Check out Grandpa's blog.

I was catching up with blogs after getting back, and noticed that Dad has set one up about Grandpa.

M H Huber

The most recent post is really interesting - a story about Grandpa saving a guy from back when Marty was a kid.

Rats.

I was planning to do a proper post today - but got wrapped up with other things (including cooking my first ever ham) and now bedtime is rapidly approaching and I don't feel like blogging. But I said I was going to post something today, so I felt like I had to say something.

But I did at least move towards being able to blog about our toaster - I recorded a video during the toasting of my english muffin this morning, and Mark has uploaded the file, so I'm one step closer to being able to spread the word on toaster technology. Soon. Ish.

Betablog

Blogger has a beta type site called "Blogger in Draft" and one of the new features they're trying out is "scheduled posting" where you create a post and tell it when you want it to go live at some point in the future.

I'm trying it out with this post. I'll let you know how it goes.

Out of ideas.

I really really wanted to post on the blog today. A person who shall remained nameless has urged me to post and added to my heightened awareness of blog-neglect that I am currently experiencing. The desire is present and I have the time (I've finished my online tutoring shift for tonight and it's not quite bed-time) and I actually thought of it while sitting at the computer. The only thing is, I just can't think of a single thing to write about. And it's not like this blog has distinguished itself by writing about things that matter. So it's not even that I can't think of something significant enough to write about, I can't think of ANYTHING to write about.

I guess I need a kid.

Ha ha, just kidding. But actually, it just occurred to me - is that what they mean when they refer to "the biological clock"? The alarm is the moment you realize that you're actually a fairly boring person who doesn't really have much more to say, so you might as well create another person who may end up being more interesting?

Oh wait. I can tell you about my dinner. That's interesting. No need for a baby - when in doubt, talk about food. Mark is dog-sitting this evening, so I had dinner on my own. As is usually the case when I'm eating on my own, I went for a very quick and very easy option - I had hot dogs with my last can of Wolf Brand chili (which I've been saving for about 6 months now). It was goooooooood. I only used half the can, so I can stretch that out to another meal (as long as I don't share with Mark). My stomach is glad that it's now less than a month until the trip to Dallas. Warm up the burritos, everybody, I'm coming to town!

Phew.

Browse this.

I've just discovered Flock. I don't know if I'm just behind the times, and this is yesterday's software, but I only just found out about it. I was introduced to it via a news article from the BBC about it, so it can't be new or cutting edge...I think I've just really not been paying attention. But I've tried it, and I kinda like it.

If you haven't heard of it, it's a web browser designed to take better advantage of, dare I say it, 'web 2.0' sites. It calls itself the "social web browser," which almost drove me away, but I've been using Firefox for a while now, and I'm curious about other browsers, so I decided to give it a try. I've only been trying it for about 10 minutes, and already I have figured out how to use some of it's gizmos (which means it's pretty intuitive, even though it looks overly-complicated with lots of buttons and tabs and windows-within-windows). I like how it deals with web mail, and I've already set up the RSS feeds for all the family blogs.

I'm posting this from within Flock, rather than using the dashboard at Blogger, and so far, so good. But I did have to open up a window in Firefox to find the urls for the links above, so I don't think I'm there yet. But hey, it's only been 10 minutes...give me a couple days and we'll see how it goes.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Stupid people ruining everyone else's fun.

I just had to delete a comment, left by some anonymous person, which included a link to porn site. I apologize if anyone unwittingly clicked on the link. (Although perhaps Dad's anti-phishing training means that everyone hovered over the link and saw that it was not something familiar and so didn't follow it. I can only hope!)

I hate people who do that. Hate hate hate. I know I should rise above it, but it just makes me angry.

It's been a long time...

...since I wrote this blog.

But as I pointed out to the sister that pointed this out to me, I just haven't had a topic that's popped up as relevant even for a blog. And I even promised myself no more of these self-reflexive blog posts, and here I am, doing it. Sigh.

But thinking about it, it has just occurred to me that said sister might not have been suggesting that I add to this blog, but in fact look at her own...which I did.

I wish the Feiste Mominator would read my blog...

Getting into the swing of things.

Ok, I think I'm getting more into this blogging business. Yesterday, I realized the poll thing just wasn't a good idea for my particular blog...since only about three people (and I'm one of them) read it, and they're all family members, I don't think it's a very interesting exercise. I wouldn't say that I know everything about my family members, and I do agree that there are new things I can learn about them every day, but I would say that I probably have a pretty good handle on which condiment they would probably use, if faced with a hamburger. So, the poll thing is great on the wii (we are officially addicted) and great on Amigonet (since Jenny and Jeff actually have friends), but it's just silly for my purposes. I really just added it originally because I thought I kinda needed to have something for filler.

But the poll-misappropriation days are over. I've now discovered the "List" module and yesterday I promptly added three different ones. This is perfect because I like lists. I like to list things to do, though I won't do them and I like to build up my DVDs by mail list, even though we're currently watching them at a rate of about one every presidency. I even think about lists when I'm trying to fall asleep and trying not to think about the things my mind races about uncontrollably when I'm trying to fall asleep. I think about alphabetical lists of fruits or vegetables or names of cities. It's quite good actually; I'd recommend it. Better than trying to count sheep, particularly if you, like me, have a hard time visualizing more than three or four sheep at a time.

But even more than lists I like to show people what varied tastes I have. I mean the blog itself is a godsend for anyone who likes listening to themselves talk, but the lists take it to a new level. I can show off in an Internet-sanctioned way, without seeming too needy. It's great for those of us at the bottom of the familial food chain. Plus it's easy, since all you have to do is throw some titles down and make sure you've spelled the author's name correctly (since if you don't, your cover is totally blown). So it's even more perfect for the person at the bottom of the familial food chain who is also extremely lazy. Score!

Next I need to combine the lists with my opinions about the items on the list, so I can sound all intellectual. It's gonna be great.

Sprechen Sie Deutsches?

In the original version of the post before this one (our Wii-kend), I referred to my brother-in-law as Herr Smith. I uploaded it, changed my mind about the wording, and then went in and changed it. But ever since that first upload, blogger now uses German for some of the menu items whenever I work on the backend of the blog.

When I upload a new post, it announces proudly. "Blog uploaded successfully! Blog anzeigen (in einem neun Fenster)." It also uses German for some other random items on different menus. But the funniest thing is that it only uses German for a FEW of the menu items; it hasn't switched over to all Deutsch all the time. It's like blogger knows that I only know a little bit of German, so it doesn't want to make me feel bad.

I like a blog program that cares.

OK, I'm back.

Thanks to my sisters' recent forays into the blogosphere (AmigoNet and ScreaminJohn's Blog), I have returned to this long dusty corner of the interweb, brushing away the moldy bits and bytes I long ago stored for no-one-in-particular's purpose (not even my own).

I reread the original (and only) entry. Man. This mockery of postmodern self-reflexivity just isn't going to cut it. I know (or knew) too many people who actually know what that means...or at least what it is supposed to mean. So if I am really going to try to do this (and this no more than an experiment after all) then I have to just play this one straight.

But beginning this process reminds me of something that Kurt Vonnegut talked about in an archived interview from Fresh Air. He talked about when he first began writing and mentioned (if I'm remembering this all correctly) that being a science major at college helped him because if he had been a literature major, he would have realised that writing something good is hard and would never have started. But since he was just a science geek, he didn't know what good writing was supposed to be like or that it was difficult, so he just wrote. So I'll just write, when and what I can, and never be as good as Vonnegut's left nostril and leave it at that. There's no point in trying to write something good when you know how good good can really be (and know that you're no good). Or something like that.

Plus, as my Dad and I were discussing last night, there is so much digital storage space out there in the world these days, that it doesn't matter if I'm taking up some chunk of memory for my navel-gazing ramblings. Actually, on that subject, Dad told a very interesting story about how when he was doing network support a while ago (back when they fought over kilobytes rather than tetrabytes or paeleoflops or whatever we're up to these days), he wanted to clean out some outdated and unnecessary files on the computer system in order to reduce the cost they were paying for data storage. But it turns out that it was cheaper to rent the data storage for years and years than for the geophysicists to spend their time going through and figuring out which files to keep and which to delete. Which just proves how much storage out there and how cheap it is. Either that or that geophysicists are overpaid. Or both.