My Picks

I'm a big fan of Google Reader. If a normal Internet user wanted to know whether something had updated, they'd be forced to visit that website every time they were curious. This leads to a lot of wasted time and effort, and can result in websites being totally forgotten after a period with no updates. With Google Reader, I visit one site in the morning and it gives me every update to every website I've chosen to track, all in one list. It's great.

As I check out the Reader feed, I'll find articles that interest me and, I believe, would interest others. I share them on the top-right of this very website. It seems pretty prominent to me, but I don't know if anyone uses this feature.

Dear Followers

Dear people who follow this blog,

I've noticed that there are a couple more of you recently. Is there something that's prompted this? Why did you decide to follow me? Also, if you're unaware of my other activities, and are interested in Shakespeare, or Podcasts, you should check out my other blog, BardCast, The Shakespeare Podcast.

Also, what do any of you get from this blog? I never thought it was particularly interesting to a wider audience. My interests are all over the place, and I go in-depth in the things I talk about. I doubt there are many people with my particular set if interests, but maybe there are some. I don't know.

Template Changes

I've had the same template for ages on this site, and it's about time I changed it. There are new tools for it on blogger, so I thought I'd mess around, as a safe way of testing changes before I put them on the bardcast site, since I actually care about that one.

Blogging?

So I'm a bad blogger. It's been two weeks since my last post, and that was an apology for the previous lack of posting. I've seen too many sites where the most recent post is "We'll have something else up in a moment", so I'm not promising anything. Anyway, I'm thinking about writing a long, rambling, obscure manifesto, so that's something to look forward to if I get around to it.

Podcasting

In addition to the Shakespeare Podcast, whose first episode should be up in a couple weeks, tops, I've been thinking about doing a Podcast where it's just me talking about whatever. Any thoughts?

500 Posts! New Shakespeare Blog/Podcast!

For my 500th post, I have an announcement.

I'm starting yet another blog, this one will be the companion piece to a new podcast which I also intend to make. I don't know when the podcast will begin, but I hope we can have a test episode up soon. You can check out the website at http://tcspodcast.blogspot.com/

If there's anything you want to tell us about Shakespeare, or you have any requests, please leave a message on the new blog.

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Now playing: Peter Schmalfuss - Fantasy No. 3
via FoxyTunes

Internet is Back!

Thanks to a little help from my friends, my Wireless is back and in action. I'm quite excited, and I'll be back blogging about stuff that isn't this soon.

Links at Right

So when I read an interesting news item, or a funny comic, I link it on the top right of this website. You probably can see the links right now. I put in a new link just about every day.

I'm just wondering, does anyone actually click on these things? Some of them are quite interesting.

I May Have To Change The Subtitle

If you search for "carsonist" nowadays, you still get this humble blog, but now it prompts you by asking "did you mean 'carsons'?" What an odd change. Seems like if it changed at all, it would just change to redirecting to my site, since I clearly dominate the word.

Twitter

As you should be able to tell from the right side of this page, I've incorporated Twitter into this site. Who knows if I'll update it frequently enough to justify its inclusion. I just thought it might be a good place to insert information that doesn't justify a formal post.

RRoD

First of all, this is my three hundred fiftieth post. Woo!

I was going to drop some pearls of wisdom on this momentous event, but something important has happened. Something.... enraging.

The Red Ring of Death.

That's right. As of today, it appears that my XBOX 360 has died. There's no guarantee either way, but I'm not too optimistic. Now I'll have to see what byzantine system the Microsoft people use to deal with fixing the 'box. Sigh.

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Now playing: Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart
via FoxyTunes

2 Years!

The blog turns two today. Instead of having one post that's got twice as much, I think I'll just have two posts that are twice as bad.

...

That was easy.

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Now playing: Archie Gates - Don't Know Why (It's My Favorite Gun)
via FoxyTunes

Coming Up On Two Years

My first blog post was on February 2nd, 2006. I may do something for the event. To be honest, it probably won't be that amazing.

In the meantime, Gibbon!



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Now playing: Monty Python - Always Look On the Bright Side
via FoxyTunes

300 post spectacular!

This is my 300th post. I wanted to do something special, but I couldn't think of anything special to do. That's why it's been a while since my last update. I ended up deciding to do a multi-post: several of my themes wrapped up into one big post.

Shakespeare: Richard III

This has the best writing of any of the plays to date. If you only have a minute to look it over, I would strongly advise you to look at the scene with the two murderers. It is easy to find: just press ctrl+f on the Project Gutenberg page and type in "FIRST MURDERER". That should get you to the right general area.

Anyway, good play. It fits the space idea even better than the previous plays. The bit with the murderers is quite funny, I don't know how well that would translate to the space opera since their argument is largely about their religion.

Why I Won't Be President: Soldiers

In America, soldiers are idolized for some reason. Soldiers generally go to war because they hope to get money, and a future assured of potential security. In fact, soldiers tend to be less intelligent and "good" than an average non-soldier. This is mainly because soldiers are younger than an average person, and therefore less knowledgeable, and because soldiers are put in a situation that is detrimental to ethics.

Soldiers are not universally bad or stupid, but there's no reason to respect their opinion or hail them universally as heroes.

(If that doesn't kill any chances I have of getting into politics, I don't know what will.)

Whining, Blogger Style

Lately I've been busy, hence the few posts to the ol' blog.

Anyway, I've settled on this template for the site, drop a line if you think strongly about it one way or another.

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Now playing: Lulu - The Man With The Golden Gun
via FoxyTunes

Blog Matters

Since I updated the blog's format, the tracker I've been using stop collecting data. This looked identical to a complete halt in visiting the site, something that I found completely believable. I've fixed the problem now.

In other blog news, I've set up the notice below, a little something that will record whatever song I'm listening to at the time of the post for all eternity.

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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Red House
via FoxyTunes

GURPS Martial Arts

I finally have GURPS Martial Arts. It is very good. Like all of the 4th edition GURPS books, it has a bunch of sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, quotes from other media. This one may have the single best quote in any book to date.

Anyway, PCs in any game I'm running should stay on the lookout for hook-sword wielding ninjas and clowns dealing out Flying Atomic Wedgies for the next few months.

PS.
Last post was no. 250! Only 3,132 to go until no. 3,382!

New Look

As you can probably tell, I've changed the look of the ol' blog. Blogger has had a new system for a while, and I thought I may as well bite the bullet and update the thing. If you don't like it, please comment. I'm still messing around with the options/look of the thing, so we'll see.

Comments

As you know, the blog currently requires my approval to post comments. I don't particularly mind this, as there aren't a whole lot of them, so it isn't much work to approve them.

I was wondering if you guys would prefer to have a system that would automatically register posts immediately. The downside is, you would have to do one of those, "Type the letters above to prove that you're not a bot" tests.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, just leave a comment.

WOOOOOOOOO-

-OOOOOOOOOOO!

We did it! We finally got my new address on the google search for "carsonist". Witness the glory:



That's right. Suck it, that teenager with a crappy blog, and that guy with a Nation-States account that mentions carsonist once! Woooooo!

If you look further on the search, there isn't a single entry in the top ten that isn't one of my many accounts. Hooray for me.