Saturday was a busy day

Hence this late installment of the Saturday-8: “My Written Life”

1. How many times have you changed your blog/journal/diary URL so far? Any reason for each “moving”?

   I created the Hill-Kleerup.org domain some time ago, so that hasn’t changed. When I started with blogger, I was at an index.html, then added DotComments so I had to change to index.php, but with the change to MT last December I went back to .html.

   So, regardless, I just use the directory, www.hill-kleerup.org/blog/.

2. How do you feel when someone left a nasty message in your guestbook/tag-board? What do you usually do to that kind of person?

   I don’t know that has ever happened. No doubt due to the intelligence and discernment of the folks who visit here.

   As to what I’d do if it did happen, it would depend. The Historian in me would prefer to leave in place the idiocy of the person posting, so long as it didn’t encourage other yahoos.

3. What is the blog/diary/journal you read most often lately? (URL, please) Why is it so interesting?

   See the Link List o’ Most Read Folks to the left. Probably most frequent is Doyce’s Bear-Cave/Falling Down blog, both because it’s a damned fine read and because he sometimes mentions me in it, and it’s all about me, man.

4. Do you really read your past entries/postings often? Why and why not?

   I sometimes do when I refer back to something I’ve blogged before. And I’ve been doing a lot of rereading related to importing all my old Blogger entries. And I expect to do so on occasion once DDTB hits one year old next month.

5. What things can make a blog/journal/diary so boring? And we all know, that even though we keep saying that we write whatever we want to write, sometimes there are thing we want to write but we don’t because of “this-and-that” things, those “unwritten” laws. Personally, what are they, you think?

   I write this blog for my own entertainment. Well, and also to entertain others. Damn.

   What don’t I blog about?

   – Topics I don’t think I can contribute anything new to.
   – Topics that bore me.
   – Topics that might get me in legal trouble.
   – Topics that would betray a confidence.

   I blog things I will want to remember in the future. And things I think people might want to see today.

6. How important is the layout for a blog/journal/diary? Where or who do you run to when you need some HTML help? (URL, please)

   Content is more important than layout. That said, there are some layouts that are so ugly, or, worse, badly organized that it’s difficult to get to the content. And if the content is marginal, the blog is not likely to stay on my list.

   When I need HTML help, I hit the web first, usually via Google (though I have a few Favorites I hit. I may post them sometime).

7. What is the latest trend in the blogland/diaryland? Do you always keep up with the dynamic life or the change there?

   (I always read that as “dairyland,” which makes me think of cows.)

   Hmmm. Blogchalking would seem to be the latest specific meme. Personality Tests (“You are … the Industrial Revolution!”) seem to be on a downward trend (much to some of my readers’ relief). Daily Q&A’s seem to be still on the upward trend. Have I mentioned how fine the Thursday Thumb-Twiddler is as an example of this?

   I don’t hop on every trend. Just the ones that interest me.

8. What is more important for you: your privacy or your freedom to write? Explain.

   Okay, add to the list of topics I don’t blog about things that are too private to warrent blogging about them (my Mom reads this blog, fergoshsakes).

   I realize I forgo a certain amount of privacy here in what I write. So I try not to write anything that I wouldn’t want up on the World Wide Web. Duh. Nothing that would attract an employer’s attention (present or future). Nothing actionable. Nothing that would unduly embarrass family or friends.

EXTRA: How much you depend on writing your blog daily? Do you miss something if you couldn’t write for quite some times? Do you think you will write forever, or you will only write until you’re “delivered” from the current situation (confusion, sadness, depression) you are facing right now, or if your “searching” is over?

Nothing is forever. I don’t see myself stopping any time soon, though. I suppose if all the sources I read dried up, I might throw in the towel, but I didn’t start this up for any temporary therapeutic purpose. And it’s become useful enough both as an outlet and as a chronicle (not to mention a way to communicate with friends and family) that I’m not likely to give it up in the forseeable future.

Beyond that … is not forseeable, is it?