The vast media empire shrinks by one

I recently learned that Ask.com will be discontinuing Bloglines at the end of October.  If you aren't familiar with Bloglines, it is -- or will have been -- a web-based RSS reader, sort of like Google Reader before there was a Google Reader.  I used it all the time for a few years, but they kept adding new bugs and ignoring old bugs, all without adding any new features to excuse the bugginess. It became unusable, and I dumped it. I've since migrated to Google Reader, although reading RSS is a much smaller part of my interweb day than it once was.

So I was going to file this news item away as a historical trivium, right next to the demise of Geocities and the like, when I remembered that Bloglines also had a rather bare-bones blog feature, and this humble blog had a mostly-abandoned sibling over there that I'd hopefully named "cyclotram2" at one time, before quickly realizing there really wasn't much of a point to it.  Even less of a point than blogging generally has, I mean.  In any event, I realized that a chunk of my semi-sparkling prose was about to be deleted, and I figured I ought to go rescue it and repost it here for, uh, posterity or something.  I suppose I don't like the idea of something I wrote being deleted by anyone besides me, even if it sucks, which for the most part it does.

So without further ado, here are the complete, unexpurgated annals of the soon-to-be late and unlamented cyclotram2 blog.  A number of the links are now broken, so don't be surprised by that, if you haven't stopped reading already.  Anyway, here goes:

May 9, 2007
[keepalive, ct2 style]

So I haven't posted anything here since December. In a way that's sort of a good sign, since I usually post here when Blogger's having an outage and the mothership's unavailable, and those outages seem to have decreased markedly of late. I just posted again over on this incredibly humble blog's MySpace sibling, so I figured I'd post here too. And then maybe I'll post on the mothership saying that I posted here, or something. I'm leveraging proactive synergies within my vast media empire, creating new content out of thin air. Outside the box, of course. It's pure Web 2.0 magic, I tell you.

Posted on: Wed, May 9 2007 12:35 PM

December 12, 2006
Seasons'(ish) Greetings

Another page hit here, another post here. That's the official cyclotram2 social contract, and one I'm having no trouble at all honoring, given the sad, sad volume this thing gets. So here's a big shout out to this blog's mysterious new friend from the Mediterranean. Howdy. Also, happy holidays, etc., in case -- in the highly likely case, I might add -- that I don't post here again this year.

Posted on: Tue, Dec 12 2006 10:27 PM

October 3, 2006
Uber-Fiesta time here at cyclotram2

This humble blog here actually got a page hit earlier today. So I figured I'd post here to celebrate this blessed event. Yippi-ti-yi-yay! Ok, there, I'm done now. As you were.

Posted on: Tue, Oct 3 2006 10:40 AM

July 14, 2006
july @ cyclotram2

Ok, I haven't posted here for over a month. In general, nobody reads this thing except me. I've gotten a couple of hits here in the last few days for some reason, so I thought I'd do a new post here and just say a hearty "hi" to you guys, whoever you are, and however you got here. Just thought I'd point out a couple of other corners of my ever-growing media empire, including my outpost on (shudder) MySpace, including this blog's new (and sadly non-RSS-friendly) sibling "cyclotram3". I might be your friend there if you ask nicely. Quite honestly, my blogroll here is far more interesting than this humble blog. You can keep coming back here, or you can grab the whole thing as OPML (but be aware that it changes a lot), or (if you care) I'm also on SYO, although I don't have a unique url to hand out from there. Whatever.

Posted on: Fri, Jul 14 2006 1:28 AM

June 8, 2006
Bloggered

I'm posting here because Blogger is out of action yet again, this time supposedly due to a database migration. Bastards. So I took this picture this morning, and it seemed sort of appropriate. It's actually a photo of Mill Ends Park in downtown Portland. For those of you from out of town, Mill Ends Park is the world's smallest city park (allegedly), and you're looking at it right now. You're looking at it: The round asphalt bit right under the striped construction barrier. It's usually more photogenic than this -- it's raised, with a curb around it, and some flowers. But right now they're doing a bunch of construction work on Naito Parkway, and the whole street's torn up, so they moved the park somewhere else temporarily. Actually I'd like to quibble with that a little. They moved the park's contents somewhere else, but the park itself is still right here. In the background you can see one teentsy part of the Rose Festival Fun Center, er, Waterfront Village, but I won't say anything more about that, because the Rose Festival is more unhip than anything you can imagine, and if I say too much about it the cool kids won't have anything to do with me, and the popular kids will take my lunch money. But just to note for the record: That's the Rose Festival you see in the background, and yes, the pavement is dry. For real. I've never used Photoshop even once in my whole entire life. Honest.

Posted on: Thu, Jun 8 2006 10:30 PM

May 31, 2006
Bachelor's Button

A photo I took yesterday down in the South Waterfront area. I didn't go out today. It was raining, and I was too busy populating my feed tree.Coming soon, fun with OPML and/or XOXO, probably.

Posted on: Wed, May 31 2006 7:11 PM

May 24, 2006
Greetings, Technoratibot

Technorati Profile

Posted on: Wed, May 24 2006 2:52 PM

It's baaaack...

Ok, my 24 hours are up, and c2 here is now officially Yesterday's News. What we've learned is that the Bloglines "New Blogs" page got about 400 hits yesterday. Isn't that interesting? That's what I thought. I don't think so either, FWIW.

Posted on: Wed, May 24 2006 11:38 AM

May 23, 2006
D'oh!!!

I'd placed one of those Sitemeter thingys in the blog description, out of idle curiosity about whether ever reads this thing, and basically nobody was. And then this humble blog showed up on Bloglines' list of new blogs, including the blog header, sitemeter and all. So I was getting a huge pile of 'hits' from people who weren't actually visiting this page. Oops. That's clearly not what I was interested in. So I've pulled the thing back out, at least until things quiet down a little. It's all so complicated...

Posted on: Tue, May 23 2006 8:18 AM

May 21, 2006
OMG BOURBON PONY!!!

Ok, this is just cool. A My Little Pony with dreadlocks and a Wild Turkey logo on the side. Niiice. URL: OMG BOURBON PONY!!!

Posted on: Sun, May 21 2006 12:49 AM

May 19, 2006
Impeach Cheney First

URL: Impeach Cheney First

Posted on: Fri, May 19 2006 12:39 AM

May 18, 2006

Well, I already have a blog, cyclotram but they give you one for free here, so what the heck I humbly present to you "cyclotram2". FWIW.

Posted on: Thu, May 18 2006 6:32 PM