Cloudy Days: The Fall of Khart Haddas

... she asked me "how's the air up there?

The image you see is the view from my office in Pasadena. I just moved into a new office, and I'll admit that it looks pretty good. I even made my own whimsical version of Megadesk.

This is not what we're here to discuss.

The day has come, as was foretold with prophecy even in the light of delays and hold ups. Google's Blogger service is canceling their FTP support, and I'm out.

I've had a privately hosted website for many, many years (since 1999, if memory serves) and I love the privacy and freedom it allows. Set up a password-protected directory for information about a party, and then tons of embarrassing photos from said party? Done. Upload musical tracks for people to use as the theme for their fresh new web show? Easy peasy. Keep decades of writing and showcase my experience in multiple industries with an information architecture that borders on the pristine? I'm all over it.

Blogger wants me to come have my site hosted by Google. Now, you know I believe Google is reaching too far with their cloud concepted shenanigans. I don't want that much of my information in Mountain View, held secure by people who can't even get their own phone right. I have worked with my hosting company for years, they're as reliable as death and police oppression, and I'm not inclined to go with an entity that's clearly on the wrong path.

So my wonderful wife and her delicious design company are reformatting a Wordpress theme and I may be able to freak that ... or I may go back to manually FTPing HTML files and making my own RSS. I can't say today.

What I can say is that The Hundred and Four as you know it will be undergoing its latest transition. First it was an "online symposium and writing journal" for what I thought would be the next generation of brilliant voices, taught to be professionals by the likes of me. That failed miserably. Then I revamped it as my own window into the world, taking my own personal, more introspective blogging to my Soapbox, where I've had plenty to say about plenty since 2000 (yeah, I've been blogging that long, at least).

Now? Well, the main page (which will get a redesign as of, oh, let's say Bastille Day, its original launch date) will become a kind of aggregate -- my linkroll, (it's not ironic that I use Google for that, I don't mind them knowing what I look at, I just don't want them having what I create), an RSS feed for my CBR column and my Twitter feed when I get back to it, links to people I believe need to be linked to ... it's ultimately gonna be my experimental area, where I'll create and destroy worlds that most of you will never see (freeing up precious disk space on my main website).

But in a way, we'll be saying goodbye to this, at least together. I'm not deleting any files here, so it'll all (sooner or later) be searchable again. But for now, for today ...

Shade and sweet water, traveler. See you on the other side, or maybe one day you'll come visit me where I live, in the day after tomorrow.

Playing (Music): "My Hood" by GemStones

Blog Fu: Wire Work

Flyin' high on 4/20, even though I've never imbibed in my life. Intoxicated with freshness, fool! Let's go!

- I read this article at Computerworld which made me believe I needed to write a counterpoint. I'll give you a sneak preview, in case I forget and never get to writing it: what Mike Elgan is talking about is essentially a hip hop paradigm and aesthetic. The question is, "what do people need to create content?" The answer, of course, is "a chance." Sure, you can create content on an iPad. There's just considerably better ways, and to wit, I will (should I get this thing done) counterpoint using my Nokia N900 for content creation (some of the blogs you see here and on my main website, plus a decent number of poems and two or three chapters on my new novel were all written on that phone) and making ROI comparisons. I always laugh when people make top down comparisons, because no matter my white-collar job, I still have a very "from the bottom up" perspective on things, comfortable with and understanding the oft-forgotten viewpoints of the "flyover states."

- Speaking of Computerworld, one of their pieces was repurposed for The San Francisco Chronicle where they talked about how few rules there are to govern the security of cloud computing. That, of course, further reinforces my screed against the technology.

- When I was rocking shows, this was how I viewed myself ...

Yes, I miss Sully's sometimes ...
Image courtesy of Geekweek

- Yes, National Poetry Writing Month is kicking my behind quite effectively. However, I have yet to fall off and have a few pieces I could be proud of and/or improve. I like the discipline of it, and I like creative output -- NaPoWriMo may be the cause of most of the poetry I wrote in 2009. With my fiction focus, 2010 could be the same, and I know many, many people who don't write 30 pieces (good or bad) in a year. So, kicked butt or not, I am happy to proceed.

- I had a fantastic evening last Friday, as the family was joined for an Indian food dinner by Brig Feltus, her husband Andreas and their son Max. I kept checking in on the teenager, as I remember being the bored kid around the grown ups, so I hooked him up with the Wii and a MacBook Pro hooked up to the wi-fi. This is maybe the third or so guest appearance we've had at our dinner table, and it made me think that I really should start filming these dinners, as there's fascinating stuff happening there.

Also: Brig made me an apple pie the size of a biplane. I'm still eating it. Nothing wrong with that. My wife took pictures, maybe she'll post 'em one of these days.

- Could the United States Postal Service go out of business? I think the concept scares me a little, regardless of how much I love Fed Ex (pricey bastards that they are, we're both from Memphis).

- Speaking of scary ideas, here's an example of your tax dollars at work: the military is working on a real, honest to goodness, flying car that'd be the size of two Humvees end to end and would carry four operatives and all their gear. Yes, I'm deeply worried about a consumer grade version of this, as people dialing or putting on make up scares me badly enough in two dimensions. Oy.

- Did you know The Empire Strikes Back turns 30 this year? The platinum standard for sequels and inspiration for generations of geeky jokes, I still think of the scene where Vader entered with the snow troopers as one of the best examples of production design in film, ever. I celebrated by coding while watching it with my wife, baby sleeping nearby and absorbing all that goodness.

- Whatever your struggle in life, remember, it can always get worse. Be good to each other.

Tabu out.

Playing (Music): "How High?" by Method Man and Redman