Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Having been tempted into opening a MySpace account by telemeister I find that I don’t really know what to do with it. So far I have used the blog section a little, but those are largely cut and pastes of the public entries I put here (it seems a bit silly to put friends locked stuff on it), though there are some differences.

It’s not as user-friendly as LJ in my opinion, certainly insofar as the customising goes, anyway. I have to confess that it is probably as much to do with any lack of application on my part as anything. I have found a couple of people over there who are over here: neither of them ever log on (probably rarely here, too) : ruletwo and magpye, I’m looking at you. Equally, I find Mr Hudson, late of Comic Showcase there, but even when online he responds not to friends requests. Maybe I should change my aftershave? No-one on my meagre friends list who are REAL people write anything or do anything with it. It all seems a bit odd, really.

Of course, you get to pretend to be friends with famous and not so famous rock stars. So it is that I can pretend to be mates with Greg Lake and Robert Fripp, on speaking terms with both current versions of Barclay James Harvest and disappear down the pub with Jakko M Jaksyck. That would all be better if I thought for a single moment that they really were who they said they were, and not just their official fan club or publicity agents at best, or just scunners pretending at worst.

I reckon that I’ll give it another week and then just cast it loose; after all, that’s what I did with my Blogger account (though I deleted and reactivated that in a different format before abandoning it) and my Wordpress account which I never really got going on.

No, all my blogging needs are covered here, with you lot. I don’t think I have the energy for more than one lot of real rambles day in and day out. Especially when I have the strong suspicion that I’m the only one there.

It’s been a busy day; this is the first chance I’ve had to break my silence, not that I have a lot to say.

I have been assailed by ludicrous deadlines brought about by our Legal Adviser deciding that the middle of the annual Subsidy Determination process is the ideal time for a fortnight’s leave. That plus the fact that our attempts to make an interim subsidy payment to a particular local authority seem to be dogged by misfortune, the latest being the inability of one computerised system to play nicely with another. The authority is being uncommonly civil about it; I doubt I would be in the circumstances. Still, it now looks as though they will get their money tomorrow, only two (additional) days late.

I am reading Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men despite it being allegedly for kids (or at least pitched a little younger than most of his Discworld novels). I’m only 68 pages in, but it’s already a great deal of fun. In anticipation I have acquired the further stories featuring trainee witch, Tiffany Aching: A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. The “Wee Free Men” have barely made an appearance as yet, but it looks as the Nac Mac Feegle are going to be a great deal of fun.

Why the kids absorb Harry Potter when this stuff is available is beyond me.

Crivens!

I have been talked into opening a MySpace account. I have no idea what I shall do with it. I daresay it will lie fallow like my blogspot and the other blog thing, the name of which escapes me for now. MySpace seems inherently counter intuitive to use and extremely cluttered by the standards of good old LJ.

We shall see.

The world of blogging has come a long way since I started my old blog back in July 2002.

Trying to sort out the template is proving to be a pain - stuff just shifts around randomly and I am getting fed up with it. I think that I shall delete the old blog and start again. Or maybe leave it where it is and start again in a new blog on the same site.

In the meantime, I suppose I ought to do some work.

After just under two years and nine months of inactivity, I have tentatively reactivated my old blog where I started out being rude about idiot popinjays and overbearing politicians before it slowly mutated into something less, interspersed with cross posts from my early LJ entries and then finally ground to a halt during my annus horribilis back in Feb 2004.

Well, I've got over that; have done for some time and when I read on the Metro this morning about plans to make drinkers leave their finger prints at the bar every time they buy a pint in a pub or club, I decided it was time that I reopened my safety valve and spent a little time now and again, being rude about those who need it most.

A number of people on my friends list will remember my old blog. If any are interested, I would be happy to give posting access to people who want a rant and blow off steam from time to time, who do not want to sully their LJ with such stuff and who can't be bothered to maintain an alternate blog.