If you watch my vlog (and you should) (no really) this is going to be old news. Oh well! Suck it up, buttercup!

So… I talk a lot about comments. I ask questions to try to get comments. I actively encourage people to comment. And then when I don’t get a lot of comments I complain that I don’t get a lot of comments. One of the things that I love about the internet is that it is supposed to be so easy to start a conversation here and yet… I don’t know. Maybe you just all agree with me.

Of course, I acknowledge that I am a flaming hypcorite here. Because for all of my “seriously you guys, comment!” begging, when I do actually get comments I almost never actually respond to them.

I know. I suck.

I read them. I do! And I love getting them! S, in particular, was quite helpful last month when I was wigging out over whether or not to move and did I respond? NoooooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo. Sorry S!

So! I’m putting my… pride where my mouth is.

For May, my challenge is to respond to every. Single. Comment. that is left on my blog and on my vlog.

Oh yeah. I know.

Actually I didn’t know–it was pointed out to me on YouTube that if the trolls were to come out of the woodwork, this could be a very dicey plan. But so far, knock on wood, toss some salt over my shoulder, please Murphy do not punch me in the face here, the people who read and watch me seem to be very nice people. So…. so far….. I’m not SUUUUUUUUUUUUPER worried about it.

To make things even spicier for myself, I am adding a 24 hour clause to this challenge. This way I don’t get to just wait until the end of the month and then respond to everything with “thanks for commenting” in one fell swoop. If I do not respond to a comment left here or on YouTube within 24 hours, y’all get to punish me.

Yep.

This is going to be interesting, isn’t it?

By the by, I am not proofreading this or spellchecking it before I hit publish tonight. So… if there are bunches o’ errors…there are just going to be bunches o’ errors. Sorry (not really)!

Dear Words:

I do not know where you went but as I do not recall starting a game of hide and seek with you? I demand that you GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW.

I am going to count to Monday and if you aren’t front and center by then, you are going to be in BIG TROUBLE.

Smoochies!

Me.

Dear Blog Post Ideas,

Why do you have to be Big Ideas that must be Fleshed Out and why do you only start to show up when it’s 11:30 at night and I do not have time to give you the attention you deserve?

Could you please show up earlier in the day so that I can actually give you the time and attention you require to be turned into fully fledged and worthy of reading blog posts?

I know that at heart I’m a procrastinatrix but seriously, this is getting to be a problem.

Thanks!

–Me

P.S.  If you do happen to show up earlier in the day and I am in the middle of something and/or away from my computer could you please force me to write you down so I won’t keep getting mired in this same problem? Thanks!

You know what happens when you blog for fifty five days straight and then decide to take a day off?

You feel weird all day long.

I just can’t quit you, daily blogging.  At least–not today.

And that actually feels pretty danged good.

So whenever you sign up with a program for blog monetization or advertising, you have a bunch of hoops to jump through. Typically it’s granting access to your Google Analytics information or placing some code snippets somewhere. Sometimes, though, you have to create random and meaningless posts like this one in which you post a specific string of words or an image. I lucked out this time with a string of words. Check it out:

The foam retracts above the legible symphony.

I do not know what that means but I bet at some  point someone is going to use it as a tagline. You mark my words.

They told me I could take this post down after I claimed my blog but since it’ll still show up in my feed I figure what the heck. Bonus blog for today! Woo!

So you might not know (or maybe you do, if you’ve read Just a Geek or remember reading his blog pre-move to TypePad) that when he first started blogging, Wil Wheaton learned how to code his whole site–all by himself–from scratch. When I was still a brand new blogger, sir Wheaton sat firmly atop my “this is what real bloggers do” pedestal and I decided that by gum, I was going to do the same thing because if Wil Wheaton did it then that’s what real bloggers did and I wanted to be a real blogger, right? Right.

(It is important to note that at this point in time most of the blogging platforms available were still mighty buggy so learning to code was actually a pretty smart idea.)

I checked books about CSS and HTML out of the library.

I even opened those books.

I even read those books.

You know, the first five pages or so and then I fell face first onto their pages drooling with boredom. See, I’ve always been better at that whole “learn by doing” thing than “learn by reading” thing so when I couldn’t find a single coding manual that could keep my attention (why are they all SO BORING?), I decided to just start studying the bones of sites I liked and playing around with the stylesheets on free platforms like Blogger. Over time I’ve learned enough that I can tinker with just about any free template out there and turn it from the thing I downloaded into roughly the thing I want. My coding is far from art (far FAR from art) but it gets the job done.

To tell the truth I enjoy bludgeoning my code about and getting it to do what I want it to do. There is something almost zen-like about scanning through a stylesheet looking for just the right combination of letters and numbers so that I can change a color or font or whatever. I mean sure, sometimes you forget to put in a semi-colon and the whole page gets fubarred, but when it works out, it’s immensely satisfying.

I do not know of bludgeoning blog themes into submission is what I would call a marketable skill, but nonetheless I’m glad I’ve picked it up. It’s what allowed me to make the couple of changes that I’ve made on this site today (widening my content space, reducing my columns from three to two). Now that I have the bones of this place where I want them I get to play around with all of the more fun things like making pretty graphics, playing with colors–stuff like that.

Incidentally, yes I am procrastinating on both client-centric work and my NaNoWriMo project. However did you guess?

*Title blatantly stolen from a line in this post by the brilliant John Scalzi.

Hello blog. I’ve missed you.

You should know by now, though, that I tend to go radio silent when things in my life get chaotic, stressful and twirly-in-a-bad-way. Sixish weeks with no posting at all? Yeah. Now, I know what you’re saying, blog. You’re saying “but you still VLOGGED every day. What’s up with that?”  To that I say, with a shrug, “I promised.”  If I had made the same promise to this blog (which I’m thinking about doing soon, just to keep it all even so you don’t get so jealous) I’d have been posting here too. But the thing is? I don’t stop blogging because I’ve run out of things to say. I stop blogging because I’ve got too much to say but just don’t know how or if I should say it. The thing I need to tell you today (and I hope you won’t be jealous, but I’m telling the vlog too), though, it needs to be said. And it should explain everything.

Today Will and I filed for Divorce.

And blog? That’s the first time I’ve actually used that word.

Yeah. The big D. My marriage? Finitamundo. All done. Well, you know, except for receiving a judgement which, because we are co-filing and agree on everything and applied to have our required 90-day waiting period waived, could be handed down as early as tomorrow. I’ll find out for sure on Friday when I call to check in on my case.

I know, blog, I know. You’re probably thinking “Wow! Bomb Drop! What HAPPENED?”  And the thing is, to you it probably does seem sudden and out of the blue. But to me–the radio silent one–it feels like it has been happening for a really long time.

I’ll tell you all about it in due time. For now, though, I need to let the vlog in on what’s going on.

Be patient, blog. Soon I’ll be posting here so often you won’t know what to do with me.

XOXO, Me.

I’ve been doing my best to keep this space separate from the work I’ve been doing on my vlog but I’m thinking that, at least for now, because I’m expending so much of my creative energy over there I might just start embedding my vlogs here as well. You know, so the dust stops piling up in this space.  I’m not going to stop posting written content (the written word being my favorite way to communicate, after all) but I’m really tired of looking at this space and sighing because I haven’t put anything up in so long.

So! Now that that explanation is done, I’m going to embed the video I uploaded this morning. I worked really hard on this video. It probably doesn’t look it or sound it because the tools I used in its creation aren’t exactly top of the line (the microphone I used for the voice over is the same microphone Will uses to chat in WoW and is many years old) but content-wise, I’m happy with the work I’ve done.  This is the first video of this type that I’ve made so… yeah.

So first, before anything else–I need to share this video. Because I can’t stop watching it.  It’s from Monday’s episode of House and it is one of the dream sequences. The first viewing took me from “what am I watching?!?” to “holy crap that was cool!”  Will is not a fan of the sequence for the exact same reason that I love it: it feels like a giant acid trip (which is the point; the character dreaming is under a general anesthetic). It makes me want to pull out my copy of Across the Universe…except that Across the Universe doesn’t have Hugh Laurie or Linda Edelstein making with the awesome.  So seriously. Watch it.

You guys I cannot get enough of this. I’ve watched it an embarrassing amount of times and every single time I see it, I get shivers up my spine. I get that jazzy fizzy “I’m so! inspired! right! now!” feeling and I just want to…make stuff.

So, because my deeper thoughts are still percolating (if you’ve been watching my vlog you’ll know what I’m talking about) (if you haven’t been watching my vlog, what is wrong with you?!? That’s where all of my creativity has been going!) (which, actually since I haven’t done much more than talk probably says more about me than I want it to) I’m going to go make…..the final row of the scarf I started for Will in January. Yeah…it’s been sitting one row away from being finished for weeks because I’ve been so busy with other stuff.

Soon though, my lovelies, soon I will have things to say in this space again.

So right around the time of my birthday I promised myself that I would give myself one hour for blogging and writing here every day (at least during the week).  I figured that blogging would be a good way to start my day and it would put me in a good mood and, most importantly, it would keep my blog up to date and (hopefully) entertaining for all of you!

Yeah.  Whoops.

This always happens.  I get caught up in “must get work done before play” and “must find work so I can pay the rent” and “work! Get! work! done! Naaaoooooowww!”  and suddenly there are cobwebs all over the place and tumbleweeks a-rollin’ right through here.  I don’t mean to neglect this space.  It is my most favorite space to pay attention to and nurture on the internet (though Twitter is an awesome second) but here it is Friday and this only my third post of the week and the other two were decidedly lacking in the story telling/entertaining department.

Blame Battlestar! ZOMG.

Speaking of which, can I just say that Captain Ty (sp? too lazy to look it up)’s wife is eleven shades of annoying and I kind of hope she gets her face eaten off.  And every time I see the leader of the resistance I think “that’s the guy that tries to steal Castle’s AND Leonard’s women!”  which has nothing to do with BSG but everything to do with other television loyalties…which could mean that I need professional help.

Yeah.  This post is all over the place!  But there you go.  It’s Friday evening.  I’ve been buried in work and seem to have misplaced my coherent and followable thought communicatory abilities.

Have a great weekend!