Once again, the Friday Five.
1. How long have you had a weblog? In its current incarnation, since September 13, 2001. Before that, I was briefly here, although there’s only a handful of posts there. I’m also part of the communal writing weblog 600 seconds. Typically, if I have anything interesting to write, that’s where it will end up.
2. What was your first post about? Here, it was about the September 11th attack. It was just impossible not to post something about that. On the old pitas page, it was about my favorite online activity, capping.
3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one? It’s always been “occasional fish”, since I’ve always been especially fond of that quote. I’m not sure if I discovered it first through Neil Gaiman or through Karawynn Long‘s short story “The Voice of Her Eyes” (at the time, I was probably still reading my way through the Sandman graphic novels). Either way, I’ve always liked it. I sometimes wonder what strangers who come stumbling in are expecting. Aquarium news?
4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else? I use Blogger. Pitas was nice, and at the time I liked having my weblog as an external link for some reason, but I’ve been relatively happy with what I’ve got here, the occasional (sometimes reoccurring) bugs notwithstanding. If my current web hosting plan allowed some of what goes along with them — and I felt confident I could figure them out — I might consider trying Greymatter or Movable Type. But hey, I know people who like Diaryland, Livejournal, or Manilla. Whatever works for you.
5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place? I have no idea how to answer that. I like good writing, regardless of its location. My friend Sharon, for instance, keeps both a weblog and a dream journal. I enjoy reading both. I tend to read weblogs more than I read online journals for some reason, perhaps because journals require more dedication and are harder for new readers to just jump into. I used to Karawynn Long’s nine lives, but she’s put that on hiatus. There’s Darn Tootin’, Lazarus (which doesn’t get updated much anymore but which I still check up on), and Nyssa has been known to write some longer, more diary-like posts. But otherwise, it’s primarily weblogs. Even more primarily, it’s good writing.
Very neat to learn this about you. I wish I had been blogging since 2001 so I would have a lot more memories written down from the past decade!
Thanks for sharing!
Jenn