Tue 2 Jan 2007
You know, I can’t be arsed doing my usual “quote of the day” and “current horn factor” bullshit before the post proper today … and that is perhaps indicative of how I feel about this blog in general. I’m trying to be honest here, kids. Part of it I think is to do with the perenially shitty Sydney weather at the moment. If anyone needs confirmation about the reality of climate change, there it is staring us all in the face. It’s supposed to be summer in Australia at this time of year. A time for Christmas Day barbeques on the beach, and sweltering forty degree heat. Instead, it keeps f*cken raining every other day ! My boss put it best a few days ago when he said “What’s up with this bloody weather ? I might as well have stayed in f*cking England !”
It’s not that I’ve lost the creative spark, either. I’ve been putting some serious time in @ the home studio lately, cranking out new tunes. I’ve animated two episodes of Juiced (my ‘weekly’ flash serial), with another eight or so scripted and ready to go. I’ve started trying to write a new novel, and I’m actually planning to finish this one (unlike all the previous ones gathering dust in the proverbial bottom drawer). I got a shiny new digital video camera (go Mini-DV, f*ck that DVD-Cam arseshat !) for Christmas from my parents, and already have a few (non-porn) ideas that I’m itching to film once I sort myself out a copy of Sony Vegas + DVD.
I’m just not feeling particularly inspired to blog these days. Is it something in the air ? My best friend stopped blogging a while ago now, with the intention of starting up a quasi-portal site instead. That’s not a bad idea … as Baz from Random Rant tells me, it’s good to have at least a loosely ‘themed’ site rather than a personal weblog per-se, because that way you can often score ‘freebies’ from people like Warner Brothers to review, give away to readers etc. Sure … a bunch of bloggers recently scored free laptops courtesy of Microsoft, but I can’t help but feel that a certain ‘buzz’ is slowly departing the blogosphere, and I feel it draining out of myself as well.
Apart from my best friend, my fiance is no longer actively blogging (just posting occasional snippets to her myspace page), 3 other people who used to be on my blog-roll have disappeared off the face of the ‘net, and one long-time blogger acquaintence pulled his blog offline to give himself the possibility of reusing old material for his new (paid)Â writing gig on behalf of Newscorp.
As for TROYL itself, the only comments I seem to get these days are from a small handful of loyal offline friends, and a self-confessed fame-whore (I’m looking at you here, Steph). Whilst I certainly appreciate those of you who are still persevering with this blog and my sporadic update policy, I haven’t the time or patience to whore TROYL out to new readers via mass commenting the blogosphere as I did when I first started. All of which means my comment fields aren’t likely to get any fuller. I’m not single anymore, so I have no further ‘dating horror story’ material to draw on, except for the increasingly distant past. I’m depressingly sober most of the time these days, so the amusing drinking anecdotes aren’t there to draw on anymore. I’m happy at my job, so I have no reason to bitch about work. Apart from the incessant incursions of assorted creepie-crawlies, I love our new apartment, so I can’t even bitch about my living conditions.
All in all, I think the ‘problem’ is I’m ‘suffering’ from a general level of contentment. This is of course a very good thing in terms of my personal life, but not so good in terms of The Rest of Your Life (blog). At the very least, I reckon updates are going to get even more sporadic here, and I’ll have to think about an overhaul of the site. It’s fairly likely I’ll be starting up one (or more) new sites in the near future too (probably after my wedding next month), steering away from the ‘blog’ formula. Given my surname will be changing post-wedding, I’m unlikely to keep using this domain name as my main port of call as well. I’ll hang on to it of course – until I die or the ‘net goes down permanently – whichever comes first I suppose – to ward off ’cyber-squatters’ – but I’ll set up redirects and start pimping myself out at a new cyber street-corner sooner or later.
There you have it folks … please do let me know what you think of all this, and don’t say you haven’t been warned
January 7th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
There does seem to be a certain vibe in blogsville at present. I blame MySpace. Well i blame Myspace for everything but it surely has a role to play in the slow death of blogging.
Plus people are getting into podcasts and YouTube, and all other manner of other famewhore devices. *sigh* It just aint the same anymore.
My friend Sonya has a theory. She used to have a very successful blog, but once she, in her own words, “got happy”, she didn’t feel the need for it. She thinks blogging fills a void of sorts, and once that void is gone, the desire to blog goes too.
I don’t know. I’m cutting down to about three posts a week, where once i was doing it every day! Where i found the time or energy, I don’t know.
All good things must come to an end sometime.
I’ll miss you though. Reading your blog is like listening in on you talking to yourself….Or somethin’.
cheers big ears.
January 8th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Nooooooooooo! I am so disappointed to hear you are losing your passion for blogging. Poor Peteski, the “happy” life is certainly a mundane one (I did know all about it,well kinda). I do enjoy reading your commentary, but as you said, if there is nothing to bitch about it’s not worth writing about! As for My Space, I love myspace! Very funky. I will miss checking out this page, so please stay, if life is too boring I’m sure I can rattle some cages if you like! Keep On Truckin
January 8th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Steph – the evil of MySpace is well documented, so you’re right on the nose there. I’ve actually go two MySpace profiles myself – the ‘personal’ one which I got grudgingly to keep in touch with those friends who are too technophobic to get a REAL blog, and my ‘band’ one @ myspace.com/telixelectro for promoting my music.
I’m also working on a Youtube profile for promoting some of the short films & trailer ‘mash-ups’ I’m going to be working in this year. And yeah, podcasts are in the works too – but you can do them straight out of WordPress with the right plug-in anyways.
It’s not that all these other avenues need to detract from a blog in every situation though – it’s more that my own appetite for blogging of the ‘confessional’ nature has waned lately, and I’m still trying to work out what (if anything) I want to do with a ‘new’ site (or how to rethink this one).
Reen – I wouldn’t say my life is “mundane” these days, far from it ! It’s just that there’s only so many times you can blog about the awesome weekend you had with your partner, before your readers go “right – lots of drinking, movie watching, music & sex … dammit, we already had this blog post !”.
It’s not mundane to those living it, but it DOES seem a little less exciting to a reader looking for constant change than “had a date with a new girl from [insert exotic country here], got trashed at [insert new, popular bar here], almost got arrested, sure to be hungover for my job interview tommorrow at [insert new company here]” – which what this blog was all about when I started it.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Maybe that’s what I should do … start posting fake date stories about bars I haven’t been to with girls who don’t exist. The Goddess knows, there’re plenty of THOSE sorts of blogs around already
February 20th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Dancing quEEN_ Baby, I wouldn’t be calling it “mundane”- like DB said “how many times can you go on about how content you are”. You think you know someone by what you read, but the fact is, you don’t know the half of it!
We both have had many interesting & cool stories to tell on our respective blogs over the last 2 & a half years. His stories of dating & drinking & mine of travel & partying.
It pretty much became a part of our dating & was a way to express ourselves creatively.
But yes, I think we’ve both grown out of the self-absorbed stage & onto using other outlets for inspiration_ so the need for blogging declines. Especially with the advent of Myspace.
Myspace is for kids, in my opinion.But Im on there for a laugh!
I don’t wanna sound old-skool but – we did it first, as Bloggers.
Hmm.. Yes, maybe we can get my site back up & running (if no bastard hacker has used as a site to promote gambling or porn_ as done in the past)& both post fake date stories_ that would be hilarious.
Gawd knows, with what you guys have heard from my old dates-they sound like something, someone would make up!