Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Space, as we all know, is silent. Sound can’t travel through a vacuum, it’s simple science.
But then the great bird of the galaxy appeared at the outer rim of the system, opened its vast beak, and uttered a call that used the very fabric of spacetime as a medium for its cry.
Twenty years ago today, I became a blogger.
Admittedly, the date could be argued a bit, as I’d had my own website since 1996, and even back then had been in the habit of making short, dated updates that were usually site-related, but sometimes just personal ramblings. And I didn’t come across the term ‘blog’ until a few months later in February of 2001.
But on November 25, 2000, I moved from hand-coding updates into a static HTML page to using a script called NewsPro to manage and automate posting updates. So that’s what I’ve been using as my “official” blogging start date.
In the past 20 years, my posting frequency has waxed and waned (waning more often than waxing, admittedly) but has never disappeared altogether. I’ve moved platforms from self-hosted (first NewsPro, then MovableType) to hosted (TypePad) back to self-hosted (WordPress). Sometimes self-hosted meant on a server in my apartment; these days I use DreamHost as my hosting provider, but I still use a manual installation of WordPress rather than using the WordPress.com hosted service. I don’t tinker as much as I used to, but it’s still nice to get into the nuts and bolts from time to time.
Most of the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve just been another one of the many random voices on the ‘net, never one of the Big Names. The closest I ever came to breaking out of that…well, you can look back if you want, but I’m just glad that it’s in my past. Maybe I’ll have more to say in another three years on that twentieth anniversary, maybe not. Generally, I’m fine with just tossing my occasional thoughts on Apple, Star Trek, politics, and whatever else pops into my mind into the electronic void to see if anyone picks up on it.
If you’ve been stopping by and checking out my ramblings from time to time over the years — thanks! If you’re a new visitor, thanks to you too, especially if you’ve made it this far through this post. You might want to check out this somewhat random collection of notable posts, or just see what was posted on this day in the past (which will work for whatever day you read this).
And, of course, there’s my alter-ego DJ Wüdi side project to be promoted: A weekly (except when it isn’t) Twitch broadcast where I play an eclectic mix of music (mostly focused on alternative dance genres like goth, industrial, EBM, and various flavors of electronica, but with a fair amount of other stuff tossed in as I feel like it). Tune in to Difficult Listening Hour on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Pacific time, or cue up my past archives (plus more mix sessions) on my MixCloud page.
Twenty years down — and hopefully, twenty (and more) yet to come!
They’d finally managed to convince the supply chief to provision enough supplies to ensure they’d have a reasonable chance of making it across the wastelands. As long as the anti-grav units held out, at least, since replacement parts were more and more scarce every year.
The best part of being a bounty hunter was the chase, pursuing prey across planets and star systems, using every trick she could until she ran them to ground. The worst part was the time after the capture, when there was nothing to fill the days as she waited for a new contract.
From Gothic Charm School:
Let’s bring back the “creature” in Creature of Darkness. Fuck flattering. Let’s all swamp our respective social media accounts with true photos of the goth subculture: we aren’t all thin, young, pretty (which mainstream culture genders as feminine presenting), white. We don’t all have perfect makeup, perfectly styled hair or wigs, and immaculate clothes from goth brands. We don’t have to be hot, we don’t have to be conventionally attractive. We have to be ourselves. Because being true to ourselves is an act of rebellion.
The Lady of the Manners would REALLY like to see photos of goths who don’t fit the stereotypical gloom cookie mold: BIPOC, plus-size, older folks, trans*, non-binary, everyone. Let’s show the diversity in the subculture. That way the next time someone says they’re not pretty enough to join us in the gloom, we can point them to a tag and say “here we are, and you are welcome to lurk with us”.
Co-signed (with the recognition that I am thin, white, and generally within conventional masculine beauty standards). I’m certainly not as young as I once was, never was much with makeup (simply never explored it) or styled hair (mine was far too curly and unruly), and aside from my more recently curated collection of kilts, never really pursued goth fashion beyond black t-shirts, black jeans or cargo shorts, and black Doc Martens or similar stompyboots.
There’s a lot more to the goth culture than what floats to the top of the algorithmically curated feeds. And you’re all “pretty enough” to be goth.
📚 forty-six of 2020: The Eyes of the Beholders by A.C. Crispin ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖
Nice to see an encounter with something so alien so to be literally incomprehensible. A bit heavy on references to TNG episodes to prove that the author watched the show; otherwise good.
After weeks of trudging through the monotony of desolate wilderness, it was startlingly obvious when their journey was nearing its end. Not just a line on a map, the border was actually a glimmering line in the air, beyond which flowering plants and tall trees grew once more.
All he wanted was to never have to deal with another winter in his life. Living in temperate climates wasn’t enough, because he might have to travel, or be invited somewhere. He wanted to make sure winter simply didn’t exist. Ever. Anywhere. And so he built his machine.
It had started simply enough: Use music to determine the tuning frequencies fed into the dimensional portal generator. Hooking up a second and connecting them using a mixer was a lark. But when the DJ started to fade from one universe of song into another?
Best. Rave. Ever.
From Daniel Jalkut:
“Thanksgrieving, the holiday on which Americans remember those whose lives were lost in reckless family gatherings, is observed on the second Thursday of December.”