Chatter #82 - September 9, 2003

The LiveJournal blog has been working out really well. It's a lot easier to post something there than to put it up here in Chatter; for Chatter, I have to write the text, then paste it into a copy of the previous page in Front Page Express, delete the breaks after every sentence, save the file, open the previous file and update the "next" link, open the Chatter index and add a new summary line and link to the new installment, open the main page and update the version number and date, open the site history page and add the summary line and link to that (as well as updating the version numbers and date), save everything, and then use an FTP program to upload it all to my server—along with any new images, of course.

With the blog all I have to do is open the edit blog page in IE, write the text (using hypertext if I feel like it), save it, and it's up. Well, if I used new images I do have to FTP them to my site. But it's still a lot easier and quicker. As you can see if you take a look, I've put up a lot of stuff there already, including a very cruel parody directed at John Kerry and some Diablo stuff.

I would love to get your comments on any of it. Which is easy to do, because there are comment links at the end of every section.

Incidentally, one of the things I like about LiveJournal (unlike BlogSpot) is that it seems to be run by people who are in it for love, not money.

The one disadvantage of LiveJournal (compared to Chatter) is that I have no idea if anyone is reading it, unless they leave comments. So so far I only know of four or five people who've definitely read at least part of it.

For a while I was going back and forth about the blog; should it be primarily a political blog? or personal? Experimental, or stream-of-consciousness? But eventually it just seemed to make sense to make it all of the above. It's a bit different in flavor than Chatter, but not too different. Except now it's going to be all about Howard Dean!

Hahahahaha! Just kidding. I couldn't resist. Dean seems okay, but he's not my dream candidate. My dream candidate doesn't seem to exist. Although I would vote for a LUMP OF MUD before voting for George W. Bush. At least the lump of mud would be honest, and not actively be working to destroy the government of the USA.

So what does this mean for the future of Chatter? Well, I'm not about to give it up altogether. But I'm not sure what I'll be posting. Perhaps I'll use it for more game-related material that isn't well enough organized to fit in elsewhere on the site, or for news about the site itself.

Game Group?

On second thought, no—I'm not going to talk about this yet. I've been disappointed too many times. So let me just say that maybe—maybe—I'll have some roleplaying-related news before Christmas. We'll see.

Oh, I almost forgot: one of the entries on the blog is about the next Arisia. I'll be going, one way or another, and I've suggested a bunch of panels to the con. The list is on the blog.