Monday, June 3, 2002  9:08 pm  <|>
<146> A relatively new phenomenon?: I was in the middle of my nightly survey of the updates to my few favorite "blogs" when I saw this article that Meg had linked to. Apparently MSNBC has decided to get in on the "blogging" action. Each journalist will have a different "blog" site in which they will be able to report and comment on their topic of specialty. Now, honestly I think this is kind of an interesting idea and certainly a step forward in terms of showing journalism is quite willing to grow and expand even in it's most functional basics, but there was something else about the article, and weblog articles in general, that tends to bother me just slightly. I am well aware that the weblog craze, such as it is, is seen by the mass public as something new. Why? Not because it is, but because they just didn't care enough to pay attention before. It wasn't called "blogging" but it was certainly out there. I was doing it on my site Meg's Place years before I ever heard the term blog mentioned. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this. I don't really care to a point; further more I'm glad that this stuff is taking off now. Coming from someone who ran one of the first large scale personal websites ever online, I take it as wonderful proof of just how far the web has come. Back when I was just a little 13 year old teen starting my first website I never thought about what impact what I was putting up might have someday, but now that very impact is all over the place and I have to say that is pretty cool. I've let my "fame" so to speak die down since I started college simply because most of that "fame" came from a site and a time that I had grown out of. But at the same time, all of that is still very much a part of who I am online as well as what I have accomplished overall, so I remain proud of it. Who knows really what down the line impact this stuff will really do. Sure, it could go nowhere, but more likely I suspect this is still just the beginning. Just look at the little book craze going on at Amazon right now - book after book seems to be coming out about blogging between July and August. This is not random. People know what they're doing and if I was smart I guess I'd figure out a way to make more money directly off of the craze too but I probably won't. I'm content with this quiet little blog of conformity here. Some that come here do know of my web past, some don't, and I don't mind keeping it that way. I don't make a big deal out of it yet I don't try that hard to hide it either. This site is just me, my life, opinions, and everything else that comes along with it. That's what I've always put out online, that is what always brought people back, I'm not doing anything new - the only difference now is that a million more people are doing it right along with me... and the world is finally sitting up and taking notice.

By the way, I've forgotten to mention lately that I've actually been updating this site quite a bit lately. I added a bunch of my photography and the snap shots which are started and I'm working on finishing those tonight or tomorrow. I also completely changed the Bio section and hmm.. maybe some other little things, I don't remember. But I just thought maybe I should mention them. I have one more feature I want to add here soon, I just haven't decided quite how I want to take care of that yet. So, yeah, look for that too... Also, I've been featured on Offliner.net. A new project (as in only a few days) which I think is probably going to be pretty popular, so maybe you should check it out now while it's still so fresh (and so clean, clean, yo).

My day was otherwise very unexciting. I went to dialysis in the morning, came home and took a nap which I had wanted to try not to do today but whatever, and then watched tv until I came online. This is the most common day pattern of my summer it seems. Tomorrow though, that I am looking forward to. I'm going into my place in Philly for the day and possibly the night too, which doesn't seem like it should be a big deal, but it is considering I haven't slept in my OWN bed in my OWN place since that night before I went into the hospital. That was the beginning of May, it's been almost a full month. My roommate Emily is stopping back into Philly for a day or two before she goes back home to Mass. She's just getting back from a road trip with her sister across the country. Of course all of my friends won't be back in the city tomorrow, as some of them did go home for the summer, but it will be the closest thing to old times I've been a part of in a month, so of course I am looking forward to it.