blogs

These bloggy friends of mine

I wanted to highlight two blogs of PIKOTI (People I Know On The Internet). I made acquaintances with both of them through the Quarter to Three forums and like me, they both cherish the romantic dream of writing and getting paid fat piles of cash for doing so.

Matt Bowyer’s blog is nascent, with a mere four posts to date. It’s called Loading Screen and as Matt puts it:

I started this site for two reasons. 1) MattWBowyer.com was available, and since that’s me, I thought I should do something about it. 2) I’m writing a book. Actually, I wrote a book, or at least I wrote a first draft. It’s not too good, but I think it will end up being good.

I shall tease him unto the end of days if he doesn’t stick with his promise to post three times a week. This will be done to help him build character, lots and lots of character.

The other blog dates back from when FrontPage was considered hip. Actually, it was never considered hip, but Jason Pace’s blog was nonetheless started back in 1998, when Duke Nukem Forever had only been in development for a single year. His blog is called Aim for the Head. Quoth Jason:

This weblog itself is just where I ramble about the things I feel like rambling about. There is a smattering of armchair game design. I review every book that I read. I put forth the effort to track down passes for free movie screening and I review them too. I occasionally writing creative things and post them. And sometimes, like this About page, I just ramble.

Looks like Jason may need an editor. I’m available and cheap. And easy.

Jason doesn’t mention it in his About section but he also does this word of the day thing. On Broken Forum he describes it thusly: “I am also now doing a drawing each day based on either the reference.com or webster’s word of the day (I cheat and choose the better word, and also because some days one will have a word that doesn’t lend itself to drawing).” You can see one of the results in this post. This is exactly the sort of neat idea I love to steal borrow.

These are both a couple of super-friendly and helpful guys. Read their words and when the time comes, buy them!

How to read this blog, Part 3

How to Read This Blog, Part 3
by Creole Ned

I’ve made a few tweaks to make it easier for people to comment on my ramblings. First, you no longer need to have me approve your first post but you do need to verify your account through an e-mail check. I’ve also included the option to upload a custom avatar although at the moment they seem to be defaulting to a bit tinier than I’d like. Finally, the Site Admin link has been renamed to Site login to better reflect that it’s where you any reader/user can login to adjust their profile settings or add an avatar.

Enjoy!

How to read this blog, Part 2

How to Read This Blog, Part 2
by Creole Ned

In which I explain the various links for those who are averse to clicking.

Bloggy Friends

Paladin’s Playroom Paladin has been part of my gaming group the Martian Cartel for many years. He blogs occasionally, one of those “when the whim strikes” kind of guys.

Sam-K.net The blog of Samuel Kimpton, man of the Internet! Sam is also part of the Martian Cartel and writes occasionally, focused on things of geek interest and the travails of home ownership. Sam is also a gadget kinda guy. I suspect one day he will build a really smart robot that will lead us to SkyNET.

scatterdad Tim Everett’s blog, since superseded by his addiction to Facebook. Tim owns the house I live in and has many cogent, witty and at times caustic observations. His blog is rarely updated as of late.

Other stuff

Broken Toys Scott Jennings has written about MMORPGs for many years (originally as “Lum the Mad”) and has worked in the industry at Mythic, NCsoft and other companies. His insights are often thought-provoking and amusing if you enjoy the meta discussion about gaming.

Martian Cartel forums The forums for the gaming group I became erstwhile leader of back in its founding year of 1999. We chat about more than just games now but the group has been on the decline for a few years and activity has waned.

My Facebook page Like this blog but with fewer words.

How to read this blog, Part 1

How to Read This Blog, Part 1
by Creole Ned

This site is divided into six categories:

  1. Dating
  2. Gaming
  3. General
  4. Health and Fitness
  5. Photos
  6. Writing

Every post has at least one category attached to it. The content of each category is as follows:

1. Dating There are no entries for this because I am writing about my dating experiences elsewhere, therefore this category should have been removed but I forgot. Oops.

2. Gaming In which I share my gaming experiences or write about games like roughly one billion other people on the web do. As I don’t game as much as before, these posts are becoming less frequent. If you are not a gamer there is probably only a 50% chance you will find my insights worth reading. I arrived at 50% by just making a number up, kind of like a review score!

3. General The inevitable catch-all category. Random nonsense about life, media and anything else that doesn’t fit into the other categories.

4. Health and Fitness Currently I lift dumbbells three times a week and jog three times a week and it is here where I chronicle my hi-jinks, ranging from pulled muscles to getting rocks thrown at me by ill-mannered children. I also chat a bit from time to time about diet and food choices. If these things don’t set your heart a-flutter, safely ignore!

5. Photos When I add images to my gallery I post about them under this heading. However, I am currently debating over how to add photos to the site and my current hodgepodge method means I’m not adding nearly as many as I could. On the one hand, entertainingly bad pictures from my youth are going unshared. On the other hand…well, the exact same thing.

6. Writing Here I talk occasionally about the process of writing and books I have read. Mainly I discuss my ongoing writing projects, whether they are exercises, short stories or one of my novels.

Now that you know more about each category you can better choose how to read through this rich tapestry I call my blog. Or just skip all this and skim for saucy words like “hooters” and “malfeasance”.