In which I take the blogging equivalent of a laxative…

GMail invites seem to have reached the tipping point in that everyone’s offering them, or at least they’ve made it into my social circle at last. I have some. Let me know if you want in. I have had an idea (inspired by the conversation in this Slashdot post) of setting up a Gmail account, sending some mp3s to it, giving the login to selected friends and getting them to send mp3s to it as well. We can share music and comment on it (by replying to the emails with the mp3s attached) in total privacy with no legal implications. You may hear from me soon…

I’m again having a small case of writers block, the main issue being that I want to write about stuff in great detail but don’t think I have the time to do so properly. Of course most of the things I want to write about probably only need a few paragraphs but my perception is that they need more and in the world of writer’s block perception is everything. So to try and sort this out I’ll just write the abstracts. I may well take these further one day:

LiveJournal wins: In which I, an avid non-user of LiveJournal, consider the options open to the modern blogger-to-be and come to the unlikely conclusion that LJ is the best of the bunch, which surprises me no end.

The end of temping?: In which I suggest the possibility that I may be about to stop working for the agency. I’m taking next week off and then staying at my mum’s for a fortnight helping out with hallway redecoration. After than I’m seriously thinking about a retail Xmas in the book trade, if they’ll take me. There are many reasons for this, the main one being I really really want to have an intelligent conversation with someone at work and I’ve found my social skill have become somewhat fucked over the last year. And the novelty wore off ages ago.

A visit to IKEA: in which I recount my adventures in bookcase buying at everyone’s favourite household lifestyle warehouse with Sam’s mum. Tales of mutual support and impulse-buying avoidance abound but the story is slightly ruined thanks to our good planning. Tuesday at 6pm is the best time to go as it’s nice and empty. Instead I may recount the last time I went to IKEA on a bank holiday Monday.

Carnet De Voyage: In which I review Craig Thompson’s new travel-comic which, while self-indulgent, over priced and utterly unsuitable for the general reader, I loved to pieces. Speculation follows about what this says about my tastes and whether such judgments about self-indulgence are valid criticism when joy is to gained by raw self-expression. Conclusion points people to his major work to date, Blankets, with a hearty recommendation despite Andy R‘s misgivings about its immaturity.

My failure in gardening: In which I recount my depression on discovering only one carrot came up and the slugs ate my courgettes. Resignation that I haven’t got the interest or will to grow stuff and that I should just stick to killing things in the garden instead. Quite a short post this one.

The mystery of upload/download choking: In which I ask why, when I have 100kps capacity on my broadband connection, does the following happen: I’m uploading, via BitTorrent, at 20kps, the maximum permitted. While this is happening my downloads crawl at a pace that makes dial-up look fast, despite there being a good 80kps free. Restricting BitTorrent to a 5kps or so works but the question remains.

Alias and Angel: In which I admit to having watched all five seasons of Angel and the first two of Alias in the last couple of months. Witness my struggle as a ponder whether or not to talk about them on the blog in fear that I may turn into the kind of blogger I pity. What will the outcome be?

Flickr: In which I finally get off my arse and get a Flickr account, discover it’s rather good actually and recommend it to you. I haven’t actually done this yet so even the concept of this post is speculation, but I’m pretty sure this will be the result. Mention of how I was convinced that Flickr is a good idea based on discovering that Cal Henderson is on the team behind it as director of web development, explanation being that Cal was one of the prime movers in the early UK blogging scene coming up with aggregators, update lists and the like, and even was involved with B3ta at the beginning. I met him once and he seemed like a nice chap. Speculation about why this is important in deciding to go with a certain photo hosting service follows.

And that’s just the posts I can remember wanting to write. Some of the above may be expanded upon in the future – feel free to vote for in the comments any that really intrigue you…