Cyberspace
who let the mice out?
Feb 18th
Just a quickie post because stuff’s hectic at the moment despite it being half-term and awesomely fun. Don’t worry, I’ll elaborate on that in the next post…
…but eh, I might as well do what I came here to do.
Note – bittersweetcheese (or BSC as I like to shorten it) is the birthday present I got for him that I was referring to previously. And yes, my dear bro picked the name out himself.
uncanny whammy
Jan 29th
Over the years, blogging is something I’ve sorta developed a love-irk (not love-hate; hate is too strong) relationship with. While it was something I looked forward to doing every now and then in the early years (we’re talking 2005-ish here), real life took over – though not entirely. There were bigger fish to dry than to spend hours tweaking errors on a blog post.
To me, when I started out, it was sacrilege to post just 1-2 lines of content in a post. (That’s what IM – and in recent years, microblogging at Tumblr – is for.) I guess it must’ve been the mentality I had: “if you have a visitor, don’t give some half-baked crap for them to glance at. Let them have some juicy content to pore over.”
In retrospect, it’s perhaps a bit too taxing to do on a regular basis. So I spoke to a couple of other people IRL, who agreed that maybe posting more often, but tailoring post sizes to something moderately/medium-sized may suit me better. Meaty enough so that people have enough to take in; but not sooooo jam-packed that a “below-the-cut” (i.e. “read the rest of this entry”) link is required. I find that may just click better with my thought processes; after all, another reason I’ve left this place pretty quiet is because my brain tends to work like this:
- Have random idea for post.
- Spend forever trying to think of how best to present/phrase said post.
- Take too long that said post would be awfully old news by the time it got out (I’d be blogging about an event that happened 3 months ago – exciting a few days after it happens; but kinda “bleh” aeons after.)
- Feel slightly frustrated with myself.
- Repeat cycle.
It’s a darn shame; and the reason why my mum keeps telling me to “gather my thoughts” all the time. It’s also why I tend to find writing [exam] essays tedious (thankfully, I haven’t got anything below an A – touch wood.)
So I guess it’s time for me to take a leaf outta my brother Jerry’s book – who, by the way, is a very entertaining writer in my opinion. Short (or moderate) and snappy is how he works.
Let’s see how it goes – I’ll re-evaluate in a month.
where’s that wand when you need it?
Nov 3rd
Believe me; if there were a quick fix to help my ailing, outta-date HTML/PHP/Wordpress knowledge, I would’ve used it by now.
Sadly, there isn’t; but there IS an alternative – pinching a free template to use on your site. Even the simple act of using a premade WP theme isn’t so simple after all; especially when you’re using one like this that has widgets and whatnot. For the record, since YM.net was launched in 05, I had NEVER touched the “Widgets” tab in my Wordpress dashboard. And now I’ve suddenly discovered that widgets make life a WHOLE lot easier…but not before you “suffer” first – in the form of having to code your layout meticulously so that it’s widget-ready. Flip.
Gee, the amount of work that must’ve gone in this…the same amount that I’d much rather spend on bumming around, now that I’m an A-level student. xD
Doesn’t mean that I haven’t made a few tweaks here and on Surrealle (like I mentioned in the post before.) Some stuff that’s happened, for a start…
YM.net
- Spring-cleaned blogroll
- Gotten rid of some pages, edited others
- Plans to rewrite some preexisting pages; after all, some of them were written back in 05/06, when I was 14. I’m 17 now, and tend not to use some of the “right-way-round” smilies anymore (like ^_^, for instance.) Actually, I don’t use smilies as much now.
Surrealle
- Fished for ALL my previous design works to “file” them neatly
- Started work on new page layout
And just to prove that I -am- working on that new layout, here you go!
