Here's the best way to get a random blog entry from the movable type database:
SELECT entry_basename, entry_week_number
FROM `mt_entry`
WHERE entry_id >= (
SELECT FLOOR( MAX( entry_id ) * RAND( ) )
FROM `mt_entry` )
ORDER BY entry_id
LIMIT 1 ;
As you can see I finally found time in the weekend to upgrade my blog to the latest version of Movable Type. I also decided to enable comments again, so feel free to click on the link and leave a message.
I also now automatically redirect the visitor from the old-fashioned blog to this one, so if you try and go to www.kiffinsblog.com you will end up here at www.kiffingish.com/blog. In the meantime I'll gradually migrate the fancy design stuff from the old site over to here in order to make it more personal and Kiffin-like.
Now I have to do my other more important chores for the day: repair the patio sliding door, oil the kitchen faucet, and fix the shower (after two minutes there is no more hot water).
On Friday, October 19, 2007 at 14:33:01 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 300000.
For many many months now, the random link at the top of this page just below the banner hasn't been working. I decided to fix it once and for all.
First of all I redefined the link to refer to a new CGI script mt_random.pl which I wrote myself using good old Perl. Here is how the new link is defined:
<a href="/cgi-bin/mt_random.pl?blog_id=1" title="Jump to a completely random place on this blog...">Random</a>
Of course the whole random magic of the situation is the Perl script mt_random.pl itself, which looks like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use DBI;
use CGI;
use strict;
my $q = new CGI;
my $format_url = "http://www.kiffinsblog.com/archives/%d/%0.2d/%s.html";
my $hostname = 'localhost';
my $database_name = 'db_name';
my $user = 'db_usr';
my $password = 'db_password';
my $dsn = "dbi:mysql:database=$database_name;host=$hostname";
my $blog_id = $q->param('blog_id') || 1;
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $user, $password) or die "Can't connect to $dsn: $DBI::errstr";
my $sql = <<EOF;
SELECT
entry_basename,
entry_title,
date_format( entry_created_on, '%Y' ) AS entry_year,
date_format( entry_created_on, '%m' ) AS entry_month
FROM
mt_entry,
mt_author
WHERE
entry_blog_id = $blog_id
AND
entry_status = 2
AND
author_id = entry_author_id
ORDER BY rand( )
LIMIT 1
EOF
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$sth->execute();
my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;
print $q->redirect(sprintf($format_url, $ref->{entry_year}, $ref->{entry_month}, $ref->{entry_basename}));
You can now try it out yourself by clicking on the link above, and if you cannot find it then clicking here.
Pretty amazingly magical don't you think?
Decided to get rid of that boring Les Pays Bas windmill picture on the left margin and replace it with a more appropriate photograph of the wonderful Dutch landscape within a ten minute walk from my house. I feel confident that this is a definite improvement, don't you think?
In order to encourage better people leaving comments on my blog, I figured I should try to enable this blog's option to allow mail from anyone.
Unfortunately within a day I received no less than thirty-five spam comments. Now it's back to the original setting where only so-called registered users can leave comments, sorry.
This should not be a problem for those really keen on adding comments now and then, as all you have to do is click on the sign-in link.
I never believed it would ever be possible until much to my pleasant surprise I received the following email notification from my blog server:
On Monday, October 16, 2006 at 13:09:30 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 100000.
Please note that this value only includes 'unique' visitors to my blog, thus not including repeat offenders he keep on coming back for more.
Not bad after all these years of blogging, I would say.
On Monday, August 28, 2006 at 02:20:22 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 90000.
Only ten thousand to go.
Successfully upgraded my blog to Movable Type 3.31 without a single hitch.
Was a little worried and postponed it several weeks just in case, but now I am glad I installed the newest version.
While waiting for the train to arrive, I was gazing off into the nothingness in front of me and all of a sudden a great idea for a blog entry popped into my mind. Oh I cannot wait to write that in my blog.
Since it was such a really compelling concept, I figured that there would be no reason to write it down since I would not could not forget it no way.
Unfortunately, that was yesterday and now I cannot remember what it was anymore, kind of like a recent dream which just after you awake slowly but surely fades away forever, particles of sand rushing between your fingers.
Oh well, better luck next time.
On Saturday, June 17, 2006 at 06:26:25 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 80000.
Sorry about shutting down this blog, but it took me a little more than a week to find out what was happening.
You see, some idiot out there decided to use my webserver to send spam all over the place.
Before I realized it, my service provider cut me off with an angry warning that thousands of email spams were being shot off from my host address.
This took me much time and alot of soul-searching to figure things out, but I believe this aggravating problem has been rectified once and for all.
How? Well, if I told you that, then I would be welcoming the next hacker to drop by and hack away again.
In order to find out which blog entries of mine have the most comments so far, this is the SQL query that can be used:
SELECT mt_comment.comment_entry_id, COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM mt_comment WHERE mt_comment.comment_visible=1 GROUP BY mt_comment.comment_entry_id ORDER BY cnt DESC LIMIT 25;
As you can see over there on the righthand margin under the 'Most comments' section, I have enumerated the top twenty five.
Have a look and tell me what you think.
The official hit-count for this blog has passed the sixty thousand mark (see for yourself over there to the left down at the bottom).
Maybe that does not sound like alot, but I only count the unique visitors per complete visit.
My definition of a visit being stretches of time where all activity takes place within a thirty-minute period, e.g. a following visit taking place thirty minutes later counts for another visit.
Keep on coming all you kind visitors. Maybe someday we can reach the hundred thousand mark together.
Timbl's Blog, from the man himself who started it all.
In the last two days this blog has welcomed more than a thousand visitors. To me that is truly mind-boggling. Where is everyone coming from? What brings them here? What entries are they reading? Why on earth would they want to drop by my blog of all places?
After struggling for some time now, I finally got that [email me] link working (see the horizontal navigation toolbar above, just below the title banner).
And just to prove that it really works, I received within the first day an email message from someone who calls himself ventilator.
This is what he wrote:
Just thought you might be interested in a fresh dream blog. There's not as many of these out there as I'd expected, and maybe I should try and bring them all together. Enjoyed yours very much - thanks!
http://nightly-wander.blogspot.com/
Thanks alot ventilator, and be sure to come back soon.
My poor blog has been bombarded the last week or so with comments spam from some online poker site, those jerks.
There's not much I can do about it except turn off comments altogether. Not that my blog gets that many comments from honest down-to-earth goodies, but it is more the idea of having to give in to misbehaved baddies that gets to me.
No way I'm going to give in to them.
Hopefully there will be a solution to this problem in the not so distant future, but I am afraid it will not be easy.
Now it is possible to view my blog from your Palm or Pocket PC. I have created a PDA-enabled web page for your late time entertainment.
If you are the happy owner of AvantGo, then all you have to do is add a personal channel using the url above:.
Or just have a look at an online demonstration of what it looks like if you had a PDA and could look at it.
Somehow I managed to upgrade my blog this evening to the latest version of Movable Type 3.2 and it went fairly smoothly.
I am pretty pleased with the results, so I can go to bed now and watch television.
Since the very beginning I have been an avid fan of this fine publishing platform for personal blogs, and I have followed its development closely up to and including the fine product it has become today.
Notice any changes and/or improvements to this blog?
True geeks (like me) spend their weekend evenings trying to redesign one's weblog over and over again. Getting down to the nitty-gritty cascaded style sheets and perfecting the presentation with more challenging tweaks. Just one more, and then another. Always trying to make things better.
Once in awhile Marlies reads my blog. I know this because this evening I happened to spot it displayed on the computer monitor where she had just been sitting.
So the next time I see her I say (kind of excitedly): "So you like to read my blog once in awhile do you?"
She answers (quite honestly): "Yes I do, but ninety-nine percent of the time it is pretty boring."
At least she is honest.
According to the recent web statistics, the term 'anus' was the top search item in my blog last week, followed by the word 'drunk' and then 'f--k boy' believe it or not.
Is this indicative of the average visitor to my web log? I certainly hope not, but it could be true.
Sorry, but this great blog (Gibberations) has been discontinued and replaced by:
I was getting way too many junk-like spam comments lately, so I decided to enable the so-called unregistered comment moderation.
Sorry, but this means that while unregistered folks can freely add comments, these will not be displayed until I have approved them.
If you want your comments to be accepted and displayed immediately, you will first have to register.
As a long-standing user from the early days, I have qualified as a full-fledged beta tester of the upcoming release of MovableType.
In other words, I am now honored and privileged to play around with and test the newest version 3.1 beta. This is what this new blog is all about.
So far only a few minor problems and it looks really great, but we will have to see.
If all works out, I plan to move on over here.
Welcome, look around and have fun...
As a long-standing user from the early days, I have qualified as a full-fledged beta tester of the upcoming release of MovableType. In other words, I am now privileged to play around with and test the newest version 3.1 beta. So far only a few minor problems and it looks really great.
Have a look at the new-and-improved Kiffin's Blog if you dare. From now on I will be adding new entries here to see how well it works.
Starting last week, my poor blog has been showing signs of old age and unpredictable failures here and there.
I contacted the fine folks at MovableType and have been told that the cause of this instability is more than likely that I have too many entries and that the ever growing database cannot handle so much junk.
Berkeley is the default database for MovableType, and it does not fare too well with humongous amount of information. So I am afraid I will have to migrate everything to good old MySQL. In time that is.
Bummer.
In the meantime, I will try and figure out what I can do about this. Please be patient while I work on it.
Quirks and hiccups and inconsistencies will come and go.
On Thursday, June 17, 2004 at 02:16:22 (PDT)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 40000.
Have you ever wanted to keep track of your blog entries which are the most popular, e.g. those visited the most?
Well, here's a little something I created on my blog that not only keeps a running record of these totals but also allows you to display the results in a couple of ways.
In my spare time (whatever I've got left lately), I played around with my blog and ended up creating a most visited option.
In the left margin you should see a new sidebar item appropriately called "Most visited" which lists the top twenty blog entries which have been viewed/read (starting say about a week ago). If you prefer to see the complete list, then just click the show all button.
Later on, if I have more time left on my hands, I will try to write a short tutorial on how I managed this amazing feat of programming lore.
Ideally, my goal would be to enter it in the Plug In to Movable Type 3.0 Developer's Contest. But I only have a couple more weeks.
Alright, there was no stopping me and I had to get it, the new Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition.
Since I was part of the beta testers group and have donated money on a regular basis, I got a 50-percent discount.
What a bunch of really kind folks they have at MovableType.
[Warning: for those using the MT-Blacklist plugin by Jay Allen, you're in for a little trouble as it is incompatible with the new comments. You'll have to remove it.]
On Friday, May 21, 2004 at 14:23:26 (PDT)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 38000.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to stick a so-called random button on this blog to give folks a chance to jump around this blog in a more precarious and unexpected way.
If you look closely, you will see the bluish button on the right margin, and placed randomly (note the meta pun) all over the place. The button looks like this:
So how does it work? you might be wondering. Well for those Perl gurus out there it is nothing more than a simple script which scans a given directory, grabs a random HTML-file from the listing and does a good old redirect via the HTTP-header.
Of course, in order for this little code snippet to work, you have to have CGI enabled on your web server, e.g. included as part of your subscription.
Confused? Then here is a little code which I hope helps you folks out:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# rand_redirect.pl
#
# Redirect for MovableType where a user will be sent
# to a random blog entry, category or whatever the
# HTML-file is present in the archive directory.
#
use strict;
my $dir = "archives";
my $rootdir = "/Blogger";
use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
if (opendir(DX, $dir))
{
my @allfiles = sort grep { $_ ne '.' and $_ ne '..'
and ($_ =~ /\.html$/i) } readdir DX;
closedir DX;
my $num = (@allfiles);
if ($num > 0)
{
my $n = rand($num);
my $fname = $allfiles[$n];
print $q->redirect("$rootdir/$dir/$fname");
}
}
The last step is the easiest. Decide where on the page you want the button to appear, and just add the following code there:
<input type="button" value="Random" onclick="document.location='/cgi-bin/rand_redirect.pl'">
Hope this little code snippet helps someone out there whenever and however that may ever be. Please tell me what you think.
For some reason, I have been getting messages from some of my readers stating that they can no longer add any comments to this blog.
Strange, because with my browser setup, everything seems to work just fine.
Could be that in my never-ending pursuit of making things even better I may have once again (accidentally) made them worse.
If you are having this problem, please describe to me exactly what you are doing and what is happening (if anything).
I would also like to know what browser you are using, which should appear below. All you have to do is click on the link to email me a report.
Hopefully I have made this convenient enough for you. Thanks in advance for taking the time to report this bothersome error.
On Friday, November 21, 2003 at 04:18:09 (PST)
the hit-count for Cyber-Gish.com is: 30000.
That is the number of unique visitors (not including myself of course) since way back on September 9th, 2001 when I first put up that future-famous web site of mine.
Pretty amazing, isn't it?
On Tuesday, November 04, 2003 at 03:23:59 (PST)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 26000.
Wow, that means that I have had one thousand visitors since October 20, which is only around 15 days ago.
At this rate, I will hit one hundred thousand in about 1110 days (1000 visitors per 15 days times 365 days per year) or almost exactly 3 years (and 15 days).
Of course, I am also expecting the use of Internet to increase drastically, so this will most certainly be less than that, probably much less.
Can't wait.
Yesterday for the heck of it I enabled Google Search tracking on my web log. That means that everytime someone uses Google to search for a given word or phrase and they end up landing somewhere on my web log, I record the event.
Believe it or not, within 24 hours I had already amassed an amazing 138 searches on my blog originating from Google!
Here is a sampling of the most popular phrases, a snapshot of the last twenty-four hours of distant unknowing clicks:
I find the resulting list quite enlightening for some reason, although some people might consider it pure randomness and/or trivial data-mining. But for me it is entertaining enough, that I will actually dedicate a whole blog entry to it.
On Monday, October 20, 2003 at 06:20:23 (PDT)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 25000.
About a week or so ago, after having my poor and innocent blog being bombarded with tons and tons of aggravating comments spam, I wrote the following at the Movable Type Support Forum:
Since then I am happy to announce that I have discovered a fantastic Movable Type plugin called MT-Blacklist.
By using this you can kill comment spam dead in its track. Try it and you will like it, I am sure. What a great feeling.
There are many reasons I can list right now as to why I like to write in my blog.
For instance, like how it allows me to sit back and think during a quiet evening in a attempt to translate my inner feelings or be philosophical or induce a state of higher spiritual awareness. That kind of thing.
However, probably one of the most important reasons I concoct crazy and unpredictable blog entries is because of the reaction it elicits from others (not me). Like the occasional response from a reader or a meaningful gesture which really makes me feel good. Reaching out and communicating with others, sharing ideas and just plainly making sure that the other person keeps on believing that in one way or the other it all still kind of makes sense.
Confused? Let me try to illustrate this by explaining what happened to me a couple of days ago.
You see, I arrived home to discover an enticing brown package had arrived for me in the mail that morning. My name and address were neatly printed on the label in bold: Mhr. Gish Kiffin. The return address was also printed neatly on a label: a person from elsewhere in Europe, his name being Brad.
Hmmm, do I know someone by that name from that country? Couldn't remember. The package obviously contained something solid and rectangular and not real thick, but thick enough that it would not bend. Unless of course I tried to force it. Didn't want to force it now to find out did I? Could be anything, but what?
Stop pondering young man. In a greedy and excited ripping movement of my two hands working back and forth, kind of in an uncontrolled jerkiness, I pulled off the flap on the back of the envelope, and then let the contents slip down through the elongated slit I had created. Turn, fall and make a flat plopping sound on a wooden surface.
I scoped out the situation and let my neurons fire a few electrical impulses and figure it all out in no less than three seconds. Three items (one item per second) fell out onto the table, and the exact order in which they fell out was:
Aha, I get it. At least I think I do. Or not? The cardboard to prevent unnecessary bending made perfect sense and was the finishing touch which put me more in touch with Brad. Nice touch Brad.
 The actual book Brad sent. |
And he goes on in his letter to explain that he is also an American residing on the outskirts of a large European city, and he is about the same age as I am, how he finds my blog interesting because he is also seriously considering staying as an expat after he retires, how he is married with children going to a foreign school, and on and on...
Wow. I'm impressed.
I was sure flattered and felt kind of embarrassed that some stranger would go so much out of his way to send me all of this. Hard to believe, but it made me feel really good. And I mean really really good. Made my day, my week, the rest of this unpredictable month.
There is still hope in the world, you see. I probably would have done the same thing had I been in the same situation. Perhaps?
Paths meander all over the place and somehow cross-over each other once in awhile. This was one example of such a miracle of modern times, winding threads coming close and then parting. The time of the Internet, blogging and the ability to communicate instantaneously to the whole wide world.
And also to hear back from one of the millions of souls once in a while. Touching.
Thanks alot Brad! I hope you don't mind me including this in my blog. Your kindness is greatly appreciated. By me but also by all of my readers. And the readers of those readers.
I am certainly going to read your book right away. Thanks and again thanks!
There is this truly amazing blog survey out there, and it is called Why is it that we blog and what do we understand about the blogging process?
Simple, powerful, down-to-earth and to the point. Completing the survey should take no more than 10 minutes (or less) of your valuable time.
I encourage every true-blue blog author out there to take part in this survey so we can help Roy Hornsby conduct research for his honours thesis at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.
I took part and I was glad I did. For more information, check out a research weblog about weblogging.
Perhaps it might also be interesting to include a survey for those kind folks out there who actually "just read" blogs for their own late night entertainment (excluding actual blog authors that is).
Lots of luck Roy!
A power struggle erupts over a technology widely used to distribute Web logs, pitting blog pioneer Dave Winer against opponents at IBM, Google and others clamoring for a different format...
Hard to believe it, but this blog called Gibberations has just passed the 20,000 hits mark. Meaning that in the last two years there have been alot of visitors coming to read my web log (you can check out the hit-counter for yourself by looking at the bottom of the lefthand margin). Quite an accomplishment, I would say.
Two years ago to this very day I started this future famous web blog and it is still alive and kicking! Happy anniversary to my good old gibberations and I hope that in another couple years it is still going strong.
Now if you click on the random image up on the top left-hand corner of this web page, you will be shown a list of the images directory.
I found this little jewel of a Perl script via the CGI Resource Newsletter which advertised the free script called WebImageLister.
Give it a try and find out for yourself.
My blog entry called Crackedty-crack continues to amaze me. Recently it has suddenly become very popular for some reason, now with a record of 27 comments. How do people find out about it, probably Google. Hard to believe but true. Alot of calls for help from various poor souls addicted to the unappreciated art of cracking your fingers.
On Saturday, May 17, 2003 at 16:00:34 (PDT)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 15000.
Check out Death of a blogger for an interesting discussion about the so-called thought-viruses which through the art of blogging everywhere produce walking and talking and self-propagating memes.
This morning I received an interesting email. The message was from some one who claims to be a journalist on assignment for the Washington Post health section, doing a (rather lighthearted) piece on knuckle cracking. She asked my permission if she could quote from my blog entry Crackedty-crack. I said alright, although at the same time I am a little weary of having droves of potential readers flooding my site and studying all the personal details of my life. I would sure hate finally having become famous because of some dumb article I wrote about cracking your knuckles, when there is so much more in life that I can offer. However, that's the funny way that fate works sometimes.
Of all the weblog entries I have made so far, by far the most popular in terms of the number of comments is crackedty-crack. At the moment of this writing there have been sixteen comments which is pretty amazing. I never realized that there were so many folks out there with similar concerns about cracking their knuckles. Interesting isn't it? All knuckle crackers unite!
Today is a memorable moment in the history of this fine blog called Gibberations. Some visitor out there had unknowingly triggered an email notification to be sent to me. It contained the following message: "On Thursday, February 06, 2003 at 16:53:14 (PST), the hit-count for Gibberations became: 10,000." Compared to other blogs this might not sound like alot of hits, but for my modest future-famous blog it is quite an accomplishment of which I can be proud. All in all it has been more than worth it.
"GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. Find your neighbor's blog, perhaps, or the web page of the restaurants near you." You might have noticed the little green button I added in the upper right-hand corner.
So would you like to have the same on your web site? Well, just add the following code in the <head> section of your web page:
<meta name="ICBM" content="longitude, latitude">
<meta name="DC.title" content="site name">
After you have done that, then you have to ping the server in order to indicate that the page has been updated.
In case you are interested, my coordinates are (52.02879, 4.69706). Check out my neighbors in meatspace.
So what if I spent the whole day practicing the fine art of CGI-programming by fine-tuning and improving my Top Referers script? Sometimes a man just wants to make himself feel challenged whether or not the actions taken are in the end anything but challenging. Don't believe me? Well you can check it out yourself and tell me what you think.
It would only be fair for me to give due credit to the fine folks at Solution Scripts whose scripts I decided to hack and tear apart and put back together in order to get it exactly my way (again). Sometimes if you are not satisfied, it is necessary to go to bizarre extremes to accomplish your goal.
In the article MS in blog parody takedown, bloggers worldwide shiver in their boots as once again they are confronted with the hard reality. Watch out or else. This is a blatant example of why we bloggers always have to remain alert to the inherent dangers of writing stuff that could possibly be used against us for reasons unknown. It happened to me once before, and it will more than likely happen to me again. Seems that no matter how innocuous the content may appear, no matter how naive our intentions, there are always folks out in the big bad world who perceive things differently and crave to get you in trouble. Is this a breach on the fundamental right to express oneself?
Related articles: The Ellen Feiss of blogdom? and Back in the Bloghouse.
Once in awhile you read an article on the Internet that really hits the spot. Such is the case this evening when I randomly came across a great piece. For those future-famous web writers like myself, you might want to check out 10 tips on writing the living web. This is a source of inspiration for those (like me) who find that it is a tremendous challenge writing on the web.
Believe it or not, my future-famous homepage is number one on the Google search results list for the name of "Gish." Even higher than the The Official Website of Lillian Gish. I guess this is prove that I am well on my way to becoming a future famous person, don't you think? To see it for yourself, click here.
An acquaintance of mine has brought it politely to my attention that I should be more careful with certain passages that I am describing in my blog. In one way I feel quite flattered and honored that people within my social circles have somehow or other discovered my blog and are actually taking the time to look at my entries. At the same time however, I feel a little bad if I have inadvertently exposed sensitive information which does not belong on a public medium like the Internet. Surely it was not intentional on my part. I was just trying to do my duty as a full-fledged blogger by recording events around me in a spontaneous and random way. These events need to be viewed through different glasses though, reprocessed carefully in my head, before they have been transformed from thoughts into actual passages in my blog. This is a new twist in my attitude towards blogging. Whereas I used to believe firmly in the complete unequivocal freedom of speech, I now realize that I have a responsibility as a writer to respect the values and beliefs of others. A while ago, I remember reading about some person who had regularly used her blog as a means of venting her hatred towards a number of fellow employees and even her manager. She did this in a mean and hateful manner which didn't help one bit. Although her boss kindly requested she stop doing this, she refused to remove these passages on the idealistic basis of so-called "freedom of speech." And she lost her job. Bye bye, and all for a stupid blog. Not that my entries are any where near that caustic and insulting, but still. I must be more conscious of this and more careful. In the beginning, I treated blogging as an open and honest means of expressing "anything" no matter what, the most important purpose being to express you innermost thoughts. Even if it meant dragging in others, pulling the surroundings unknowingly into your hole called the blog. This is not the right approach, in fact it is wrong, dead wrong. Now I realize that I am a kind of diplomat in a world of knowledge and ideas, and I must retain a form of professionalism in describing the events and the people causing them or being effected by them. Natural and/or unnatural. I have a social responsibility to everyone out there who might accidentally or purposely be perusing these contents. Welcome, grab a chair, sip your morning cofee and read my blog please. So it is time to avoid details about my work, private matters of others, remarks about fat or dumb people, acidic words and sentences of any form. Thanks alot acquaintance of mine for having brought this possibly embarrassing pitfall to my attention. So that is what I am going to do from now on, I promise each and every one of you now reading this blog entry. And all future blog entries to come. Okay? Freedom of speech does in fact have its limits. Even if it is a tiny relatively unknown piece of a blog as well as a minuscule voice in the challenging universe of blogging for you and me.
Exactly one year ago today I wrote my very first blog. So far I have been able to keep it all going pretty well, at least until now there seems to be enough to say. While I enjoy blogging very much, there is a difficult balance which has to be made between the every day sort of happenings and what I need to record in the electronic blah blah medium.
According to my most recent Atomz Search Report, here are the top phrases searched on my website this last week:
This blog is almost one year old (just 19 more day to be precise), but today marks the 5000th visitor mark for this year. To be more precise, as of today there have been 5013 visitors to my future famous blog. Thanks to all of your for having made this blog of mine more than worth it.
This is my burning psychological question that I submitted to Ask Mrs. H. at the digital journal called Technoerotica:
"Dear Mom, You don't mind me calling that do you? Well anyway, I have been trying to become famous since I was born. As a noble goal in life, I have focused my attention on attaining this amazing feat for almost forty-five years. Now I wonder if it is still really worth it all. I mean trying to become famous. I have this funny feeling that I have been famous from the very beginning, and I just have not opened my eyes to realize this. Am I just fooling myself with delusions of grandeur or is it really true that I am the most famous person in the universe?"
I am curious if it will be taken seriously and actually answered on the site.
As I felt in a really generous mood this evening, I just bumped up my donation to MovableType by eleven bucks to reach a grand total so far of $46. That means that I qualify for an additional registration key for a new blog if I wish. Not only will it appear on the donor's list, but every time I add a new entry it will also appear on the running list of recently updated blogs, wow. Hmmm, another blog. What should I do? I was thinking about doing something about my dreams ("Dream Theater"), but that sounds pretty boringly average. There is already enough boring philosophical garbage present in Gibberations, so I cannot do that either. Ideally I need to think of a new and challenging category. I will give it a think and tell you folks when I have decided what it will be. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?
Rumor has it that there are more than forty thousand blogs out there already. Can you believe that? That is an awful lot of bloggers running around (aimlessly). I guess I am not alone. Seems like everyone is becoming part of the grand revolution where a giant and complex web of thoughts is slowly but surely encompassing our world and sooner or later the whole universe. Does this fact make the importance of the words I pen (I mean pound away at my computer keyboard) any less significant? I think not. You might want to read the article Attack of the blogs. I believe that blogging is not "having its 15 minutes of fame right now" but rather constitutes "the opening scene of a new thousand-year bloggian reich." All this talk about a new blogging revolution is perhaps a bit exaggerated and alot of hype. People try so hard to get into things and have such complete belief in one form or another. That is besides the point. The important thing is the general direction and the slow-motion movement of which we are all a part. Bloggers everywhere unite in order to save the world.
 Click this picture. |
Just heard that the newest version of Movable Type came out. While I am really excited to try it out, I think I'll be patient and just wait. Avoid all the potential problems and pitfalls, let all the other enthusiastic bloggers try it out first. See what happens to them. You never know, sure would feel bad if all my blogs just happened to disappear into thin air because of some unexpected bug raising its ugly head. Give it a week or so, and then I will go for it.
You know, I was really excited this evening. This is because I had an interesting series of thoughts that held together like nothing I had seen before. They were wonderful thoughts holding together like a long and winding gathering of this and that. These thoughts were bizarre, unusual, frightening, holy, insightful, as black as night and as bright as the sun at the same time, provocative beyond belief, and pretty interesting too. So then what happened, and why didn't I end up putting it in my blog, this blog? Well, just when the momentum started building up, the flow of thoughts coming out at nearly the speed of light, I panicked. I got subtly nervous and started to shake slightly. It is called fear, the fear of recrimination or extreme punishment. Like in the Middle Ages. I was afraid that what I was about to write, no matter how wonderfully fantastic, would be taken out of context and used against me. Gotten me fired from my job. Some renowned psychiatrist would deem me schizophrenic, and I would be banished to a mental institute up there on the hill. That hill over there, I mean. It is getting worse and worse, and you read about it more often on the Internet. People are getting fired for what they are writing in their blogs. Yes, believe it or not it is true. You might want to check out the following entries at Fired at Mastication is Normal, Collecting Unemployment at Douce or Welcome to my weblog at Diveintomark, for more insights into the arisal of this undesirable trend. The ironic thing is that what they have written is not that bad at all, simply an expression, a random couple of thoughts, a release of insight, which someone somewhere just happened to take a little too personally. Someone who was bored with life and decided it would be a little more interesting if he displayed a mask like being offended. People like to write for themselves, or for the sake of creative writing, or for pure art. Like me. The farthest thing from our minds is trying to chop people down or make them look bad. If we wanted to do that effectively, if we were really persistent, we would not have chose the ineffective medium of blogging to accomplish this. There are easier means that attract a much wider audience more quickly. Being fired for a blog entry? What a joke, I cannot stop laughing. This is terrible, I cannot stop crying. I thought that I was paranoid, but now I am getting even more paranoid. More and more and more paranoid. What if someone way over there who had never seen me face-to-face or even can spell my name correctly reads this and gets upset. "Hey!" he or she will shout, "I do not know you, and yes I do live way over there." To make matters even worse, he will never had met me face-to-face either. "And to make matters even worse," we is saying right at this very moment, "I have never even met you face-to-face, Griffen!" Short pause and then, "How dare you write that way about me!" I think it is better if I stop writing this blog entry now before I get fired or something even worse happens to me, like getting my blog taken away from me. Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.
Had an interesting chat yesterday evening with author of the Obvious? weblog. There I was pounding away on the keyboard staring endlessly at the monitor trying to figure things out, when my chat window popped-up. It was Euan and his first mysterious and off-the-wall message was: "this is what you get for putting your AIM name on your blog!"
Not that there were that many philosophical issues to ponder, afterall that is not the main purpose of chatting. I have always enjoyed Euan's site, a bit intellectual but with a nice mixture of challenging ideas.
Euan's most recent weblog entry ends with a quotation concerning someone's ideas about a so-called sphere of thought surrounding the earth. Interesting.
Pondering life's many guestions is the real driving force behind this blog. Each entry is yet another view, using references to other places via links or recounting actual daily experiences. If you enjoy being confronted with interesting twists from within a mind-set not quite your own, then this site is a very challenging stop for any and every blogger.
According to my sitemeter these are the number of hits I have had so far this year.
Total ........................ 3,227I would say that almost fifty hits a day isn't that bad at all. Rather than droves of pilgrims constantly passing by I receive an occasional traveller asking for some tidbits of food before he continues on his way.
Average per Day ................. 48
Average per Visit .............. 1.4
This Week ...................... 317
Alright, I have decided to dedicate myself even more to the future of blogging, as I am convinced that this will in the end help save the world and humanity. So I am pretty modest, aren't I? The reason is that I will be writing reviews from now on about blogs, believe it or not. This seems to me nothing less than a very noble pursuit, and I look forward to becoming more and more involved. Coming in contact with new sources of infinite wisdom, helping others, exchanging ideas and inspiring bloggers everywhere to keep up the good work. In order to remain completely anonymous, I will not reveal where I will be writing reviews. Good luck, watch out and happy blogging to all.
I thought that the following article might be an interesting read for you fellow bloggers out there. I liked it.
A Blogger Manifesto
"Why online weblogs are one future for journalism."
Learning Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is not always that easy, but it can be fun and rewarding at times. For a couple of weeks now, I have been struggling with a problem concerning the use of nested lists together with the list-images. An intellectual problem (kinda) demanding intense concentration and perserverence (yeah sure).
What I wanted to do was have nested lists with a different bulleted image depending on how deep the given list was located. Say a red square, followed by a blue square, followed by a yellow square, and so forth. For the sake of simplicity, and avoiding my never-ending tendency to go into repetitive cycles into nested infinities, stop after three levels deep. Okay. Until now, due mainly to my ignorance of CSS, I had clumsily implemented complicated tables, cells and images with offsets and awkward justifications. If you know what I mean.
Hmmm, there must be a better way, I always thought.
And there was! This could be done by using the so-called child relationships defined in CSS. How? Well look at the following code example which needs to be placed within the style-tags:
OL LI { list-style-image : none; }
UL LI, LI { list-style-image : url(.../image_1.gif); }
UL UL LI { list-style-image : url(.../image_2gif); }
UL UL UL LI { list-style-image : url(.../image_3.gif); }
This results in the given desired effect. At long last. Is this an amazing discovery or what?! The very first line is required in order to retain numbering in ordered lists. And this is the result:
I am pretty pleased with this, and it makes my life as a future famous web designer alot easier. I suggest you have a look at my site map for an example of this nice use of nested lists.I guess I can come to the conclusion that my forum Bloggers Galore is nothing more than a complete flop.
Very few visitors and even fewer members signed up. Oh well, at least I gave it a good attempt. With a positive and open mind. Maybe I should wait until I am even more famous before trying it again. Takes alot of time anyway to maintain such a forum and update it. No time now.
But how do you get famous nowadays? Do you need to get famous? How do you attract other bloggers? Distinguish yourself from the millions of other bloggers out there, many of whom produce even better blogs than I? Hard to believe, but it is true. Or is it even that important afterall?
Hmmm...
Here is what I will do. I will just leave the forum in place as it is. Slowly but surely more people might discover it. At least the limited entries up to now could offer some guidance, inspiration or whatever.
I have decided to try it out for myself and start my very own discussion forum dedicated to bloggers everywhere.
Therefore, I would like to invite all of you to join the Bloggers Galore forum.
Pretty much a newbie at this kind of stuff, I have attempted to create a minimal framework. As I have little experience, I hope that there are not too many problems.
I plan to support it with all my heart for willing bloggers around the world.
I really hope that it works out. Really, really. I wonder if anyone on the face of this earth will decide to even visit the forum. Sure, it is a bit of a risk in that yet again I am sticking my neck way out in life. Chop, chop, down falls the guillotine. Or something else, I could become famous.
Whatever way it goes, I figure that one of the following two possibilities will happen:
Sure there are life-threatening risks involved. My blogger image could be blemished badly, but I think it is worth the risk. Go for it, as they say. In the end I can always say with proud confidence that at least I had the courage to try.
I received an honorable mention in a recent blog by Gretchen entitled Oh Yeah! She even called it "another cool blog" so I am really tickled to death.
Actually, her blog is called Inside Gretchen's Head and it's not that bad at all. Might as well give her the credit she deserves also. That way we can generate even more hits for each other. Isn't that the purpose of life anyway?
What's really weird is that Gretchen looks exactly like my sister Kathleen. They both have that look, kind of sexy and distant if you know what I mean.
On my way to becoming a future famous blogger. Here we go.
Okay, so what have I been doing lately that has been so important that I have ignored my poor blog? Poor, poor blog. No time to think and relax: busy, busy, busy. There is panic in the tent, meaning that I have spent most of my waking hours the last week finishing off an important piece of work. What, you may ask?
It is called an RFI which stands for Request For Information, and it is from a major telecom company in Europe. Better not mention any names in case I get in trouble. Anyway, it is a thick document with millions of questions. Well, maybe not millions, but at least a hundred and fifty. It had to be done in English, and some of the Dutch members of the team gnarled up there terminology enough that it did not look perfectly professional. Meaning that I was requested to do all the translating since English is my mother tongue. An easy excuse for the others to avoid work? Could be. Well it is now down and over with. I hope. So now it is time to get back to some serious blogging. Make up for lost time.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I got reviewed today on the weblog review. As proof for this amazing accomplishment, you can check it out yourself by clicking here. Or for those lazier folks out there who are not so much into the clicking mood, I have taken the liberty to copy it below:
The layout is *very* easy to look at and to navigate. Right away, I noticed that each weblog entry is archived in not only a monthly history, but also by catagories. These catagories range anywhere from Science to Dreams to Life in Holland to the Meaning of Life.
My plan was to read a few of the entries from each catagory, but it's not that easy in Kiffin's Blog. Once you read the first one in any catagory, you want to read another, and another, and "just one more", until you're finished with that catagory.
The writing style at Kiffin's Blog is a very easy one to understand and read - it doesn't talk over your head, but yet poses questions from time to time that you find yourself thinking about even after you're finished reading.
I also took a look at the main homepage of the site, and it is very extensive! Each extension of Kiffin's Blog is just as complete and interesting as the weblog itself.
I liked this site. I liked it a lot. And if you're looking for a weblog that's not your everyday "I had fish sticks for dinner" weblog, this is a site I'd suggest you visit."
Thanks alot for the kind words Wendy.
Will the real random thoughts blog please stand up? What a disappointment it was for me to discover that what I had initially thought up as a creative and unique name for my blog is NOT that creative nor unique at all. Bummer, man. I am really let down. This is a very sad day for random thoughts. I happened to discover by chance a link to "my" blog random thoughts and I was all excited. Wow, I thought to myself, I am getting more famous more quickly than I had ever expected. This blog thing is really great stuff! Okay let's click, and then? It was NOT my blog at all, but someone else's blog with the very same title. Yet another random thoughts. How could that possibly be? Hmmm. Some kind of deja vu. So out of curiosity I chanced a search on google. What did I find? A long, long list of blogs called random thoughts, out there on the Internet, all over the place. Here are just a few that I selected randomly (excuse the pun):
random thoughts, random thoughts, random thoughts from a large head, random thoughts - ideas aleatorias, random thoughts, random thoughts, random thoughts, random thoughts by miguelito, random thoughts, random walks, random events, etc.
And on and on and on...
What is an honest loveable blogger like me going to do? No more random thoughts. Howabout: unrandom thoughts? minimal thoughts? non-thoughts? gibberations? ought? Time to change the blog title to something different. Don't know what yet. Anyone out there have any suggestions?
It took me most of the weekend, but I think I am "finally" getting the hang of things in the wild wild world of cascading style sheets. That's long for CSS, short I mean. My new-and-improved blog will make me famous some day. Perhaps, but does anyone out there notice any difference, improvements? I had to make it slick and daring for the new droves of visitors I am expecting soon. At least after the grand review I received recently. Okay, so I am still waiting. Waiting. I think I see them coming, way off over there on the horizon. Here they come. Do you see them too?
Do you also wanna become a CSS freak like me?
For those of you folks interested in learning more about the ins and outs of this wonderful Internet technology, I invite you to take a look at CSS Layout technigues for fun and profit at the glish.com, great stuff.
Hey, a very very special thanks goes to one of my favorite fellow bloggers out there from that blog site we all love and cherish called Emerald Sky. You chatted with me, so patient and helpful, we exchanged style-sheets, you fixed up my many errors, wow and now it looks really great.
Someone out there discovered yet another new and exciting weblog. "So what?" you may be asking. Well, it just so happens to be MY weblog! I cannot believe it, but it is true. I am not bragging (like usual). There is actually another kind person out there who has been sufficiently moved by my "gibberations galore" that she has taken the time to review my stuff. Check it out by clicking here. Hey, thanks alot Cynthia at ikastikos is nice.
Late in the evening, pounding away behind my computer monitor. Trying to make sense of it all. Work has tired me out, but it is too early to go to bed. Okay Emerald Sky, come on line. From who knows where but it does not matter. My instant messenger rings a ding-a-ling announcing that that little yellow icon door has opened. Arise the Emerald Sky. Normally I do not do those kind of things, but the other day while surfing happened to catch an AOL screen name on a fellow Blog site: The Storm Brewing. Saved it just in case, but why? Nice surprise, Emerald Sky. My evening has brightened up, instantly. Chatted some and it was fun. First acquaintance with the mystery person. Man or woman I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Married, children, interests, hobbies, etc. Did you say MI? The typing was quick and the mental gears were oiled well as the random thoughts took over. They call it chatting. More than you would ever want to know. Spontaneous, envigorating, (mentally) stimulating, educational and just plain fun (the most important, afterall). Bloggers unite and seem to attract, even over long distances. A very very long underwater cable submerged deep at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean connected us over a time difference of six hours. At the speed of light. Truly amazing. Well, Emerald Sky that was a blast, liked it alot. Perhaps another time, in the not-so-distant future. Is that okay with you?
Alright, so I decided to join "yet another" one of those so-called blog webrings. I am a full-fledged member of quite a number, but I am not sure what the benefits are for me up to now (besides the hassle of signing up and adding the extra link to my site). However, this time around it is not your everyday type of webring. No, it is the soon-to-be-famous MT Blog Ring. Dedicated to those fine folks out there who use Movable Type for their online weblogging activities. Hey, that's me. I decided to sign up for this new and provocative blog ring because I have found Moveable Type to be a REALLY wonderful enhancement for the Internet.
Like the title of this blurb says, MT Blog Ring will save the world. But I need proof. Some kind of proof that, yes, it is worthwhile signing up for this webring, different from and much better than all the other so-called webrings. Hmmm, I have an idea, and here it goes.
"If you are reading this because of a link through the MT BLOG RING then you are kindly requested to prove this by commenting on this entry (see below)."
That is if you have made it this far and have mustered enough nerve to go through with such a challenging series of events. Go for it, please. Should be interesting to see how many people react to this. I will start waiting...starting...NOW.
"When the universe was created, everything was one. Later when life formed and humans came along, this oneness became many. Existence has never been the same again. Evolution continues, and slowly but surely things have become more and more disconnected. The universe is expanding, and recently astronomers have discovered that this expansion is actually accelerating. Not slowing down like we were all hoping. Oh dear me. However, there is still hope because now there is the Internet, and better yet there is a new form of independent journalism thriving on this new medium. Call it blogging if you want, everyone one is doing it and everyone is connecting to what everyone else is doing. Ad infinitum. Interconnectedness, an infinite interweaving of bits and bytes is now bringing all of us together. The cycle completes and we become one. Too bad I am just making this all up to get invited to write an essay and get famous. Sorry to let you guys down. Sorry, but that's life and the pursuit of the future independent web."
This excerpt is taken from a recent email I sent to the Independents Day Essay Contest in which one is supposed to send in something relevant to the theme: "The Future Independent Web: Visions of What's to Come." I wonder if they will even consider looking at this.
People have often asked me what the word "gibberation" actually means. Have a look at the descirption below the title of this blog at the top of the page in case you have not already seen it. Well, think of it this way. It is a so-called clever attempt of mine to combine the words "gibberish" (rapid and incoherent talk, chatter) and "aberration" (a deviation from the normal or typical, NOT mental derangement oh no) to create an eye-catching term. Makes the readers want to come back again and again and again or not at all. If you know what I mean. That is what gibberations are all about.
Yesterday I happened to discover a wonderful tool for creating, updating and maintaining your own blogs. What they now refer to as a Personal Publishing System. This is amazing stuff, and I am convinced that products like these will redefine the Internet and how it is used by the average layperson like myself. It is from Movable Type and offers me the possibility of running my own blog on my site rather than one hosted by another site, for example Blogger. I have been very very pleased with Blogger up to now, but in a sense I have grown up on my way to becoming a big-boy professional Internet journalist guru type of person. Hmmmmm. Hope the few readers that make it this way like my new format. Anyway, I am impressed with how easily and quickly I was able to set this all up. A piece of cake, really. Shortly I will experiment a bit more with this fine product and create a fancy template with dazzling colors and graphics, etc.
Decided to start a new blog about dreams. Dreams, dreams and even more dreams as they come and go through the night. Have a look for yourself at: Kiffin's Dreams. Not much now, but it will grow and grow and grow, I am sure. Later, I will try to integrate the new dream blog (and others) into this blog to create a blog collage.
Joining blob webrings and trying to become famous. An interesting idea, indeed. To the right in the margin you will see a new table I have added with the blue caption of - - BLOG WEBRINGS - - . This table includes all the so-called rings of which I am now officially a member or in the process of becoming a member. Try it just for fun. Another way to surf randomly into the lives of others and back again. I told you that this form of journalism was really taking off. Round-and-round we go where we stop nobody knows.
There's alot of this blogger journalism going around these days. More and more and more. I wonder why. I remember when in the good old days no one felt like writing anything, it was just too much damn trouble. All those books we had to read and essays and stuff. And now everywhere you look on and around the Internet there are hundreds, thousands and more of my fellow bloggers just like myself frantically trying to record their lives passing by before it is too late. Is that possible? A community geared towards honesty and frankness, just recording random thoughts as you want to without a concern in your life. No one is going to read it anyway. But it just might be possible that one day some lone surfer will come across your many words of wisdom. Just by accident, a coincidence, fate in disguise. And then he or she or it is affected and moved. Hmmm, tears and laughter. I did it at last. Okay, so you do not believe me that there are so many fellow bloggers out there. You asked for it. Here are some random blogs I will throw out at you: i am frequently asked questions, or howabout this one: cracks in the pavement, or howabout this one: joho the blog, or howabout this one: deranged miracles, ad infinitum. So why are we doing this to ourselves? Well, it is kinda fun. Yes, that's it. It is kinda fun.
 Darkness settles in. |
This is a place for me to jot down words of inspiration as they arise in my head. I hope that the reader enjoys my entries. If you have any comments or other reactions, please feel free to email me at: kiffin@gish.demon.nl.
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