Let's do it in style

Since I started blogging, it's been difficult for me to look in the mirror each morning and call myself a true blogger. The truth is, I don't use -- or rather, didn't use -- blogging software of any kind. I just typed up an entry on the home page, copied it to the archive page, added it to the RSS feed, and that was that. But yesterday I finally decided enough was enough. After much searching, I came across WordPress and have been very happy with it. This, my readers, is my first post using WordPress -- real blogging software.

It would appear that my post of January 1st was the first post with WordPress, but this isn't quite the case. If I had left it alone, it would have had its own monthly archive page like all the posts from 2003 and 2004, except it would be all by itself because the rest of the entries from this month would be on a page generated by WordPress. So I reposted the New Year's Day post and fudged the timestamp for it to match the original date and time of the post. Okay, boring stuff over.

So what does this mean for you? For starters, new posts are categorized. Check out the Archives page to see the categories (so far). "Stuff" is the catch-all category, and I'll add more categories as I go. On that page you'll also find a search box to search all the many posts since January 1, 2005 (currently 2). And, of course, you'll find the monthly archives as always; the old archives (and the permalinks contained therein) remain the same, but new posts' permalinks will be in a different format. (The one exception is the link to my post two days ago; note that it has changed.)

The most noticeable change is the addition of comments. The World of Stuff is no longer a one-way street! Have fun commenting on my entries, but remember that I must approve of them before they appear. So don't be alarmed if they don't show up right away. It could take minutes or hours before I get to them. Once I make sure you don't want us to see your webcam, your post will show up. (And if you're good, I'll only review comments that are flagged as suspicious).

Feed-readers: there are now RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, and Atom 0.3 feeds that (should) display the whole post instead of just the first two sentences. [Edit: They only show the beginning of each post. But I don't care. It's still nice.] The RSS 0.91 feed is obsolete. Also new are TrackBack URLs. I don't know exactly what they're for (I mean, I have a pretty good general idea), but if you do, then feel free use them.

After some hard thought, one thing had to go: the subheadings that I've used with most entries since August 2003. They couldn't be implemented in a way that would be aesthetically pleasing in all browsers or technically correct. And no one but me uses subheadings, and they're not that useful, so they went. It's a small price to pay for this newfound freedom.

Well, I hope you enjoy this new setup as much as I do. I can't believe I've gone for so long without blogging software. But here we are.

The wedding was pretty nice. I wouldn't exactly call the boat we were on a yacht, but it was a pretty big boat nonetheless. The actual ceremony on the top deck was first and it took about four seconds to get through, notwithstanding all the wind and the noise of boats and cars passing by. Then there was a lot of dancing (and a bunch of people telling me that I could go get a soda or something if I wanted to, so I finally caved in and did that so they'd stop). After that, we went downstairs and ate. The food was pretty good. Then I went home because there was going to be more dancing and they announced that the reception would be extended an hour because the boat was grounded.

All an all, it was nice. I got to see some people I hadn't seen for a while, some of whom gave me Christmas cards. So I was sure to say thank you to them so I wouldn't have to write them thank-you notes. (You think that's slick? My mom told me to do it, in fact.)

Now, let's celebrate this new setup with some good old-fashioned Ask Jordon.

Carlos: What is the Minor Scale thing?

It's kind of hard for me to explain because I don't know much about musical theory, but here goes nothing. Every song is written in a particular key, which means that it generally uses only the notes of that scale. For example, a song in the key of C (major) usually only uses notes of the C scale (which happen to be the white keys of a piano keyboard; the black keys are notes outside the C scale). It also (usually) uses the same certain chords, with the C chord being the one that the song is based around.

The notes of a minor scale are almost, but not quite, the same as that of the major scale. The corresponding chords are also different. I find the minor scales and chords harder to remember than the major ones, so I made the chart for my own use.

There are actually different kinds of major and minor scales, but they each has the same thing in common, I think. In minor scales, the third note is one step flatter than that of major scales. The differences between different major and minor scales depends on all the other notes (except the first, of course, which defines the key).

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I love having comments.

Ron: have you ever skateboarded before?

Surprisingly, yes. It was June 2003 and my friends and I were shooting a video of us doing crazy stuff. And for me, skateboarding is a crazy thing. I could hardly stay on the skateboard. Actually, I couldn't. Another uncoordinated friend of mine tried it too, with more comical results. The video was never finished. I believe the segment was to be called "When Nerds Try to Skateboard."