Tag: administrative

I think I’ve now written down everything I had to say when I started this blog nearly three years ago. My gratitude to everyone who’s read along over the years, and especially to those who have chimed in with comments. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

See also: The First Post

I’m looking for a sublet in Berlin of 70 sqm or larger for the summer and maybe fall too. Done deal.

Our very cool 100 sqm place in Prague is available during the same duration.

Contact me if you’re looking for tenants in Berlin, or interested in living in Prague for the summer.

 

Back in the beginnings of this lowly month, I proposed my Twitter Challenge, in which I vowed to jump into Twitter with both feet, give it a fair chance, see how it worked out for me. I was semi-fair to my word on this: my involvement ebbed and flowed… but overall, I managed a respectable 56 tweets and followed 15 people.

Per the declared rules of the Twitter Challenge, it is now time to re-evaluate and either pledge eternal support and involvement, or withdraw. My decision is:

WITHDRAW. Sort of.

In the sense that I’m not going to cancel my account or anything extremist like that, but henceforth I only plan to go on to see what other people are saying when my favorite tyrant is being overthrown and so forth.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were some memorable moments. I enjoyed the flowering of the Dissonant Triangle… the time TK bit his tongue… the time that Jack was getting a tattoo removed but Janet and Chrissie thought he was getting a vasectomy, etc etc. But, here, in case you were wondering, are my somewhat predictable reasons for being less-than-swept-away after a month of dabbling:

1. Redundancy. Twitter would have to somehow unseat either Facebook or this ailing, not-oft-updated blog in order to really take off in my life. There simply isn’t room for all three in this town.

2. Lack of local critical mass. I think if you live in a place like SF, it becomes somewhat effortless (and addictive), because there are so many people tweeting about things of interest to you that its natural to chime in. Prague is… ummm… not exactly like that. Plus, it would be hard to fit my tweets into the 140 character limit and still provide both Czech and Slovak translations.

A few other quick impressions:

1. The biggest surprise to me was the realization that, in the case of certain bloggers I enjoy reading, their blog turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg of their online presence, and the real business goes on on Twitter. It’s impressive that JohnnyO, for one, even has a corporeal body left at this point. I was very struck by this.

2. The spam presence, while inevitable, is somehow even slightly more depressing on Twitter than anywhere else.

3. Since everyone likes quick, snappy aphorisms that sum up the Twitter experience, here’s my attempt at one: if Facebook is like the social dynamics of your high school cafeteria brought online, Twitter often feels like a galactic showdown between your high school and everyone else’s.

Meanwhile, here’s the amazin’ Korean Kittens:

Here’s a real resolution, for once: I promised JohnnyO in this space that I would belatedly get on Twitter and take it for a spin, despite my longstanding resistance. So, today, I created an account – http://twitter.com/m0ckduck – and promise to jump in with both feet, tweet avidly, take advantage of it as much as possible, etc… for the span of one month. At the end of February, I will cast judgement on whether it’s actually bringing anything to the table that Facebook, this blog, et all don’t already.

One special caveat is that is that the service must in some small way add something to my tangible, non-online existence. I don’t know what that might be exactly, but it might be along the lines of ‘informing me about cool stuff that’s going on in Prague that I wouldn’t otherwise know about.” Doesn’t have to be anything earthshaking… just something besides beyond ‘another senseless source of online banter.”

(Image: Don Knotts, for no reason in particular).

Some changes to the blog! First, we’ve got a new home: www.mockduck.net. If you type in the old address, you’ll be automatically bumped here for the next year, after which point the domain forwarding I set up will expire and you might miss a sizzling end-of-2011 over here.

Second, a new look. I was never exactly happy with the old one. In search of a cleaner, more readable template, we’ve decided to roll the dice with a radical one-column layout. Maybe I’ll succumb to convention at some point and work out how to customize it so that the blog roll and some other features return to the right-hand column… but for the moment, I’m enjoying living outside society.

I welcome your input on the new look. I’m not going to go as far as to put up a poll or anything after the debacle of the Legs of Izolda Morgan round-up, though, where I posted seven book cover proposals and a poll asking people to vote on which one they liked the most. At one point, all seven designs had exactly one vote. Way to come to a consensus, guys. In the immortal words of Bobby Knight: “Start listening to the guys up in the stands, and pretty soon you’ll find yourself up there with them.”