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.
Alex Chilton "Live in Anvers" 2004
11 hours ago
