Category: metablogging

ad it up

I’m not exactly fired up enough to do anything about it yet, but I am annoyed that WordPress has started adding ads to my blog. Among the sources of irritation is that I don’t know when, exactly, they started adding them. They show up at the bottom of some posts, but they are not visible to me when I am logged in to WordPress. I find this practice somewhat deceitful, as most of the time when I visit my own blog, I am indeed logged in. I think that’s probably the norm for bloggers.

What I see when I am logged in:

no ads

What I see when I am not logged in:

Ads.

I know that there has been fine print places saying that WordPress may put ads on blogs, but for a long time I just thought there weren’t any on mine. It was only a couple of months ago that I started seeing them, on my blog, and on other WordPress blogs that I visit. And now when I go to my “dashboard,” I have the option to buy an option to “upgrade to pro” for $99.00 a year. So if I want to get the ads off, I have to pay about a hundred dollars a year. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

I guess I can understand that WordPress is a business, and they need to make money somehow. I just feel a bit like I’ve been given free samples, and now that I’m a junkie, I have to pay. Plus I have no say over what ads they stick on my blog. So far, the ones I’ve seeen have been innocuous. But can I be assured that they will remain so?

I don’t like ads. One of the appeals to me of WordPress is that it was ad-free, and bloggers aren’t even supposed to add ads. But do I want to pay $99 a year? What are my other options?

So, do you see the ads? If so, when did you first notice them? Did you think it was me who’d put them there? Just curious.

And how do you feel about ads your own blog? Or on other blogs you visit?

Edited to add: I see now that there is an upgrade option just for removing the ads for $29.97 a year. But that still seems steep to me. And irritating.

capitalist dictators

As November approaches, I find myself hankering to join in on that mad month of collective daily blog posting known as NaBloPoMo. I’ve been crazy busy with work and life, but having now participated for 4 years running, I still want to give it a go. The NaBloPoMo headquarters have been relocated from their previous home at Ning to BlogHer. I went to the page where I needed to go to list my blog for the November blogroll, and stopped short.

I found myself very irritated, perhaps unreasonably so, by the instructions “Please enter your blog name, capitalizing the words as you would any title.” The trouble is, I do not capitalize my blog title. My blog title is collecting tokens, not Collecting Tokens. I don’t really mind when people capitalize it, when, say, mentioning me in a post, or listing me on a blogroll. But I do mind being told that I should capitalize it when I list it somewhere.

Putting the title in lower case was a deliberate stylistic choice I made when I started my blog nearly 5 years ago. I can’t exactly say why, but given my Propensity for using Capitalization in a Tongue-in-Cheek way to signal Pomposity and Officiousness (c.f. The Ministry of Silly Blogs, which is decidedly Capitalized), I suspect that I wasn’t feeling all that Serious. This blog, my main blog, is an informal place for me to unload my thoughts, memories, creative outbursts, and so on. The lower case perhaps reflects the lower bar; this site is a work in progress. (For that matter, I also decided on the blogging name of alejna, which, while it bears a striking similarity to my legal first name, is not the same. The stylistic difference is meaningful to me.)

So, I was about to sign up for NaBloPoMo, but I have hesitated. I mean, I hate to look like I can’t follow directions. I am predisposed to Following Directions when dealing with Bureaucracy. But to capitalize my blog name feels just Wrong™.

Here’s the thing: blogging is a new medium. (Well, it may seem old in today’s whirlwind of social media, but it hasn’t been around all that many years.) It is a form of self-publishing that has been revolutionary. Individuals have the power to put their written words out there to reach potentially large audiences without the constraints dictated by traditional printed media. Yes, this does lead to a wide range of writing and grammar skills sharing space on the web. Sure, there may be plenty of downright errors. Spelling errors, word misuse, typos, and all that jazz. Yes, some people could clearly benefit from an editor. But this medium also encourages stylistic liberties. We can choose to boldly split infinitives. Use sentence fragments. Or we can decide to begin sentences with conjunctions. And dammit, we can choose how to capitalize our own freakin’ blog titles.

Looking through my blogroll, I see that I am not alone in my capitalizing choices. Many bloggers have even chosen to further eschew capitalization norms, such as the writers of baggage carousel 4, crib chronicles, Wrekehavoc.com. These three women are well-educated (highly educated, even), intelligent, and fantastic writers. They certainly know how to capitalize according to the style guides. (And my guess is that there are contexts in which they choose to go along with the capitalization norms.) They choose to write without capitalizing their sentence-initial words or first person singular subject pronouns.

Dictating how bloggers should present their blog titles is stylistic prescriptivism that I don’t feel should be part of blogging. If you publish a scholarly journal, by all means tell people how to capitalize and punctuate their section headers. Tell them, if you feel so strongly about it, what font to use and when, exactly, to italicize. But if you are a blogging hub and listing the blogs of many across the diverse blogosphere, respect the stylistic fluidity of the medium. (And dudes, with a name like NaBloPoMo, making an issue out of archaic style guidelines just makes you look Silly™.)

What about you? How do you feel about capitalization? If you have a blog, do you, too, feel that your choice of capitalization is integral to the blog name?

p.s. Having gotten this rant out of my system, I went ahead and just filled out the form. But I used lower case. Because I am a Rebel like that.

nothing to see here

Tiredness seems to have caught up with me, so I should get to bed rather than trying to figure out something to write. (I am a slow writer at the best of times, and when I’m tired, I spend a lot of time just staring at the screen. For example, in the middle of that last sentence, I just stopped and stared for 25 minutes. And it took me another 25 minutes just to type “25 minutes.” If I keep at this, it will be next week before I manage to post this.)

So move along. There’s nothing to see here. (On the other hand, I did finally manage to upload to flickr last night. Over 2 weeks worth of project 365 photos. So there’s something to see there, if you want to move along there.)

Indulge me?

Last summer, WordPress made a change to my blog. They decided to phase out the theme that I had been using happily for several years for my blog, and replace it with a similar looking theme with more bells and whistles. They announced this change ahead of time, sending an email assuring me that I wouldn’t notice any changes to the appearance of my blog.

As it turned out, they overlooked a few differences between the themes, and my formatting got all whacko. One of the things that happened was that most of my sidebar widgets got seriously messed up. I recovered the contents of a few of the widgets, and eventually even put a few new images in the sidebar. Then WordPress realized what they’d done, and automatically restored my widgets, thus leading to some of the contents showing up twice. (If you scroll down, you may notice that my blogroll shows up two times. I haven’t bothered to fix it. How many people scroll down that far, anyhow?)

However, at least one of my widgets seems to have disappeared completely: my list of “favorite posts.” This was a list of links to posts of which I was particularly proud, and which I’d modified a bit over the years. There is still an automatically generated list of my “top posts,” based on frequency of views, but those are generally just ones that get a lot of search engine traffic from people looking for clipart or some such. That list is not really representative of what I consider to be my favorite posts.

So, I wanted to put a list back up. I could probably reconstruct the list myself, but I was wondering if you, as a regular reader or occasional visitor to my blog, could indulge me. Are there any posts that you remember that you feel would be worth highlighting on my front page? Or types of posts that you have enjoyed? Every once in a while, someone has mentioned to me, sometimes days or months after I posted, that they found themselves remembering something that I wrote. This has really meant a lot to me. (Someone remembered what I wrote!) Or if you are new to visiting this place, you could instead tell me what brought you here.

And then I also just want a bit of indulgence. Today is my birthday, and comments in my inbox would make a great gift. [Hint, hint.]

p.s. I also just added something new to my sidebar: a link that goes to a random post. I wonder if you might come across something you like that way. [Hint, hint.]

balancing acts

I have a work deadline tonight, so shouldn’t be blogging this evening. However, I have a few minutes left of my train ride home, so thought I would share this picture I took a few days ago. I also had this wacky idea of trying to post every day this month. And this being the first of the month, it seemed a good place to start with that goal. I’m not sure how all this will fit together, as I have a busy month planned ahead…

forty somethings

In less than two weeks, I’ll no longer be a thirty-something. In anticipation of this transition, I’ve decided to give myself a present. Not a thing, because as I’ve said many times before, I have way too much stuff. What I’ve decided to do for myself instead is to do so some blogging. Because, though you can’t tell by the frequency of my posts (only 2 the whole month of March, and 4 in April!), I still really enjoy blogging. What’s more, I still really like my blog. What I have in mind is to put together 40 posts about things that I like: things I like to do, things I like to eat, things I like to see, and categories of things that I like to categorize.

There won’t be any particular order, nor will there be any strict time limit. I just want to write some of the posts that have been rattling around in my head since I started this blog over 4 years ago, and write about some things that make me happy. (And if I don’t get up to 40 by the time I hit my 41st birthday, then I’ll just shoot for 41 things.)


I wanted to put some sort of photo in this post, but spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out which. Here are some pomegranate seeds on the palm of my hand. I took this photo a couple of years ago.

because I felt like I should toss something up here

Hey. Remember how I used to write stuff and post stuff here all the time? Like more than twice a month? Yeah, me too. That was cool.

I haven’t left, though. Well, actually, I did go on a trip, and come back. I went to Colorado for a cousin’s wedding. (All four of us went, and we got to see various family members, including my mother. Which was wonderful. Phoebe and Theo hadn’t seen my mother in over a year.) But what I mean to say is that I haven’t really abandoned the blog. I actually still write drafts that never get posted, and think about posting something almost daily. I’m not quite sure what gets in the way, except maybe the guilty sense that my time should be going in other directions.

I’ve still been keeping up with Project 365, and while I have definitely hit the doldrums, I am still largely enjoying myself. Many days, I feel like I’m going through the motions, and end up with predictably lackluster shots. Often taken at 11pm, somewhere in my house. However, when I look back at a month’s worth, I am generally pleased to see that there have been a few shots that I actually like. And every once in a while, I manage to do something fun.

In other news, in case you haven’t checked in on my sister’s blog, the latest news on my nephew and the pathology report was good, if unsettling: the masses removed in his recent surgery appear to be dead tumors. So, not requiring more chemo, which is fantastic. But unnerving, in that it’s not clear when, exactly, these tumors first showed up.

There are plenty more things that have been on my mind, and perhaps I will get around to sharing them. But for now, I should get back to some other stuff.

comment spam: now with more flattery!

This blog has been around a few years now, and my spam filter has caught quite a few spam comments. 107,662 spam comments, in fact. Which is way, way more spam comments than actual bonafide comments from actual bonafide people.

A few years back I made a post in response to some spam comments that amused me, but mostly I don’t give spam much thought.

I recently checked to see what was in my spam box, though, and was amused to see another recent trend in spamming: flattery. Many of the comments were very complimentary about the blog, the post, etc.. The sort of comment that can be nice to get. Take this one:

so much good information on here, : D.
                                            –Natalia Dandoy

Yes, I sometimes do feel like I post good information. But, well, this was on my about page. For that matter, so were all of these¹:

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                                            –Ada Matuszewski

At least thrice weekly!

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                                            –buy mini cooper s

This one I could almost let pass though. Yes! Me! I’m so cool! I’m original! But what exactly is “this subject?” Oh, right. My about page. And what kind of a first name is buy, anyway?

This is great information. Folks, listen to this guy. He’s very bright and knows what he’s talking about. You can’t go wrong with following people who can walk the walk – like him. Great information, dude. Just the way I like it!
                                            –Sudie Franpton

I’m glad Sudie likes my blog. It’s so nice to feel appreciated. On the other hand, it would be nicer if Sudie had bothered to note that I am female. Especially given the fact that Sudie was visiting my about page, where I have a picture of myself. (Of course, in that photo, I have a fish on my head. Maybe Sudie thinks the fish is the blog author…though how the fish could “walk the walk” is unclear to me.)

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                                            –Wagers

Thanks! I take pride in having an internet website which supplies wonderful source for totally free. If there’s one thing I do, it’s provide it away!

An impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing a little analysis on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile.
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I can’t help but wonder what sort of analysis this person’s colleague was doing on “this.” “This,” again, being my about page. Clearly, though, I have underestimated the value of the information on that page. When will someone buy me breakfast?

This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this subject.
                                            –classic mini cooper for sale

I couldn’t agree more. This is absolutely the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about alejna. It is a key resource for those engaged in alejna studies, and is widely considered essential reading for anyone attempting to undertake any sort of thorough alejna analysis.

—

¹ I decided to cite the names given for the spam comments. I wouldn’t want to be accused of stealing credit for this phenomenal writing. Of course, I also wouldn’t want to provide links for them. Also, I will not share with you the details of exceedingly dull comments left by individuals who elected to be known as qgnxwlnpkg and Bzcsmtmq, even though I applaud them for their originality in choosing names.

I’ve missed blogging.

I don’t mean that I was sad to have missed putting up a post yesterday. I mean that even though I posted something every day in November, it really didn’t feel like blogging to me.

While I managed to carve out a few minutes to post something (and to take a few photos for Project 365), I was spending about every available hour working on projects and commitments for work and school for the last month. While I gave up on tracking the time it took me to post, with the exception of a handful of posts, I did really limit myself, and probably didn’t spend too much more than my goal of 10 hours for the month. The trouble is, I didn’t find time to reply to comments, or properly visit other people’s blogs. I ended up with a couple hundred unread posts in my reader, and I skimmed many of the posts I did read. I think I left 5 or 6 comments all month. I missed things going on in other people’s lives.

I’m not sorry I did NaBloPoMo again this year, as I know it would have irked me to have missed it, but it was hardly a satisfying experience. I didn’t get to all the drafts I’d wanted to revisit, didn’t find time to do write some of the things that have been rattling around in my head. I didn’t even manage to share much of my digital photo hoard.

I would have to describe the results as spectacularly lackluster.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who still came by to read, and even leave comments. I really, truly appreciated it. You are wonderful.

—

In other news, I didn’t make that December 1st deadline. I came to my senses on Friday, in the midst of that exhausting visit to my in-laws’. I realized that there was too much to do in the few days I had left, that I didn’t have the energy left to push myself even harder in the following days, and most importantly, I realized that there were some kinks I needed to work out in my study. It was disappointing, as I really felt that given another week or two, I could have had my project at a point where I could submit a solid abstract. But another week or two I didn’t have. And yes, I also thought about all the “what ifs.” What if I hadn’t gotten sick? What if Theo hadn’t gotten sick earlier in the month? What if I hadn’t spent time with friends who were in town for the conference? What if I hadn’t spent all those hours making Halloween costumes? Well, maybe I could have had enough time. But I’m not sorry to have spent time with friends, especially since I see some of them so rarely. The costumes? Well, who’s to say I would have invested that time in my project. And it’s highly doubtful that those hours would have been enough. There were other work deadlines, too, and other obligations.

I am really glad that I did push hard to work towards that deadline, though. I made real strides in my own research, which had been largely stagnating since that conference in Barcelona last year. Hmmm…my mixture of metaphors makes it sound as if I just walked through a puddle. The puddle of research has definitely been splashed in. I jumped up and down in it, and got myself soggy.

I’ve been taking a few days to dry off, and stand back from the puddle. I got caught up on a few things I’d left hanging while I was playing in the puddle, and I’ve started some holiday shopping.

I just need to make sure I jump back into the puddle soon. There are other conferences coming up, and I’m really optimistic that I can have something more substantial together for those deadlines.


A puddle.