On Blogging.

So here is the first official post for a project I’m doing with a couple of friends. It’s like the 24-hour blog days of yore, but just changing by the week. I have no idea how long it will last, but it does give me an excuse to write, which is never a bad thing.

This first topic is “Where do you find content to blog about?” I suggested a very similar topic, “Why blog?”, the week after so I’m going to combine the two because halfway into writing this I can’t seem to disconnect the two.

This one isn’t too hard to answer. It’s a pretty even split between personal journal and video games, with a sprinkling of projects that I have completed or am working on.

With disparate content such as that I’ve struggled with how to organize this website for as long as I’ve had this website. It is such a garbled mess of content. In a serendipitous sort of way this website is a good parallel for myself as I am not just one thing, but a mish-mash of myriad interests and experiences. It’s elegant in that respect. With that in mind I tell myself to just forget about it. I’d love to, but that’s not really the person I am. I will figure out a new schema, implement it, love it, and then, over time, I will learn to hate it and think of another one. It is my cross to bear.

I started blogging because the Internet was a crazy wild, wilderness where people were creating all kinds of amazing content. Standardization for the web was still getting, well, standardized, but there was a clear desire for people to share their life experiences with other people. I stumbled on some blogs of people living abroad in Japan and, occasionally, talking about video games and I was totally taken. The writing felt raw and intimate. It felt less like a well-edited biography and more as if they were speaking directly to me. This same process would take me again with my introduction to vlogging years later, but that is for a different time.

I was young, but I was inspired to do the same thing. So way back in 2003 (Wow, that was twelve years ago. That makes you think) I started up an Anglefire page and used a custom hard-coded, HTML page to write my first entry. This was all I knew really; I didn’t have any real web experience beyond rudimentary HTML and so thus, a blog was formed under the signage “Life as a Nerd.” This eventually moved to a Xanga, then to a Blogspot under the Japanese name “Kikaihito”, roughly translating to “machine person” (ugh). I eventually started to learn more about computers and servers and wanted to have full control of all my content. I learned about Word Press and how to set up a self-hosted site and thus killer-tofu.com was born. I still hadn’t owned killertofu.com as a Chinese gentleman owned it, but I got the next best thing. Slowly, and painstakingly I copy-pasted my content from Blogspot (as there was no one-to-one transfer at the time) to its new home. Eventually, on a vacation I was taking with my father, I stayed up late one night in a hotel room when the killertofu.com domain name was set to expire and nabbed it, which is why I will probably never give the name up.

I’ve been going back through the old entries when I get a free moment to read (and also to correct horrendous spelling and grammar mistakes) and it is nice to have your past thoughts and ideals sealed in time (even if some of them make you cringe).

If I were to dig deeper I blog about things for catharsis, introspection, and things I’m passionate about. I find it valuable to go back through and examine events, decisions, whatever in my life, and one of the ways my brain does it well is writing (that is not to say my brain writes well). It gives me an opportunity to organize and process whatever I’ve been going through. I feel better after, even if the writing turns out mundane. It’s putting the dishes away or folding the laundry. It gives order to my thoughts. It’s relaxing and helps contextualize my existence.

When I say passion, it mostly is because the things I write about that fall within this category are often things I want the whole world to know about. The stuff is weird, and excited, and amazing. I want to stop people on the street and tell them about how cool this stuff is. Instead of being a total weirdo, I settle for writing it on my blog, which boasts 20 visitors monthly. I realize it falls mostly within the realm of video games, but guys, have you seen them?! They are the best.

Finally, projects. I would probably go stir crazy if I wasn’t working on something. There is so much cool stuff in the world, and so much neat stuff to learn and do. I want to taste all of it, so I tend to do projects. If I find it interesting, chances are someone else is bound to as well, so I usually do a write up here. Not to mention I’m usually proud of the work I do and want to show it off. It is totally ok to take pride in what you do! Just don’t be a jerk. Like, rule number 1, don’t be a jerk.

So, yeah, blogging. It’s great! I’ll keep doing it, and, boy, do I think I have a way to organize it all.