Two hundred seventytwo posts. Eight hundred eleven comments. Walt at Random is one year old today.
I had no real idea where this was going to go. The description, “Libraries, music, net media, cruising, policy, and other stuff not quite ready for Cites & Insights,” was a best guess (and I think that description has changed over time?).
I knew it wasn’t going to be a heavyweight post-every-day, aiming-for-the-A-list blog: After all, Cites & Insights is my primary outlet in the library field, and that’s going stronger than ever. I was hoping for an average of two posts a week; it looks as though I’ve averaged around five per week, but in wildly erratic patterns.
I was thrilled the first time a non-spam comment showed up. (Two days ago I had the first day in months when none of the comments awaiting moderation was spam. Things are, unfortunately, back to normal.) I was astonished when some posts gained lengthy, serious, involved comment threads. This one, with 35 comments to date, is close to astounding. (The link says that’s post 272. Apparently I must have deleted four posts along the way, or prepared drafts that never got posted, or something… The count that heads this essay is from the administration panel, which says there were 272 posts prior to this one.)
Let’s see. My categorization is as sloppy as my writing can be, but the sidebar seems to show that writing and blogging come first, followed by net media in almost a tie with libraries, followed by movies and TV, followed by “stuff”–my wonderfully articulate description of almost a quarter of the posts.
I haven’t written as much about music as I expected (but that could change). “Policy” in the description covers a lot of ground; I don’t think I’d ever use that as a category, but it includes copyright, censorware, many of the library posts, and quite a few in other categories. Cruising? Well, like speaking, I haven’t been writing about it as much because I haven’t been doing it as much–our most recent cruise was last June, and we don’t have one scheduled. Still, I’d guess I’ve written more about cruising (that is, on boats and ships) than anyone else in the biblogworld (I’m trying out a new neologism, since I’m as sick of biblioblogosphere as others: any takers?).
Yes, this is April 1, and I deliberately chose that date for the first post (although I cheated on that one: It was written the day before and postdated. This post is real-time writing: I started after breakfast on Saturday morning and will post it as soon as it’s done and I’ve done a quick “no bizarre formatting” preview). But this post is no more a joke than the blog as a whole–and the blog as a whole has turned into a little more than I expected.
No promises here. On reflection, might I have worded some posts slightly differently? Probably, although I can’t think of any that I completely regret posting. Do I consider this blog to be a big deal? As much as I did a year ago, which is to say not all that much–but I’m not inclined to give big-deal status to many other blogs either.
Well, let me modify that: One promise: Assuming continued health and all that, I’ll keep blogging when the spirit moves me, on topics that feel right at the time.
Who knows? I still want to go back and look at some title CD-ROMs, to see how (whether) they run on a contemporary system (mine’s 3.5 years old, but I regard any 1.5GHz+ PC with XP or OS X, at least 512MB RAM, and a decent graphics card as “contemporary”) and whether the stories they told are being told as well or as effectively “elsewhere” these days. I’ve been meaning to start that process for three years. Maybe, if time allows, putting those mini-reviews here rather than in C&I makes sense. Maybe both. Maybe time never will allow: There are so many magazines and books to be read, so much music to listen to, so many DVDs to view, and so many blogs to read…and, when spring finally does arrive, so many walks to take and flowers and trees and people to appreciate.
I’m not going away. It’s fun around here.
Except that I read it the first time as bi-blog-world, it’s not a bad alternative. Congrats on your milestone.
Maybe “bibblogworld”? Thanks.
Hmmm… I, too, read bi-blog. But bibblog reads to me as “bibble-og.” Actually, I kind of like Bibble-og – maybe as a character on the Flinstones? (Insert winky here.) (The emoticon Winky, not the L. Frank Baum Winky.)
Congrats on a year, Walt!
I, too, really do not like “biblioblogosphere,” but I don’t know about “biblogworld” either. I did read it “correctly” the 1st time, but maybe because I expected to be biblio-related. I do like the -world part better than -sphere, though.
Can’t find it again, but about a week ago when I only had a few seconds here and there to venture into the blogosphere I came across a post that was proposing another coinage, also dumping -sphere, which I really liked. I had even meant to post about it when I got time. The reasoning had to do with a sphere implying a center, which there really isn’t.
But, Bibble-og? It certainly has style; but unfortunately isn’t very parseable, making it very insider-ish.
Happy Blog Birthday!
TangognaT: Thanks. Should we start a separate post/thread on “Renaming the biblioblogosphere”?