Does it ever seem like somehow, without anyone planning it, blogging just sort of ended?

I look over the list of blogs I generally follow (almost to a one they're friends blogs, though some only after I began to follow as a reader), and on by one, they're quitting, going on extended hiatus, moving, or just sort or dying of attrition.

Is it just my circle? Have we just sort of all spent our wad, as it were, all at the same time? Or is it everywhere?

Maybe a wave just crested; to mis-quote Hunter S Thompson, maybe we're at that place where the wave finally brakes and rolls back.

Or maybe we're just all too busy; we've built a debt of wasted time and now we need to pay, working harder for all the time we spent blogging about the work were were not getting done.

I'm not sure what it is; but it seems to be going on everywhere.

Maybe it's that we're so over-saturated with outlet. Facebook, myspace, meebo, bebo, flickr, fetlife; twitter and jaiku and plurk and pownce, orkut and friendster, okcupid, adult-freind-finder, livejournal, and a hundred more college boys are hacking up now.

We have so many places to talk about ourselves, that no one can ever find each other; and when we do, who can read it all?

Or maybe it's me; maybe I'm just tired of reading and not writing. Because, egotist that I am, I cannot read a blog when comments are off, cannot browse a forum unless I'm signed on to post. Maybe my own failure of output deadens my desire for input.

Yet, still, I see blogs ending all around me, writers closing doors vocally or silently. It means something, even if I'm not sure what.

What's interesting, though, is that I suddenly feel motivated to create. And I know, this time, exactly why. Several friends from other sites have, lately, happened upon my fiction; and their interest, their feedback, sparks my desire, sparks my writer's voice. I remember why i did this.

I've never been that kind of artist who creates for the act of creation, then destroys of gives away. I've never been the un-signed artist who leaves beauty scattered behind. I create, simply, because it feels so very good to give that gift to someone. It is, almost exactly, like the engendering orgasm; that moment of power, control. I am, completely and utterly, in control of your pleasure and pain, and I see/feel/hear it.

It isn't simply the joy of creation; it's the joy on control, the joy on causing joy.

I like to think, given the tools, and the solitude, I would create. Mountain top, or dungeon cell, or lonely island, I would create to create. But in truth I wouldn't. I'd do what I've been doing the last two years; I'd start, and then I'd start again, and then I'd start again, and never finish. Creating for no one is masturbation with no orgasm, it's cooking food no one will eat.

Art should be for arts sake, we like to say, but I cannot find my creativity there. I find it in my audience.

My hope - and it may be in vain, because time is never on my side these days - is that an audience of only one, may be enough.

Who knows, though. Maybe flood-gates will open, not just for me but for all of us. Maybe we just need something to write about.

It's funny, I'm suddenly seeing a resurgence it hits in my logs, on "survivor am naked", which I think we can all agree is a worthy sight.

Now, these never really went away; they'd turn up monthly or so, proving that america loves a naked,fake-breasted lesbian, no matter how long she's been gone from reality teevee. But when it was announced that she'd be in the currently-running Survivor: Fans vs Faves, the hit count went up, and is still going up.

Which is ok by me, even though I never actually posted the above-mentioned titty shots of Miss Survivor Ami.

But this brings us to the topic of Search Word Poetry (or as originally coined, Googl-oetry, though I don't like that term, being that it can be from any search engine, not only google).

The idea's simple; dig out the search-strings that brought readers to your blog from whatever logs and meters you may choose (urchin, sitemeter, whatever).

Use those phrases to create your own poetry.

Vis:

tell me more about the devil, who is he? catholic ron paul? polish guy and catholic in a boat joke? phone numbers to recorded preachers? bitch phone number? pastor melissa scott sex life?

     --Exterminator

Aphrodite’s Greatest Failure:
How sexuality is viewed across religions,
Catholic churches view on premarital
Religions who allow sexuality.
Most men are by nature perverted -
The result of secret sin.
     --the chaplain

weird photos of naked girls
let's see some women with nice asses that like sex
girls fuck with fruits
     --greta christina

gay crack head
morphine
subbing for algebra with kids that won't be quiet
i hate texas
     --circe

Now, I wish to hell I was more a poet and could do what these lovely citizens have done. Because god knows I get some good search terms:

tentacle rape
soccerboy rape
butch daddy erotica
daddy fuck me harder
my neighbor sucked my balls her mouth
girls doing a snowball blowjob
best busty chocolate blow jobs
extrem big woman trampling
shoes kiss trample video
awk machine gun
how to roast a pig cinder block
chicken and pig, breakfast
roasting pig in virginia
i have a crush on adam duritz
question cross ring womens indian larry
perfect, lamar thought. just incest and old men with young girls fucking porn perfect
ass fucken sex
fuck me hard art
squid fuck
fucking tarzan
air stewardess fucked
spicy labia fucking images
tuna skroodle
sex skunked
naked taiko drummers
local loop call bugging beeping noise
virgin digital exercise your music muscle
titanic engine size
licked the scotch off her tits
she moaned car tits thrust show
jessi combs belly tattoo
jessi combs thong picture
pussy tattoos
moomin tattoo
what movies do maggie gyllenhaal get naked in
bars over eyes
starch and iodine leaks threw the bag results
my hand slid under her dress
hand in her panties
drenched panties
silky panties photos women pubic hairs
picked up her panties and stuffed them in her mouth as a gag

But you know, I just can't seem to make it all turn into poetry.

So two things:

1) go do your own and post it
2) if you get inspired by any of the above, post your result in my comments

Because someone has to make art out of all this, even if it isn't me.

You may have noticed we're having some server instability around here; comments disabled for various moronosphere-hosted blogs, server not responding, etc.

For those of you I host, you'll have seen it as well when you try to post.

We're working on it. We have several small problems that are adding up to a systemic pain-in-the-ass, and solving these issues has more to do with bandwidth (ours, ie, time to work on it) than with any seriousness of the problems.

Fixes should be in place soon, though we may have some downtime somewhere in the next week or two while we update things. I'll post warnings before that happens.

Rands In Repose has written a frighteningly, hysterically accurate piece called The Nerd Handbook.

"Understand your nerd’s relation to the computer. It’s clichéd, but a nerd is defined by his computer, and you need to understand why.

First, a majority of the folks on the planet either have no idea how a computer works or they look at it and think “it’s magic”. Nerds know how a computer works. They intimately know how a computer works. When you ask a nerd, “When I click this, it takes awhile for the thing to show up. Do you know what’s wrong?” they know what’s wrong. A nerd has a mental model of the hardware and the software in his head. While the rest of the world sees magic, your nerd knows how the magic works, he knows the magic is a long series of ones and zeros moving across your screen with impressive speed, and he knows how to make those bits move faster.

The nerd has based his career, maybe his life, on the computer, and as we’ll see, this intimate relationship has altered his view of the world. He sees the world as a system which, given enough time and effort, is completely knowable. This is a fragile illusion that your nerd has adopted, but it’s a pleasant one that gets your nerd through the day."

Read the whole thing. If you're reading this blog, you almost certainly are that nerd, or live with that nerd, or have at least dated that nerd. You know exactly what Rand is talking about.

(Thanks to my dear, sweet Merrick for sending that to me!)

One of my favorite bloggers, and one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, Chelsea Girl (of Pretty Dumb Things) was recently interviewed by Susie Bright.

The interview is fabulous and could have gone on twice as long - click here to listen.

Turns out, in addition to being brilliant, she also has an incredibly sexy voice. The kind of voice I'd pay to hear whisper my name, if you get what I'm sayin.

Ok, i got tagged on this one (lifts shirt to show indecipherable spray-paint marking).

I don't usually respond to the tag kinda meme (nor dares neither), but a meme that came from susie bright, in which she tagged two of my very favorite girl-sex-bloggers (bitchy and chelsea) is simply hard to say no to.

Or maybe it's just that BJ and CG are both impossible to say no to.

In any case, here are the rules:

1. Post these rules before you present the facts.
2. Start with eight random facts/habits about yourself.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

But the game seems to have taken on '6. ...and then change the rules'.

So I'm gonna flip CG's meme and give you seven true, and one not. See if you can pick the one.

1) My feet are different sizes; really different sizes. I care just barely wear a pair of shoes, and one's always too big or two small.

2) I once got a blowjob from one of the bridemaids at a wedding, while her husband was inside drinking shots with my friends.

3) I have a half sister I didn't know about until I was in my 20s. I kind of wish I'd met her without knowing who she was so - well, you can finish that story for yourself.

4) Despite the fact that I don't smoke pot, I still own a bong that is made up of roughly eight feet of plexiglass tubing and five feet of rubber hose.

5) I've bought drinks for Todd Rundgren, talked about tropical fish with Tom Waits, and almost saw Heather Locklear get pantsed by her daughter.

6) I once fucked a teenage girl in a catholic church.

7) The first time I got high it was weed I'd stolen from my parents.

8) I have a hunk of cat claw embedded in my left cheek.

Have fun. I won't tag anyone else but if you steal, steal well.

Due to an unexpected schedule change, The Moronosphere and all it's related blogs and domains will be moving to a new physical server this week. Not the best timing for me, personally but I live here by the good grace and generosity of my friend Brandon, and so I am grateful even if a bit frazzled.

What all this means is that this site may unexpectedly vanish for a day or so while we change ip addresses; comments may cease to work while databases are moved.

If that happens, don't worry; being a fly-by-night sort of operation, we're flying-by-night (oh god stop me from quoting a rush song). Things should stabilize by next week, on bigger, better, faster hardware.

EDIT: The error below was my fault, i fucked up the install. On a second try I got it right.

They've fixed quite a few bugs, which is good, though the interface problem remains un-addressed. So it is progress, if not in the interface.

Six-Apart have released a new beta (beta 2) - which doesn't work at all, won't even load (click the image below to see a beautiful error message):

They did admit there are some issues with the completely bolloxed up interface; they 'solved' this by combing two obscure pulldowns into one obscure pulldown, while not seeming to see the core problem of hiding all the frequent tasks behind pulldowns and page loads.

[sarcasm] and there was much rejoicing[/sarcasm]

They really don't get it; but at least i finally got noticed and responded to by the people at Six Apart. They're not stupid, so the question is only, will they get what they did wrong or will they keep trying to band-aid a death-wound. It's about a coin-flip on that one right now.

And now, a geek interlude.

(mmm. 'ludes.)

I run this blog (and those I support) on Movable Type. I know there's a vast, imaginary religious war between WordPress users and Movable Type users, though in fact my loyalty to Movable Type has more to do with my expertise in the tool (I can put together an MT blog from scratch, including a download and most major plugins in about five minutes).

In any case, being a major geek, i always get excited when there's a major new version of a tool I use. I check every damned day for updates on when ecto3 is coming out, for example.

Yesterday, Brandon told me that MT4 had just entered Beta. And even though I'm way too busy to work on something like this, I still had to go download and install it.

There are a billion new features. It really looks, in a lot of ways, like they've merged the best of vox and typepad with MT. Reading about all they've added and fixed, i'm loving the product.

But then I actually used it.

I just wanted to say happy birthday to my dear friend Doxy. I don't think she even dwells in the blogosphere anymore so I doubt she's reading, but still, she's one of those people who should be celebrated.

Here's to ya, Girl.

Well, I'm suddenly up on 25peeps.

No, not those peeps, 25peeps.

I have no idea why. But go 'head and click me, early and often.

EDIT:

Well, 25peeps, which started out as a great idea (put up your face and see who clicks you and goes to your blog) has already degenerated into a farm for T&A and splogs. That didn't take long. Pretty much any pic that ain't T&A gets pushed off right quick.

...maybe if I posted an up-kilt shot?

Anyway, I thought about re-upping but fuck 'em.

I just noticed that my third blogiversary is coming up; middle of this month.

Jan 15, 2004, as a lark, I posted my first blog entry. My friend Jen had offered me hosting space for a domain I owned; I just wanted a place to park the name, and maybe a few pages of storage.

Want a blog, while we're at it? she asked me. And I figured, hell why not, though I've nothing to say and no one's gonna read it.

So, on a sunny california mid-january day in '04, I sat down and asked that question that almost every new blogger asks - why am i doing this?

Three years later, and I still don't know the answer to that. But I do know that I was wrong, and people are, for some unknown reason, reading.

The phrase Long, Strange Trip comes to mind.

Thus, on Jan 15th, I'll celebrate three years. And I expect you all to celebrate with me, taking a sip or a hit or a snort or a swallow of your favorite poison, and touching yourself or someone else (or, you know, me, if you can reach that far) in the most indecent way possible. Show me some dirty love, people.

I spend far too much time looking at web stats.

I know who hits from where, when - for most of my regular readers, anyway. I know who's in NYC and who's in DC; who's in NO and who's in what part of TX; I know who's on the peninsula and who's in KC and who's in AZ; I know who's in belgium, who's in the UK and who's in the Great White North.

There are a few that puzzle me though.

For example - who's that in Beverly Hills? I've seen you here a few times.

Who's the reader in San Jose, CA, who was reading my decmeber archives for almost an hour today?

Who's the one on Irvine who spent three hours on my writing blog?

Who are the people who visit from strange places and never say a word? A blogger has to wonder. When readers slip in and out almost silently, leaving only a hit counter's trace behind, who are they?

I dunno what the hell zlist is but i seem to be #18 on it (or something like that). So, you know, go click the up arrow and make me #1.

I'm thinking of doing a major blog re-design.

I'm aces at the movable type template/plugins etc, but i sort of suck ass at graphic design (when I say suck ass, I mean in a bad way). So i need someone who can work with me on this who sorta gets movable type templates and who gets my aesthetic.

Anyone interested?

What I got in mind is something akin to this; with a color palate and design based on classic old school tattoo flash. I want to keep something similar to the general layout i have now (i have too damned many links to do two columns), but with a re-vamped (and maybe easier-on-the-eyes) color scheme. I actually have a shirt that looks really similar to the color/design feel i want (click for a full-size view):

If you're interested in helpin' me out, let me know.

I was trying to temporarily replace my current blog layout with something halloweeny (weenish? something like that), you know, black and orange with silly-scary lettering.

I figured, you're home sick on halloween rather than out putting the trick in trick or treat, you might as well at least tart up your blog in halloween finery (cheapery?).

But i ran into some trivial technical problem and with grouchy-sick-guy patience, i said fuck this and gave up. What's the point in decorating when you're not even blogging, sez I.

Still. I think i need to change the look of this place. Out with teh piracy, in with the tattoo flash, or something.

You may notice some adverts here and there around the m'sphere.

Which ain't exactly piracy, but you know, you do what 'ya gotta.

I'm tryin' this out after helping a hot and lovely friend research ads. They may not stay, we'll see what i get in the way of filthy lucre.

A sex-blogger friend 'o mine needs to get some advertising revenue coming in from her blog; I of course know very little about getting ads set up on a blog, particularly when it's a blog of the adult variety.

Anyone out there know much about this? I have no idea where to get started, between the mainstream ad sources (Adsense, the built-in ad system on typepad, etc) and adult ad providers.

I need words of wisdom on where to start with it. Actually getting the ads working is cake, but I dunno where to start with rounding up advertising for a blog with adult content.

I have to give ChelseaGirl some deep, wet kisses for pointing me to this site; the oddly named gentle indifference.

"A compact disc-length compilation of relevant music from each calendar year dating back to 1960. Updated every Monday."

I just pulled down 1968:

1. All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix - 4:00
2. White Room - Cream - 4:57
3. Piece Of My Heart - Big Brother & The Holding Co - 4:14
4. I Say A Little Prayer For You - Aretha Franklin - 3:36
5. The Way Young Lovers Do - Van Morrison - 3:18
6. I Heard it Thru Grapevine - Marvin Gaye - 3:10
7. I Wish It Would Rain - Temptations - 2:53
8. The Weight - The Band - 4:33
9. Mrs. Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel - 3:50
10. Stand By Your Man - Tammy Wynette - 2:41
11. Israelites - Desmond Dekker - 2:36
12. Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud - James Brown - 3:02
13. Everyday People - Sly and the Family Stone - 2:22
14. Days - The Kinks - 2:52
15. For Once in My Life - Stevie Wonder - 2:50
16. La La Means I Love You - Delfonics - 3:23
17. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James & The Shondells - 5:28
18. With A Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker - 4:55
19. Jumping Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones - 3:44
20. Hey Jude - The Beatles - 7:02
21. (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding - 2:45

Which you can download here (Sorry, it's sendspace - i don't like sendspace but these mixes make it worth the trouble).

Even if you don't download them, these are fantastic playlists. They're pretty much all must-have songs from each year.

I've got bza's mixes from 1970-1973, and just pulled down '66-69. And I have to say, to a one they're all brilliant. Alas, he doesn't keep the others available for download so I can't get the post-73 ones; I'd love to see what he's got for the late '70s and the 80s. But oh-my-god are the ones I have great. Keep on going, bza, these fuckin' rule.

I just upgraded my MT install to MT 3.3 Beta 2. Which isn't, I guess, truly bleeding edge, but I like the phrase bleeding edge.

If anyone has troubles, let me know. This new MT version has some cool features, I'm only just starting to play with them.

Update - The MT 3.3 Beta has been released.

I encourage MT users to get on board and help test - I'd like to see this release go GA shortly, it's got some REALLY cool features. I'm not planning to upgrade this-here space yet (not 'til they get to at least beta version 2 or 3), but it's looking pretty solid in my beta-testing blog and I've seen no major bugs yet.

SixApart are about to start a beta test of Movable Type 3.3.

The plan as of now is to install that here - maybe not the day it comes out, but shortly after. I'll likely (If I have time) install 3.3 as a separate installation first to drive it around and see what's different. If any of you-all who have m'sphere blogs are interested, I'll point you to it.

I have not seen a change list to see what they've added, but I'm hoping it's 1) good stuff and 2) doesn't break anything.

While I think MT is the best bloging platform out there, I'm not sure how confident I am in SixApart these days; they seem like they're letting things get away from them on TypePad and of course they're spending cycles supporting LiveJournal, which is possibly the worst blogging platform around, if the one with the largest customer base. I'm hoping they get control of that shortly.

Blogrolling is down today, for those who use it.

http://news.blogrolling.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/5/2008115.html

Please note that blogrolling.com is curerntly down for maintenance reasons. We have been experiencing technical issues with the database and have to take down the entire service in order to repair the problem in a quick fashion.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Seems like it's back, finally. I'm no big fan of blogrolling but it's still the only one that does 'recently updated' links correctly. For everything else, MTBlogRolling is a better choice.

The lovely and talented ChelseaGirl pointed some of her fleshbotty traffic my way with a link; only I've not had much to say lately.

If you folks got here following her link, go look here for my small catalog of written expression.

--

...And now CG's entry on writing has been picked up by (the lovely and talented) Bacchus from Erosblog, and so I'm getting even more hits. So if you're looking for the story CG mentioned, that's here, in it's pre-edit form; the erotic novella Wanton.

So thanks Bacchus as well as CG!

Evidently I've not only stopped blogging but stopped communicating almost completely. Even my mother just asked me if she'd pissed me off, and she's never said anything like that to me, ever. I'm certain there's a list of people who are likewise wondering if I'm angry, or who are angry with me.

Mea Culpa. I'm sorry. It's been a weird week or so. I'm trying to settle down and write something, anything. The words slip through my grasping fingers like eels.

He is called the human nest-egg
Is known as Prince of Leaves
He is hidden now but you can see
The bubbles where he breathes
He has mastered all the hard things
And is difficult to shock
Has a muscle on the bottom
Which attaches him to the rocks
     --Shriekback, New Man

I didn't really plan it but I seem to have taken some sort of break from blogging. I look back at my last couple weeks of entries and find that even though there are a few posts, they're free of content. And since last weekend I've had nothing whatsoever to say, not even able to write apart from a couple current-eventss notes.

I don't know if this is the end of taking a break or just the beginning. But I know I still have nothing to say.

So. Let's just call this a blog break and see what happens.

Cats foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoias poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Death seed blind mans greed
Poets starving children bleed
Nothing hes got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Happy Birthday to m'man Ray.

Love ya like a brother, man. Have a good day. Eat until you fuckin' bust.

Because I'm just that sort of friend, Doxy, I forgot yesterday was your birthday.

I keep tellin' people, I'm an asshole.

Anyway, a big moronosphere shout-out to Doxy. Happy Birthday, baby. You seem to have stopped blogging again, but I'm hope you're havin' a fine ol' day of it.

It also seems to be Gina's (mrs Ray) birthday.

So mid-april spankings all round.

I just found a trick at LMT to make author comments show up differently than comments from the peanut gallery.

I tried this out yesterday in Hiromi's blog (which worked out pretty well) so today I added it to my blog.

Still tuning but I think it's pretty cool, it make it clear which comments are author replies; not that useful here but really useful for Hiromi, who is the queen of comments. I'm still tweaking around with her comments over there to get the best display but I'm likin' the way it works out.

(This is what I do when I'm sick - that cold I was fighting all last week finally won, and I feel like crap. Which I just typo'd as 'feel like carp', which may be how I feel, like a fuckin' carp.)

I just wanted to give a nod to the lovely and talented ChelseaGirl who's celebrating her one year BlogDay anniversary with an all-day house party.

And I wanted to point to what I made for her, a little bit of erotica called Chelsea, which wasn't bad for being written under the influence of tequila.

Happy BlogDay, CG!

Well now. I've been upgraded - or downgraded - or degraded. Or just, you know, graded. Feels like that, or maybe that's more grated, and it feels like that as well.

Secure Computing, the motherfuckers who sell STOOPIDfilter to repressive countries and companies, agreed that I wasn't Pornography, sex.

Evidently I'm Personal Pages, Profanity, with a side of Personal, Mature.

Well, fuck yeah. That's me. The Moronosphere, ProfanityBlog.

Because we're all about the effword here.

Maybe it's mature that bothers me more. Who you callin' fuckin' mature? We ain't got no fuckin' maturity here. Not a sausage. Not a drop. Not a fuckin' cc, baby.

I guess the point is that the people at Secure Computing listen if we complain, but they still do the wrong thing and slap a fucking label on something they don't get.

I'll have to see if we're still banned in the fuckin' UAE. They're not allowed pornography, let's see if they're allowed to read the effword.

I finally figured out why some of my friends can't get to my site from their places of employment, and why my friend Arvind, the brilliant young developer of MtBlogRoll, can't get to my site at all from the United Arab Emirates.

Moronosphere.com is on the SmartFilter blacklist. I'm listed as a "Pornography" site and a "Sex" site; which means that any company or nation that's decided to babysit users like nursery-school kids find we're too evil for tender little eyes. This includes all the sites I host under moronosphere.com, but not sites with their own domains.

You can read about the utter stupidity that is SmartFilter on BoingBoing, who are likewise blocked.

You can check your own sites here:

securecomputing.com/sfwhere/index.cfm

I'm not yet sure if there's any way to get that listing corrected. I'm working on it and I'll post here if I find out.

Satin Slippers - one of the net's best erotic sites, is (temporarily we hope) off line. I'm trying to get details from the People Who Know about if/when it will come back.

This is the site where my stories (Wanton, Man with the Bag, etc) were hosted, though I've got 'em here now.

Darling remember from when you come to me
that I’m the pretender,
I’m not what I’m supposed to be
but who could know, lf I’m a traitor?
time's the revelator, revelator.

          --Gillian Welch, Revelator

I wish I had an mp3 of that song so I could put it up for you to hear, it's beautiful. I only have a m4p version I got from the itunes store and they're not sharable. I'd bitch about that but (looks at paycheck) it's not in my best interest to do so.

Better, I wish I could put up an mp3 of my friend Ken's version of it. Welch's is pretty, but Ken's, with backup by Heather Courtney and (hell, I guess her name is Lyndie Way, but I'm not sure about that). Ken's is intense and passionate. A case where the song writer and the cover artist combine to make something wonderful that the songwriter alone doesn't deliver.

Today marks two years of blogging for yours truly. And as with last year, I feel I should be saying something about it. I failed last year. But I have very very strong feelings about anniversaries, commemorations of dates and events. I remember these things, have marked them on myself with tattoos. I'm the one who says "You know, one year ago today, we met". I already mentioned that this year marks 30 years since my first piercing. So these things matter to me.

In so many ways Welch's lyrics, above, say more about my feelings here than anything I can come up with. I’m the pretender, I’m not what I’m supposed to be.

My long-time readers (um. both of them) know I started this to talk about writing, because I couldn't think of anything else to blog about at the time. I had hoped, after writing Wanton earlier that year, to use this blog to help me hone my writing skill and harness my creativity.

Best Laid Plans and all that. In fact this blog has been something completely other than that. An ego monument, a place to express myself, an anchor around my neck, a listening ear in both good ways and bad. It's gotten me some good friends, though in fact many of them came via orkut, or other sites like the erotica forum where I posted my novella. It's in many ways helped me be more open about my feelings. It's taught me some new technical skills, but it's also given me a huge distraction and time suck.

I don't know, in the end, if this is good for me, or bad. I flip-flop on that weekly, and as I've said, three or four times I've given it up and torn my blog down and said fuck blogging, it's all over. I've written almost nothing since Wanton, only put up two stories (a silly piece about santa and a sex-dream story inspired by a long-ago celebrity crush). I spend more time in a state of writer's block than I spend writing.

It's been an intense two years. I've learned more about love and hurt the last two years than I think I ever knew in my life up 'til that point. In many ways these last two years have encompassed some of my highest highs and lowest lows, and the shock waves from all that will not dissipate for a long while yet. In many ways I found myself these last two years, or let myself be myself, stopped being what other people expected of me.

Maybe the pretender is the shell on the ground behind me. Or maybe I'm fooling myself again and what I'm doing is simply killing time and not doing anything.

In either case, this marks two years in my life where everything changed and yet everything is the same, and I'm the worse for the wear, with new scars inside and out, only some of them self-inflicted.

I feel like I should be proud or angry. Yet all I can manage is sad.

Time's the revelator.

In your eyes I see a thousand lives,
Where do you come from,
Where do you belong.

     --Dave Davies, Where Do You Come From

I look at my logs all the time - because I'm that kinds of guy, part OCD, part detective, part complete geek - who likes to see the man behind the curtain. The kinds of guy who needs to know how it all works.

Anyone with a sitemeter knows what I'm talkin' about, though I also have urchin installed on the server, and run a couple other web-based counters and have in the past used tools like mint to track hits.

But whatever you look at, whatever slice and dice of the data you have, it's still the same shit, who's visiting, when, from where, and how did they get here?

There are several useful, interesting or amusing data points to be had from looking at web server logs.

The one that's usually good for the most mirth is the google search string (and I use the term in the generic sense because we could be talking about hits from yahoo or msn or aolsearch or any one of a hundred other search pages). People search on the silliest, most amazing things, and someone, somewhere has to be collecting it all and will produce novels or art or poetry all based on such things. I look at my log now and see 'wrist and had tattoos', 'dorothy parker', 'dirty stories', 'Everything up 'til the killing will be a gas', and 'pyro junkies'. And that's just one sitemeter page. This can make me giggle any day.

But there are other things that are useful. I get to know certain hits by location. I know who's likely to be getting me from illinois, from eugene oregon. A few from Austin. Certain key spots in Florida. Vancouver. A couple in town here, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose. Key users in europe. Couple buddies in New Mexico and Arizona.

I know who these are by the ISP and the location (not always the location you'd expect, my home IP shows up as coming from a totally different end of silicon valley than I actually live in, something about how the ISP has things configured). I know by (sometimes) browser type, OS. For most of my friends, I sorta know when you've visited. I know partly because you're the ones who hit without a reference from a search engine, or sometimes because you show as referred from your own blog (clicking from your blogrolls).

The ones that I ponder over though, and the reason for this post, are the ones I see regularly whom I don't know. I puzzle over certain entities. Someone who hits me from Sunnyvale CA with an ISP listed as inktomi.com. No idea who you are, but I see you regularly. Hits from San Francisco, or from San Jose. You're not in my mental list of readers I know. Readers in New Zealand. Readers in Texas who are not the usual gang of blogger-freinds (People from Dallas or from College Station). Kent, Washington. Buffalo, New York. Blackpool, Lancaster (I want to say, how's that count of holes coming, but no that's blackburn).

It's funny because I feel like I should know who's reading. I get a lot of hits from some of the strangest places, google and other blogs I'm bloggrolled on, places where someone will link to some entry like my one on jessie combs, or on driving my jeep in a kilt, or my old 'what's fifty-six' entry. Those I understand though. It's the ones who are clearly regular readers, yet unknown that always makes me wonder.

Happy birthday, one (or two Depending on how you count it) late, to TranceJen.

Trance, if you gots and amazon wishlist, let it be known to me.

Happy day, baby. Kisses all over...

I'm talkin bout the man, I'm talkin bout the man
A man called Elvis
U oughta get 2 know him
U oughta try him

(stolen from Prince with no apology whatsoever)

I finally re-created my about me page. When I did my page redesign (with added piracy, thanks to Doxy), I forgot about it and never got around to porting the template over.

The text is mostly from a short bio I sent the j-con organizers when I got picked to be on a panel (alas, I didn't actually make it to j-con, that's how my year's been, plans made and broken a million times). But I liked what I sent them so it lives on.

Anyway, it's linked from the cartoon elvis pic on the left and the about karl elvis section on the right, and includes a bonus kilted-elvis picture (though not a NHT picture).

I love what I find in my sitemeter.

I got hits today on the phrase "Santa's Little Whore".

I love it. C'mere, Santa's Little Whore, wherever you are!

Man, this is cool.

Arvind Satyanarayan and Brad Choate have built a random stylesheet generator for MT. It basically takes the default Vicksburg stylesheet and randomizes the colors (after lettting you choose 1, 2, or 3 columns). It's a great way to preview lots and lots of ready-to-install color combinations (some beautiful, some freaky).

YOu can click away until you get something you like and then download it. You can use it as is or use it as a sample for how to do things with the basic stylesheets.

And mostly it's just cool to click and watch the colors change, man.

Movable Type Random Styler at Movalog

You know, It would be really cool if you could install the randomized on your blog. Not that I'd do it here but some of my other side blogs, it might be fun...

Hey, I got a mention in BoingBoing. Sweet.

Alas, it's because I hipped Cory to the demise of one of my favorite places in the internet, Mashuptown.

My brutha-man Art has been hosting some of the freshest, tastiest mashups around, but the RIAA nazis are on his track. It's a sad day, but I'm still off to buy Mashuptown swag to show the man some support.

Thanks for the mashups, Art.

I love getting a mysterious package in the mail.

Well, unless there are, like, human heads in it. *

I just got this:

From the lovely and talented DarkNeuro.

And my birthday isn't even 'til next week.

* in fact I don't even mind the human heads, if they're nice 'n fresh...

Ok, ok. I give in.

I got tagged by DarkNeuro on this, but I was up to the task of resisting it. And then I got tagged by AAG.

I can resist them one at a time. I can't resist a sandwich, though. [homer] Mmmmm. Sandwich [/homer]

Ok, so it goes like so:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Search the archives for the 23rd post.
3. Find the 5th sentence, or closest to.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas.
5. Tag 5 people to do the same.

Thus:

My 23rd entry. More or less since they're not numbered exactly that way.

The fifth (more or less) sentence: I actually had an erotic dream about someone from Orkut last night.

Here's the funny part. I can't recall who that dream was about. I have some guesses though. Given the date (Mar26 '04), it's not some of the people I'd first guess. Maybe the object of my dream remembers.

Alright then. Tag Five (suddenly a Dave Brubeck tune starts playing in my head). I am tempted to only tag people I know won't play, just to break the chain. But... What the fuck.

So: Panties3, Brutha Ray, Greggg, Trance (who probably won't play), and Doxy (who absolutely won't play).

Play or not. All the same to me, Cats n' Kittens.