(The short version: Please head over to Peg-O-Leg’s Ramblings for today’s actual piece)
Ah, Freshly Pressed. Is there any title, any endowment, more electric around these parts? And the lengths we’ll go to earn the favor of our beloved WordPress overlords run a pretty wide gamut. There’s the rational (250-450 words, topical, clever title) to the not so rational (“Okay, that time I got featured, I ate cereal with half & half because I was out of milk; and accidentally hit ‘reply all’ on that email; and before I checked my stats I said aloud ‘you know, I don’t even care if I get freshly pressed anymore.’ So… whew, I’m getting fat from all this half & half…”).
But one crusading blogger has taken matters in to her own hands. Yes, she is driving to WordPress headquarters to camp outside and demand she be featured.
That’s a lie, but how funny would that be?
No, Peg, over at Peg-O-Leg’s Ramblings has started up “Freshly Pegged” featuring bloggers re-publishing that post – that one that you can’t BELIEVE wasn’t freshly pressed. I mean, surely there was a fire drill at the company and so they missed it, because come ON.
This week she’s graciously reposting one of mine that I particularly liked, and I hope you will, too. And maybe you tell your co-workers about it. Especially if you happen to work for a blogging company. Maybe one that rhymes with “Bird Dress.”
Anyway, please head to Peg’s to read “And If There’s Anything I’ve Forgotten, I Apologize For That, Too. And For Forgetting To Apologize. Sorry.”
The Byronic Man 
March 28, 2013 at 3:24 am
Ha! Did you just update this comment reply prompt (“every time you leave a comment, an angel gets its wings”)? And did you make that image in this post?
Someone is getting fancy. Bird dress, take note.
March 28, 2013 at 8:03 am
OH MY GOD. I changed that comment prompt about a year ago. A YEAR. It never worked, and I tried repeatedly and finally gave up. Apparently the system was just processing a liiiiiiiiittle slowly.
March 28, 2013 at 4:02 am
Freshly Pressed! It was the holy grail for me, until it finally happened, then it was a little more like losing my virginity, without all the tears and apologies.
March 28, 2013 at 4:46 am
what a brilliant comment! ha ha!
March 28, 2013 at 2:18 pm
I’m known for my brilliant comments and mediocre posts.
March 28, 2013 at 3:00 pm
ha ha well i intend on checking that out for myself 🙂
March 28, 2013 at 3:07 pm
The more the merrier. My current post won’t win any awards for brilliance, but the one before was a little better, so scroll back to find my thoughts on “crapsmanship”
March 28, 2013 at 10:21 am
So awesome and so true.
March 28, 2013 at 2:17 pm
If only I was nearly as awesome and true as some of my comments.
March 29, 2013 at 7:55 am
It’s a little harder to lie, too, about getting FP’d. “I got FP’d!” “Where? I didn’t see it?” “Uh, it’s special Freshly Pressed… in Canada… it happened while I was on vacation there… you wouldn’t know it.”
March 28, 2013 at 4:26 am
I might drive over to WordPress headquarters, if I knew where it was. I imagined it was a secret bunker in Colorado somewhere. Not unlike NORAD.
March 29, 2013 at 8:01 am
That’s how I’ve always pictured it, too. Although I just read that the founder is 29 – not 29 when he founded it, but 29 now. So now I like to picture it as a 1-bedroom apartment with a Scarface poster on the wall; and when the system goes down it’s because the ferret chewed through the cable.
March 28, 2013 at 4:46 am
great idea – I will be checking those links out 🙂
March 28, 2013 at 5:20 am
Only reason i haven’t yet been freshly pressed is my insane posts are just too insanely good and those who select posts are aliens and my posts are too good and there are aliens and…….
March 28, 2013 at 5:43 pm
Rotten aliens! Always messing things up for the true geniuses.
March 29, 2013 at 8:02 am
Your drawings alone warrant freshly pressing.
March 28, 2013 at 5:46 am
Oh man, you mean we can camp out? Why didn’t you tell me this before???
Ok, you probably won’t hear from me for a while. I’ve got to get moving . . . let’s see, sleeping bag – check, bottled water – check, entergy bars – check, complete and utter lack of humility and/or pride – double check. Ok, wish me luck!!
March 29, 2013 at 8:06 am
I also recommend calling them repeatedly, alternating telling them how much you love WordPress and sobbing and calling them bastards. If you get voicemail shriek in to the phone that you KNOW THEY’RE THERE. IS THIS HOW THEY GET THEIR THRILLS? HURTING PEOPLE?
March 28, 2013 at 6:39 am
It’s a conspiracy.
March 28, 2013 at 6:48 am
I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never make it on Freshly Pressed, nor will I be nominated for any blog awards. I have also decided that I am okay with that. I decided I spent too much time looking at others blogs and thinking, “How did THEY get this?” and I’ve decided it’s a silly practice being even remotely jealous of another bloggers success. So while I would love to add a “Freshly Pressed” graphic to my blog – maybe I’ll just make something up and start a new thing for those of us who haven’t had our ‘spotlight’ moment! 🙂
March 28, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Yeah, so after I wrote this reply to your blog – I got an email from the WordPress editors. I have never been so happy to be wrong!
March 28, 2013 at 3:03 pm
whaa??? You mean this post and comment changed your WordPress Karma???
March 28, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Apparently. LOL
March 28, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Of course I take full credit…the power of the Freshly Pegged cannot be underestimated. 😉 Congrats!
March 28, 2013 at 3:14 pm
I am happy to give any credit where it is due. LOL The circle of WordPress life – I follow Byronic Man, you post about him, I post about the whole award thing and BAM an email from the editors. So you and Byronic are my stepladders to WordPress success! Thanks 😀
March 28, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Why am I hearing Pumba and Timone singing in the background?
Also I’m feeling just a bit conflicted about your footprints on my scalp. Hmmmm.
March 29, 2013 at 8:07 am
Wow, that’s great! Congratulations!
March 29, 2013 at 9:25 am
Thank you! 😀
March 28, 2013 at 6:57 am
Hey, Anonymous, you sure are getting a lot of mileage out of that post. Oops, I blew your cover. That’s why I got booted out of AA–that and I just didn’t like the whole groupy-groupy thing,,,or was that groppy-groppy? I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.
March 29, 2013 at 8:25 am
That’s kind of the ideal, isn’t it? Write one post and re-run it 30 or 40 times?
March 29, 2013 at 4:10 pm
So that’s your secret…
March 28, 2013 at 7:26 am
My takeover down at WordPress headquarters didn’t have quite the impact I had hoped for. It wasn’t until after I had chained myself to the front gates and sang “We Shall Overcome” for the 27th time that I discovered the place had emptied out for a fire drill…and everybody just went home because it was after 3.
This post should have been Birdly Dressed for DAMN sure – I’m talking freakin’ Big Bird suit all the way!
Thanks for lurking and loitering over at my place.
March 29, 2013 at 8:24 am
Thank you for the opportunity! It also spares me having to break out the guitar and sing while chained to your front door.
March 28, 2013 at 8:54 am
Freshly Pegged has a ring to it… It’s probably way cooler than being freshly pressed. 🙂
March 29, 2013 at 8:24 am
Definitely sounds better than “Freshly Bryonicized.”
March 28, 2013 at 1:35 pm
That whole driving to WP HQ and camping out is not a lie. I leave tomorrow after I am done making bologna sandwiches and cramming Cheetos (Puffs) into snack-sized baggies.
March 28, 2013 at 5:05 pm
I checked my stats yesterday and found I’d gotten a HUGE number of hits. I thought I’d been FPd or something. Turns out? Just a whole lot of searches about whether Smokey Robinson has had plastic surgery.
I don’t know why Smokey was such a hot topic yesterday, though. That part is still a mystery.
March 28, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Ohhhh, wait. He was on “American Idol.” That’s why.
March 29, 2013 at 8:27 am
I’ve had that happen. Some random spike in search hits or something. I had something like 200 people come to my site within the same hour based on a really specific search – I assume it was a web literacy class or something. That’s always my thought, too. AHA! IT’S HAPPENING!
March 28, 2013 at 5:45 pm
It is possible to be getting so few hits that even FP can’t find you?
March 29, 2013 at 8:28 am
They should really have employees, or even just a program, to give a few hits here and there for newer blogs, or blogs that haven’t found an audience – just to act as encouragement.
March 28, 2013 at 7:13 pm
What a great concept – it’s the anti-hero, it’s UN-pressed. Love it and wish like hell I’d thought of it first! *laugh*
March 29, 2013 at 8:32 am
I also really like that it’s still very positive – there’s a lot of sort of angry “Screw FP” responses that are – while understandable – a bit petulant feeling. And also fairly affected, because you know the people who angrily denounce FP would delete their “Not Featured on FP” buttons in a heartbeat once they were featured.
March 29, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Byronic Man, you’re right! Geeze, I would love to be freshly pressed but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a little satire on the subject. 🙂
April 10, 2013 at 6:40 am
Whatever it is that Freshly Pressed is looking for, I obviously am lacking it. I console myself by writing the best stuff I can and noting that a few people seem to like it. Sigh. But ah, recognition. How sweet … how ephemeral.
April 26, 2013 at 11:10 am
I’m doing something similar on my blog, not only reposting some great blog posts, but featuring blogs, websites and anything internet that I find really interesting. For those of you who really want a ‘feature button’, you can have mine “Featured on the Blog Identity!” lol