I can’t seem to sing today, which precludes my entering a Trio into the public record, but i will disclose two new untitled songs: 1‘s lyrics were blogged and 2‘s weren’t. Enjoy.
by krisis
I have some links to blog. Run for the hills.
Track4 is a solidly constructed music review site run by SpaceKitten on her Uprush domain, and i don’t even think i knew it was there (smooth one, huh?). I Am Generic is a really nicely designed site without too much flash-bang, which is my favourite kind of design (via MuffBlog). And, speaking of people with patience and rock solid design skills (of which i possess neither), Zannah still has the same basic layout as she did when i first saw her page nearly a year ago. Maybe there were some inbetween steps that i missed, but colour me impressed. With a shade less patience, but with tons of primary color design skillz, perennial favourite Wockerjabby just got a massive redesign that you should lay your eyes on. And, finally, i dragged my lazy self over to Ahx this morning after a nearly week-long lapse in my reading to find him doing some damned great writing (compliments of me nonwithstanding, of course). More people should be hearing what he has to say.
Well, there you go. That’s enough excuses not to read me for a couple of hours, right? Good. Off you go.
Of all the beloved sites i’ve ever seen shut down, it’s always been the decision of the site administrator(s). Regular readers can leave and staff members can be bitchy and unhappy, but ultimately the admin makes the decision to pull the plug on the main page leaving everyone scrambling to talk to each other on the message boards before those too fade away or become completely irrelevant.
What is it about being the admin of a site that makes it so easy to shut everything down rather than just make a change? Is it that you’re tied to what the site was and not what it will be? Or, is it that you just get tired of making little fixes to what seems to you a large overall problem. Pulling the plug on a site, whether it be a treasured monument to e/n or the best Ani DiFranco site on the internet, seems like a hopelessly selfish choice. However, i suppose if you take on all the weight of maintaining a page yourself then you’re entitled to be selfish about it’s dissolution.
Bearing that in mind, is the solution to distribute both the joys of being a successful administrator as well as the sorrows? Does having a solid support staff make the difference between giving up on a page or just taking a much needed breather? Of course, having support staff presents nearly the same problem, as their collective vision sometimes strays from yours, leaving you either useless or annoyed. So, what’s the best formula for keeping a site going long enough that it becomes a mainstay in a community and not just a blip?
It seems to me that the easy answer is staying involved in the flow of your site, which is why so many solo blog-projects have become so consistent and venerable. It’s also why so many of them burn out and fail. If you don’t stay involved emotionally or scientifically or anything with your own writing, eventually what you’re creating means nothing and your page is just like the impression your head leaves on a pillow rather than a pillow with a real head on it. The same holds true for a group site … if you let yourself stray slowly from being an active poster to being a distanced administrator, your idea of fun is only based on reading the page as opposed to the real fun of writing it. This is not to say every administrator should be the center of attention – primadonna in their own specially constructed showcase. Instead, the point is that you have to occupy all of the positions at once: admin, staff, writer, and most importantly, fan.
Remind me about this post if i ever start bitching about any of this, if you would be so kind..
So, this morning Shafted.org finally gave up the ghost. You can go to read the final message of apathy and disinterest if you’d like, but i’ll spare you the link.
Sometimes bands break up because their overall creative urge started to diverge, and sometimes the various members of those bands go on to do beautiful things. Rather than use the obvious example of the Beatles, take a look at Ben Folds Five: they recently broke up because as a band they weren’t functioning properly, but Ben Folds has a new solo album coming out in a matter of months picking up where his creativity left off. I hope Robert and Darren have similar projects up their sleeves…
Anyhow, my point is that despite the old administration of Shafted losing interest in the interactions therein, those of us doing the majority of the interacting remain engrossed. As a result, today i uploaded the very basics of Repulsed using Noah Grey‘s spectacular GreyMatter as the backend. Only time will tell if we still have anything interesting to say, but at least now we have somewhere to say it.
I’m actually feeling somewhat violated by this whole McDonald’s debacle. Basically, their fries are vegetarian all over the world except in America, where they’ve been prepared with beef extract somewhere along the line. In India the cow is sacred, and so McDonalds respects that. In Britain vegetarians are a minority that actually holds some sway, and McDonald’s conceded. Yet, here in America where we’re just a bunch of ineffectual cow-munching idiots, McDonald’s has given no indication that they’ll change their preparation of fries. I was a vegetarian through all of the latter half of highschool and my first year at college, and i know for a fact that in that time i’ve had plenty of McDonald’s fries and i honestly feel like my decision to be a healthier person was violated by a multinational corporation with no respect for the people it serves. In light of this, maybe fast food restaurants need to indicate what’s really vegetarian on their menus, because sometimes vegetarians get hungry for some drive-thru too. As a result of all of this, i am hereby boycotting all McDonald’s products until the fries are vegetarian once again. This will be especially painful for me because i have a serious addiction to McDonald’s hashbrowns (which probably aren’t vegetarian either). Have a nice day. (stole from Re)