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

A Stay of Execution

Hh.

Mmph. Ain't that about a beezy?

(Click to enlarge)

Looks like somebody blinked, a little anyway. I'm in a little bit less of a hurry, but I still plan to ditch this sinking freaking ship shortly. Real spit.

Watching (Hulu): Burn Notice, "Good Intentions"