{Cheese and Beans}

It’s all change again for my personal blog – gone with the minimalist theme, and in with the loud, in your face theme. I would like to say this was all planned, but of course it wasn’t. During a fit of “what can I do next” last night, I ended up looking at the free themes over at WooThemes, and came away with this one – it’s called “Mainstream” if you are insterested in slapping it on your wordpress install.

I’m not sure that it’s any easier or more difficult to read than previous incarnations of “Cheese and Beans”, but at least it mixes things up a little. I guess I got bored with the blog being mundane.

Better to be “something” rather than “something of nothing”. Feel free to tear into me, and accuse me of being a serial tinkerer (I’ll freely admit to it).

At some point over the coming weekend I promise to begin writing “real, proper” posts again – instead of these self interested sidenotes about all manner of geekery.

It’s about time I caught my few remaining readers (thankyou for your perseverence, by the way) up on happenings in our menagerie.

Since deciding to continue with a personal blog a month or so ago, I have been wondering just how stupid I am. Of course there are many different ways somebody can be stupid, but I think I have a fair chance of nailing quite a few of them.

Shall we elaborate?

Do I really have anything to share worth reading?

Seriously. What on earth do I have to share with the wider world? What might other people want to read? What separates me from you?

Is my writing good enough?

Can I really string words together impressively enough to make reading them a pleasure, rather than a chore? Does my lack of literary training leave you, my pathetically small audience, gnashing your teeth as you wander off in search of better punctuation ?

How much does this damn blog cost?

In reality not so much. The price per month of one lunch from the sandwich guy that turns up at work each lunchtime. You might not think this much, but when multiplied throughout the year it becomes the price of 3 Moleskine notebooks, which most people don’t buy because they consider them too expensive.

I’m being flippant. We have reached the point in a so-so blog post where I flip-flop into a consideration of the statements I have made, and navel gaze insufferably about them. I promise to keep things short.

I have lots to share that I know others are interested in – my only concern is a classic one; the most popular subjects are the most difficult to write about. The children, adoption, work, our (mine and Wendy’s) relationship, our real life struggles, and my real thoughts about life, the universe and everything.

Why the emphasis on the word “real” ? Perhaps because I very rarely stand my own ideas and opinions up to be knocked down by the passing crowd. Perhaps it’s time I did so. The one subject I have systematically avoided within the annuls of Cheese and Beans has been my religious faith – or lack of it. Considering the propensity of others to preach their faith or belief from the rooftops, perhaps it’s time I spoke out.

I find difficulty expressing negativity. I’m not talking about the little things – complaining about the rain, or my laptop, or our pet cat. I’m talking about the big stuff; the objectional views and behaviour of others – some of whom I know and like.

The writing quality issue is one to ask somebody more knowledgeable than myself. I will admit to never writing drafts, editing, or spell checking. The words you read are as they left my fingers. I’m never going to write “On The Road”, but at least you know there is an honesty in my misuse of grammar and punctuation.

The quality of content tends to increase when I am well, not stressed, and not tired. It’s not rocket science.

Perhaps I should close this post with the admission that this blog runs at a loss, and probably always will. I am lucky enough to claim at least a little competence at a few things in my quiet existence on this ball of mud – and writing is not one that I might be remembered for commercially. I can live with that.

The next sentence is going to cause a number of people to slap their own foreheads with their hands – perhaps the entire readership – you know, all six of you. I’m just warning you in advance so you don’t try and blame me for personal injury.

I’m considering buying a domain name and webspace to build a “proper” blog.

If I’m going to live up to my word and put effort into the words I share, I may as well attempt to do so properly. This whole crackpot plan will of course mean moving everything again, and will probably cause a number of people who have half heartedly followed my various utterings to throw their arms in the air, and wander off to do something more interesting – you know, like cutting their toenails.

A little voice on one of my shoulders is shouting something about the platform not being important. Apparently it’s all about content – or rather words – and they better be damn interesting if an audience is going to be enticed towards them.

I have no problem writing – with a little application I know damn well I can compose far better words than I typically spew out.

If I do this, I’m going to have to lower my guard significantly. People are most interested in really weird shit – the deep, dark thoughts you wouldn’t normally share. The controversial opinions. The personality hatchet jobs you might normally keep to yourself. Without the honesty, the words lose their power, and the story becomes mundane.

I’m aware that since having children I’ve been busily building walls. Those will have to come down. If I do get the wrecking ball out, it will be scary as hell to start with, but might also be rather fun.

Oh crap. If I do this, I have to think of a name…

After much thought and deliberation – at least a twenty minutes during the cycle home from work – I have decided that it might be prudent to resurrect “cheeseandbeans.com”, which I already own. Truth be told, I can’t think up a better name than “Cheese and Beans”

“kingoftheidiots.com” is available, if you’re interested, as is “secondtotheleft.com”

As I have wrestled over the past year with the idea of stopping all this blogging nonsense, I have been turned around each time by an avalanche of comments and emails. It’s very easy to forget while thumping away at a keyboard in the dead of night that your thoughts and opinions will be broadcast across the world when you hit the submit button – in the same manner that you occasionally dig through the flotsam and jettsam for voices that speak to you – your voice may speak to others. Thousands of others.

What has brought all this to mind?

I recently lost one of the voices I read for many years – an amazing, opinionated, honest writer in the American mid-west. She was killed in a car crash in the early hours of the morning. News of the accident circled the globe in minutes – passed from country to country by those that had read her.

This evening, while trudging through the personal hell that is my Google Reader blogroll, I happened upon a post from another long time inspiration, announcing the retirement of her blog. It was a shock. Another voice gone.

What on earth is happening?

My resolve became focussed as I read a post from another corner of the world about the mania to monetize blogs. Given the impending death of the newspaper industry, and the empowerment that the internet as a publishing platform has brought to fruition, I can understand the reasons the hoards of shallow money men and marketeers have arrived, but it doesn’t make me like the situation any more.

I can’t help feeling that everybody is missing the point. We are the point. People. Our thoughts. Our voices. The community we have built, on the platforms we have built. Anything else will eventually prove to be unimportant. You only have to look at the current success of twitter to realise that all people really want to do is communicate. They don’t care how, and they will put up with a huge level of interference in that communication before they cease trying.

It is with this belief in mind that I find myself quite unexpectedly digging my heals in. Standing my ground. If nobody else is going to, then I damn well am going to carry on writing, and tell my story. It will be heard by those who choose to seek it out.

I will not go quietly into the night.

I’ve been using posterous to throw thoughts into this blog for a while now. It’s a clever system that lets you publish to multiple places off the back of one email. I played with it some months ago, and walked away – then in a fit of laziness started using it again late last year. It seemed almost magical that I could send one email, and have my content automagically appear on Wordpress, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Facebook, Blogger, Flickr, Delicious, and any number of other sites.

There are a few reasons I’m packing it in – most of them technical – but some of them practical too. Quite apart from it generating horrible markup from Google Mail, throwing the content I generate out across multiple platforms is diluting my readership. I realised while reading one of Guy Kawasaki’s “Holy Kaw” posts yesterday how annoying it is that he forces readers through several portal pages before you reach content. I didn’t like it at all, and then realised that it’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

If you had happened upon one of my blog posts on Facebook, the link would have taken you to posterous, not Wordpress. That was pretty stupid of me. I’m not trying to track readers, but I would like to think people can find their way back to me if they liked something I wrote – if my writing is appearing all over the place, then it’s difficult for them to do that.

I seem to have created accounts everywhere, and now I’m not sure what I might do with them. I’ll probably kill off posterous entirely. I’ll keep Tumblr because the community is fantastic, and I’ll keep LiveJournal for the same reason.

I’m good at causing chaos, aren’t I…