Caracal's Cabin http://www.niestu.com/cabin Knobfrobbing in the 21st Century en Long time no blog http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/long_time_no_blog.html Wow, it's been going on a year since my last entry here, I'm so ashamed. Don't look at me, I'm hideous. I tend to shy away from the kind of prattling a lot of folks do on their blogs, like how I went to the store yesterday, had a cappuccino, met Audrey, burnt my dinner, that sort of thing. But blogging a bit more often wouldn't hurt me. (Just to note, I did go to the store today, don't drink cappuccino but do like it, don't know any Audreys personally, and haven't burnt dinner since Moses was a pup.)

One nice development in my life is contact from family I wasn't sure I had. It's a common crude joke among guys, when asked "Do you have any kids?" to reply "None that I know of, haw haw haw." Implying that the guy in question spreads his seed far and wide and cares not about the consequences.

Well I'm totally not like that. Nor are most guys who use that joke, I'm sure. But due to a very unusual set of circumstances, I might have had a descendant, or might not. Was always curious about it, but it didn't keep me up at night. Well new information suggests that maybe I actually do! It's great news, made me feel all warm and fuzzy and, er wait, warrior-like and patriarchal, yeah yeah.

I can hear my ancestors weeping with joy, and maybe even carousing a bit. Hey, you, get off that table, you'll hurt yourself! Owww, that's gonna leave a mark.

More blawging soon, I hope.

]]> Top Dead Center http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/top_dead_center.html As in, getting off it. Priming the pump, greasing the skids, shocking the monkey, lighting the fire—in other words, getting unstuck. Since last March I've been gripped by an almost insurmountable inertia, which comes and goes, but lately mostly comes. I haven't written anything here for over three months now, so it's time for that to change.

Except, as you might imagine, I'm kinda rusty. I remember that some time ago, one thing my wife suggested I write were reviews of television shows and movies. Not sure why she would have asked for that, because she barely ever read anything I wrote, and even when she did, she had nothing to say about it. I think maybe she brought it up in hopes that it was something I actually could (or at least would) write, and so now I'm giving that theory a try; in the next few entries, I'll offer my totally biased completely idiosyncratic impressions of what's on TV, at least what's on my TV, right now.

]]> Sad News http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/sad_news.html I haven't written anything here in the past month, because my wife died a month ago today, and I've been somewhat distracted.

More when I am able.

]]> Blue Tuesday http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/blue_tuesday.html I've done some diddling with the borrowed stylesheet to make it more pleasing to my eye. I guess I don't have to personalize it down to the last one and zero right now—that can come once I've switched over to my own software.

I've got comments working, though I think I've spotted a buglet or two, plus I've added some other PyBlosxom niceties to make the front page a little more visitor-friendly. Coming together nicely, now all I have to do is create some actual content besides all this "meta" crap I've been cranking out.

]]> Waiter, there's a blog in my soup http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/waiter__there_s_a_blog_in_my_soup.html A lot of ink, and electrons, have been expended complaining about the neologism "blog". People gripe about what an ugly-sounding word it is, how unimaginitive it is, how common and pedestrian, with an undercurrent of sour grapes because they didn't think of it first.

I'm inclined to go with the flow. I could have wished for a more euphonious word, a more poetic one, a more evocative sound, but "blog" has clearly won. Show this page to 95% of web denizens, and they'd say, "Why, that there's a blog!" Or something to that effect. When I started this sort of writing on paper back in the 1970s, I used the Latinate word "journal", because "diary" sounded too sissified to me. And I still keep a journal, and write things in it I wouldn't dream of putting online, or even showing to another person. But for this public short-form venue, "blog" is just fine with me.

]]> Blogtivation http://www.niestu.com/cabin/Meta/blogtivation.html My wife made a comment the other day; when asking me to write something, she said "... and, perhaps, put it on your blog?" And that got me to thinking. Yes, I have a "blog" of sorts, though I've never called it that. It's just a bunch of essays, or more accurately rambles, that I put on the web with great infrequency. I started writing them in 2000, and have created pitifully few in the ensuing nine years.

But these days, blogs are all the rage. I've never been one to do something because it was trendy, but I have been "blogging" for a while now, and have grown accustomed to the semi-standard format in which most blogs are presented, so I figured eh, why not, might as well start using that format.

And after downloading PyBlosxom, borrowing a page style from Andy Todd, and twiddling a bit with my Apache configuration, voila, here's a blog-style blog. My old entries are still available, and maybe someday I'll integrate them into this setup, but for now I can toss off random things and put them online for all to scoff at.

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