The retreat from blogging

At 350 posts, 2017 is the first year since 2011 in which I have not posted every day to Air Nice-to-Livelands, with September 2017 being the first month since May 2011 - the start of my blog - to not feature a full slate.

That lapse last September was by accident but drops in blogging in November (23 posts) and December (24) are almost entirely due to my changing priorities in life, although December's losses can also be attributed to technical difficulties, which have now been resolved. Simply put, blogging every day is no longer feasible - or even desirable.

Since I started college in September 2014, my posts have gradually morphed from multi-paragraph pieces to one-paragraph fillers; attending university exacerbated the change. My wanting to post every day has resulted in a decline of my blog's quality, as it is now littered with these micro-posts, rather than the substantial content from years ago. Even the picture posts are mostly gone - 2017 only contained three posts with pictures that I had photographed.

Air Nice-to-Livelands is not the blog it used to be; however, this isn't the final post - far from it! Rather than continue the micro-posts, I shall simply be reducing the amount I write here. Absences of several days or more will now become commonplace but my hope is that I'll be writing longer posts as a result. As is so often said, "Quality over quantity"; it's time to return to the former.

A week's disappearance and a year's end

This past week has been the longest stretch of inactivity I've experienced on Air Nice-to-Livelands to date. At the end of Christmas Day, my laptop developed a problem and has been out of action since then, although one of my uncles was able to sort it out over the weekend after I left the device at my grandparents' house.

In addition to my laptop's problems, I've been at my girlfriend's house for the past couple of nights and since I've been busy spending time with her, I've not paid much attention to updating my blog.

And so, 2017 ends. For me, this year has broken major ground in that during it, I completed my first year of university, attended a wedding (two, if you include the reception I went to back in July for the first time since California and I started a relationship. As it stands, I am nearly halfway through my time at university.

Happy New Year, everyone; I hope 2018 brings you all much good luck and success.

Catching up on comments

I've again been lazy when it comes to approving and replying to comments. As such, either tomorrow evening or at the weekend, I will spend a session approving all the legitimate ones and replying to them. I do enjoy hearing from people who take the time to comment and it's not been fair to them to not approve and reply.

Time update for "The cat and college frames"

Yesterday's post, "The cat and college frames", was officially posted past 1:00am today but I edited it to be posted for yesterday and not today. The post was written yesterday but I submitted it after midnight by mistake and intended to change it earlier than now but forgot.

There are a few other of my posts where this has happened. It's not a problem when it happens - the post was written on and intended for the day before and that's where it should be recorded.

A missed post

After many years of blogging, despite many close shaves in that time, I'd never missed a day of posting. Then came yesterday - the first day since I started on which I did not post. What happened?

Nothing terribly serious. I was with a college friend in the morning and with another college friend in the afternoon. The latter friend is going to Lincoln University this weekend, so to celebrate we went to the new Krispy Kreme donut shop in the Victoria Centre and after that, we went to the pub for drinks. The sugar from the hot chocolate I had in the morning, plus the donuts plus the cocktails combined with my lack of a proper lunch and enough water caused me to have a headache. When I got home, I rested and ate but then went to bed, thus missing making a post.

So, yeah, I was out celebrating and then had a headache. Not too much of a big deal; the headache, which I overcame fairly quickly, was a small nuisance given that I'd had a great day preceding it.

The little spam that was

This absurdity somehow made it through the spam filter and into the pending comments:

"Good day! I could have sworn I've been to this website before but after browsing through a few of the posts I realized it's new to me. Regardless, I'm definitely delighted I came across it and I'll be bookmarking it and checking back often! Feel free to visit my web-site"

It's more of the same nonsense my blog has received over the years: Someone "just (re-)discovers" blog, is ecstatic they found it, intend to follow me aaaaaaannnnddddd...they spam me with their site. Cool story, bro.

Sunny London June 2017

This was the weather last Saturday in London:

It was like this all day in London; the only time it was overcast at all was in Clifton at the start of the day. What added to the sunshine was the constant pleasant breeze.

This is only the second image that I've uploaded to my blog this year.

Upcoming 2017 general election post

I have started work on a post that will explain my voting intentions for Thursday's general election. I shall be writing it from the perspective of why I think my preferred candidate is qualified, rather than a rant about how much the other side sucks. It's an explanation with possible gentle persuasion, not an attack piece.

Sixth blogging anniversary

I forgot to mention four days ago that it was my sixth anniversary of blogging. Yep, six years of blogging. Despite my early concerns that I'd reguarly miss days, I've yet to even miss one day of posting, although I have come close several times and many of my posts are very short. Long pieces are rare nowadays.

But yeah, six years of blogging!

That was not intentional

My previous blog post, the one about the mother belitting her son on the bus, was submitted without a name. As such, in my post list it came up as "I posted this to Facebook earlier: "I observed earlier and example of "how not to parent". I was on a bu" whereas to everyone else it appeared as a blank title.

This was a mistake. I was tired and neglected to give the post a title; as such, it has now been named "Bad parenting (on a bus)". I'm sorry about the error!

Not always approving comments quickly

For much of the time Air Nice-to-Livelands has existed, comments here have been set to "approve only". Up until the last few months, I usually approved comments within hours or a day. Now, it's often days or sometimes weeks before I respond. Why is this?

Well, a part is because of my increased real-life workload but a major factor is the change in layout to Blogger. The home page, which would say how many comments are in need of approval, is gone and now the default page when logging in is my post list. I'm no longer regularly reminded of comments and tend to forget about them.

In addition, now that my reading list is now no longer on a home page, I don't always check other blogs and comment on them. Removing the main Blogger dashboard has not been an improvement, in my opinion.

Missing the long posts

Many of my posts here nowadays consist of about one or two paragraphs - three at most. Anything longer is now rare, as I just don't have the time to write longer posts, with all the reading I do. Hey, I haven't even posted a blog party for months, despite promising one for January.

I miss writing long posts but I think the days of those appearing here on a regular basis are from an era that is now long gone. Even picture posts are a rarity; it's been ages since I last posted one of them.

Not so many pictures, as of late

Since late September, I've barely posted any photographs here - 23, to be exact. Back in the day, photgraphic posts were common on Air Nice-to-Livelands but now they're as rare as hen's teeth. There are three main causes for this:

1. Starting university is the obvious one. I have less time to sort through photographs.

2. I photograph less than I used to. In both Northamptonshire and here in Nottinghamshire I'd photographed so much that my pictures were becoming repetitive.

3. The WiFi in my accommodation can be slow and thus, uploading pictures can take a while.

This doesn't mean pictures posts won't be seen here again (I still have a big blog party post to unveil) - it just means they're nowhere near as common as they used to be. For now, frequent picture posts are not a priority.

As 2016 finishes

Here in the United Kingdom, 2017 is less than six hours away while in other parts of the world, the new year is already here. I had intended to have my next blog party post up today but due to changes in plans, it'll have to wait a day or two.

I hope you had a good 2016 and are looking forward to an even more productive 2017.

Return of the blog parties

At present, my most recent blog party party is the one for September 2016, which was written back in October. I have not forgotten nor have I discontinued the Secret Life of Bloggers Blog Party - since I've been at university I've had other priorities besides long blog posts. That being said, I shan't be neglecting this place: I'll have a three-month blog party post up soon enough.

Post 2000

Yesterday's piece, "Ready for the 2016 election", is my 2000th blog post. Because of all the election fever, I completely forgot about the milestone until this afternoon. Yay. Two thousand blog posts. I wish I could say I was more excited but at present, due to other events, I am unenthusiastic.

I will soon be writing a piece about the recent election.

Improved description/tagline - again!

Ever since I started my blog, this has been its description:

"A blog created to document various events and topics that interest me, as well as to share some of my thoughts and experiences."

I've long considered it to be clunky and have wanted to change it, as evidenced by this post from nearly four years ago, but I've done nothing about it. Just over one year ago, I again wrote about the tagline. Finally, after such a long time...I've changed it! This is the new description:

"Blogging my thoughts, one day at a time."

Many of my blog posts nowadays are short pieces, usually about something that's caught my attention on the day and are something I was thinking about at the time. As a result, I think this new tagline is more suitable that the old one.

"Better love story than Twilight" meme

Since 5/5/14 (according to Blogger), I've had the header "'Better love story than Twilight' meme" as a draft post; however, until now it's always been empty, as it was something I intended to write but never came around to doing so. Now, I am.

Over two years, I was frustrated by seeing Internet comments where people would say "still a better love story than Twilight" to any sort of romance or "romance" (for example, an incest case or something in a music video). I came up with the idea to do a blog post and go on a rant. However, I'm no longer interested in ranting about this particular troll meme when there are far more important issues to worry about.

No, the only reasons why I've written this post are to clear a draft in my posts folder and to come up with something to write tonight. In other words, it's kind of a post to say I'm not writing a post (about a certain topic)! Nah - I've changed since May 2014.

A major article

I have been working on a major article, which will be about politics. The piece is not yet complete but I hope to have it up by or during the weekend. It wasn't something I expected to write about but I feel that it is something I need to cover.

Android 7.0 "Nougat"

Android version 7.0, named "Nougat" in the tradition of dessert names, has been released:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37154926

In February 2013, I suggested that "Nougat" could be a possible name for an Android version. Looks as though I was correct about this one! I also wrote that post when "Key Lime Pie" was the expected name for the "K" version, which ultimately turned out to be "KitKat".