MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

A few administrative notes:

1. By the request of Def Agent thelastaerie , I’ve added a new tag that’s appropriate for posts like the “Southern Baptist Praying For Obama’s Death b/w Obama Ordered Tiller Hit” story. She suggested “madness”, but it made me think of the band. So I opted for “Ministry Of Batshit”. I hope you like it. And I hope I won’t get much use out of it. But somehow I just know I will.

2. I’m off to Singapore tomorrow for another week of industrial telephones journalism madness. Normal service shouldn’t be disrupted, but one never knows. A few nights will require me to go out and drink heavily with people in suits whilst being massaged by young busty women in tank tops and miniskirts, so if I disappear for a bit, you’ll know what happened

3. Just kidding about the young busty women in tank tops and miniskirts. As far as I know.

4. While I won’t be doing much travelogue stuff, Def Agent lorilori has assigned me to look into the Legend Of The Seah Street Deli Slut.

As documented at FailBlog.


see more Fail Blog

I happen to know where the Seah Street Deli is, but I’ve never eaten there. And they don’t put their menu online. So I’ll have to go there and check out the $6.25 Slut for myself.

Because I live to entertain you people.

Bear in mind that the receipt – presuming it’s not a Photoshop meme – is over six years old, so I can’t promise they still have Sluts on the menu. But I’ve got to try.

Wouldn't you?

Gimme three sluts and a jelly donut to go,

This is dF

So I’ve seen some talk on the f-list about Dreamwidth, which – if you don’t know – is a sort of Old School LJ blog site. It was started by two former LJ employees and, as near as I can tell, aims to go back to the original LJ mandate of being a true community site with none of that pesky corporate ownership and advertising that allegedly ruined it for everyone.

I checked it out, and so far it looks nice. It’s not radically different from LJ – in fact, it’s almost identical, and even sports a few improvements, like a much easier filter system for posts about yr personal life. One feature that appeals to me, besides an apparently more liberal attitude towards content, is the ability to import yr entire existing LJ to it. The Google Analytics support isn’t bad either. And it’s more user-friendly for people who want to use a blogging site to promote their professional work (provided it’s in a creative field – so novelists, artists and photographers who don’t want to build a separate commercial site have an option to combine it with their LJ – only not on LJ, if you follow me).

If there’s a downside, it’s that you currently need an invite code for a free account, and a paid account costs about $5 a year more than LJ. I understand the rationale of keeping their growth under control, and I understand that they have to charge a little more to avoid going the ad route. Still, while it’s tempting to set up something there and cross-post to here, paying for two blogs is a bit overkill for me.

The other thing, of course, is that there’s no real reason to move off of LJ at the moment. LJ has its issues, but so far none of them have been an inconvenience to me personally. And maybe it’s because I cover the Internet for a living, but the social networking space is clogged with wannabe companies that want to be the next Facebook or Twitter. When competition is fierce in a medium where it’s easier to get VC funding than it is to actually make money, few survive. Dreamwidth might, but they’ve only been in beta for five days, so it’s hard to tell.

Personally, I’m in no hurry. If nothing else, I think I’ll wait until all the cybersquatting yahoos have had their fun before I commit to it. If any of you who have already set up accounts there can make a really good case for Dreamwidth, I’m all ears.

Invite codes are also welcome. :)

Meanwhile, the official Team Def blog will stay here on LJ at least until 70% of you head off to Dreamwidth.

Of course, this would be the ideal time to start that sex blog I’ve always wanted ... because God knows there aren’t enough of THOSE on the Internet ...

Don’t dream it, be it,

This is dF

PRODUCTION NOTE: Regarding the Bad Cover Version series, you’ll be pleased to know that bedsitter23 has graciously taken me up on my offer to continue the series. And he’s off to a grand start with Europe’s “The Final Countdown”.

Looks like the series is in good hands. And leave it to Al Bedsitter to add the one thing I didn’t think of: audience participation.

If you haven’t added him already, I recommend you do so at yr earliest convenience – not just for this, but also for his top-notch presidential election coverage – which, for my money, whips the pants off anything CNN has. Not only is he a member of the United States Bowling Congress, he is based in the city that hosts the Shawn Johnson Butter Sculpture.

How’s THAT for credentials?

Unworthy,

This is dF

Please note that this week’s installments of “Bad Cover Version” and “52 Rats” will be postponed until next week, as I’ve got packing to do and a wedding to attend tomorrow, so bloggery will be kept to quick easy bursts.

I’m sure you’ll all manage to readjust yr Internetz accordingly.

Meanwhile, I can reveal that we actually have someplace to move. We signed the full contract last night (Friday), and we get the key around midweek. It’s about 200 square feet smaller than where we live now, which is why we’re trying to sell as much of our junk as we can.

Developing.

To be continued,

This is dF

Well, I was going to tell you how I spent my second-favorite national holiday yesterday, but then it dawned on me that today marks my third anniversary here on the LJs.

Wow. I feel just like John Persinger.



Or at least I would if we had a Hooters in Hong Kong. Which we don’t. Which may be why our teens only rank 9th out of 11 on the Asia Happiness Chart. Or not. We do have a Fatburger, but it's just not the same.

Anyway, it’s been a good run, apart from The Corporate Faux Pas Incident that forced me to abandon my paid blog in favor of this one – which, you’ll notice, is ad-free. And as popfiend (by way of interactiveleaf) has reminded us, those days are now over. If you want a new account here, you’ll pay for it, or you’ll accept advertising and like it.

There’s been some grumbling, but there’s always grumbling in communities, online or off, when corporate strangers take over the place and decide they’re going to Make A Few Changes Around Here. Which is understandable, and justified in lots of cases. In the case of LJ, I’m not that precious about it – partly because it’s more drama than I really need in my life, and partly because I have enough insider knowledge of the IT industry to understand why the New Owners don’t want to subsidize any more new freeloaders. Plus, I intend to upgrade this account to Paid once the old one expires in a couple of weeks anyway.

The other thing is that I get something different out of LJ than a lot of people. For me, it’s a shingle for me to howl at the moon and pass on things to friends that I think will amuse them, or tell them something they might not have heard yet, or just to keep developing my writing style. It’s a mind-dump, basically. Which, ironically, is probably why most of the people I’m writing this for never ever read it. As far as I know. But I do it anyway. The moon, it listens to me. As do most of the people who have been kind enough to put me on their Friends list. Or at least they put up with it, which is as much as anyone can ask for these days.

All of this is my usual long-winded way of saying that I’ll be on the LJ for as long as they’ll have me. The company’s changed ownership twice since I signed on, and the only time I ever seriously considered leaving was the Indiscriminate Censorship Incident, which was well-intentioned but badly handled. And probably inevitable, given how just about any service provider on the Interwubs is facing even more pressure from the govt who, if they had their way, would hold websites and ISPs 100% responsible for anything anyone does or says on their networks, and hand over user info on demand for any reason whatsoever. Few Web 2.0 executives would have the mettle or the financial resources to fight it. Not when they have businesses to run.

The bottom line is this: I stay here because LJ’s Terms & Conditions pretty much allow me to say and link what I want. That’s all I require at the moment. The moment I’m told, “You can’t say that,” I’ll take my business elsewhere.

Or is this too heavy for an anniversary post?

Oh, all right, have another John Persinger birthday pic.



Blogging for the future,

This is dF

Time to fill out the old Year End Bloggery Review meme, and in the usual fashion, I shall exceed my mandate by posting the first AND last headline/first sentence of each month.

PRODUCTION NOTE: Entries from January to October 2007 glommed from the 1.0 version of this blog, which, you’ll recall, was shut down by DHS agents.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: All up, 2007 wasn’t that great a year. Two deaths in the family, money issues, a challenging work situation and That Incident at work that resulted in the blog change. Plus, my first presidential bid wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped – I think even Al Goldstein was polling higher than me by the end.

And I still haven’t achieved my goal of becoming the most influential novelist since William Gibson.

And of course, Planet Earth continued to spiral down the Fear Drain, thanks in no small part to Republicans living in an alternate reality, and Democrats being too polite to tell them this to their face. War, torture, fear, wiretapping, border fences, school shootings, fear, tasers, steroids, Creation science, and the whereabouts of Britney Spears’ panties – that was 2007, mostly. What fun!

Or am I being too negative? Maybe. But when you’ve reached the point where pie is a suspected weapon, using laser pointers can get you arrested, Creation science claims man once co-habited with dinosaurs, the RIAA says that if you make one copy of a song for yrself, yr a criminal, and the biggest albums of 2007 are from Disney TV soundtracks, game show contestants and Nickelback, I think I’m entitled.

Meanwhile, here in 2008, Team Bush will still be in charge of the free world, the Democrats will still be spineless, and the news media will still be run by the sort of people who run Dateline. So not much to look forward to. Unless you thrive on outrage and run a blog. Then it’s going to be a productive 12 months.

I think I’m turning into George Carlin, personally. I think I’m going to reach a point where I just decide to cancel my membership to the human race, sit back and just enjoy the show – and blog the highlights.

Or maybe I’ll just keep posting YouTube videos and sex robot innovations. Always in motion is the future.

Better luck next year,

This is dF