WWBA and stuff

My poor, neglected blog.

Don’t have time for a proper update, but for ages I’ve been meaning to point out that I’m now a contributor to the [Waterloo Wellington Bloggers’ Association](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/) group blog. I haven’t figured out how or if I’m going to do cross-posts, but I’ve posted a few things about local stuff.

I’ve also been using Twitter a lot more lately, so [you can read that if you want more of an insight into what’s going on in my head at any given moment](http://twitter.com/flying_squirrel)…

Insomnia

I am very, very tired, but I can’t sleep. What better time than to go ramble on my blog?!

Wa-hey, I have a blog. I keep forgetting. I’ve gotten out of the habit of thinking of things to post.

When I was in highschool, I had this idea in my head that I should really keep a (private) journal, because every once in a while I’d realize that I was framing things that happened to me into narrative, but I never wrote any of it down. I never got around to doing that.

It was actually one of the reasons I first thought it would be a very good idea to get a computer. Because if I had a computer, I could write things down there. My handwriting sucks, and typing out a journal on my typewriter (yes, I had a typewriter) seemed a bit silly.

Like I said, though, I never got around to doing it. Just writing for myself never seemed like enough motivation.

A decade or so later, I decided I could make my homepage more interesting by [posting stories and observations and stuff there](http://web.archive.org/web/19981206031231/www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~dscassel/). And that was nice. And then the whole blogging thing started to happen and I decided to get on-board with that. All because every once in a while I get things in my head that want to get out.

And I still get those, but I’ve never quite managed to get into a consistent routine about getting things out there.

[NaBloPoMo](http://www.nablopomo.com/) actually helped, even though I didn’t quite make it. Apparently they’re making every Mo’ a NaBloPoMo. It’s not [blog365](http://blog365.ning.com/), which seems like a bit of overkill for me, but maybe I’ll take up the challenge again in March or April.

I’ll have to think about it.

I have the stories running through my head, but they’re harder to tell right now. Work is interesting, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get anything out of it. Trying to tell work stories is really hard, because trying to come up with something abstract to talk about that isn’t specifically about what I’m working on, yet isn’t so abstract as to be devoid of any meaning… that’s tough. I’m pretty happy with my personal life, but since another person is involved, I’m a lot more reluctant to talk about it.

Those two things are taking up a sizable portion of my headspace at the moment, so I suppose it’s not too surprising I’m having a hard time writing long dissertations on other stuff.

My brain is going all fuzzy now. I’m tying this in bed on [my new(ish) laptop](http://system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=47). That’s another thing I really should write about. I have things to say! Just not right now.

Maybe if I turn it off I’ll be able to get some sleep…

We’re back

I should leave a quick note to acknowledge that yes, the blog is back. I don’t have time right now to write anything more substantial than that. I managed to kill another motherboard. Somehow. I’m a little bit annoyed that this motherboard wasn’t a crappy old one I got for free. It was supposed to be driving my home theatre PC, one I got around to setting that up. I’ll have to somehow work that set-back into the plans.

I mentioned over on my livejournal during the downtime that I have a whole bunch of things queued up to write about. Still haven’t found the time to write about them. But here’s the list anyway:

* My new old stereo (in short, it’s awesome).
* My back (I have a lot of tension, apparently).
* The gym (I’m actually going).
* Mould (My bedroom window got kinda mouldy).
* Home renovation work (I may be getting a little ahead of myself…).
* The Doctor Who RPG (Anybody want to play?).
* Regular gaming (it’s back! And it starts today).
* Another stupid Facebook post (I probably shouldn’t bother).
* My new laptop (I got it! Despite power management weirdness, I’m very happy).
* Torchwood (I should watch the first episode first).
* Nodame Cantibile (really cute anime I started watching).
* etc.

So yes, I’m back. A real update should happen soon. Ish. Soon-ish. When I have time.

NaBloPoMo 2007 Final Status: Fail

I was doing pretty well up until the last week too…

Ah well, maybe next year. Actually, I kinda want to try WriMo again next year. We’ll see what’s going on with stuff, I guess.

What it came down to, basically, was the stuff I was spending most of my time thinking about is stuff I’m very reluctant to post out in public like this, and the stuff that I could post about was losing out on processing time to the other stuff. The goal, however, was to get myself to write even when I didn’t feel like writing, so that excuse doesn’t really wash.

Ah well.

I was enjoying it while I was doing it, though. I’ve still got a few posts I wanted to write but never did. There’s also that whole unresolved laptop thing that is just as unresolved for me, too. And I never told you what happened when I went to the gym. I’ll save telling those stories for when they have satisfying conclusions.

For now, though, I am tired and should go to bed.

The Vagaries of PageRank

I was mentioning to Matt very late at Denny’s in Belleville that Google wasn’t giving my blog a whole lot of love. I’d supposed that was probably because nothing actually links to it, but he suggested that I try [Google Webmaster Tools](http://www.google.com/webmasters) and see if there’s a problem with the crawler. (Matt’s generally more up on web stuff than I am these days. My web skills have atrophied a bit).

It turns out there was nothing wrong with the crawler; nothing actually links here.

I figured, though, that I could possibly take advantage of my (considerably depleted) influence on the webs and put up some links.

I finally put up a link from [my homepage](http://darcy.flyingsquirrel.ca/), something I’ve been really reluctant to do. But I figured, what the hell? At the moment, I’m less embarrassed about the blog than I am about the homepage.

I also figured I’d slip in a sly link onto the [Abslom Daak](http://www.dalek-killer.net) site. It was then that I realized that I let the domain name expire. For two months.

Oops.

Fortunately, I was still able to renew it. So that was nice. That’s the only site where I have any pagerank at all (and probably quite a bit less now). *\*sigh\**

Anyway, I think I’m going to make a project out of redoing the homepage sometime in the near future, to make it a bit more professional and a bit less 1996 university student.

Also, I wouldn’t be offended by a link to the blog (or the homepage) if you’ve got a site somewhere. (Also, I know of at least one person who’s linking to my livejournal when he should really be linking to [the blog](http://www.flyingsquirrel.ca/). I’ll probably have to pester him in person, rather than leaving a parenthetical note at the bottom of a blog post…)