Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Blog Interviews! Life-of-Rubin exclusive...

The interview you have all been waiting for is finally here. Life-of-Rubin has kindly agreed to be interviewed by yours truly and reveal the many hidden secrets we have all wondered about (ok maybe not all) for those of you who have not checked out his blog it is one of my favorites including his other blog creations The Jewish Connection as well as the most recently created "The Shtus Blog".

1. When did you start blogging?

I first started blogging in January of 2005. Without giving away the name, I actually started another blog before Life-Of-Rubin just to test the waters. I blogged for about a month and then decided to hit the restart button with the Life of Rubin blogname. So the official answer to this question is late February of 2005.

2. What got you interested in the idea of becoming a blogger?

As you can tell from my blog I'm both very passionate and very opinionated. In school I was voted most likely to end up in Law School. I was always so vocal about what I thought was right and wrong. I feel like if you don't stand up and speak your piece then you don't have a right to complain when nothing gets done about it.

Naturally, with my type of personality, from the moment I read my first blog (Velvel's Blog) I right away knew I would want to also write a blog.

3. Who is your blogging mentor?

It's hard to say. I don't think I'd say I have a blogging mentor, but I would say that there are bloggers who I have learned from and hope to emulate. Both in character and in quality of content. One would have to be the Blogfather of Jewish Music Blogs - BlogInDm. I sincerely admire his ability to stick to one topic and not just do it, but do it right. I'd also have to say that David of Treppenwitz is an inspiration to me and I think he follows a model that all bloggers should learn to follow. One last thing, the first blog that I read that I found to be aesthetically pleasing was Harry's blog. I've always loved the look of his blog and I learned from Harry that a blog doesn't just have to be a good read, but it could look great too!
4. Does your wife ever read your blog?
That is such a great question. My wife and I are one of those opposites attract stories. We love each other very much but sometimes it's just humorous how different we are. When she is hot, I'm cold, she likes sappy MTV/Reality/Talk Show TV. I like Law and Order and Battlestar Galactica. I love rock music she loves The Chevra, Beyonce and Jessica Simpson.
My blog actually turned out to be a great outlet to kvetch about things that my wife wouldn't want to hear me kvetch about. Not to say I don't do my fair share of kvetching anyway. So the short answer is not really. She has on occasion read it, I've shown her specific posts that I was really proud of but she doesn't read it on a daily basis.

5. What music are you currently listening to and why?

The Nochi Krohn Band, Avraham Fried and U'Shmuel Bekoroei Shemo. I am so impressed with the Nochi Krohn band. It sounds great and it isn't too heavy. Avraham Fried is just so amazing. You can't beat him when it comes to mainstream Jewish music. I really think this last album is a piece of art. The more you listen to it, the more you appreciate it. It's a very sophisticated album. Ushmuel Bekorei Shemo is a great collection of everything I love about Jewish Rock. It's just missing a bit of the Blue Fringe/Moshav Band flavor. You can find reviews of all those albums on my blog.

6. Your favorite Kosher food?

If your asking about all food, then I have to say that I love pizza. I love it. If you mean a Kosher'ish type food like something we would eat on Shabbos then I would say Potato Kugel. Especially the kind that tastes like latkes.

7. What is your current favorite blog?

I'm not gonna single out one J-Blog. There are tons of great Jewish Blogs out there. As far as general blogs, right now I'm a big fan of Ben Smith's blog at the NY daily News. It has the right mixture of bluntness, subtlety, humor, information and pardon the phrase, he is very fair and balanced. Another great blog is Lifehacker, in fact I'd say it's one of the best blogs on the internet, period. If there is ANYTHING you want to know, they have it covered. Probably a few times over.

8. What are some of your favorite resources to use in blogging?

If I told you, then I'd have to kill you. :-) Let me just say that in my bloglines I have 734 feeds spread out over 14 different folders. Whoever thought of RSS feeds and feed readers was a genius and on behalf of my information overloaded brain, I'd like to thank him profoundly.

9. Do you have any good advice for new Jbloggers?

Be passionate, be honest and worry more about quality then the quantity. Blogging shouldn't be a chore and your blog shouldn't just serve to link to another blog or a story. You should always have an opinion or some sort of fresh perspective on the topic or story you are linking to. But above all you have to be passionate about it. if you don't care about the story why will your readers.

10. What would you change about your blog?

Nothing. I love my blog, I love all my blogs, I just wish I had more time to give to them.
Thank you to Jewish Blogmeister for inviting me to do this, it was a lot of fun.

Well there you have it folks! Be on the look out for more interviews in the future and thanks for reading.

13 comments:

PsychoToddler said...

My blog actually turned out to be a great outlet to kvetch about things that my wife wouldn't want to hear me kvetch about.

So true.

AS said...

lol

Ezzie said...

What PT said.

Chaim said...

Is that the dirty little secret we are all keeping? We blog because our wives don't want to hear us kvetch? :-)

PsychoToddler said...

There's no question that I started blogging because I got tired of being talked over at the dinner table.

AS said...

What does your wife say about that? :)

PsychoToddler said...

I think she started getting jealous of the blog so she made her own. Notice how she insults me every time she comments.

Chaim said...

Maybe we should have them address this at the Augdah thing. If our wives would just listen to us babble we might all close our blogs and the "problem" (lol) of blogs would be solved!

PsychoToddler said...

If the people I live with found me as fascinating as the blog readers did I would close it in a minute.

AS said...

HMMM I sense some issues brewing here

Jack Steiner said...

Nice job.

AS said...

Thanks:)

Shira Salamone said...

Chaim said...

Is that the dirty little secret we are all keeping? We blog because our wives don't want to hear us kvetch? :-)"


Nu, what's so secret about it? :) I joke with my husband that I'd bend his ear even more than I do now if I weren't blogging, and he doesn't exactly dispute the point. :)

PsychoToddler said...

If the people I live with found me as fascinating as the blog readers did I would close it in a minute."

One of the fundamental attractions of blogging is that it's literally all talk and no action. We can make our foibles seem funny to our readers, but our families and friends, who have to live with such nonsense, know how truly annoying some of it is. We're never heroes on the home front. That's just the way real life is.