Best Offbeat Reader Comments of the Year

Offbeat is an odd blog. As page views go up comments go down. How’s that work? I’ve literally never seen a blog of mine act like this – or I should say blog readers of mine. I write plenty of blogs and traffic and comments are always correlated. Except here. Can I explain it? Not really. Do I mind this lack of comments? Again, not really. While I enjoy comments, a lack of them gives me a break from moderating. I’m good either way. It is what it is.

That said, when Offbeat readers leave comments they’re usually fun, nice, and smart. This isn’t the sort of blog where you get a lot of miffed off folks leaving mean comments. Readers here are nice and chill, with interesting things to say. I thought that for the Offbeat year anniversary, I’d point out some of my favorite comments from the past year.

My first official Offbeat Homes comment (post): Was from a favorite blogger of mine, a certain Crabby McSlacker who said, “Jennifer, I’m sorry, but if you think that’s a house you’re not dealing with a full deck. Okay, guilty of incredibly lame comment. What can I say, its bedtime. This looks like a fun site, and I’ll be curious to see what trouble you get yourself into over here.”

I’m not sure that playing with a full deck is an Offbeat blogger requirement (thankfully).

The award for the most amusing comments overall goes to: Angelique

When Angelique stops by she always leaves great comments. She’s funny and hyper, and I adore it. I love how she always ponders her own issues in comments. She never fails to crack me up. She’ll insert random thoughts like…

“I would end up eating the gummi bear rug then blaming it on the cat when my four-year-old came downstairs and wondered where it had gone.”

“I’m still mulling over someday living in an “elfin glen” shelter you highlighted a week or so again. I wonder if it comes with a year’s supply of Keebler cookies?”

Hmmm? Do you think that Angelique likes treats? But not chocolate, a fact she also noted in a comment.

Most Offbeat comments:

Marye is likely the person who has left the most Offbeat comments. I didn’t count, but since every other Offbeat comment has her name on it, I’m taking a wild guess. Marye is way funny. She always cracks me up, or takes a nice pro-green stance. Marye is often as random as Angelique, and loves almost as many houses as I do. Marye also tried really hard to make “grok” a household word with me. Not that we managed, but we tried, so props to her.

Best comments in total on one post: The Teenage Dream Pad didn’t have the most comments of any post here at Offbeat, but each comment was awesome. People talking about their treehouse dreams and their youth, folks offering funny treehouse ideas, and just all sorts of sweet things.

Honestly, I think the number one best Offbeat comment ever was on that post. It was from Judy who said:

“Thank you for sharing this , I was describing it to my dad who is 68 and has lost most of his sight due to a stroke and it brought tears to his eyes , remembering when he was a little kid and his dad and himself built a treehouse. What it is to dream !! Thank you again for sharing!!”

Such a great comment!

Lastly:

There is no way to point out all the great reader comments here. So along with the folks above, here’s a little round up of some of the readers who have left oodles of comments, ultra nice comments, taught me something new with their comment, or just been super funny or memorable. Of course I love all reader comments… If I miss you, it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you, I just can’t possibly sort them all.

• Linette
• Noreen
• Amy
• Nick
• Heather
• Jessie
• Mark
• Lindsay
• Evan
• Julie
• Peggy
• Jen / domestika

[image via: cafe-ole]