But then, somehow, someone opened up a huge window into the Blogosphere and a throng of “common” folk flooded in, inundating this once trendy neighborhood with mediocre jetsom and flotsom.  It had a big effect on things for me.  It made me want to stop writing, and even more, it made me want to stop reading other blogs and participate in their comments—the primary original driving force behind having a blog. 

And now, I’m a lot more grown up from when I started.  MoveableType has matured considerably, but lost a healthy set of its followers back when 3.0 came out and they decided to introduce a pay model.  Big mistake on their part.  And lots of people swarmed to WordPress. 

WordPress is a good CMS for blogging, and its active community has definitely provided a hefty catalog of available themes, widgets, and plugins.  And that’s great if you don’t like getting your hands dirty with the inner workings of your blog.

To me, if this is the place I’m supposed to sit down and spend time and effort into writing my thoughts, I want it to be something that really represents me and who I am.  After all, being a web designer, I feel a website’s appearance says mountains about the individual.  What does your blog say about you?

My blog is using Expression Engine.  In fact, I’m running the 2.0 beta, which I’ve completely fallen in love with.  This theme I am using at the moment is not one of my own creation.  It will be eventually—but I am still learning this platform’s inner workings, and need something functional as I experiment.

Who knows, maybe I’ll start posting some of my old entries.

And I don’t want to hear any crap about “it’s those New Orleans people.” No, it’s not. Southwest Houston has been a scary ghetto for years now. No wonder my mother had a fit when I told her I went to Sharpstown Mall (in broad daylight, I might add).

I don’t know how this city keeps making it into “top ten most liveable cities” lists—the air is horrible, the traffic is a nightmare, and the only cheap housing is in the ghetto or an hour’s commute out of the city down those stinking freeways littered with tacky billboards. I’m sorry, but concrete is not my idea of vibrant. Yes, Houston has great museums and arts and such, but I prefer trees and a place with a more developed sense of history than the “let’s tear down that ugly old theater and build zillion-dollar condos on the site” all too prevalent in this money-driven city.

Reading his powerful short story Harrison Bergeron (full text) and wacky and wonderful novel Slaughterhouse-Five (including the author’s goofy drawings) as a teenager opened my eyes to the sharp beauty of satire and the use of absurdity in fiction to highlight absurdities in reality. Perhaps his work is why I have such an appreciation for levity (or perhaps I appreciate his work because of my desire for levity).

Read Harrison Bergeron (full story linked above). Pick up an old copy of Slaughterhouse-Five.  Think. It’s good for you, even if nothing makes sense!