Still on the Brink of the Web

A year ago, a first big wave of migration from Twitter happened and I found myself trying Mastodon and CounterSocial. Mastodon felt better somehow and it’s very nice, has great community, you can work up some conversation if you persist and post and leave comments – but that’s how ALL social media works.

Today I see a FB memory that I was trying these out and now we’re in the middle of another round of shouting about how awful Twitter/X is and especially because

the owner is a loud jerk who allows others to be loud jerks. OMG the other N word! OMG! Another round of migration.

Oddly, this is not at all my twitter experience. I don’t see any of that and it’s a MUCH better platform for getting faster news. I’ve laid off it for a few days because a part of me is bothered by the jerk-who-owns. (since the first migration, I’ve actually increased the number of artists and writers I see there as well as adding some excellent opinion people)

But, despite following so many of the same accounts of news and opinion people in Mastodon and now Threads (another arm of FB so don’t bother telling me how wondrously shiny and human it is – it also has a board of directors and a profit motive and an often jerky bossman), there is just not the same stream of information there. I don’t know why these news and opinion folks say they’re on other platforms and then don’t mirror their posts but they don’t.

Mastodon at least has the ability to find people across the fediverse, to search for hashtags etc and to f-ing edit posts. So despite and because of its reliance on volunteer folks willing to run physical servers, it has a lot going for it. Twitter has lost a lot of features but keeps its speed of delivery. FB is just awash in fake ads and other crap.

Deep in my gut I think that even if the Far Right folks prevail in real life, no one will care as long as their cat pictures and videos can still be posted. I am SO positive about this. I hate it. I remember when I had to continually explain what a blog was, so there’s not much can be done about my disappointment in this.

Congratulations for making it this far.

Still on the Brink of the Web

Warez MB Been? But Exciting News!

I was doing a 30 day paint thing with a friend and posting more privately so apologies for the gap.

The last few days though I’ve had a little interruption – as two new kittens have arrived. Shout out to Kitten Angels and their fostering network and to Emily of Tiny But Mighty who fostered four black kittens and their black mama! We are taking it slow and steady and today spent some quality time downstairs. The little girl-cat discovered a nice cat bed with a view of a bird feeder and let her brother wander around downstairs giving pitiful wails without so much as a little prrrrt in response. The bed could easily hold four kittens but no – she didn’t feel like sharing or reassuring. I showed him where she was and he wasn’t interested.

So I used the time to update the cat cam. Stay tuned for future adventures with these two! I don’t know if we’ll be able to tell them apart once the collars come off but we shall see. (Names to be determined – in foster they were Maude and Frances.) And I better brush up my photo skills to accommodate two all-black cats.

PS Ginny and Harry are wonderfully ensconced with my Mom – but alas no cat cam there.

Warez MB Been? But Exciting News!

Covid Isn’t Over

Got a text that V-safe check in will be ending June thirtieth. Signed up for that with my first COVID-19 vax and it’s made me feel like a tiny part of the solution for something.

PS – Yesterday I found out – oops zero hashtags have been arriving here at masto, so wtf is up with that? No doubt something like my theme got updated and overwrote the changes I’d made… ratz. hate that when that happens! Will now attempt to fix.

Covid Isn’t Over

administrivia

You may notice that the weird error message at the top has gone away and that the things in the sidebar are a) working again and b) only there once rather than multiple times. I spent some time yesterday focused mainly on getting everything working and the removal of dupes was easy to do along the way.

Apparently, the WP plug-in that lets you access widgets “in the old fashioned way” needs some massaging to get those widgets, apparently brought over without a problem, actually working. Not as onerous as it might have been. Now the cat cam should update correctly and the random picture actually randomize!

The weird error message at the top meant that the archive directory wasn’t **really** working in the latest version but the good news was there was a very similar replacement plug-in that did work.

Still some work ahead to bring things up to code but at least it’s functional again.

administrivia

NaPoWriMo Day Nine and a Little Administrivia

Was tangled up in a new project that doesn’t relate to painting or poetry or even cooking! So here I am without too many words but still. I did go out a few times today and take a whiff of air and bask in the glow of the daffodils.

Not sure if the glow of daffodils
will ever not delight
but if it does please,
please just tip my cold body
into the garden to feed them.

In other news, I whacked at the dog rose out front a bit but decided I’d put regular trash in the bin first and then cut up the prickly stuff and put it on top. And the new project has made me poke at this poor blog a bit and figure out why some things weren’t working. Now the catcam is back in business and has photos of the current cats so you can try to ID them.

when daffodil joy
in some spring does not find me,
I’ll lie there with them.

NaPoWriMo Day Nine and a Little Administrivia

The Eve of April and NaPoWriMo – a new start!

Yes this past year was weird to the max, wasn’t it? I confess that although I was doubling up in my news aggregating and posting via social media, I couldn’t keep it going here too apparently? We were all tired for sure! And relieved when November came and went after a long stretch of pandemic isolation and all the pressures and anxieties it brought along with it.

I was painting and writing but not blogging.

But, today is the eve of April and in an effort to get “normal” back on track, let’s do this thing – blogging and NaPoWriMo. I’ve been doing some prep work for the month of poems-to-be. And, I think I’ll move something I’ve been doing over on the ol’ facebook to here since it’s all about the daily photo of something seen and enjoyed.

Welcome visitors, old and new and let the blog blossom along with the daffodils out front!

The Eve of April and NaPoWriMo – a new start!

It’s the little things…. blogging division

I’ve been blogging since early 2001 but started on Blogger and then moved to WordPress. There are two parts of WordPress, the free hosting on WP dot com and the self-hosted via WP dot org. It’s complicated (not really LOL)

It’s the little things…. blogging division

Administrivia :: Watch your head!

Doing a little updating and tweaking so let me know if anything seems broken or amiss. I’m sure it will be, somewhere!

(note to fans – my first priority was getting the quote box back up and running and it seems to be, although I’d like to make it look nicer)

Made It, Another Year

Had a pleasant dinner with Mom at the Olde English Pub in Albany and today I’m at work. It’s nice to reflect on the years past and think about times to come and to enjoy all the wishes coming towards me today. Thanks everyone!

Yesterday a little painting and more of that to come and then some adventuring. Stay tuned!

Day off, filled with geeky-poetry-ness

As the 2016 Postcard Poetry Fest starts to wind up, I decided I needed to reorganize the links to the other years. Maybe it would be better to do them as a gallery. That will only take a few minutes, right? Yeah right.

Anyway, Up at the top of the quiltr.com page, you’ll see the PoPoFest link. Now you can view 2014 and 2015 as a gallery. No names or addresses… Obviously 2016 isn’t complete yet.