At one point I was posting new articles daily and had a seemingly endless stream of new, and occasionally fresh ideas kept flowing from my sizable blog glands. Then suddenly it was as if in my sprint for the gold I had suffered a horrible blogging injury. Everything ground to a halt. I let my bogging muscles grow cold and atrophy. It would seem that I had become the Dick Beardsley of the Internet.

There where many reasons for this of course. I had several projects at work go in to production at the same time. My daughter, being a small person, was frequently ill. Finally, my father, the nigh-invulnerable force of nature, had some illnesses of his own. (It was as if the world was telling him he was, in fact, grandpa aged.) All of these things colluded to provide me with a sizable, and frankly implausible, list of excuses. I used them liberally.

None of these excuses however had nearly as much of an effect on my blogging as that pesky Mark Zuckerberg and his damnable Facebook.

Unlike the “Digg Effect”, which causes an overwhelming surge in traffic, thereby crashing your website, the “Facebook Effect” causes a overwhelming sense that all sites outside of Facebook are no longer necessary.

The sensation is similar to leaving the downtown retail district and going to the mall. Everything you need is right there! Who needs a record store or a book store? They are all at the mall! Who needs a myspace page or a twitter account? Who needs a blog?? Who needs weather information or traffic reports? You have widgets for all that!

Next thing you know, you find yourself stumbling, glassy-eyed, around the food court. You are wondering where the time as gone, and how you ate all those Cinnabons. And when exactly did you get a Harry Potter Sorting Hat widget anyway? It stuck you in Hufflepuff? Seriously??

Sooner or later I’ll have to leave the mall and stumble, blinking, in to the blinding sun and hot asphalt that is the rest of the internet. I guess I can’t stay in here forever. Not to worry… Facebook will always be there when I need it. Right now, however, I could really go for a Cinnabon.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. I work at Atmosphere BBDO. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio