I have contemplated quitting blogging more times than I can count. Now-a-days, it's because it just feels like a dead media. My blog proper is getting loads of traffic even today (mostly thanks to having 23 years of entries indexed by Google), but the interactivity which made the blogosphere such a fun place has been replaced by shitty fucking "social media."

But there was a day that the reason I wanted to quit was the negative comments.

People can be real assholes. For whatever reason. And it wears on you no matter how hard you try to not let it.

And I know it's because it's easier to be an asshole behind a computer than it is in real-life. And when there's zero chance for being confronted by the shitty stuff you say, being mean has high entertainment value. At least I'm assuming. Because I used to get a lot of nasty comments. And my way of dealing with it was to just delete them. And after people realized that I wasn't going to engage, the hate-comments went from a flood to a trickle.

Now I'm kinda indifferent to blogging... doing it more out of habit than anything else.

But I was reminded of The Dark Times as I've been revisiting all the old William Osman videos and saw this...

When I saw this years ago, I was going through yet another blogging crisis because my WordPress installation was randomly failing. As I was trying to navigate that hot mess, Blogography was under attack for something I said (likely something political, though I don't remember) and I was trying to deal with that as well. And at the forefront of my head was Why not fucking quit? Is any of this really worth it? Why am I even blogging anymore to begin with? And the video got me to thinking If somebody as awesome and cool as Big Willy is giving up, I would be a total dumbass to keep going... wouldn't I?

But William kept going and so did I. Don't ask me why.

And boy am I glad that William kept going.

I swear... I almost like his second channel more because he's just hanging out on his "farm" and doing crazy stuff instead of when he was just inventing things all the time. He's such a fascinating, interesting, talented, smart, hilarious, entertaining guy.

I mean...

These videos are just so... nothing. I mean he's doing stuff, but it's rarely anything of any consequence. He's just doing stuff because it seems fun to him...

His original channel is mostly dead. It hasn't been updated in 9 months and didn't get any significant updates in three years. But he did post a retrospective that's kinda fun...

This is not to say that Big Willy is without controversy. He's not always big on thinking things through before he says them... but you get the sense that he doesn't mean anything bad by it.

Which, of course, just makes me like him more.

If you're not getting in a little bit of trouble, you're probably not having much fun.

Blogging is dead though, so how much trouble can I actually get in?

In order to get to the WordPress back-end which runs this blog, I have to go through two levels of security. This became necessary because Blogography is well-indexed on Google, and that makes it desirable internet real estate to advertise your crazy shit. People are always trying to break in to commandeer everybody's favorite place on the internet.

The second layer of protection is 2FA (2-Factor Authentication) where I have to enter a number from an authentication app on my phone. Once the code is accepted, I can post stuff and approve comments and all that. But every once in a while, the timing between WordPress and the authenticator gets skewed. Which means I can't get in. And the only way to fix it is to delete the 2FA plugin, log in, then reinstall the plugin. A pain in the ass to be sure, but something I have to do.

And Tuesday was the day. I went to post, couldn't get authenticated, and ended up not being able to get in.

So I pulled up my FTP app, went to delete the security plugin, and... couldn't get in. Apparently something was messed up indeed because I was out of my depth as to where to go from there. This evening I had time to figure it out, which involved a different 2FA which (thankfully) worked out.

And here we are. I can post again.

OR CAN I ?!?

The answer is "no." No I cannot. Everything I attempt to post will only save as a draft.

=sigh=

The other day I got an email from somebody who was reading through all my posts from the start. This is something even I am not brave enough to do, so I commend them on their bravery.*

But anyway...

New Blogography reader Jacob pointed out that I invented the "low fare calendar" in 2005 before airlines started using low fare calendars...

Interesting to note that I was using Northwest Airlines as an example, but that airline doesn't even exist because this was 20 years ago!

Kinda funny. I wonder what other stuff is rolling around on this blog that I should have patented when I had the chance?

   
*Though I've often thought that I should go through all my 23 years of entries and do a series of posts where I comment on them with updates or whatever. How fun would that be?