the official MLIA blog

I’ve been talking about a “major” feature for the past couple weeks and during that time the anticipation has been steadily mounting. At this point, expectations are probably running feverishly high and the reality will never live up to the hype, so without further ado I present the MyLifeIsAverage mobile site. The site can be easily accessed on any mobile device by typing m.mlia.com into the address bar. It’s very rudimentary at the moment, but new features and updates will be released on a regular basis.

Speaking of regular. I am going to try to post to the blog on a more regular basis too. Allowing two or sometimes even three weeks to lapse between posts is no good. Going forward I hope to post at least once a week and while posts might not always be directly related to MLIA, I will do my best to make them entertaining.

Speaking of entertaining. DearGirlsAboveMe is being made into a TV show. At this rate, MyLifeIsAverage will be the only website without its own TV show. DGAM is headed to CBS, along with “Shh… Don’t Tell Steve” and “S#!T My Dad Says”. ABC is developing a series based on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com and NBC might start producing new episodes of  “Dateline: To Catch a Predator” – a show based on the popular website 4Chan.

Hey Everyone!

ActionMan asked a great question in the comments on the last post, so I thought I’d share my response with everybody. He asked…

Mek, baby. What’s up with all the old posts on the homepage?

Good question, ActionMan. You see, a few months ago, there was a massive backlog of stories and it took months for a story to make the front page. We were already working on an improved voting system, but we needed a quick fix. Our temporary solution was to make people sign in to submit stories and to filtered out orphans from the upcoming queue. (We call anonymously submitted stories orphans). Once the new system was in place, we opened up submissions again, but orphans were still filtered out of the upcoming section. Today we removed that filter.

As a result the queue is very long again, but you can still spam your story to the front of the queue. Even a handful of votes from your friends, family and other acquaintances – people who can’t not vote for your story; even if they don’t like it – will ensure your story is voted on within hours, rather than months.

Alright, I’ll go back to working on the major feature I’ve promised.

-Mek

Some of you may have already noticed a few of the minor updates we made yesterday, but in case you didn’t, here is a rundown.

The promoted page is back.

If you are one of the lucky few who had gotten a story promoted to the front page, you once again have quick access your literary genius. On your profile page, just click the promoted tab.

Spamming Sharing is caring

We made it easier to share a story you’ve just submitted. If your friends on facebook and twitter like it, it will appear on the front page sooner! If they don’t… it will not.

Also, now when you share a link to an MLIA on facebook, the story shows up too. Try it.

Attack of the CIones

Usernames are written in a different font, so it’s easier to spot the cIones.

Better stories

We are always looking for ways to improve the way in which good stories get promoted. We want good stories to get promoted quickly and great stories to get promoted even quicker. The old system was a simple queue. When you submitted a story, it was put at the back of the line and it has to wait its turn. The new system is still a queue, but your story can cut to the front if it’s good. This should improve the  time it takes for good stories to get promoted (no more 3 month delay) and improve the quality of the stories in the upcoming section (so stop hovering your mouse over the ‘no’ button).

Coming soon.

I mentioned I was working on a few minor updates and a major update in my last post, these were the minor updates, stay tuned.

It had been a while since the last time MLIA was down… until today.

The site crashed for a few minutes, but I leaped into action and brought the site back up within a few minutes *waits while the crowd applauds*

*cough*Sorry for causing it in the first place*cough*

Why did everybody stop clapping?

Here’s what happened. I was working on a few minor and one major update for MLIA when I decided to update the Average Links – Unrelated Captions is back and Love Gives Me Hope has been added, let me know what you think. After updating the links, I continued working, except now I was making incomplete changes to the live site. It was like I tried to change a tire on a car that was driving 100 mph. Not pretty.

Sorry about that.

If bananas are the top-selling item at Wal-mart, does that make them popular, average or both? Apparently, Wal-mart sells more bananas than any other item.

Honey Nut Cheerios is the number one cereal in the US. What does that mean? It means they are delicious.

Nearly a billion dollars worth of Lay’s potato chips are sold each year, making them by far the most popular chip on the block.

For the past three years, Air Force Ones have been America’s best-selling shoe.

When you woke up this morning, did you put on your Air Force Ones, have a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, drive to Wal-mart to buy a banana before eating some Lay’s?

Personally, I’m a Converse, rice crispies (store brand), banana and pretzel sticks kind of guy.

bestsellers via Yahoo

I just came across this very neat video courtesy of Radiolab and NPR. I won’t say much about it, because I think it speaks for itself.

Blopularity™ – The popularity of one’s blog.

Today I would like to address a question you have probably asked yourself many times. How do I get 5 million people to read my blog?

This being the MLIA blog and all, you might think we would have the answer. We don’t. Thankfully, Matthew Inman just gave a presentation at iGNiTe on the topic and he has the answer.

The video is only 5 minutes and well worth a watch.

Fears

I enjoyed reading the (irrational) fears you left in comments on the last post, so I thought I’d write a recap of the ones I found the most interesting.

gbshortie987 posted the following and caramel seconded it

My irrational fear is I am afraid of ferris wheels. I am not afraid of heights and I love roller coasters. But for some odd reason I am terrified of ferris wheels.

llamafish admitted to being afraid of ducks while DeadRayguaza was a huge fan of J‘s fear that revealed an interesting fact about his/her feet

…the fear that someone might seperate my webbed toes in my sleep.

blueberrymuffin‘s fear was quite specific

I have an irrational fear of being kidnapped while in the shower. I’m not afraid of being kidnapped in the dark, even if I’m also afraid of the dark. But the moment i get in the shower, I’m always expecting that I’ll get abducted.

Dreams

I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do, they are quite fascinating. The last dream I can remember went something like this.

I was swimming in a cove in the sea. The water was a deep blue color and waves were gently rolling toward the shore. When all of a sudden, I saw a shark swim by me. I turned to see where it had gone. I quickly spotted it. It was swimming away. I was safe, for now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving. I turned. It was another shark! and it was swimming right at me. It was rapidly approaching, until another shark appeared and bumped it off its course. I had averted certain death, but now there were three sharks circling me. It was getting more and more difficult to swim, each kick more and more labored. I looked down at my legs and that’s when I realized, the entire cove was now full of sharks. Not a drop of water, just sharks.

tl;dr – Was swimming, then shark appeared, then sharks appeared, then there was nothing but sharks.

If you have a recent dream you would like to share, I’d love to hear it; post it in the comments below.

Yesterday I was reminded of an irrational fear I have. Many people have an irrational fear, or many, and so I thought I would write a short post about… pandas irrational fears.

Irrational fears are particularly interesting, because people readily admitting their fear is irrational (hint: the clue is in the title), meaning they have no reason, no justification for the (very real) fear they feel.

I have a few irrational fears, but I share the one I was reminded of yesterday. Sometimes, if I am using a stall in a public restroom, I will look around right after I’ve dropped trou. I am afraid that I have accidentally picked an occupied stall and unlocked, but I failed to notice the occupant and they failed to make themselves known. It makes no sense and yet, from time to time, I will look around just to make sure.

What are your irrational fears?

Today is MLIA day!

If you take a photo of you celebrating MLIA day, you can email it to us at pics@mylifeisaverage.com

The idea for MLIA day came from Robert Becker, Carter Wiedenhoeft and Jordan Alward who contacted us because they were organizing an MLIA Status day event on facebook.

We liked the idea so much, that we immediately contacted our friends at Google and my dear friends Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald* to make a user-generated movie about today. They agreed**, because they knew MLIAers would shoot and submit fantastic footage of their day – after they’ve updated their statuses.

In case you were wondering***, the MLIA store now has laptop and netbook sleeves.

* I don’t know Ridley Scott or Kevin Macdonald, unfortunately.

** They did not agree, they were doing it anyway.

*** I know you weren’t actually wondering.

All registered trademarks are those of their respective owners (I’m looking at you Google)