Just forget the words and sing along

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Something Old, Something New

Just a little piece of Microsoft clipart
Blogs are for people with little to do, and even less to say - Author Unknown.

Back in 2001, I was reading this advice columnist in the Edmonton Journal by the name of Caroline Hax. The letter she received was from a young woman who went on a couple of dates with a guy, he mentioned he had a blog, she read that blog, and was now totally creeped out by that guy. Hax's advice? "Dump him immediatly. Anyone who keeps a blog is an attention-starved loser." Those are words that have haunted me in everything I do online.

I started this blog back in 2003. I was in Japan at the time, and my laptop crapped out on me. I no longer had a way to update my website. I desired a quick and easy way to maintain my online presence at public terminals, such as the Internet cafes. Back them, maintaining an online presence was very important to me.

Other friends at the time were running blogs on Blogger, so that seemed like the thing to do. And, on a warm April day at Manga Hiroba in the Kumagaya train station, I started Midnight Ramblings.

And my blog has remained largely unchanged...until today. Blogger itself has undergone several changes in the past six years, and my blog template was no longer compatible with the newest and greatest and idiot-proof features at Blogger.

So after mulling it over for a few months, today I bit the bullet and upgraded my template. Of course, I then heavily modified it to resemble the old template as much as possible.

And he we are! A new blog layout, as I'm about to start my seventh year of blogging.

2 comments:

Kenten said...

Seven YEARS of blogging?? Wow. Amazing. I wouldn't have even guessed that I've known the word "blog" for half that time, but I guess it's true... Congrats! And the new template looks nice.

I still check this page every day, by the way. One of the few that I do. cbc.ca, imdb.com, and the Chaos in a Box blog. That's it.

Mark said...

Actually, if you consider "Chaos in Print" to be my first blog -- and I kinda do -- then we're actually nearing the end of my 11th year.