorities…upload your own SNUL when you can, some of us will be lookin’ for it.
- mkfreeberg | 08/13/2007 @ 16:00
[…] So we also have a policy not to give shout-outs. We don’t want to fall off that brink of running a blog just to put up passive-aggressive “Am I The Only One Who” posts. So we don’t SNUL. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/17/2010 @ 20:12
[…] SNUL. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 03/30/2011 @ 21:49
[…] SNUL, by the way, is our invention…Phil is just doing us a favor and paying us a compliment, with his considerable graphic talents. The acronym was first mentioned over here. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 06/10/2011 @ 20:01
[…] He doesn’t use the word, but this is a SNUL. A good-sized chunk of all Internet content at any given time, is SNUL; a bunch of bloggers singing a commonly-motivated, but disconnected, chorus of Sorry No Updates Lately. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 06/29/2011 @ 07:53
[…] the back of my mind there was some concern. Over here, I operate according to strict rules against SNUL. We don’t put up posts that say “sorry no updates lately,” except in very rare […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/26/2011 @ 06:42
[…] them for taking the time to stop by and read. I can see this too. Now imagine The Duke posting a SNUL, apologizing profusely for not having posted any updates lately…this last one poses some […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 09/15/2012 @ 18:29
[…] is kind of a placeholder post — it’s the least I can do that isn’t a straight-up SNUL – but Morgan had an update on something that I find perennially bothersome, […]
- On Atheism | Rotten Chestnuts | 12/29/2014 @ 16:08

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I Made a New Word IVMonday, August 13th, 2007

I Made a New Word IV
Monday, August 13th, 2007