Looking Back, Looking Forward
Posted: Fri 1 January, 2010 Filed under: Animals, D4D™, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »As is the tradition on years with a zero at the end, I’m taking this opportunity to look back over the last ten years.
It’s strange really – in some ways, the turn into 2000 seems like only yesterday, in others you count back and realise just how much has actually happened in that decade…
Ten years ago, I was up in Manchester, in a very different relationship, working on a contract at the Equal Opportunities Commission, living in a rented house in a grim bit of East Manchester, and beginning to realise I was nearly 30. (And as an aside, that must mean I’m heading towards 40 now. Fuck.) D4D™ didn’t exist, wasn’t even a glint in the eye.
In the last ten years I’ve
- made friends
- lost friends
- written a shocking amount of rubbish here
- changed relationships (including a couple of very quiet intervening years)
- moved four times (New place in Manchester, Bracknell, Attleborough, Here)
- bought a house with Herself
- had more jobs and contracts than I care to think about
- seen the world change in many ways – not least through the impact of terrorism
- Closed a business
- Opened a new business
- Been utterly stuffed by a fuckstick accountant
- Inherited insane animals
- moved on
- stayed the same
I wonder what the next ten will bring? Lots more changes, I suspect.
00:01 01/01/10
Posted: Fri 1 January, 2010 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »OK, 2010, let’s see what you’ve got in store for me.
I’m pretty much ready for you, I think.
And 2009, you can go fuck off.
111,111
Posted: Sat 12 December, 2009 Filed under: D4D™, Driving 1 Comment »Yes, I really am this sad…
111,111 on the odometer
And yes, I was parked up at the time (as the speedo needle shows) but I did have to pull in to a car park just so I could take the photo.
Slowing Down
Posted: Sat 28 November, 2009 Filed under: D4D™, Writing Leave a comment »Things might slow down here on D4D for a while – I’ve got a couple of writing ideas that I want to make a start on, and I’ve only got a finite amount of time for writing.
So there’ll still be regular updates here, just that for the next [time period] it might not be a daily thing. We’ll see.
Of course, if the ideas don’t pan out, I’ll be back to writing this stuff instead. Swings and roundabouts, and all that rot.
Outage
Posted: Tue 24 November, 2009 Filed under: D4D™ 1 Comment »For a few hours this morning, D4D was unavailable.
The hosting company that I use for D4D suffered what they describe as “a massive network outage” which took nearly three hours to fix.
It’s back now, but there may be other blips over the next couple of days while they work out what the hell went wrong.
Pseudonyms
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »Over the weekend, Belle De Jour, one of the last remaining published ‘anonymous’ bloggers (which should really be pseudonymous bloggers, but let’s not be picky) has come out and revealed her ‘true’ name. There was also a piece in TechCrunch by Paul Carr about this, which made for interesting reading.
While I (for obvious reasons) don’t have an issue with pseudonymous bloggers, I do think that Carr’s point is equally valid – if you’re going to write something under a pseudonym, don’t go out and get a book deal. The concepts of pseudonyms and fame are pretty much mutually exclusive – yes, there are some people who’ve managed both, but not really during the current media-driven Age of Celebrity.
For me, some (OK, a fair number) people know my ‘real-life’ name. I write as Lyle to keep things separate from the real world – I don’t want a Google search on my real name to bring up D4D™, and I don’t want searches on D4D™ to easily bring up my name. I believe it is possible to make a connection or two these days, but I still try to keep the two apart as much as I can.
But I don’t want fame or a book deal. If I were looking for that, I would’ve done things very differently with D4D. (I mean for one thing, I’d have had a theme for it, rather than just random sweary rubbish) And for the writing I do where I would like/love/dream of getting it into production, of seeing the writing become properly known, I write in my own name, and on a totally different site.
I don’t have a problem with people writing pseudonymously, nor with them deciding to remove that pseudonymity in order to re-join the two parts of their lives. That’s fair enough. I do object to the media forcing people to lose their pseudonymous lives (as happened with Girl With A One-Track Mind when her book came out) but that is – apparently, at least – not what’s happened with Belle de Jour.
As usual, I don’t really know where I’m going with this – it’s just a random spattering of thoughts. I suppose I just end up being bemused a bit when people get the book deal and still think/hope they can stay behind the pen-name.