Quick Question...

In light of the recent meetings for bloggers in exalted places and not-so exalted places and even less exalted places, I have a quick question...

Does unexpectedly running into a fellow Catholic blogger in the workplace constitute an unofficial blognic...? How about if tea (mine) and sandwiches (his) are involved...?

May The Fourth Be With You...

I'm a little tired this evening, and wasn't planning to do much active blogging... but, alerted to the above pun on Facebook (May 4th, geddit?) I couldn't resist posting this little commercial gem...

Sod's Law In Operation...

I tried very hard to follow the Vatican's Blogger Bash on Monday, via the official livestream video, and then via SQPN's livestream... as the saying at the Vatican apparently goes, "Yesterday's technology tomorrow!" The audio and video kept cutting out, only cutting back in when there was a round of applause... I did manage to get a few screenshots, which I'll try and add tomorrow. Interestingly, the connection actually appeared to improve when someone went into the corridor and filmed the participants chatting to each other... probably this improvement was in part due to all the bloggers stopping their blogging, tweeting and facebooking to get themselves some well-deserved fizzy stuff.

Fr. Tim has put up a very good summary of the whole thing.

I had originally intended to join in with today's more relaxed blognic, forgetting that, unfortunately, the Tuesday after the Bank holiday is a work day. Bummer. By the time I got home, the blognic was probably over, but, to be honest, I fell asleep on the sofa and forgot to Skype...

Maybe next year...

New Blog Arrives...

Denita is a Catholic Manga artist, (so only good clean anime, along with Manga-style religious pics) and has just started a brand new blog, mainly to showcase the pictures she paints, which I think is an absolutely great idea.  Although she claims to need help (as a newbie) I'm pretty sure that she's figured out the basics all by herself.

However, I'm sure that encouragement wouldn't go amiss, so, if you get the chance, pop on over to Denita's blog and introduce yourselves!

Did I mention that she loves cats...?

I'm Getting Tired Of Saying This...

I wrote a whole post about people who stop blogging about a year ago, and I've said it before in countless emails and comboxes whenever I've discovered a blogger threatening to remove their blog.

How hard is it to understand: by "removing" your blog you don't remove the links which may have been created. These links tend to get hijacked by adult-content sites. It's all very well to say that we can take the links out of the blogrolls, but it doesn't help with tracking down all the links which have been made in individual posts.

Added to this, sometimes, in order to encourage traffic to visit another blog, a blogger (like me) might post something along the lines of "Jenny has made a good point about this and you can read her opinion at her blog," giving a link. This is done to be kind, as, if I just copy and paste what Jenny actually said, people will be less inclined to go and visit Jenny's blog. If Jenny then goes and deletes her blog, not only does that leave me without a record of what Jenny actually said, but if someone clicks on the link they risk getting diverted to a site selling Viagra (at best) or some really objectionable stuff.

I'm not being paranoid. A friend of mine didn't listen to my warnings about five years ago, and then had to spend several days contacting Blogger to try and get her blog put back up because of the stuff which was now associated with her name.

It isn't rocket science. One doesn't have to continue blogging. It is possible to stop. You can simply disable comments, so nothing further can be added without your say-so. And what you have written previously remains as a record.

Please, out of courtesy to any bloggers who may have been kind enough to link to you - DON'T DELETE YOUR BLOG!