Oops... Nameless was Postless.

In case you tried to follow the links in the last post to go read “Nameless,” you may have been driven crazy by the fact that the links simply came back to the front page. Not that I have a terribly good reason you should want to go read it and if you are a long time reader, you've already seen the posts anyway. But, I've fixed the links, in case anyone did want to read the posts.

Closing up shop.

Well, this is it. I've given up on blogging. I'm out of words. Farewell!

Blogroll Broken

It seems my blogroll has gone missing. I pull it off Blogrolling.com, so maybe they changed the way they distribute blogrolls. Never fear, my links to finer blogs across the world will return — hopefully sooner than later.

New Look

Well, it was not intentional, but asisaid celebrated its fifth birthday with a new look. Last night I was feeling rather worn out, and so decided I needed to do something different — doing a little web design hit the spot. As I was finishing up, I realized it was a perfect thing to be doing to recall that my personal web site became blogified on February 21, 2002.

Yes, the internet somehow has put up with me opining for five whole years here. Open for Business celebrated its fifth year last October. I'm starting to feel like a regular internet fixture!

Let me know if you see any bugs in the new design. I'm still tweaking it, and it may adjust a bit more, but after two years with the last look it was time for something new. About every year or two I alternate between a green and a blue design, and staying true to that trend (which I do not follow on purpose) we are in the blue era again.

Spam Wars

A couple of days ago, I noted an increase in blog spamming on asisaid. Now, generally speaking, asisaid was ignored by blog spammers in the past, so I'm not sure how long it has been broken, but I've discovered the blacklists I checked against were no longer in service. No wonder the filter wasn't blocking spammers!

I've switched my filters around and merged in more of Brad Choate's SpamLookup (the official spam filter for MT, which, since it is written in Perl, can be easily integrated with SAFARI) so that I check not only the links but also the IP address of the poster. Hopefully this will work. If not, I plan on requiring authentication for commenting (e.g. you'll link your e-mail address with a password and verify that e-mail address), unless any of my regular readers object to that.

What a Run!

From July 1 through November 8, I believe I posted at least one blog post everyday. It was the longest run I've ever done of daily blog posting. It was a good exercise, I think, because it forced me to say what was on my mind rather than writing posts that were more like articles. Blogging in that mode serves as a form of catharsis and deconstruction of the day. I played with some creative ideas on days that I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to post about. It was good.

Unfortunately, on November 9, I forgot to post, somehow. I'm not sure how — I thought I had, but if I did, the post was lost in cyberspace. And, since the record was already ended, I figured I might as well take another day off yesterday. But, I'm back now. Perhaps if I get time tomorrow, I'll verify I really did post all of the rest of the days.

Incidentally: I'm really upset with the late theologian Francis Schaeffer. I've never read any of his works, and tonight I ran into one of them cheap on Amazon, so I used “Look inside” to read some of it. In the small part I saw, he labeled Karl Barth, T.S. Eliot and Soren Kierkegaard as part of those who have taken society below “the line of despair.” From the reviews, it sounds like he views Thomas Aquinas as part of the problem of creating this “line of despair” as well. What in the world would give him such an idiotic idea?

Delays

I've been spending too much time lately posting about posts I'm going to do “tomorrow.” The good news is, whenever you read those posts, tomorrow is still, well, a day away, which means I'm never late. But, on the other hand, I do actually want to finish my Barth series, continue my literary criticism series and post my hot air balloon pictures from last night's Balloon Glow. Oh, and answer the meme Eduardo tagged me for.

I went through my balloon glow photos tonight, but I need to make another pass through my favorites of the 650 so that I can avoid posting too many of them. A lot are duplicates with subtle advantages for one or the other depending on which balloon you are focusing on. At any rate, hopefully by tomorrow (there's that word again!) I will have something to show for my visit to Forest Park. I'm also going to at least complete Eduardo's tag by tomorrow. The rest will come “real soon now.” ™

Monday Madness: Blogging

1. How long have you been blogging?
Four years back in February, so I'll hit the five year mark in just five more months or so.

2. How many times have you taken a break from blogging?
It depends how you look at it. When I started, I wasn't exactly a frequent blogger, and went over a month without a post a few times. Since I really started blogging seriously about four years ago, I don't think I've ever really taken a break.

3. How long is the longest you’ve gone, so far, without posting on your blog?
Maybe 10-14 days since the Fall of 2002 when I really started getting into the whole blogosphere concept.

4. How many fellow bloggers do you keep in touch with, through your blogs, on a regular basis?
More than just a cursory read, probably five or six.

5. Have you ever met, in person, a blogger on your blogroll?
No. One of these days, I must meet my friends in Cranium Leakage, since they aren't that far way.

6. How often do you update/change the ‘extra’ stuff on your blog?
I really don't have much extra stuff these days, I moved that all to another site. But, if you count both sites, maybe every few months.

7. Do you think you’ll be blogging for years to come?
Yes, I'd imagine I'll be blogging for quite awhile. Maybe until the web becomes an “antiquated technology.”

1,000 Posts (Belated)

Well, the thousand post milestone was passed several weeks ago here on asisaid, and while I planned to say something about it, when it occurred, for a long time prior to the event, I failed to say anything when it finally did happen!

Oh, well.

As a bit of festivity for the event, here's a question for y'all: what's the most interesting thing you've forgotten that you should have remembered?

Disabling Comments

For the first time in asisaid's four and a half year run I have been forced to disable comments on a post. It seems that blogspammers, which previously have either been unsuccessful with my spam filter or ignored me altogether, really liked this one post — I had to delete three spams in three days. Hence, I closed the comments on that post.

I hope it is an isolated incident.