Tag Archives: Blogging

The little badge I added?  I’m going to attempt it this year.  No, really.  “UIG, WTF?” you are probably saying.  And you’d be right to do so.  After yesterday’s downer of a post and the amount of stress that’s in my life at the present time, you’d think the last thing I’d want to do is try to come up with something to blog about every mothereffing day for the next month.  But yeah, why not give it a shot?  Why not decant my stress into 30 days of individual healthy servings?  Why not share the batshit?  So that’s what I’m going to do.  I make no promises for witty or interesting.  Like the slogan says, “Post every day for 30 days.  That’s all you have to do”. 

Minimal requirements and low expectations.  I think I can get behind that.

Remember when I said before that I fear change?  Well, guess what?  My old faithful blog reader that I have used since it began is about to be no more.  That’s right, Bloglines is shutting down for good, and I am really sad about it, y’all. 

When I started reading blogs, like most people, I would just go to them each day, check to see if there was something new, blah blah blah, this is not news to people in the blog world.  At the time, I was working in an academic library and was contributing to the library’s blog – as well as working on my own – and since part of what I did was to scour the blogosphere (is that term still relevant?  Have we moved on to blogiverse or something else?  I don’t know) for items of interest, and the best way to do that was to use an aggregator to keep them all in one place.  I don’t think Bloglines was the very first web-based news feed reader (although someone please let me know if I’m wrong) but it was certainly the one that fit for me.  And I’ve used it ever since, and it has never let me down, not once.

So, what now?  As of October 1st I need to find myself a new reader.  I guess the simplest thing would be to use the ubiquitous Google Reader, but I have to admit that I’ve had a look at it, and I just don’t like it.  I’ve actually gone so far as to export my links to it, and I’ve played around on it but still.  Not liking it.

So, I’m asking around.  What do you use and do you like it and would you recommend it?  I’ve only got a couple of weeks left to figure something out, otherwise it’s back to the pre-2005 days or checking link after link.  And really, who has time for that kinda shiz?

Goodbye, Bloglines, it’s been great.  We’ve been together for 5 years, which is a hella long time on the interwebs, when you get right down to it.  I still have some of my original subscriptions too, and I guess if there was a prize for loyalty I just might be eligible. 

I will provide an update to my blog reading saga, no doubt.  Check back with me on October 2nd to see how I’m doing my withdrawal symptoms!

This new theme for my blog is because the other one got discontinued.  This bums me out, because I liked the old one, it suited who I am and the way I thought about this blog.  Also, I FEAR CHANGE. 

So I’m going to play around with a few themes and settings and see how it goes.  Maybe I’ll accept feedback as to which theme should be the new UIG!  Or, maybe I’ll assert complete dictator-like control and make all the decisions myself.

Yes, that seems more likely.

I know I don’t get a lot of traffic on this blog – prolly cos I don’t write much, ya think?  Anyway, today I logged on to see a big ol’ flat line of nothing doing view- and activity wise for weeks and weeks.  And that just ain’t right, folks.  So it’s time to step up the UIG bloggy action.  I’m feeling it, I really am.  And you know what’s the best part?  My new partner in this business:  Say hello to my little friend

So no excuses now, right?  All blogging all the time, right?  Damn straight.

Just, um, give me a day or two to think of something, ok?  Thanks.

Did anyone do NaBloPoMo this year?  My hat’s off to y’all if you did.  When I was writing my old blog, I did it a couple of times.  Last year I managed to do 29 of the 30 daily required posts.  TWENTY.  NINE.  But then, on November 30th, we went out to see The Sadies at Casbah, and I totally crapped out.  Disappointing, but hey – at least I wasn’t just washing my socks or something, I was out tearing it up!  But yeah.  This year the idea didn’t even cross my mind.  Why is that, you might wonder?  Well for starters, blogging every day, trying to think of something witty, intelligent, thought-provoking for 30 days in a row is HARD.  When I do blog, I want it to be significant and memorable – uh, yeah just like I’m doing now…yeah, totally.  But whatever.  It was one of those things where the experiment was fresh the first and second time around, but this year?  Just not as interested, I guess. 

The other thing that makes it tough is time.  And not “oh I’m so crazy busy I have NO TIME TO BLOG!” because hi, I’m blogging and doing it fairly regularly, I might add.  But I am finding it difficult to find a time to blog at home because the children are always on our computer.  Like, always.  Or it seems that way anyhow. 

We have one computer, located in our dining room.  This is, the experts tell us, the thing to do when you have kids – keep the computer in a public area, less chance that they’ll do stuff that they shouldn’t, and more chance that you’ll know what they’re up to when they’re on it.  Makes perfect sense, and I would also like to add the The Genealogist and I totally called that BEFORE all the experts weighed in on what not to do with computers and kids, so we can totally feel smug, and we do.  Right now, The Musician is all over YouTube, looking up songs and artists that he likes.  He has also discovered Ed Friedland The Bass Whisperer and, being a bass player himself, he’s hooked on these videos.  The Artist enjoys Club Penguin and has a CD ROM video game design software that has him up creating video games til the wee hours, with only Red Bull and Doritos to keep him going.  Wait, no.  That’s me looking into his future…  And then there’s The Genealogist who, in keeping fully with his moniker, spends a good portion of his free time searching databases for ancestral records, and maintaining his own records, and doing whatever else it is that semi-professional genealogists do up til the wee hours, but instead of Red Bull and Doritos, think Shiraz and cheese and crackers.

Noble pursuits all, I completely agree.  But what this means for me is that I have precious little time to goddamn blog.  Sure, I can quickly check my email and scan through updates on Facebook (often updating my own status as “Elizabeth can’t talk now, need to get off computer in order that…”  Ahaha I jest.  Sort of.

So really what I’m trying to say is that the day has finally come where we actually need another computer in our house.  And by we, I mean me, and by computer I mean laptop that I can take with me wherever I go.  Because how I have gone this long without an adorable netbook or something, I really don’t know.  I don’t.  Or, I do actually, because those things require dough, and that is something we are seriously lacking these days.  At least for things like adorable netbooks to keep me blogging. 

So I formulate blog posts in my head, scribble some notes on actual paper as I go about my day and then, spend my lunch break writing my posts.  Is that any way for a blogger to have to behave, I ask you??  It’s sad, isn’t it?  So I post this plea, on the off chance that some amazingly wealthy and philanthropic benefactor will read it and think “my god, that girl is brilliant – witty, intelligent and thought-provoking!  How does she NOT have a netbook yet!”,  and just, you know, help a girl out.

I guess if I am expecting dreams like that to come true, I probably ought to be writing witty, intelligent  and thought-provoking,  hadn’t I?  Um, ok next time.  Promise. 

Now I gotta clean up the egg salad I spilled on my keyboard.