cCranium talks about the weirdness of having his blog down

November 30, 2000 11:00 AM

My weblog (and the rest of the paltry place I call my website) has been down for over a week now, due to various complications and incompetance on my part.

I had no idea how ingrained into my being the ability to right-click and "Blog This!" whenever I had a random thought, whenever I wanted to remember something for future reference or whenever I wanted to just scream in frustration.

In a textual sense, that is.

[more inside]
posted by cCranium to General Weblog-Related at 11:00 AM (4 comments total)

Yes, I can still update Blogger and just not publish my posts, but it really isn't the same. Usually after doing a post I double-check it on my site for any glaring errors (usually formatting-wise, as opposed to logical. I'd find nothing but!) and since I'm not able to do that, all the fun's been taken out of blogging for me.

There's point in making yourself available to the world if you aren't actually available to the world, now is there?

I've had a personal page in one form or another since around 1994. Most haven't been regularily updated, or garnered any amount of readership, and I'm pretty sure my current site's the same way. Well, when it's up that is.

Until I started using Blogger (and I'm sure this goes for any other weblog utility, I've only used Blogger, so my experience is only with Blogger, so I'm only going to talk about Blogger from now on) every time I sat down to write something new, I'd end up being caught up in the design aspect of the site.

I'd sit and tweak this aspect, or open Photoshop and mess around with that image, eventually getting so caught up in the design aspect of things that I didn't bother with much content.

No, this isn't just a Blogger Kicks Ass! (though it does) fanboy rant, there's ultimately a point to this, somewhere.

As soon as the content and the general page layout were broken apart, I was able to start focussing on actually writing things. Through regular updates, I've become a much better writer (you have no idea how bad I was :-), much better at making a point (suprisingly enough) and I've actually been able to learn a great deal about myself in the process.

While arguing a point in the middle of a rant, and learning to be able to express my point so others may understand it, I'm forced to clarify exactly what my point is. I preempt counterpoints, because I think of them first, and I solidify arguments before they can be made.

Also, my design skills have grown immensly over the past 10 months or so. The other day I was tooling around my harddrive (God I've been bored) and found something I was working on in January of last year, while trying to find myself a job.

Goodness gracious me, but it is one of the vilest things I've every stumbled across, and it came from me. No, I'm not going to post it. I can't, I don't have a web site. :-)

Again, it's the forced seperation of layout and content that's done it for me. By not having to reproduce HTML every time I want to write something (except for the occasional [P] or [I] tag, say) I'm able to use somewhat more advanced HTML tricks.

Yes, a good deal of learning has resulted from paying rent by being in the web development business, but actually being able to conceive a site layout and bring it to completion is something I've never accomplished before.

I've been able to tweak my site's layout, see how changing this colour affects things, restructure tables, all without having to cut and paste all the changes across dozens of pages.

It's been argued for quite some time whether or not weblogs are a fad. We've seen so many explosions of technology that have faded into nothing before we even know what they are.

Because of tools like Blogger (and yes, I'm still talking about all the other weblogging tools too, the above disclaimer still stands) thousands and thousands of people are able to experience what I've just described.

Weblogs are such a phenominal tool for self-expression, self-discovery, and self-improvement. I want mine back.
posted by cCranium at 11:20 AM on November 30, 2000

I feel for ya.

It could be worse.

Friday we had a meeting at work and the CEO basically told us that the investor was pulling the plug. Pack your things and leave your keys at the end of the day.

So after leaving my hometown of Chicago to move to Seattle to start a new life with a new startup that we had many promises it would be around for a least a year, I am jobless after two months.

I'm still feeling a bit queasy.
posted by john at 3:07 PM on December 2, 2000

Wow, john, I'm very sorry to hear that.

I didn't mean to imply that my life was shattered because I couldn't post to my website, I was just commenting on how having a website, and specifically a blog, has affected my life.

Seattle's a good place to be for jobs though, and (from what I've seen of your posts) you're a smart guy. Though joe random pseudostranger saying so on a web discussion board probably doesn't help much, I'm sure you'll do well.
posted by cCranium at 4:59 AM on December 3, 2000

Just trying to lighten your load partner. Insomuch as having an outlet to vent your frustrations. I have been lucky to retain mine.

I have always considered your comments valuable as several others here. I was feeling a bit touchy Friday and that may have resulted in a few quick comments about the whole day without weblogs thing coming at the wrong time.

So weblogs are important, more (sometimes) for the creator then anything else.

As for myself, I should be OK. While I am a little worried sometimes since my skills tend to be toward the Vitual Reality end rather then the web side I am flexible enough to find something.

posted by john at 12:14 AM on December 5, 2000