Because

Tim recently wrote a post on his blog, which he has since removed. It was a list of reasons why he sometimes found it difficult to write his blog. I thought it was a nice post, but I can guess why he removed it; no doubt some part of it seemed somehow too personal, too revealing. (For the record he says he simply wasn't happy with it, so I may have been over-interpreting there.)

Of course I can understand; I’ve complained about the same things myself. But here I am again regardless, and I suppose I should explain why. Why I’ve ressurected this blog; why now, after 18 months of not doing it, and also why it’s News Rants Soliloquies Reveries, with a new domain, but still my name on it, and not an anonymous blogspot blog somewhere.

So, following on from Tim:

It’s because I found myself trying to cram blog entries into my Facebook status updates. I would only have room for a single pithy observation, and I'd feel frustrated. I wanted to explain, and I wanted to use all my other pithy observations. I had hundreds.

It’s because it’s spring after such a long cold winter, and suddenly I’m full of energy and sociability.

It’s because I became a news-junkie. How big a news junkie? I read the newspapers online at one in the morning, when the next day’s articles get posted. And I found I had interesting thoughts about different things, and wanted to write about them, and have people read what I wrote.

It’s because I finished my novel. I had to stop writing my blog while I did that, but afterwards I found I had nothing to write. And so I wrote nothing.

It’s because I got cybersquatted! My domain and hosting lapsed, and I didn’t bother to renew. I figured nobody else would want nicholascarvan.com, but I was wrong. A fuckhead Russian named Sergei snapped it up for its pagerank and inbound links, and also as a crude form of extortion. It now advertises rape porn and “real incest videos”. It shocks people who aren’t easily shocked. Sergei would like me to buy it back from him. Sergei can wait till hell freezes over. Hence the new domain.

It’s because I got sick of people saying to me, “Hey, I went to your blog to look at old article x, and now I want to burn out my eyeballs.”

It’s because I got sick of people saying to me, “Hey, do you have, um, a new business?”

It’s because I wanted to reclaim my name from pornographers.

It’s because I kept having ideas for blog entries.

It's because random net people were upset that they couldn't find my fonts anymore.

It's because random net people were upset that they couldn't find a certain article anymore.

It's because I found I was proud of some of the things that I had written on here, and thought they should still be available.

It’s because I went out doing parkour with Tim the other day. We were both hopeless, of course, but I did one thing that was kind of cool. And I fell on my ass a few times in idiotic fashion. And a part of me whispered “You could do this in a superhero costume. And film it. And then put it on the internet! Ahahahaha.”

A few administrative notes:

* I imagine that this blog will be now be more political and news-based than it has been in the past. Although there will probably still be the occasional personal story, it will not be the main focus.

* The archives are back up. Most of the photos are missing, and I can’t guarantee that there aren’t still some internal links that will take you to the porn site. I’m in the process of going back through the old entries, taking some down and fixing up problems, but it will take a while.

* I seem to have lost borzoi woman; meet the mermaid. I don’t know, it now seems a bit girlish? I may need a redesign.

* It feels good to be back?

posted by Nicholas @ 3:06 PM