Tag Archives: blogging

800 Words and How The Hell Does Amazon Know?

Posted on April 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

No, no, don’t worry. I’m not going to write 800 words. 800 words is a 2015 British tv series about a writer. I’m not sure about what kind of writer, but the title implies that he’s a column or blog writer. I’m only one episode in, so I don’t have all the details. The writers wife died and the writer, who is a dad to two kids plans on moving himself and the kids to a small New Zealand town. It seems that he may have, unlike me, been making a living from his writing. The town he’s moving to is a sleepy little beach town, which is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Not in New Zealand, but I’m not ruling it out yet.

Ok, I know most of you know this, but some might not know that my wife passed away about nine months ago and so far this year I’ve travelled to Mexico and Italy looking for a possible home. I’ve been home from Italy about a week and a half  and suddenly Amazon puts this show in front of me. I swear that our Alexa devices are doing more than passively waiting for us to ask about the weather.

In the first six minutes of 800 Words the main character is writing “The experts on this stuff reckon that some of the most stressful things in life revolve around death, buying and selling real estate, emigrating and international travel. Only an idiot would do all these things at the same time.” Apparently I’m am that idiot.

So have any of you seen this show? Should I continue to watch it? Have you ever had experiences with your Alexa device when they seem to know much more than you’d like them to? I’m fine with what my Alexa knows though. I’m not planning any heists or being a serial killer. There you go; done  in less than 400 words. Why won’t any website or newspaper publish my blog as a column and pay me for it? Maybe if I ask Alexa to sort that out she’ll find me an outlet looking to pay for content.

Thanks for listening to me ramble! Have a great Monday! ~Phil

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I’d Like To Introduce You To…

Posted on February 1, 2026 | 2 comments

New blogger Kristen Reilly

Hi everyone, today my blog isn’t about something ridiculously inane as usual. One of my real life friends who has always been creative decided to start a blog in January. She’s smart, funny and speaks from her heart. She’s on the same ride we are in life and puts a touching and funny perspective on everything she writes. If you’ve got another minute or two,  pop over to JotsForSanity and hit subscribe.

Thanks for reading me and Kristen! Have a great Sunday and stay warm.  ~Phil

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Blogger Stereotypes: Are You One? Probably…

Posted on January 24, 2026 | 15 comments

Apparently some data scrapers in Singapore have been loving this 2017 blog post, so I decided to make it easier for them to find. Has anyone else had an old blog post just be getting off the charts number of views lately?

Blogging, for those who can’t find enough friends to complain to on Facebook! Let’s face it, we’re bloggers. We blog. We’re part of what larger society regards as a bunch of odd balls. I suppose it’s possible that some of us are odd balls, loners in their mom’s basement, or crazy people. (yes, I’m looking at you) But then, there’s the rest of us. I’ve blogged long enough to see that although we’re all bloggers, there are sub-groups among us. Stereotypes, if you will. Are you one of them?

The “Humor” Blogger: I figured that if I’m going to offend some of my blogging friends, I might as well start with myself: There’s lots of humor bloggers and none of us are ever as funny as we think we are. I know that when I, and my fellow humor bloggers, have penned a sarcastic masterpiece of social commentary and with an exaggerated  flourish and the sound of angels in our heads, triumphantly hit Publish, we sit back with a satisfied smile waiting for our readers to fawn upon our comedic genius in the comments. What really happens is: check stats, sigh, refresh, ugh, still only ten views? “What is wrong with people? This is hilarious! I shared to Facebook, but it’s been an hour. It’s way down peoples feeds. I’d better post it again. I know they don’t want to miss my Saturday post.”

The ‘I’m Writing a Book‘ Blogger: Occasionally I may fall into this category too, but others don’t just fall into this category, they burst right out of it. Repeatedly. What’s that? You’re a blogger and you’re writing a book? I’ve never heard of such a thing! Could you please mention it on your blog, daily, so we never forget? And please, by all means, tweet about it too. What’s that? It’s your first novel and you’re on the twenty-seventh revision so you can get it just right before sending to a publisher. Please tell us more!

The Music Blogger: Yes, we get that you know more music than us and all of your friends. No, we don’t want to hear the ‘B side’ of Vanilla Ice’s little known folk rock album released just last year.

The Blogging Expert Blogger: What? You have ten thousand followers? Yes, please write another post about Search Engine Optimization so I get more views on my blog. And by all means, make it a list of 99 Ways To…

The Fashion Blogger: Pictures of new clothes you’re buying? I can’t get enough! You’re so chic and your lifestyle is so glamorous! What?!!? You have an Instagram with millions more pictures of you in clothes? Be still my beating heart! Why aren’t there guy fashion blogs?

The Mommy Blogger: You have kids and they’re funny and you write stories about their adorable antics? How unique! You should write a book! And please add in how you’re trying to lose the baby weight and tell us about your workout routine!

Well, which stereotype are you? Are there stereotypes I missed? Put your suggestions in the comments and have a great Saturday! ~Phil

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Posted in Humor, pop culture

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My Current Favorite Blogs

Posted on April 3, 2025 | 15 comments

I don’t just write a blog, sometimes I read other peoples blogs too! Here are the best I’ve enjoyed in my 20 years.

1. JohnHowell.com, also known as Fiction Favorites. Author and blogger John Howell is always entertaining. Views of The Neighborhood, Top Ten lists and the humorous conversations between his dogs.

2. The Spectacled Bean: One of the GOATs in blogging land. Her blog is always fun and introspective.

The Bloggess: “Like Mother Theresa, only better.” Author and bookshop proprietor Jenny Lawson muses hilariously on the systole and diastole of her life. Reading The Bloggess is like talking to that neighbor at the picnic who had one too many martinis.

River’s World: This is a woman who loves the natural world around her and takes absolutely stunning pictures of the area where she lives.

LouisCatorze.com: How can a cat so small be so evil? Although he is the star of the blog, so is day to day life in London.

Last Minute Stuff: Penned by The Eccentric Blogger. I love blogs like this. It’s like an open window where you get to peek in at how her mind ticks. The Eccentric Blogger. It was the top of a post she wrote about.

Suzie81Speaks: Like me, she may not write her award winning blog as often as she used to, but she’s always a good read. She’s one of those long-time bloggers who was there when blogging was the thing before so many other methods of social media arrived.

If you don’t know these bloggers, get out there and make some new friends! Thanks for reading me and them.  ~Phil

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20 Years of The Phil Factor!

Posted on March 30, 2025 | 8 comments

This week I’m commemorating the 20th anniversary of ThePhilFactor! I know that it’s just a personal blog, but I think twenty years of weird, hopefully funny and things you never thought of is worth celebrating. I didn’t start this blog with any thoughts or goals about longevity, but here we are. You and me. Some of you have been wonderful, longtime blogging friends, and others reading this are occasional visitors or strangers who were Googling something weird, clicked a few links and ended up here.

I know that it’s completely self-indulgent to spend the next week celebrating myself, but I will also be celebrating all of you with a post about my favorite bloggers. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t have kept blogging for twenty years without all the wonderful other writers who have encouraged me with comments, links, and your inspiring posts. I hope that some of you have enjoyed my content and had a little chuckle when you were having a bad day.  I never felt like I was blogging in a vacuum. I felt like we were all one team pulling in the same direction.

Although I have yet to be crowned Sexiest Man Alive, you have all made me feel like the Sexiest Blogger Alive, but I’m still waiting for someone to create that award. I hope you enjoy my content this week. I love me some blogging nostalgia.

Thanks for reading today, and especially for the last twenty years. ~Phil

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Blogging: The Dinosaur of Digital Expression

Posted on January 9, 2024 | 3 comments

This is me trying to hold off podcasts and TikToks from stealing all my readers.

Sure, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park look pretty cool, but in the end, there was a reason they shot them. They weren’t meant to exist in the modern world. Is that the fate of blogging? (As an aside, I think the Jurassic Park franchise of movies needs to be put down. We get it. It’s a bad idea to grow dinosaurs in your backyard. We don’t need six movies to make that point)

In 2005 when I started this blog I thought I was so cool. I thought I was the avant garde of modern expression.  Now, in the lightning quick world of social media where TikTok dances go viral in seconds and podcast hosts become celebrities overnight, bloggers like us seem to be stuck in a time warp, typing away on keyboards like we’re sending telegrams. Are we the next form of social media to fall by the wayside?

Writers will write. I see thousands of us every week on Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress promoting our blogs and books. If you are one of them, is it working? If you’re a blogger, I sincerely would love to hear your perspectives on this.

I’m starting to wonder if I should do v-logs. Video blogs, like I did this one time when I had been downsized out of a job and had way too much time on my hands. Here’s an example of one of my vlogs:

So, do you think that guy would work as a podcast or video blog that was advertised by snippets in TikToks?

Unfortunately I can’t find/might have deleted a video of me doing a cartwheel. If you want to see some other cartwheel videos you can find me on TikTok as https://www.tiktok.com/@thephilfactor.

What do you think? Should I resort to this kind of chicanery to get social media attention? I’d really like to increase my blog readership and hopefully a couple nice folks might buy a book or two that I’ve written. If you’re a writer how do you shill your books? What works best for you?

Thanks for reading, watching and listening today! ~Phil

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Posted in blogging, Humor, Social Media

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Happy 18th Birthday To The Phil Factor

Posted on April 8, 2023 | 16 comments

*Actual picture of me

Am I the only one on the internet who celebrates their blog’s birthday? I hope not. I may not post as often as I did in the past, but I’m still proud that The Phil Factor is one of the longest continuous running blogs in the history of the world.

My blog is legally old enough to join the military, commit felonies, drink legally in Canada and buy weed in the States, so who knows what I might blog about in the next year.

As I do on my blogs birthday every year, I’m going to post the first blog post I ever wrote in April of 2005. Here it is:

What Up Dawg?

Is it just me or is everyone sick of Randy Jackson’s act on American Idol? How many times can we hear, “What up dawg?” Or his other favorite, “It was a little pitchy in spots,” or “It was just ahh ight for me.” The dude is like one of those action figures where you squeeze him and he has three pre-programmed phrases he rotates through.

Nearly as bad is Paula Abdul. Has anyone else noticed that this season she seems drunk every week? She loves everyone this season and seems to find an excuse to physically grab Simon Cowell every week. Considering her recent charge of leaving the scene of an accident after she clipped another car on the freeway, how ironic is it that her big 1988 hit song, Straight Up, included the line “caught in a hit and run”?

That was it. And I’m still proud of it. Especially that last line.

That’s how I introduced myself to the blogging world and I was rewarded with ZERO comments or likes. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to my longtime blogging friend Jennifer of Not Quite Perfect  ,and several other blogs, who has been blogging longer than me and is still at it. Visit her site and give her a like or comment.

I do have a couple blog posts planned, so like Spring, maybe my writing drive is being reborn.  Lastly, I want to say a sincere thank you to each and everyone of you that has visited, liked and commented on my blog for the last 18 years. You have made my life immeasurably better. Have a great weekend!

~Phil

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Happy Blogiversary to Me!

Posted on April 5, 2022 | 8 comments

Yes, on this very day, at this exact time, on April 3rd in 2005, I put my writing legs up in the stirrups, leaned back and gave birth to The Phil Factor. Yes, the image was meant to make you cringe a little.  If my blog was a person it would be starting to curse at it’s parents and experimenting with alcohol while failing geometry. There’s not many blogs in the world that have been active as long or longer than mine, and I’m proud of that. Earlier this year I surpassed 2000 posts where I have talked as if someone is listening.

My Blogger sidebar before I moved it over to WordPress. I love that at the bottom it shows 2005.

Yes, I know that over the past two years, I haven’t blogged as often as I used to. I’ve had a lot of real life going on in my life and I’ve discovered that for me writing is something I do a lot of when I’m happy and not as much when I’m stressed. I’m starting to feel a bit more settled as all the changes in my life have become the norm for me. So, as I traditionally do, I will copy and paste my very first blog post so that if you missed it, you can enjoy it as if you’re watching a re-run from an old show.

What Up Dawg? Is it just me or is everyone sick of Randy Jackson’s act on American Idol? How many times can we hear, “What up dawg?” Or his other favorite, “It was a little pitchy in spots,” or “It was just ahh ight for me.” The dude is like one of those action figures where you squeeze him and he has three pre-programmed phrases he rotates through. Nearly as bad is Paula Abdul. Has anyone else noticed that this season she seems drunk every week? She loves everyone this season and seems to find an excuse to physically grab Simon Cowell every week. Considering her recent charge of leaving the scene of an accident after she clipped another car on the freeway, how ironic is it that her big 1988 hit song, Straight Up, included the line “caught in a hit and run”?

That’s how I introduced myself to the blogging world and I was rewarded with ZERO comments or likes. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to my longtime blogging friend Jennifer of Not Quite Perfect  , and a few other blogs, who has been blogging longer than me and is still at it. Visit her site and give her a like or comment.

Lastly and most importantly I’d like to say thank you to all of my blogging friends who have made this the wonderful, welcoming blogging community that it is. I have appreciated every read, like or comment over the past seventeen years. Without you, I probably wouldn’t have lasted a year.

Cheers to all of you and I hope we can share a glass of champagne some day. Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

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My New Adventure: Philliver’s Travels

Posted on April 25, 2021 | 2 comments

Good morning and happy Sunday. As many of you have seen on social media, I’m launching a new website on Saturday, May 1, Philliver’s Travels.  The focus will be on travel. Over the last 15 years, because of my job and my desire to get away from the dreary northeast of the United States, I’ve travelled more than most, but not as much as some.

A beach in The Bahamas from my trip three years ago.

Unlike The Phil Factor, which has been all about finding humor in everyday situations, Philliver’s Travels will have travel reviews of locations, attractions and hotels and restaurants, educational information on how to travel hack to take a vacation without having to empty your life’s savings, and of course funny stories about my travel experiences. For all the smart stuff about travelling internationally and travel hacking, I’ll bring in experts for interviews.

Fort Myer’s Beach, Florida, on the Gulf coast

The Phil Factor isn’t going away, but it will remain more of an occasional blog as it has been for the past two years. If you have enjoyed my humor here, I hope that you’ll visit Philliver’s Travels regularly for that same humor applied to travel and the people and places I go. You’ll be able to find me on social media through a new Instagram, @phillivers_travels.

This Tuesday I’ll be giving a preview of some of the content you’ll see on Philliver’s Travels with a brand new Tuesday Top Ten list of travel tips from myself and International Living‘s (IG’s thetravelbag.guru) Bel Woodhouse! Have a great Sunday! ~Phil (or should I say Philliver?)  Btw, how many of you get the Philliver’s Travels reference? I’m thinking that about 50% of you get it and the other half just think it’s weird. Let me know in the comments!

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Happy Sweet 16 Blogiversary To Me!

Posted on April 3, 2021 | 9 comments

Yes, on this very day, at this exact time, on April 3rd in 2005, I put my writing legs up in the stirrups, leaned back and gave birth to The Phil Factor. Yes, the image was meant to make you cringe a little.  If my blog was a person it would be starting to curse at it’s parents and experimenting with alcohol while failing geometry.

My Blogger sidebar before I moved it over to WordPress. I love that at the bottom it shows 2005.

Yes, I know that over the past year I haven’t blogged as often as I used to. I’ve had a lot of real life going on in my life and I’ve discovered that for me writing is something I do a lot of when I’m happy and not as much when I’m stressed. I’m starting to feel a bit more settled as all the changes in my life have become the norm for me. So, as I traditionally do, I will copy and paste my very first blog post so that if you missed it, you can enjoy it as if you’re watching a re-run from an old show.

What Up Dawg? Is it just me or is everyone sick of Randy Jackson’s act on American Idol? How many times can we hear, “What up dawg?” Or his other favorite, “It was a little pitchy in spots,” or “It was just ahh ight for me.” The dude is like one of those action figures where you squeeze him and he has three pre-programmed phrases he rotates through. Nearly as bad is Paula Abdul. Has anyone else noticed that this season she seems drunk every week? She loves everyone this season and seems to find an excuse to physically grab Simon Cowell every week. Considering her recent charge of leaving the scene of an accident after she clipped another car on the freeway, how ironic is it that her big 1988 hit song, Straight Up, included the line “caught in a hit and run”?

That’s how I introduced myself to the blogging world and I was rewarded with ZERO comments or likes. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to my longtime blogging friend Jennifer of Not Quite Perfect  ,and other blogs, who has been blogging longer than me and is still at it. Visit her site and give her a like or comment.

Lastly and most importantly I’d like to say thank you to all of my blogging friends who have made this the wonderful, welcoming blogging community that it is. I have appreciated every read, like or comment over the past sixteen years. Without you, I probably wouldn’t have lasted a year.

Cheers to all of you and I hope we can share a glass of champagne some day. Have a great weekend! ~Phil

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Posted in blogging, Humor, Uncategorized

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