State of the Blog
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Much like Christmas and Groundhog Day…
It always comes around at this time of year; my determination to get this blog going by posting short, off-the-cuff entries instead of starting on mammoth essays that get edited and edited and never published. I’m beginning to think I suffer from a strangely specific version of seasonal affective disorder. Other than the Januariness of it all, I sort of get my dilemma; short, off-the-cuff things make outstanding Facebook status updates.
That notwithstanding, it is January, and so I am determined. This year will be the year I get back to posting regularly and making jewelry out of all those sparkly and stringy things I acquired before I had a baby and the tremors took my hands (unrelated but complementary obstacles).
Maybe I’ll figure out why you can’t post links in my comments. And why I only get notified about comments from first-time posters. This is sounding like “uninstall all your plugins” territory, isn’t it?
I don’t know if this will turn out as well as I think it might, but I might have the kid live-blog (I mean, through me) American Idol once it gets past Hollywood week. His commentary was astonishing last year, but of course he’s now 5 and possibly too mature and/or jaded to have the same effect. We’ll see.
I am going to post this now without even proofing it. Such is my dedication. You’re welcome.
New site, and what happens when you raise your child around creative types and heathens.
Hi! I keep writing complicated posts and thinking, “Oh, this will take forever, let me just write a short one,” and then that takes forever and… well, let’s just say my dashboard looks like those Russian nesting dolls now.
But what I *did* manage to do is build a new little site; it’s called Waterloo Sunset and is a tribute to the song of the same name. I’m rather pleased with it.
This morning, W. and I were playing in the courtyard of a closed museum down the street. Across the street, a church service let out.
“Mommy, are those Presidents?”
“Presidents? No, they’re people leaving church.”
“Oh.”
[After a minute]
“Why did you think they were Presidents?”
“Because they’re wearing President clothes.”
Suits.
President clothes.
I am so pleased with that.
Your musical recommendations for today…
This year-old Hawksley Workman concert from CBC is not the best live performance I’ve ever heard from him; however, it’s the best one that’s streaming for free on the internet (and it’s pretty damn great even with the disclaimers). My only real complaint is that they’ve clearly scissored out a ton of his famously surreal between-songs banter (he’s a bit like Robyn Hitchcock, if Hitchcock were less about insects and eyeballs and more about chocolate and puppies), but hey, clearly they had a length to come in under so here you have it.
The following YouTube video is here for a different reason. I could totally find better footage/audio of Duke Special for you, even streaming free, but that material would not provide the additional pleasures of staring at the screen throughout, thinking, “Why is this happening? In this place? There must be a backstory that makes sense… oh, wait, I think I have it – no, no that doesn’t work.” (There are five more parts to the story if you find that you enjoy the game as much as I did, or if you’re just digging the concert.)
(I feel as if I should hold an “explain this video” contest, but we all know I’d forget to put the prize in the mail. Feel free to play anyway!)
I did it! Well… sort of! Actually, not so much.
Hi there! Some of you know that I’ve been wanting to move my blog to new software for some time now, causing me to be a complete slacker about the actual, you know, blogging part.
Well, three days ago I set a completely deluded deadline; I was going to have the new fringehead.com rebuilt using a totally new-to-me technology before the end of 2009.
After several days of manuals, forums and staring blankly with an attractively furrowed brow, I realized something. Just because I think that Joomla! might be a great solution for a site I’m planning later and that this will be good practice does not mean that, for this single-author blog project, I am not trying to beat a gnat to death with one of those huge clown-car hammers.
So, with hours to spare, I made a bold decision to switch horses in midstream and go with WordPress. I’ve used it, I like it, and – here’s the important part – it’s actually built for blogging. (Hey, it could be worse – I could’ve tried to build it in GarageBand.)
WP installation and configuration could not have been easier. Seriously. If you’re thinking of blogging, I recommend it wholeheartedly.
BUT.
Very, very late in the game, I realized that it had been so long since I used my old blog – from which I needed to copy all my old posts, links, etc. – that I hadn’t the first idea how to log in. I thought I remembered my username and password, I just didn’t know where to go with that information.
After an hour of searching through every suspicious file on my site from the admin side and hand-typing the URL that would theoretically lead to that file, I found it. So the problem is, in general, solved. But there’s no way I’m gonna have all this done by midnight.
So, um, welcome to the new fringehead.com. There’ll be words and stuff here soon. Pretty colors, don’t you think?
Happy New Year!
Edit: Well, look at that – once I figured out the MT stuff, this was crazy fast as well. I still have to reconstruct my blogroll though – I don’t really want you to go to Development Blog.
Just a heads-up.
For those of you who don’t know this already, I’ve had a terrible case of tendinitis; it’s slowly improving, but the result is that I have a ton of half-written entries that I never finished and published because the ouch set in.
My intention over the next week or so is to finish them all up – well, the ones that are still worth posting – and get them up here. This may not happen, because my arm could get worse again, but I’m going to try. The reason I tell you this is that I don’t want anyone to suddenly log on to 15 new entries and think I’ve gone on a coke-fueled blogging tear or anything.
Hey, I think I just named a band in that last sentence!
To those of you to whom I owe email – same excuse and proposed solution applies. Sorry! I love you! Please come back!
For those of you playing along at home
I’m messing around with the template here, so if you happen to get here at a moment when it’s hideous or baffling or weirdly redundant, odds are it won’t stay that way. The layout, that is. The text is probably here to stay.
Welcome!
Well, hello there! Thanks for stopping by. Things are fairly embryonic at the moment, but I’m working on it; big thanks are due to the lovely Jodi for helping me out with Movable Type.
It’s hard to believe I haven’t been doing this for ages, given my affinity for such things as bragging about my child, spending way too much time on the Internet, and writing in general; also, I generally hop on new tech-related trends well before the New York Times completely misunderstands them, and in the case of parenting blogs (some of my favorite people are “mommy bloggers,” but that doesn’t mean I’m required to use the term nonironically – does it?) I’m at least a year late. Hi. I had a baby. I may never be cutting-edge again. I’m OK with that.
Anyway, if you’re interested in learning what I’m planning to do here, the rest of this entry will explain.
D5 Creation