A new direction?

With regret (though to be honest probably with as much regret as Lord Sugar when he sacks one of his Apprentices) i have stopped updating Trip-TV my music and movie blog. Truthfully it had been a bit of a chore now for a few years but i kept updating it hoping the enjoyment i got from it would return but have decided it is time to shelve it.

At the same time i am thinking about this blog which has stagnated a bit with just a trickle of updates a month now the norm. I think there is scope to take some aspects i still enjoyed from Trip-TV and post them here too. Maybe it can revitalise this blog. Keep tuned.

A fresher look

You may have noticed i have updated the look of the blog a bit, the most noticeable change being the font used in the title graphic. For sometime i have used "Melbourne" as my "corporate font" which i use on all graphics but now i have decided to change to this typewriter font. And no ordinary typewriter font, it actually is the same typeface (apparently) as my Brother Deluxe 1350 typewriter!

I haven't actually checked the accuracy of the font with the output of the typewriter though but it looks close enough. One reason for the change was that i felt a typewriter font was more apt for a blog that talks about history and archives a lot (though considering the archives i have to struggle with some kind of barely legible handwriting font might be more apt!)

Tried dynamic... didn't like it

As you hopefully noticed (as it means you are a regular visitor and not someone who has simply blundered here by mistake) i tried dynamic views on this blog for awhile. This is one of the latest features from Blogger and allows you to employ some cutting edge web technologies and have everything all slidey and shiny.

However there are some drawbacks, you lose a lot of customisability and flexibility with your site and that doesn't work well with the way i like to do things and also doesn't work perfectly with how i write posts and in the end the thrill of the new quickly dispersed and was replaced by the annoyance of the new.

Well i gave it a week or so but have now reverted to a more traditional template, and a new title graphic.

Some blog changes... adding history

I have decided to not continue with my history blog so that has now been archived (it remains on the internet but will no longer be updated - unless i change my mind at some stage, i often do). 

Blogging on history will appear here instead, some stuff has already been cross posted of course but you can expect more of that. One thing i am going to do more of is blog about historic places or artifacts that i photograph in the course of my other great interest : photography!

The first post of this type will be one on the Stratford and Moreton Tramway which you should be able to find on this blog.

Take a clean blog...

My music blog has had a sideline in comic reviews since its inception (some reviews also appearing here) but i thought it was high time that comics had their own blog so i have created a new blog called Take A Clean Sheet Of Paper for just that. Comics (or graphic novels if you are posh) will be reviewed here, i also intend to review comic related movies i see and maybe some other relevant items too. So take a look, i'll probably still cross post some reviews here.

Blog refresh

I thought it was time to shake things up a bit on my 2 main blogs, which is this one of course and my music blog. I've decided to give Blogger's Popular Posts feature a try in the sidebar but also in general try to present more options to the visitor in the sidebar, more destinations to go to.

It will be interesting to see how the "Popular Posts" section changes, it is set to show the top 5 posts from the last 30 days.

Some new look

You may have noticed that i have made some tweaks to this blog's look and feel, the biggest change being moving the side bar from the left to the right. Usability wise this is supposed to be the best way to go though i've always felt the content should be paramount but anyway we'll see how it goes. its very easy to switch back! (Update @22:09 - changed it back already, just couldn't stand it!)

I've also changed the rest of the blog's text to Copse web font (some web browsers may not support this), i really like the Copse font though it may be a case of being too much of a good thing by having it used for everything on the blog. As a serif font it should be better for readability. Anyway lets give it a try...

What works and what doesn't?

This blog is still very new and it is finding its metaphorical feet. As i haven't done a blog like this before (a true personal web log instead of a subject specific blog) i am still striving to find the perfect mixture of subjects and topics. The Sunday Fail repostings for example have stopped, it was a neat idea to be lazy and reuse old blog posts but the posts themselves seemed to jar against the rest of the blog so i thought i would stop them.

Of course a personal blog is all very well if you have the kind of crazy hipster life where loads of amazing things happen to you on a daily basis and you can drone on endlessly about how cool you are. Unfortunately though i am in the 99.9% of the population who don't have a crazy hipster life.

I could of course still write about my day in minute detail. Maybe detailing what i had for lunch but i don't think anyone would find that especially interesting but i had a lovely curry today made by my wife for dinner, a mackerel pate sandwich for lunch and muesli for breakfast in case you are interested? No thought not.

I could write about music but i have a music blog already, maybe i could write about the books i read? Well that sounds like it could have some traction though that would generate at most one blog post a week. So if i do that, make the odd post about things i do actually end up doing outside of the daily routine, post about pointless geek crap and go on the odd formless thought experiment that should keep this blog reasonably active huh?

Welcome to my new blog

Actually i blog a lot, however what i have never done before is a blog blog. By that i mean a blog that falls into the classical meaning of the word as in a personal journal. Up until now my blogs have always been on a specific topic such as music or warfare but maybe its time to speak about something a bit more personal.

Beyond this this blog will be a mixture of items recounting my activities, thoughts and tangental features. Mix and Match. See what i did there?