Category: blogging

Beautiful, tragic and amazing.

More Blogger Insider fun. I have no idea how I’ll match the questions Mike got last time.

I signed up for blogger insider, and this is my first cycle. The questions this time are from Ellie, in Massachusetts (and fine questions they are):

Are Macs really better than PCs?

I think they’re better for certain things. I like the fact that you know what hardware’s going to be in them, and I think that makes programming for them easier. I like PC’s for the Wild West-ness of them. My brother and I just put a new machine together for me, made out of all brand new parts we bought at half a dozen sites. You could never do that with a Mac and think it will work. I like Macs for their dependability and Apple’s design sense. I like PCs for their expandability, price and flexability.

What’s the cutest thing your son has ever done?

He recently learned to talk, and has started speaking in short sentances. His new favorite word is “hello”, but instead of just saying it, he says it like a little gameshow host, “Hel-LOOO!” It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

Do you have any regrets about college?

That I didn’t go back. I wish I would have finished. I don’t think it would have helped my much in my current job, but it would have given me a better foundation so I wouldn’t have had to learn a lot of what I know from scratch.

What is your job?

I build search applications for AOL. My largest product is AOL Search, where I do all the frontend work, and a lot of the webserver programming. It’s challenging being the integration piece and the frontend guy at the same time. I have to take a dozen or so different technologies, get them all to talk to me in a way I want, and then present the results to the users. It’s challenging, but a lot of fun.

Do you listen to Sting when he is without the Police?

I think the last album of Sting’s I bought was the one that had Fields of Gold on it. It was a disappointment. His last great solo album was Dream of the Blue Turtles. I borrowed the big Police boxed set from a friend, and I love their early stuff.

Do you like where you live? What keeps you there?

Work keeps me here, but I really like it. We’re close enough to DC that we can go downtown whenever we want without a lot of trouble (other than getting horribly lost), but we live far enough outside that we’re not totally sucked into the politics of the area. Sterling feels like a small town without being all hicky like Mannassas or Leesburg. It’s a nice balance.

Why do you blog? What made you start?

I saw Megnut first, and saw a whole new part of the web. I was fascinated by these incredibly personal sites, and how small groups of sites seemed like “cliques”. It was an interesting world. I started blogging because I realized that after seven years of instant messaging and e-mail, I’ve become a really crappy writer. I wanted to practice, to write well. I want to be able to express myself like Gail or Michael.

What five songs would you put on the soundtrack to your life thus far?

This is a really hard question…

1. Teardrop by Massive Attack
2. Cure for Pain by Morphine
3. Yes by Morphine
4. With a Little Help From My Friends by the Beatles
5. and cheating… anything by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

Would you really dye your hair blue if it went completly gray before you were “old”?

Oh yes. If it completes the transformation before I’m 35, I’m definitely going blue. I already tried Ultimate Blond, which was a lot of fun. Blue’s just a color, and why not make it my hair color?

Have you ever seen Gone With the Wind?

Only pieces. I have this animosity towards the south and melodrama in general. I don’t think I could make it through the whole thing.

Has your life turned out the way you planned?

Oh no. I think that’s because I didn’t have a real concrete plan to begin with, at least no plan with short-term goals. My life is pretty great right now. I love my wife and son. I like my job. I like where I live. Life is good.

first of all, poor Evan. It sucks royally that someone would hack Blogger, which is a free service, and really should be left alone. I hope all the problems are resolved quickly, and whoever did this is caught and punished. So, this update was done manually, and I probably won’t post again until Blogger’s fixed.

The Recap

Christmas was grand. Max was adorable. I’d write more, but I’m still recovering from all the joy and togetherness. And, I just got done doing the trim for the basement. The fam is coming over tomorrow and we’re going to paint the whole thing “Polished Apple” red. Why, you ask? Jen had the cool idea of turning the basement into our own private movie theater. So, we’re going to start by painting the walls bright red, and then adding movie paraphenalia and eventually getting a big-screen TV and a giant sectional. It’ll be peachy-keen.

We also got my new computer together and working! It’s fast and nice and runs a wicked UT.

I also just sent my Blogger Insider questions to young Ellie, my randomly selected interviewee/er. Here are the questions. If you’d also like to answer them, please send them!

1. What’s your favorite thing about living in Massachusetts?
2. Least favorite thing?
3. Will the Red Sox ever get over “The Curse”?
4. How do you think living where you live (or have lived if you’re not from there originally) has shaped your personality?
5. Who introduced you to blogging (ie: which blog did you visit first, was it a friend)?
6. Why do you blog, and what do you hope to gain from it?
7. Which do you prefer, old REM (pre-Monster) or old REM (post-Monster)?
8. If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and where would you eat?
9. What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned about life so far?
10. What’s your favorite thing about College (I’m assuming you’re a freshman)?
11. Least favorite?
12. What’s your favorite comfort food?
13. If you think the milk’s gone bad, do you ask someone else to smell/taste it before you throw it out?

Now, I have to go to bed so I can get up nice and early and paint.

Elise has the greatest links on her site. Through one of them, I found these. I think I need a pair. I’ll make a big underpants kite, go downtown and fly it near the Washington Monument in the spring. Won’t that be lovely?

I’ve been looking at some very well done blog sites lately, and have had cool border envy. I started poking around the source and saw that in most case all these people who have cool borders are using tables! I thought for sure they’d discovered some secret CSS code to use to make things work. Nope, just tables. Since that was no challenge, I decided that I need to do neat-o borders without tables. So, you should now notice that there is only one table on any of the main pages, and it’s just to hold the about me list o’ crap. Pattin’ myself on the back right now, let me tell you.

So, the spur-of-the-moment redesign is done on one page… what do you think?

The webcam is coming, kiddies. Be forewarned. My fat (currently fuzzy) face will soon be plastered all over the site. Yay for webcams! Maybe I’ll go start up camboys or something and become a web celebrity or something. mmmmmmmmm, celebrity.

Dave’s post about the “A-List” got me thinking about the blogs I read that really fall into my own private list. I started out with the people Dave listed, but I’ve since moved on to other people. I think it’s mostly because most of the A-Listers that I read don’t update often enough. So, here’s the KP-List:

• Open Brackets: She’s twitterpated and is probably the best writer among all the blogs I frequent. She can break your heart in a paragraph.
• OddFellow: He has a son a who’s a little older than Max and lives in Texas. His writing always rings true, and a lot of it makes me laugh. He’s the kind of guy I’d hang out with if he lived down the street.
• Jodi: She gets bitten by the “woe-is-me” bug sometimes, but when she’s on, it’s fun to watch. Funny observations about single life in Minnesota.
• Bluishorange: She’s a college student in Texas. She paints a window into a world I don’t know, never knew, and am fascinated by. If she weren’t such a good writer, it would be just another blog, but she’s good, very good.
• The Norm: I know, I know, it’s a comic strip. But, it feels like a blog. Again, it rings true, which is a must-have. Oh, and funny. I like funny.

That’s it. That’s my A-List. I wanted to keep it short. There are a lot of people I left out that I read daily. But, these guys are the ones I check frequently. Is there one thing that sets them apart? Looking over my descriptions, my list is filled with people who are good writers who write the truth. Whether it’s fiction or not, it rings true. They offer a window into their lives and don’t shy away from painful topics. I hope they keep it up.

I only got a 36 on the Blogaholic quiz. Maybe that’s why no one comes here (well, other than the gigantic black hole where the content should be).