Turning the second key...

[autographedcat]

So earlier, my darling kitanzi and I made an agreement. As she writes in her journal:

Ok, ACat and I have a deal. I will start posting again if he does, and vice versa - and I still don't have much to say, but dammit, it's a deal. I can't guarantee it's anything worth anyone reading, which is much of what's kept me from posting, but hey - if you don't like it, feel free to unfriend me. I promise not to hold a grudge.

So.... a post a week, at least, hopefully more. May be crap, may be trivial, may be something no one but me is interested in. Here's a starter - ask me a question, any question. I will either tell the truth, or say something so outrageous it's an obvious and hopefully entertaining lie. Hell, I dunno if anyone is even reading this any more. Say something? :)

I'm engaging this slightly differently from a technical standpoint. I will compose my posts on Dreamwidth and crosspost them to Livejournal. I don't especially care where people actually respond to them, and I may leverage other tools to make it easier to share certain content as well.

But, by gosh, this is own. Acat+Kitanzi, the blogging team that brought you.....links to a giant potato head statue, and amusing essays about our wedding and honeymoon, and con reports and strange song lyrics. All that, and more, so watch this space.

Stealing from my lovely wife, let's open the floor for questions. Ask me a question, any question at all. The floor is entirely open.

Comments

[yam]

What is your favourite something-or-other? Wait wait too vague. Do you know how splendid you are! Hang on, not a real question. (Very.) Oh, oh! What would your superhero name be! Or supervillain name, but I think you're too cuddly to be very evil at all. OR MAYBE THAT'S THE MOST EVIL PART! BUT PROBABLY NOT!

[autographedcat]

My favourite Brooke is you. But I've told you that before, I'm sure. :)

No, I had no idea. Tell me more.

One of my favourite characters in the game City of Heroes was a burly bearded guy in power armour named "The Purple Panzer". Another was "Mystic Librarian".

As a villain, perhaps I could be Dr. Cuddles! (Which I think qualifies me for a guest spot on The Venture Bros if nothing else.)

I adore you completely. Did you know that?

[gingicat]

So have you also been reading LJ during your hiatus?

Welcome back!

[autographedcat]

Sporadically, but not consistently. I've missed a lot.

Specific people flag emails to me when they post, but that's almost exclusively people I'm dating and therefore want to make sure I don't miss anything they post. *grin*

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Is the floor carpeted? If not, what kind of floor is it? Hardwood? Stone? Marble? Compressed spare copies of filk songbooks?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

The floor is made of the worlds largest block of Pecorino cheese. We're installing a fondue hot tub for the enjoyment of the assembly.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

How do you properly protect your Pecorino floor from hordes of starving rats, Italian chefs and Olive Garden lawyers?

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Should I be posting more? Why do all of my posts involve questions?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

You most certainly should! Most of your posts involve questions because you mistakenly believe that this is the most efficient way of getting the information you require. As Aahz's law clearly states: "The best way to get information on the Internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong information."

Hope that helps!

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

Can I be in your band? :)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Oh my yes! Let's start working up an act and a set list, eh? :)

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

Wonderful to see posts from you too, though I do see updates on fb which is lovely. As I said in reply to her I have a hard time posting myself and I don't take the infrequency personally. I'll ask you the same thing I asked her - is the weather turning springlike down there yet?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Facebook is okay, but it's not the same thing. One of the valuable things about LJ (at least, up to the point where I largely stopped posting to it) is that it lets me go back and see what I was doing at previous points in my life, and what was inspiring me, and what events were notable to me. From time to time, I go back and re-read my own journal, just to see what those memories stir up.

Facebook has value to me as a place to easily share links to things that amuse or impress me, and Twitter is a lovely place to share pithy one-liners and interact with other people in a sort of non-real-time chat session, but neither really gives the sense of place and history that a well maintained journal does.

The weather is, indeed, turning springlike already. We've had some positively gorgeous days of late, and while it's a bit chilly today, it's bright and clear and lovely.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Do you have a sound system with speakers? If so, may I come over and use it for half an hour or so sometime?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I don't have a separate stereo to the computer, at the moment, alas. The speakers on my computer aren't terrible, but they're not really super high fidelity either.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Woo!

Make any new music lately?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I have finished a new song in recent months that I played for a general audience at Conflikt a couple of weeks ago. (I don't think as well as I'd like. It was politely received, but I wasn't happy with my performance.) I will post it soonish.

I *have* been playing a lot more of late, and just generally making music for myself. Trying to get back into the swing of playing and singing regularly.

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

Chugg meh, kimala hara erekka reth sug?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Oft träume ich von Dachsen und seltsame, leuchtende Fische.

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

See, the question that immediately comes to mind is "can I have a hug, please?". That said, I know what the answer would be if I was in close enough physical proximity to make it practical. So I'm curious to see how the answer changes when I'm not.

Also, I'm really glad to see you both blogging again.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

The willingness to give you a hug or any form of cuddles or snuggles that you require is ever present, my dear. The logistics of providing them are difficult. I shall therefore present you with this official raincheque which you may cash in the next time you and I are proximate.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

What is the URL of your podcast?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I co-host two:

Tadpoolery: http://www.tadpoolery.com/
Initiative Check: http://initiativecheck.com/

Tadpoolery is a general geekery podcast loosely based around the fan community that follows the podcasts produced by Frogpants Studios. What we talk about varies wildly depending on the week and who our guest is. This is the show where I have been playing music from the filk community every week. (Note to you particularly: Our guest on Episode 4 was Coverville's Brian Ibbott.)

Initiative Check is primarily a videogame oriented show, though we often will talk about books/movies/TV/Music if we've encountered anything we think is particularly interesting.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thank you!

[catalana.livejournal.com]

How have you been spending your free time these days, now that you aren't playing so much WoW?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Well, still playing a fair number of games, and currently am deep into The Old Republic. Prior to that, I spent a great deal of time in Skyrim.

The other thing taking up a lot of my time recently is podcasting. I'm currently cohosting two weekly shows. See my answer above to ladymondegreen for links.

[poltr1]

Yep, I'm still here.

Question #1: If I wanted to make a weekend road trip to your neck of the woods (which I presume is still the Atlanta metro area), do you have crash space available?

Question #2: Ever been to Barker's Red Hots? I heard it's very good.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

1) Sure. Depending on the weekend and what other travel/hosting plans we might have, of course.

2) I have not! I'll have to try them!

[poltr1]

From what I've heard, the founder of Barker's is from Buffalo NY (my home town), and patterned his business after Ted's Hot Dogs, a popular local hot dog chain in the Buffalo area. They even use the same meat packer (Sahlen's), and feature both Weber's Horseradish Mustard and loganberry drink -- foods that aren't ordinarily available outside Buffalo.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Why do you think you have nothing to say worth reading?

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I don't, really, though I think self-deprecating humour is part of both mine and kitanzi's personality such that we'd say so anyway. :)

When I look back on when my posting declined and then stopped, a couple of things were in play:

1) I was struggling with depression, and
2) The stuff in my life that was most important was stuff I either could not, or did not want to, discuss in public.

The combination of the two basically derailed my journalling and I never managed to re-establish the habit. I got to a point where I'd say "Well, I could talk about this, but first I should really talk about that other thing..." and so on until it just because this insurmountable cliff to scale if I wanted to "catch up".

So when Kit and I were discussing how we both kind of wished we were still posting the way we used to, we made a pact to mutually hit the "reset button" on our respective journals, in the hope that we'd motivate each other to keep it up until we both got back into the swing of things. We'll see how it goes. :)

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Those reasons for not posting make sense to me. I sometimes have issues with reason number 2 myself. I also sometimes have issues with just not having time to write about something I consider important and not wanting to post about other later events without talking about first things first.

Depression seems to be self-perpetuating. People struggling with it often stop communicating with their friends and that feeds the depression and feelings or worthlessness or loneliness.

I hope you continue trying to post more here.