Old is the New New

[robotnik2004]

Q: Why haven't I been blogging more lately?

A: I've been busy blogging.

Voila my job hunt website and Movable Type weblog www.robmacdougall.org.

The content is pretty dull at this point, I know. The site is part of my whole job hunt self-packaging, and I'm still working out how to make it interesting without ever actually saying anything at all that might strike anyone anywhere even slightly the wrong way. But I'm pleased with the look of it, especially since I taught myself MT and CSS and PHP to do it. (By trial and error, so it's probably pretty ugly under the hood.) And I'll hopefully be adding more goodies and chuckles to it in the weeks and months to come.

Visit often and link freely, and let's see if I can't wrest the top result on Google searches for my name from the Canadian Gothic guy, the guy who makes Jenni Garth icons, and my own review of Dead Inside.

Also: I owe a post on the great weekend we just had with my brother Jamie and his girlfriend Miranda. For now, I'll just say: Thanks for coming down, guys. See you in the car!

Comments

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

Gah! What a trove! I shall have to read thoroughly before I decamp for Waltham.

By the way, I just watched a telefilm on cable about the Avro Arrow... I never knew anything about it before. Any thoughts?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

"Telefilm," hee.

(A "telefilm", for those who don't speak Canadian, is a slow moving but beautifully shot Canadian government-sponsored film about growing up as a small boy on the Prairies, growing up as a small girl in the Maritimes, or alcoholism north of the Arctic Circle. The economics of film in Canada are such that any time you are not making a movie on one of these subjects, you are losing money.)

I'll get back to you on the Avro arrow. It's a good story (note that I name checked Avro in Alternate History Canada #2), but it also falls into the "coulda been a contender" school of Canadian self-pity history that I sometimes find irritating.

Now THAT'S a heritage moment

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

Hearing a Canadian talk about self-pity is like hearing a Catholic talk about guilt: expertise tinged with unfortunate personal cultural experience.

But it was an interesting story nonetheless. To just ditch the entire project... I mean, to a certain extent, it was the U.S.'s fault... actually, I think that's what I need to know. Whose fault was it?

Who's a lazy geek?

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

I am. Silly Rob. Trying to get me to visit your actual site. Instead, with my paid user p0w3rz, I make robotnikblog. Take That, You Fiend!

Re: Who's a lazy geek?

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I immediately friended robotnikblog.

Re: Who's a lazy geek?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

[my-tallest.livejournal.com]

Re: OGTD

If you haven't seen the Josie and the Pussycats movie, do.

"Feathers are the new rhinestones."

Du Jour means teamwork!

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

It's an underrated classic.

[advocatedevil24.livejournal.com]

Orange is the new pink. And I want a Big Mac RIGHT NOW!!!

[bryant]

Very nice design. Very clean HTML. Very good content.

Let us all gift Rob with our pagerank.

Comments are the new fanmail

[bryant]

And just in case you weren't aware, I call your attention to the Crooked Timber blogroll policy.

[bryant]

P.S.:

...

Never mind; I can't post it as a comment in LiveJournal. But I am about to post a Hollis Lookup bookmarklet on my blog.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

No! The Dead Inside review must reign supreme!


(Added the feed!)

CU

10 is the new pi-squared

[equine-cocoon.livejournal.com]

I covet yer super-sweet site! It's got a real "old-timey" feel to it, in a good way. Cactus link is out of date, here's a worthy replacement: www.dundascactusfest.ca
the new
www.burningman.com

Re: 10 is the new pi-squared

[himadri.livejournal.com]

Damn Skippy! This is prety wierd : http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/reform.html

[sneech515.livejournal.com]

Cool site, Rob. This explains the MT links and the wide assortment of fonts that have been piling up (and that I've been stealing) in your del.icio.us links lately.

-- S

[gammafodder1.livejournal.com]

Love your MT site Robbo. To hell with History academia - web design is your true calling. Good call on the no comments as well - without MT-Blacklist, you'll get flooded with spams if you allow comments on your site.

Congratulations again on the fine lookin' site!

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Thanks, bro. I actually meant to ask you about the last post on your fine lookin' site (which was the big inspiration to me to make the jump from LJ to MT). Are you getting hit heavy by spam even with MT-Blacklist? Because I was hoping to get comments going eventually, but I just hadn't taken the time to figure out how Blacklist worked.

[gammafodder1.livejournal.com]

If you are using MT 3.0, then the MT-Blacklist version that you will be using is regularly updated (assuming that you check your updates), so spam should not be a major problem. I'm running an older version of MT which uses a MT-Blacklist version that is no longer updated, so spam can be a bit of a problem. Some days I have as much as 25 spams in a given day (large considering that my site only receives about 25 hits per day and I have thousands of URLs blacklisted).

If you really want to protect yourself from comment spam, don't link yourself on blog listing sites. MT-Blacklist is a necessity if you want to open up comments, but by minimizing where you link you blog URL, you'll give MT-Blacklist a fighting chance to block the thousands of spams that could be targeting your site.