How To Rambleast

I’m gonna say it: there’s stuff on this blog that I’m proud of. It helps that I share my own sense of humour, but I sat on this baby for hours a few nights ago and laughed myself silly.

As it stood yesterday, there was no approachability to this site: a constantly updating front page and several dozens more after it with no real way of navigating them save the never-used categories bar. I often ask people to come here and check things out, but most of the best material is from way back. As much as I write to amuse myself (first and foremost) there’s a lot of stuff in here that I imagine would appeal to other people, and that I’d like to be seen.

First thing I did was create the index page (which took upwards of 3 hours), which has a link to nearly every single post I’ve made. Why ‘nearly’? Well, an awful lot of them aren’t worth linking to. Most of the blog comprises either ‘pieces’, so to speak, like things I’ve thought about, prepared and wrote, or the looser posts where I just write about things I’ve noticed or things as they come to me. There are also a lot of posts specific to the events of that day (like maybe something that happened in the World Cup) or ones that are just a quote from a TV show. Most of these are only two or three lines, so if I didn’t delete them (as I did quite a bit when I was combing through the archives), I’ve at least not linked to them. Anything I think was remotely worth linking to, though, is in there, and it’s all on one page with a description of each post beside it if you’re looking for anything particular (as I was when I decided to index the lot in the first place). It’s a good place to start and a good way to sort which posts you read (if any), depending on whether you’re more interested in videogames, the general crapness of Northern Ireland or my predelection for Pop Tarts. Naturally, there’s a search bar in the top right of the page too, but it’s not as browse-friendly as the index.

I’ve also changed this introduction page (and am likely to again) to reflect my dissatisfaction with its previous state. If you’re after any sort of ‘about me’, there’s not much I can say that isn’t reflected in the posts: I have a fondness for pluralisation with the letter e on words that end in an a, the 1990s and things that are a bit crap. You may note a lot of negativity, but the things I love I could talk about for days: it’s just not as interesting to me to write about something that doesn’t make you angry. Humour comes from anger. That said, occasionally you’ll find anger that’s not coupled with humour. In said cases, it’d be best never to bring the subject up with me. Die Hard 2 is something we should never discuss, reader.

As for the other pages, Music and Me is a collection of my thoughts on music in general as well as brief blurbs about my favourite albums. It’s not finished (in theory it never can be), but I’m getting there. Games and Me is rarely updated because I don’t buy that many new games, but it has a list of the titles I do own and what I think of them. Brief Reviews Of Every Film I Own does what it says on the tin. I’m unhappy with the layout, but I don’t think I’ll be bothered changing it. Gems From The Black Folder is a gallery of pictures sketched by me and friends from about 2003 or so onwards. It’s finished though, the whole thing’s been uploaded, so there’s no need to check back for updates. Recently I found the time to caption everything so there’s a little (a LITTLE) context for each of the images on there. Best Worst Album Covers is another page I intend to update someday soon, and again, is self explanatory.

The Not Quite Daily List has been dormant for a while as I’ve taken a while to recharge me thoughbanks, but its irregular silliness should resume shortly. Note that it holds a combination of serious countdowns and absolute flights of fancy, and is a pretty good barometer of whether this blog is something you’d enjoy.

The purchase records have no real purpose other than to showcase, in their existence alone, whatever form of Asperger’s it is that I so clearly have.