Hello 
I'm Siobhan Curran/Kisa Naumova, and this is my weblog. I tend to write about stuff like crossdressing, Macs, code, cats, wine and Second Life, but in general it's just an ongoing conversation about all sorts of stuff. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what this all is, I recommend starting on this page which has a little bit of info on who I am, and what I'm trying to do — or you could dive into my five years worth of archives if you like.
Otherwise, feel free to close this box and explore...
Practical Transvestism
(#35 in a series of 249)
How to stay warm and feel a little bit naughty on your journey to work when it's absolutely freezing outside: Wear tights 
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Not only is it freezing, but it's also dark and miserable. I was woken up about an hour ago, to the sound of Sarah Kennedy having a minor panic because something had gone awfully wrong in the BBC 2 studio. And then, accompanied by George sticking his face in my pint glass of water, I attempted to shut the world out by crawling as far down the duvet as I possibly could.
It wasn't until about twenty five to seven that it dawned on me that no, the train wouldn't wait for me, and that maybe, really, I had to get up.
Dammit 
Ack well, I wanna grab some of the students who've been doing work on the course website today and have a chat with them, and I can't really do that from the warmth of my bed ... although trust me, I'm working on it 
Actually, it's all going rather swimmingly with that whole thing. If you recall, I've set up a mini Blogosphere for all 170 of them, and last week I introduced it to the first and second years. Well, so far quite a few of them have been exploring the whole system — it's baby-steps at the moment, but it's getting somewhere.
One thing that has slightly annoyed me (only slightly 
) is how after I spent about a week tweaking the CSS to make it look simple, plain and sexy, the first thing any of them does is either change all the colours, or change the theme setting entirely. Dammit — what's wrong with my beautifully crafted monotone?
Although, having said that, I probably should have disabled the whole 'themes' and colours thing if it bothered me that much 
What I need to talk to them about today, is ways we can extend the whole thing. I mentioned integrating Flickr accounts into the system, but I'm wondering if we can do something a little bit more imaginative that my little box of 10 over on the left — potentially using FLickr to create entries — rather than just embellishing them.
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Ah, yes. Apologies, but I'm still in a "what can be done with a blog" frame of mind. All this talk recently of aggregating our digital lives leaves me wondering (a) what's the purpose of a blog and how can it best achieve that, and (b) dammit, how come all the interesting conversations happen bloody miles away, and no-one ever listens to a word I say? (mini-rant)
For me, this blod is a bit of a two-way conversation. A 'diablog' if you like — it's a space that I use to vent thoughts that are on my mind, and also a place to establish some kind of communication — communication that would be bloody non-existent what with me living in the arse-end of nowhere.
So the thoughts I've been having recently, about steering things towards a more conventional Movable Type whatchamajigger, I dunno — I don't think they really work for me. Compartmentalising things into little boxes just doesn't fit in with the way my heads works — I Like to spew things out in a continuous rant-fest, and I think that segmenting them (pigeonholing them if you like ha ha ha) stops there being any kind of continual flow.
I mean, yeah — it's a pain in the arse when my heaq switches on to something else and leaving comments and stuff about the thing at the top means that the thing in the middle gets lost. That's something I'm not quite sure how to resolve.
But going back to the idea of tacking on Flickr and del.icio.us — The reason I have a sidebar in the first place, is — well actually two reasons — firstly, it means that there's some kind of consistancy every day. Things that I think are important don't get lost in pages weeks ago (and I know that hardly anyone ever goes back and reads old things). But secondly, there's an altogether un-altruistic reason for it. I think it's about self-promotion.
Sorry, uncohesive thought coming up — it's early...
Is the reason I have links to other sites in my sidebar just a way to get my presence in their referrer lists?
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9.52am Sat on a beanbag in an empty studio...
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Sorry, where was I? I couldn't type on the train, it was some old rickety thing that kept lurching from side to side, and there wan't enough room to have my laptop out.
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I think what I was trying to get at earlier, was that sidebars in blogs tend to be these kinda no-where-lands — where things that either have no obvious value, or have specific stickiness end up. Things like little icons and links and plugs for other blogs. I was thinking about my own yesterday, whilst adding an email link (using a cunning Javascript to try and cut down the spidering), and it occured to me that it's just full of shite.
I can understand the intent of trying to indicate some kind of membership of a community of bloggers, but I'm wondering if having a big long list of del.icio.us links is the right way to go about it?
So, I was thinking, maybe I should adapt the nifty str_replace() stuff that I've got going on, to integrate a kind of blogrolling right into the main content? Much in the same way that I do with the BBC and The Guardian — two websites/media thingys that I felt it was important to give a sense of, um, preference (?) to.
So, rather than having a permanent link to, say, The Lovely Tom Coates in a sidebar, maybe I should code things so that every time I mention him, I do it as an automagically created link. That way any blogrolling that goes on becomes relevant rather than just me trying to appear in thode "Referrers in the last 24hrs" list...
Hmm, not sure. Might have to think a lot more about this later.
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The same goes for my Flickr pictures — I don't really want them appearing in a block, I want them to appear in the main body — again, automagically. I mentioned this the other day, and I spoke to a friend about it (who told me that people already do it ). I think I can get my head round the code, it's just going to take a bit of array comparing and maybe a cron job or two...
Which all makes me wonder why I didn't post that at my own site, with my own text formatting... or am I over-analysing?
Yes, you are 
I think though, that the point about 'blog objectives' is the main issue — mine is more of an online representation of me than it is a journal or a weblog.
It's kind of a 'space where Siobhan can spew the garbage running through her head', rather than a 'here, look at these links'.
I think my slight worries about side-bars (in particular the length of my own) comes from seeing a lot of blogs where the sidebars are filled with extraneous crap — things that are just there to fulfil the requirements of some online-membership thing (like my Technorati Profile link)
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What I'm after, I suppose, is to be able to jot down the things that I think about and see, with the minimum hassle. I mentioned it before, but the hoops that I jump through to get images on here is a pain in the arse. What I want is to be able to fluidly stick stuff online.
I must, at some point, try and explain what I meant by an 'online representation of me' a little better. It sounds so crap when I say it that way.
Is weblogging publishing / broadcast or is it a social activity? I think that's the crux of the matter. Tom Coates definitely has his views on it.
It can be both (including within the same blog), but I tend towards the former.
...or maybe even a conversation? Which I think is the route mine has gone down for the past couple of years at least. Hence my little word: diablog
(Must Google that to see if anyone else uses it )
There are obvious flaws in what I'm saying though — I predict a long and arduous train journey home, so I might just have time to think about it
4.54pm Siobhan Googles "diablog" ... arse
Are you ever going to talk about being a tranny again?
uhrfdjkh
What do you mean?! 
I'm wearing tights to work today — does that not qualify?
Don't change your blog format, I like just dropping in and commenting here and there, and I for one do go back to read through your past entries and even leave the odd comment even though others may not read past stuff. And, personally, I don't like movable type nearly as much as your format, so leave well alone, kiddo.
Rachel
BTW, should be easy enough to add a photo/file upload facility to what you've already got, assuming you have some sort of admin section... oh well, waddo I know? Hugz Rachel
Rachel
I like your presentation better than the standard formats you get on MT blogs; it's fresh and original and distinctive.
My only quibble is that you only have the most recent post on the front page at any one time. I'm a big believer in keeping clicks down to a minimum (which is why I've opted for a humungously ginormous sidebar — and I actually LIKE the busy-ness/noise/chaos which that creates).
I use del.icio.us for my linklog because it makes posting new links extremely simple — almost no effort at all — and because I'm a fan of good linklogs. (Sometimes, a good link or two is all you need.)
I've never seen someone use delicious to manage a blogroll before, though. I hand code mine; many people swear by blogrolling.com, but I CBATTI.
Oooh — get you and your funky new Gravatar
I know what you mean about only one post ... on siobhansplace I have the front page as a truncated list of the last five days, but I decided against it on tranniefesto — I can't remember why, but I'm sure there was a reason.
I think it's got something to do with me clumping things together in days — the way that this evolved from a diary, rather than a blog.
And as far as blogrolling.com goes, I tried it way back, but I found there was a nasty delay caused by its servers. With the del.icio.us links, I keep a cached copy here on my server, so there's hardly any delay at all, although it does mean that new things I post there take up to an hour to display
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Actually, just to expand on the whole 'linklog' thing for a second...
I've not really been looking for a way to make the posting of links easier to be honest. It is (I must confess) a rarity for me to link directly to something and comment on it (although I do occasionally) the way that a lot of other bloggers do. Maybe it's something I should do more, but it's something that permeates much of the writing I do ... I hardly ever quote sources.
Which is bad.
But in regards to using some external thing (like del.icio.us for example), to be honest, I find it a lot easier to just type the HTML straight into this thing — which at the end of the day is just a database with a bunch of HTML in it. I know it wouldn't be the first choice for a lot of people, but I've been coding HTML since about 1994, and it comes naturally to me.
I find myself mentally picturing <i></i> when I'm stressing something while I'm talking for exmaple
I was looking at Markdown yesterday evening, wondering if I should start using that to write — but thinking about it, I'm actually happier using HTML
The only thing is, I'm forever adding little tweaks to the comment formatting, to make those easier. It's possible I might incorporate Markdown into them
That'd be <em></em>, of course
You're right about Blogrolling.com lag. I think the main advantage of the service is that it can sort links by 'most recently updated', but I don't actually use that functionality.... Maybe it's time for a rethink.
LOL You and your semantically correct markup....
Hmm. We seek very different objectives from our blogs. The Ministry Blog is mine. Mine! Mine, y'hear? Though I welcome comments, dialogue is very much secondary to my own monologue.
I understand what you mean about not wanting to 'pigeonhole' thoughts into individual entries, but it works for me. They don't have to be extensive, each a polished encapsulation of everything I might ever say on a given subject; some are 1,000+ words long, others less than fifty. I suppose this is a consequence of my whole approach — I'm downloading transitory thoughts from head to keyboard, for my own interest, not specifically talking to readers (though there is that, too!).
This is probably also why I don't use Flickr (though I am considering it, perhaps independent of the blog) and del.icio.us — I'm not interested in the community aspects of sharing images and bookmarks.
Now you raise the topic, I've realised my sidebars primarily contain navigation aids to my own content — calendar, search monthly archives, category archives. That wasn't a conscious decision, but I don't see how I'd do it differently.
I do link to other sites, but they're genuine recommendations, provided in addition to, not instead of mentions in the text when directly relevant. They're sites I want people to visit irrespective of whether I've commented on them recently i.e. I'm referring readers to those monologues, not my involvement in dialogues.