July 14, 2008
Update (8/4/08): After careful reconsideration, I’ve decided NOT to retire RMA. There’s still a lot I can do here. But you will have to get used to the more sporadic posting schedule….
A lot has changed around here over the past four years. Pages have come and gone… features have been added (and some have been taken away)… and, of course, the theme has changed about 50 trillion times. I’m indecisive at times… sue me.
A quick glance at the archives will show one other thing that’s changed: I hardly ever post here anymore.
At first I thought it was because I was suffering from writer’s block. Then I got busy with other things and just didn’t have time. When I left the hospital I lost a great source of inspiration. But I’ve been back there for almost a year now… and the inspiration hasn’t returned.
And it’s because I’ve changed… and so has my approach to blogging.
I’m just not into writing the big, wordy posts and running my mouth as much as I used to be. When I’ve got something to say I prefer to say it and move on. Short, sweet, and to the point.
But that wouldn’t fit in very well with what’s been going on here at RMA for the past four years. I feel confined here. And I feel like a massive change in both topic, style, and format would be awkward… and it would impact the content that’s already here in ways I wouldn’t like.
Luckily I found the answer to my blogging dilemma in Tumblr.
Tumblr is short, sweet, and to the point - just like my new blogging style. Oh sure… you could write and ramble on for hours using Tumblr. But I’m not sure that would work very well with the format. If you’ve ever looked at the back-end of WordPress (which powers RMA) you’ll understand what I mean when I say “complicated”. Options… settings… boxes… buttons… tabs… EVERYWHERE.
Tumblr is the epitome of simple. You can customize it and change some settings here and there. But it is simple enough to use that I honestly think my parents could use it without me having to show them a thing. And not only is it simple - it’s portable as hell. I can post from anywhere and from any device: my computer… my iPod Touch… my cell phone… anywhere.
If I take a picture of something funny or strange with my phone… I can just shoot it over to Tumblr with a caption and call it done. No more emailing it to myself, setting time aside later to format it and write some big wordy post around it.
It fits my lifestyle and my personality perfectly. Unfortunately, WordPress does not any longer.
So it is with both sadness and joy that I make two announcements:
- Reader Meet Author is being retired, at least for now. At some point in the future I may decide to come back and pick up where I left off. I doubt it. But never say never, right? Everything will stay as it is - nothing is being deleted. And feel free to comment on any posts that are already here. I still get notified of new comments and will respond just as I always have. There simply won’t be any new content added.
- I’m inviting anyone who wants to join me to the new place I now call home: Derick Phillips dot Com (original, huh?). As the name implies, Derick Phillips dot Com is just me. It’s not about any one thing… there’s no theme or category to stick it into. It’s just me. It’s what I originally started RMA to be and have wanted to get back to for quite some time. Oh yeah… and it’s powered by Tumblr. So you’ll notice right away that the look, feel, and format is quite different from RMA. It’s simple. Posts are short. And there’s no telling where I posted them from. I LOVE IT.
So there you have it - the good news and the bad.
Reader Meet Author is going into retirement. It’s been an awesome ride over the past four years (and several blog-related breakdowns). Thanks for coming along.
Luckily it’s not over, yet. Hopefully I’ll see you around Derick Phillips dot Com.
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May 26, 2008
I’ve often thought I had an addictive personality. And it would appear that that quality extends even to video games. Until about three weeks ago, I spent almost every free minute I had playing that game. I know… it’s almost sickening to admit.
Combined with the movies flooding in from Netflix (there’s a shipping center here in town so turn around is quick) and the stuff on my Tivo… I’ve been a media whore as of late.
I upgraded RMA to the newest version of WordPress yesterday and that’s when I realized I hadn’t written anything since April. *Sigh* So sad… I know. In response to me telling her that I’d upgraded RMA, my sister said “now if only you could find time to write on it”.
I got the message.
Someone come over and take my copy of Call of Duty 4… and my Tivo… and my Netflix account. I may need an intervention.
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March 31, 2008
Last night was cool and rainy… so it seemed like the perfect night to open the windows and let in some fresh air. The problem is, as I’ve pointed out numerous times, I live across the street from a bar. And Saturday nights are karaoke night. Normally I find the sounds coming from the bar mildly entertaining. There was a smashing rendition of a Creed song last night that particularly made me laugh.
But at around 1 am, as the bar was beginning to wind down and get ready to close, another sound began to flood through my open windows: an obviously-drunk, shrill-voiced, ranting woman screaming the word “NOW!” over and over again.
Think nails on a chalkboard meets Fran Drescher doing her impersonation of a cat being skinned.
And she just kept going… over and over and over again for what seemed like ten minutes. “NOW! NOW! NOW! Come here NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!.” If I’d been at Wal-Mart I’d have imagined she was talking to a disobedient child. If I’d been at the park I’d guess she was talking to a dog that wasn’t quite ready to stop rolling in the poop.
But no… she was at a bar filled with what I can only assume were adults over the age of 21. And apparently one of them wasn’t moving fast enough for her. I can’t really blame the person she was screaming at for not listening. I wouldn’t want to get close to a sound like that. You know how looking at the sun will eventually burn your eyes out? I’m willing to bet listening to that “NOW” in close proximity would cause the blood to spring forth from the ear canal.
And I was hearing it from across the street. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I was right there.
So my question is: how did this woman not know that what she was doing was not only violating city disturbance ordinances, but also just annoying as hell and probably counterproductive to her cause? Seriously. You can’t tell me that her screeching NOWs usually work. I find it hard to believe that being obnoxious and loud and annoying actually helps a person get by in the world.
If so, I’ve been going about things all wrong.
Do people like this not know that they make the rest of us want to apply pressure to their jugulars with our bare hands? Do they not know that annoying does not equal a good way to deal with people? And it’s not just Ms. Drescher-skinning-a-cat from last night. It’s all of the people who go through life being loud, obnoxious, rude, and otherwise oblivious to the rest of the world.
I really wish I had a way to record the sound I heard. You wouldn’t believe it. Whatever you’re imagining in your head, multiply it by an annoying factor of ten. Part of me says that it wasn’t really as bad as I thought it was. Part of me says I was just being overly sensitive because I was in bed trying to sleep (which is probably true). But the rest of me says that this was by far the most annoying sound I’d ever heard in my entire life.
It was the first time in my life that I’d wished I owned a weapon capable of distance attacks.
Just a pellet gun. Something to get the message across without actually hurting anyone. A nice, fast pellet to the ass would have made me feel much better. Or perhaps one of those nets that you can fire from a gun. Ya know… like a projectile spider web. Fired directly at the offending mouth.
I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got a violent video game to take my frustrations out on. Now then… where’d I put that sniper rifle…
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