I know, I said I'd never do it. I'd never give in to the blog craze. All the cool kids were doing it, but I was, you now, Too Cool. Cooler than the cool kids.
The word itself sounded like something my pug might cough up. "Blog." Like cell phones and those funny spinning hubcaps, blogs were new-fangled and scary, not for an old man like myself. And all the good names were taken already, most frustratingly by people who posted one lame entry and then went merrily on their way, never to return.
It was getting harder, however, to post big long entries over at Darn Tootin when I wasn't having big long things happen in my life. (That sounded dirty, but let's move along.) I liked the idea of being able to post short entries without having to make them fit into some larger structure. I love my journal, and I like the idea of being able to write actual essay-type entries over there when the mood strikes me, without any more of those squashy, "here's a bunch of random crap" entries.
So I'm splitting things up a bit, which will hopefully result in better journal entries over there and more entertaining short bits here. As the title of the blog suggests, I anticipate a large percentage of my posts here to be about Schuyler. If that's not your thing, I totally understand, although honestly, I can't imagine you'd be reading this in the first place if you weren't.
(If you are new to my stuff, you really should go read up at Darn Tootin. All shall be revealed there.)
The coolest thing of all? I'm posting this from my flickr page, where it will automatically throw in the photo of my choice. Why didn't someone tell me how easy this is? I feel like everyone's been watching me hand-code my big ugly journal entries like a caveman and snickering behind my back.
I'll tweak all this some more tomorrow. Schuyler will be home all day, as she is sick. Julie called me at work to tell me that Schuyler had gotten extravagantly ill on the way home from school.
"Was it bad?" I asked.
"She had mixed fruit at school," Julie replied.
I could tell from her tone that she had acquired that information the hard way.
31 comments:
Congratulations, Rob.
Blogs are fun because it feels a little lighter and there's less pressure to, um, produce. However, one can still post long posts, without violating the blogging manifesto, and totally neglect one's
o t h e r site, whilst doing so.
Of course, that's only relevant to One. Not to you.
I'm proud to be the first to welcome you to the dark side. (And you might want to turn on word verification...)
Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging! I'm so lame though that I thought what you had going on at the other site WAS a blog, albeit a really snazzy, technically advanced one.
Ooooh! Look at all this space! So new, so...almost shiny! Like looking into a brand new bound paper journal book-thing, with all the clean white pages (just waiting for someone to tip in a big box of words, what?)
I almost tiptoed away without saying anything, since I'm not one of the regular posters from Darn Tootin' (though I read it regularly) but it's not every morning a girl finds herself among the first to peek into a brand new blog! It looks good, Rob!
I do kinda wish you'd explain a little bit more about Schuyler's Monster up top in the layout boilerplate, or at least link to one or two specific entries over at DT' that might shorten the learning curve for new folks, because there's, well, a whole book's worth of material over there. And it was a bit -- startling -- to come over here and see that suddenly S. is the Monster rather than having one; I can so easily imagine confused strangers wandering in here and picking up the wrong end of the stick, so to speak.
Nevertheless - Hurray! Blog! Rob!
Raaaaawh!
Harriet in NYC
Just in time - I was days away from offering to install Wordpress for you, just so I'd have an RSS feed for your site.
Would you please mention on this site when you update Darn Tootin? Thanks, I'd appreciate it.
No notify list, but I think you can do the whole RSS feed thing from here now, right? I have no idea how that stuff works.
Yay!! Twice the Rob!
Keep repeating, change is good. The change to blogger will free up all that time you spent hand-coding your journal, therefore you can write MORE.
Because, of course, you have nothing else to do. :>
Welcome!
You couldn't help but give in. Mwahaha.
One of us... One of us..!
Dumb question Mr. Rob, but how will we know when you've updated the blog? I get notified when you update darn-tootin. This Blog stuff is new to this old timer also
Ooh. You even have an RSS feed (to which I subscribed). Welcome to the 21st Century.
Finally, an automatic RSS feed for you!! Welcome to the 21st century. For anyone who wants to start using RSS feeds, I recommend bloglines.com. Very easy to add Rob's blog to it: just enter the URL of this here blog and bloglines automatically finds the RSS feed.
And Rob, just in case you didn't know, you CAN use blogger to publish your journal. You could point blogger to publish over on darn-tootin without much grief at all. (ie: if you know how to hand code, it's easy.) There's no reason to have darn-tootin be separate, really. I mean, unless you want them to be. But you can use Blogger to produce your content on darn-tootin. It's sooooo easy. You'll love it! :)
Welcome to the 21st Century!
OMG Rob — how funny that at the exact same time you have decided to give in to the blog craze, I, too, am changing my format and have been in the process of importing old HTML journal entries into my new Wordpress blog — and yes, in a way I feel like I'm sort of selling out.
Congrats on entering the blogosphere.
Sorry kids, it's all too much for me. I am still not quite used to the betrayal of the eight track tape (although I must admit I quickly adapted to the DVR).
However - where ever Rob writes, my tired old eyes shall follow.
Good grief will these places please stop asking me for my web page! I'm almost ready to say never - miss the feel of paper in the typewriter.
Dear Rob,
I'm a longtime longtime reader too, Rob, and I was also surprised (like Harriet) to see you refer to Schuyler as a monster (albeit beloved). We all get what you mean, but it sounds... well, when she *had* a monster, you were fighting for your little girl. But calling her a monster, however lovingly, in my unasked for opinion is just wrong-sounding. I don't mean to offend, truly; but if you're starting a new blog you'll get lots of new readers and that could result in a big flame session about this when it really isn't the point or true; we all know you don't think of Schuyler as a monster but the word has connotations.
My 25 cents.
congrats on the blog. I'm working up the courage to do one.
Karen Owen
"My Beloved Monster" is a song by the Eels, one that Schuyler loves and which has sort of been 'her song" since she was a baby.
Come on. Didn't you people see Shrek?
I'll add something explaining the blog title soon. This is a work in progress.
Cool! I like this new place!
Spifftacular... I approve (for what that's worth).
Now what I want to know is what gives with the human verification before I post. Has the Internet become rife with the mischevious postings of unattended computers? Do spammers care to post? What are we verifying ourselves against?
I love the phrase "mixed fruit at the YMCA" but I don't know why.
Congrats on the new blog.
Rob, in case anyone asks, your feed is :
http://belovedmonsterandme.blogspot.com/atom.xml
It's actually an 'atom' feed, not an RSS feed, but Atom is just like RSS, only different.
What it lets us slobbering minions do is keep track of your blog posts in real time. Lots of 'aggragator' tools exist to perform this function.
In my case, my web browser home page is personalized Google. Google lets you display any rss/atom feed on your personalized page.
So now I'll know very quickly whenever you post to your blog. For your journal page I use a change detection service, which emails me when that page changes. That system is less timely than a feed.
Here is what my browser home page looks like:
http://grayraven.com/RobsAtom.png
With Firefox (and I suspect IE7) the bookmark list displays feeds as 'live booksmarks' also:
http://grayraven.com/LiveBookmarks.png
Forgive me if you already know all this, but I thought that you and/or some of the other minions might find it helpful.
I dunno: "Beloved Monter" sounds entirely appropriate. But then, I refer to my child as one.
Oh, and my condolences on the YMCA mixed fruit. I hope Schuyler can eat fruit someday again without thinking of that moment. I haven't eaten a chicken McNugget since I was 7, when I saw them in reverse. Of course, no loss there, but . . .
Wow, Rob, you are going to be even busier than usual if you have to post here AND at Darn-Tootin'!
Does Julie get to be a Guest-Blogger? I like reading her comments.
And my six-year-old wants to know when we get to read another cryptic message from Schuyler? He spent a long time trying to figure out what the last one meant. He finally decided it meant that she wanted to come visit us in Connecticut and help him build a snowman. (We still have snow in our yard. Want some? I'm considering a move back to Austin, myself!)
Thanks, Jim, for the feed. I added it to my personalized Google homepage, too.
Sheesh, I might have to start a blog, myself. I mean, if ROB is doing one...!
Always happy to read more Rob. :)
Rob!
Who can resist the power of BLOG?
Give in and enjoy.
You gotta promise not to neglect the other site, though. I love love love the oldskoolness of it, that it's a meal instead of a snack... and while blogs have their place, too many people who've taken the step you've just taken abandon their journal sites entirely. Leaving me, well, hungry for a nice journal-style read.
Yeah. It gets to be a disease. Wait till you decide to turn your supplementary journal blog into a vlog. Creating internet content becomes a full time obsession.
Good on ya. If it means more Rob and Schuyler updates, it's a good thing. Love the look, too!
The lines between online journal/personal website/blog are really blurred anymore. So call this whatever you like. It's good to see you with the rest of us late adopters.
i really like it, actually. crisp clean formatting and more of you to love. keep on keeping on.
Congratulations on your BLOG.
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