2020 Hindsight

Weblogs.com sites are now down (well, except for Doc's site)

Glenn F. puts it well: If You Don't Pay for It, Don't Expect Persistence.

Four years of free hosting on weblogs.com draws to a close. Phase 1 of closing: Can't access stuff. But if you request your site root, it'll be made available after July 1. Listen to the audio note that Dave puts up on his site. (or read Jeanene's transcription) It 'splains a few things. But man, the timing and notice--what notice?!--are a shock.

(I did have a site on weblogs.com, for brycecamp, and in fact, a couple of days ago I thought, Oh, I should just do an export of THAT, too. Didn't. Missed my chance. But it wasn't active, really, so the delay to July is no bigs. Different for Craig Jensen and Dean Landsman and others whose sites have been ongoing concerns. Gents, you've my best wishes. Doc Searls stays up and running. But then, I think that he gave Dave his Qube years back, the one with the control panel thing that lit an inspirational fire for what was to become Manila and Radio.)

I see that my posts here about exporting Manila sites using MySiteRoot.root and documentation of struggles therewith is very timely. Prolly when people get access to their site roots again, some'll be doing this very same process. Welcome to the pretzel. It's quirky, it's painful. It's documented. (by me. Here and here) But I (think) it's behind me. Of course, I keep posting here, so what I've exported is outta date. Next I'll try to "update" with this current copy and see what happens.

Blogging panel report at last week's Book Expo

Thanks to Kevin Roderick at L.A. Observed , I started getting the free Publisher's Lunch e-newsletter, written by Michael Cader. Today Roderick points out this report of a blogging panel (which Cader mentioned in one of his newsletters last week).

Jessa spoke about the role that blogs can play in championing first time authors unlikely to get reviewed in the larger outlets, and all the panel shared tales of hearing from readers who had purchased and loved titles based on blog recommendations. She mentioned Alasdair Gray, and I made the inevitable John Banville plug.

Kevin spoke with energy and enthusiasm and – most impressively, to me – vision about the bigger picture; about where blogs can go and what they can do, something I’ve wondered about openly in these pages. He talked in detail about VBT [Virtual Book Tour]– which if you’ve never visited is worth your time, and if you’re an author it’s worth your money. He also spoke to the importance of maintaining a “real world” presence – hosting readings and other live events.

Time Goes By...

A blog about what it's really like to get older. (I found the site via Technorati) Turns out I'm in the blogroll... as an older blogger.

Reminds me of when the JarJar Star Wars was about to come out (yikes, that's 5 years ago! me-so-surprised!). I was working at MetaCreations in the online department. Took a poll among my peers co-workers: "How old were you when the first Star Wars movie came out?" Responses ranged from 11, 7, 4, to "dude, I wasn't even born yet!" I sighed and said, "Yes, there *is* such a thing as a generation gap" --I saw Star Wars right around High School graduation.

L. A. Blogger meetup

I went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday evening. (at the end of whirlwindish day, in midst of whirlwindish weekend). Met other bloggers. Thanks, Jonah, for getting us together! Met Jonah and his girlfriend, Susan (Suzy? Susie?) Noah Gray his brother, and his partner, Douglas Welch, Lonewacko (who chooses to remain anonymous), Luke Ford, Tara Morrison, Jay Bushman, Will Campbell, aka WildBell and his girlfriend Susan (Yay for all the Susans in attendance!), Eric Gradman, Cybele of Fastfiction, Joe and others who are part of the blogging collective: blogging.la.

Didn't meet Grant Henninger.. bummer. His site's background image is Spirit's lander at Gusev.

Saw Lorna Brown and fellow MetaCreations alum Mike Herf (currently of Picasa, along with Lorna and Tara Morrison).

Didn't bring cards, but collected many.

Hardest question to answer, to those who haven't seen my blog before. "What do you blog about?" (same question, put differently: "what's your interest-du-jour?" Kinda bizarre as I'm trying to blog less and get stay balanced).

Left as some were heading over to watch karaoke. Looks like I missed an event. All in all a good time. The Meetups for bloggers have been at times when I couldn't go, so was glad to go to this one and meet new people.

We're gettin' some (more) radio here in LA, come April...

Chuck Taggart, whom I first heard (of) at KPCC, has been on the out-of-airwave-reach KCSN for a while.... and they're getting a booster transmitter that'll go live, oh, sometime in the first half of April. Cool. (It's auspicious news, 'specially as KPCC's in pledge drive right now. "Do your part and become a member by pledging! Then you can turn the radio dial the hell away from us until we're done raising money!")

L.A. Blogger get together Saturday March 27th

Jonah of L.A. Blogs issued the invitation. Farmer's Market. 5:30 pm. He's buying the first 5 pitchers of beer. Happy are they (we) who find their calendars clear on Saturday the 27th.

Some Mars blogs

I went over to blo.gs to add one of the Mars blogs to my blogroll. Hadta search using the keyword "mars." Discovered a few other Mars blogs.

Speak Persian? MarsNews.persianblog.com covers all things blogs. Can't read it; it looks pretty, though. For some reason, I'm really touched by this one.

The Future of Mars at blogspot: "My ideas on what may or may not happen to Mars once we set foot on martian soil"

Topic Exchange: Channel 'Mars'

Landung auf dem Mars German language.

Mars 2004 News und links von Richard H. Huber. Also German language.

Mars Institute "To further the study, exploration, and public understanding of Mars."

Mars UFOs :D photo censoring, anomalies. The truth is out there.

Jimmy Carter has a blog

Updates from a trip he and Rosalynn are taking to West Africa. [via boingboing]

media overload

Watching NASA TV live in the ground control room. Trying to figure out what's going on. Look up, see that it's 7 oclock. oh! the Blog The President show is on the radio. Getting a bit of media overload, here.

Now Chris Lydon says, "If a Martian were to come to your country and say 'tell me about you' you'd go and take 'em to your bloggers" [rough paraphrase]. This is getting to ridiculously cross-referential! Heh, I've been blogging Mars....

Strange bedfellows, or juxtaposition jokes

This is a little weblog joke. So's this, too. Or, if subtle web developer humor isn't your thing, how about a little punditry practical joking? Politics makes strange bedfellows. Or how about a Mars blogging Janie-come-lately trying to look like a news-scooping Space pro?

To juxta your own pose, go master your mix here. (inspired by hey you got your chocolate on my peanutbutter links)