Reflections on making a blog - LIS 724

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I created this thing about a year and a half ago when I wanted to make a comment on another person's blog. This person's blog did not allow anonymous comments, so I had to create a Blogger account to post. So I created my Blogger account and decided I'd put one together myself.

The title "Mr. Zagnut" comes from a Christmas present I got a couple years ago. In the movie Beetlejuice, the title character offers the two new ghosts a Zagnut bar. When I viewed the movie as a kid, I had no idea that it was a real candy bar because it sounded ridiculous. Several years later, I saw one at a gas station and I had to buy it. I was skeptical to the taste because I don't really like coconut and the outside of the candy bar is toasted coconut. But it was really good and I started buying them pretty regularly after that. The availability of these candy bars diminished over the years until they were nowhere to be seen. I gave up on finding them because no stores carried them anymore. Then one day I was browsing Amazon and saw a section that had candy so I searched "Zagnut" and was amazed to see that a vendor sold them in bulk. This was around Christmas time and my older brother had recently asked me what I wanted, so I told him I wanted a box of Zagnut bars. He thought it was a joke, but he bought them anyway. I brought one to work every day and a coworker noticed this and quipped that I was "Mr. Zagnut." Iliked the name and put it on my blog.

When I put the blog together, I didn't want to use a stock template with a stock header, so I experimented with the blog for a little while and figured out how to post an image as a title header. Otherwise, the blog is pretty much somebody else's template.

After a few posts in a row, I didn't really touch the thing very often. Every now and again a thought would get my attention and I'd open up the blog to jot it down. The content is pretty silly, but then again, so is the content in a lot of blogs.

In my LIS 701 class, I had to create an online pathfinder for an assignment. I used that assignment to see how much flexibility one could get out of a Blogger template, so I spent a lot of time looking at the coding and how the things were put together and used it to make my pathfinder. I wanted it to operate kind of like a regular web site, but with the posting style of a blog and was able to get the site almost exactly how I wanted it. There were some limitations, but I can't remember exactly what those were. Here is my 701 pathfinder.

So, it's a useful tool to have. The librarian at my school just informed me that she wants me to keep a blog of what I'm reading to post on the library's web site. It should be a fun exercise and good practice for when I have to do book talks. I think a reading blog is great and something that is worthwhile. Personal blogs, like this one, are kind of useless and a tad narcissistic, but they can be fun as well if you just want a place to collect your dumb thoughts and re-read them later like a digital diary.

TWILIGHTZONE! Blog Review - LIS 724

One of the blogs I frequent is called TWILIGHTZONE! http://twilightzone-rideyourpony.blogspot.com/

TWILIGHTZONE! is not a blog about the old sci/fi television show. It's actually an mp3 blog that focuses on surf and garage rock music. It also throws in a little soul and honky tonk for good measure. An mp3 blog, like its name suggests, is a blog in which the author shares music with his/her readers. The legality of this type of sharing is sketchy. The site's author offers a disclaimer that the reader should either purchase the recordings or delete them, but there is no real way to enforce this guideline. To make it even more complicated, many of these recordings are old or limited-run presses, so purchase is not really an option.

Some of the mp3 blogs I have read in the past have been shut down because artists have threatened legal action. They have every right to do so. If I were an artist trying to make a living selling CDs from show to show, I'd probably be upset if somebody were giving my music away for free.

However, there is something to be said for the positive side of these blogs for the artists; promotion. Thanks to the Internet, word-of-mouth moves a great deal faster than it used to. The concept of an "underground" band is fading fast. For somebody like myself who doesn't listen to much radio, an mp3 blog is one of the main ways I learn about new music. In the case of TWILIGHTZONE! the music is usually a bit older, but there are several links to other mp3 (and general music) blogs that help me catch up with all sorts of different music.

Lies that make no sense

So I got a book in the mail today from Bookmooch, well not from Bookmooch, but through the service. Anyway, the person sending the book marked "sent" way back in December. However, the post mark on the package was more than a month after that. Why mark the thing "sent" before it is sent? I'm not really complaining, I'm just curious.
Bookmooch, for those who aren't in the know, is a site where you can trade books through the mail. Nifty.

Here's my current inventory. Not much, I know, but I've got a few I'll be throwing on there soonish.