Clonification and My Year of Blogging Dangerously: Faux Wordpress Templates

Exploring the options of Wordpress has pushed me to expand my knowledge of Blogger. I have decided to stick with Blogger as my primary blogging platform for this blog. My horizon has definitely been expanded by interacting with Wordpress. I really liked using Chris Pearson's Cutline Template (Wordpress.org) on my own site but find the Wordpress.com version too constraining to use as my only blogging option primarily, as I mentioned before, because of the banning of Javascript.
I googled to see what other people were saying about the topic of Wordpress versus Blogger and found a great blog, Smithereens, with a pretty clear discussion of the limitations of Wordpress.com. I also found out that just like MySpace, Blogger has inspired folks to create CSS layouts/templates so that users can customize their blogs.
I have always used the templates that come with Blogger and have never tried actually loading my own. Apparently interest in Wordpress clone templates for Blogger is a hot and happening thing. I have tried three templates so far and I found....tah dah!!... a Cutline clone template. The tabs are web addresses not pages like the Wordpress versions and the instructions in the code are written in Spanish, but that is okay. I am plowing ahead.
I paid for a year of web hosting for my birthday last year and created a blog using Wordpress (the dot org CMS - content management system - just learned that term yesterday ; ) ) This really pushed me to learn more about the mechanics of independant blogging, which was a good thing, I think. It was very technical; not infrequently over my head. Everytime I see "MySQL", I think "my squall" and "perfect storm".
In the end, I have learned that the biggest thing about using a free blog host versus DIY blogging is that free hosting saves a lot of time and brain power. Like Lyle Lovett said in the song, "one wrong move will turn your world upside down" when you are hosting your own blog. Fixing mess-ups was frustrating and took time away from the actual process of writing something. Using these custom Blogger templates is allowing me to get under the hood and tinker around without having to do too much. It is kind of like putting on some rims versus rebuilding the engine.

Samurai Night Fever: Two Guys and a Girl

I have totally gotten into the Samurai Champloo anime series. I am now on Disc 5. Two guys, Jin, a ronin, and Mugen, a thief, are traveling with a fifteen year old girl, Fuu, who is searching for the "samurai who smells of sunflowers".   This is a great anime series for adults.  Highly recommended!!

Negatory, Good Buddy: Things Wordpress Won't Do and Some That It Does Better

Exploring Wordpress.com and comparing it to the wonders of Blogger has been added to my way lengthy list of current geekoid interests. I have been using Blogger for about 3 years and the full version of Wordpress on a paid host for 9 months. I just started messing with Wordpress.com and am learning the limitations of the free version as well as how it differs from Blogger.

I really like the fact that Blogger is pretty user-friendly and free-and-easy with the Javascript widgets. Wordpress.com is also user-friendly and has some awesome features like built-in stats but sadly it is not welcoming of widgets from other sources and Javascript widgets are strictly verboten (click here for more on that and again here for a bit more). This means that some of my all-time favorite, most visually interesting, widgets don't work on Wordpress.com's blogging platform with free hosting.

In the immortal words of Jeri Blank, "Sad."

A Few of My Favorite
Widgets Which Won't Work in Wordpress.com
(Sorry, I could not resist the urge to alliterate. It's an English Major thing.)

*Library Thing Book Covers
*Twitter Badge
*Del.icio.us Tag Clouds
*Photobucket Slide
*Project Playlist Player

Methinks Wordpress may be too serious for some of my intended audience (families with young children and teens who are more likely to respond to an eye-catching visual like a slide of movie posters than a lot of words describing the actual movie).

Wordpress.org, the platform, will let you do anything you want because you are paying to host it yourself. If you crash, get hacked, whatever, it's on you. The dotcom free hosting site is another deal entirely; a very safe, secure place to engage in serious blogging.

I do love the tabs, on Wordpress.com, though. I can see some real use for that - more static info, like library location and hours, program and event schedules, on the tabbed pages and reviews on the front page (where the blog is) sorted by categories and tags.

The categories and tags feature of Wordpress appear to offer an especially efficient way to organize and sort posts. I plan to continue to work with Wordpress to increase my proficiency with these and other features. The Trek continues.....

Happy Trails!

Wordpress

My blogs are in motion. I have combined all of my "professional" blogging for the last two years into one big ball of bloggishness. I am playing with Wordpress and checking it out. It has a nice import feature that I used to add the stuff from this blog

Posting My Secret

I am addicted to PostSecret. My daughter turned me on to it a few years ago and I have it on my My Yahoo page (my home page) and I check it each week for the new secrets. I have "read" all the books, too. It is one of the most moving art works/projects I have ever experienced.

PostSecret now has a some extra content; audio secrets, YouTube videos, a Facebook group,etc.

Trawlin' the Net For News: The Dredge Report

While looking for info on a recent political scandal in my home county (not Charleston), I discovered a wealth of SC political blogs and a social networking site devoted to user-driven newsleads. Here are some tasty samples.

FITSNews - "Conservatism with an edge" blog of Governor Sandford's former spokesperson, Will Folks/

The Palmetto Scoop - A conservative blog run by several folks including a moose. (Click here for more info.)

South Carolina Hotline blog - the SC Hotline sites are apparently by Jeffrey Sewell

South Caroina Hotline website - Really, nice directory of SC news sites and blogs.

SC Yellow Dog Democrats - Blog of SC Democratic party members (click for their "about" info)

Click here for SCIWay's directory of SC Political blogs.

More political blogs and pundits - click here.

Click here for SCIway's directory of blogs about life in South Carolina.

For news with a social networking edge on the local, national, or world level, check out NowPublic.com.

Anime for Adults

I have been really getting into the anime thing thanks to Ms. Amanda, whose business-like exterior hides mad anime/manga skillz, and Ms. Tama from JOH, Crazed Babe of Anime and Teen Anime Club sponsor at Johns Island Regional Library.

I prefer to watch in Japanese with English subtitles. I have picked up a little Japanese doing this.
I find it fasinating how much English has infiltrated Japanese. Here are a selection of some of the best stuff I have seen so far.

Anime From Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier is an excellent reference work for more info on anime. (Click title for catalog info on book.)

Click here for anime related items from the CCPL collection.

Movies

Akira - The classic anime movie. Extremely powerful futuristic fantasy with shades of Blade Runner, Mad Max, and Brave New World.

Steamboy - made by the same director as Akira with some similar characters. Anime Wild Wild West meets Victorian England/Jules Verne with a dash of Greek tragedy.

Whisper of the Heart - Sweet Studio Ghibli teen romance/feel-good movie. Wonderful portrayal of family life in urban, mid 20th century Japan mixed with fantasy.

Paprika - Futuristic fantasy thriller. Awake, she's a prim and proper therapist but, when she's snoozing, she transforms into Paprika, a spicy, secret psychological superheroine battling monsters from the id.

Tokyo Godfathers - A Japanese Christmas story featuring a stolen infant, a tough, runaway teen girl, and an odd homeless couple composed of a hopeless alcoholic with a secret, sad past and his best friend, a transgendered, cross-dresser, who dreams of being a mother.

Series

Cowboy Bebop - (Bladerunner + Star Wars) X cool tunes = Cowboy Bebop. This is a great series.

Samurai Champloo - Even greater series by the creator of Cowboy Bebop. Hiphop cool in samurai-era Japan with great tongue in cheek humor and wonderful characters on a quest. Visually, this is the best of all the anime movies or shows that I have seen. Incredible stuff.

Witch Hunter Robin

- Beautiful, atmospheric future fantasy with witches. Has an X-files vibe plus Gothic Lolita cool clothes.