RPG a Day - Post Mortem

I started doing the "RPG a Day" activity as a way of jump-starting the writing process. You might notice the blog's been a little thin on content the last few, erm . . . years.

Well, it was certainly successful on that score. My enthusiasm for writing has been reinvigorated, although I can't say my time available for such things is any more abundant.

I'm rather proud I managed to put something up every day but the last for this. I'd been writing several of the posts at a time and scheduling them to go out, but that last one just got away from me.

In any case, I'm hoping 2016 will look better for the blog from here on out. I've been having enjoying writing my "Chasing the Wind" posts, and I hope to do a lot more with that. I've got several other ideas I've been percolating as well. No politics, though. Not that I have nothing to say on the current state of things, but it seems like a moot point; of all the voices clamoring for attention out there, I have nothing to offer that others won't say in more detail or more eloquently.

Here's to 2017.

Back from the wilderness

Ah, the old girl's still here.  Glad to know Google doesn't delete these things when a blogger disappears for a few months.
So where was I?  The demands of graduate school left me studying ~8 hrs a day for, well, almost two months.  It's not like I couldn't have found five minutes at the end of the day to jot down something, but there's only so much mileage you can get out of, "Exams suck.  Grad school sucks.  Is it March yet?"  You wouldn't believe how consuming it can be. 

A lot of things are up in the air still, but my hope is to get back to regular posting.  Whatever "regular" means for this blog, at least.

Inevitable

Well, it was bound to happen eventually:




More than 20,000 hits. I'd thank the guy who was the big 20k, but it was just some Canadian guy who didn't stay for more than a second.

Still, a big thank you to Shamus, who pushed me over the edge, and all of you readers out there. I guess you guys keep finding a reason to come back here. Perhaps you could explain it to me sometime.

Updated Blogroll

Perhaps you noticed, perhaps not, but I updated my blogroll over in the sidebar this morning. A lot of stuff that I just didn't read anymore I removed from the list and replaced it with more relevant material. A lot of this is now webcomics. Some of the blogs I used to read are now gone.

I have much other maintenance to do with the site. It'll all get done eventually.

Carry on.

Thanks, Shamus!

Just so we're clear, this is what happens when the popular kids link to lil' ol' me:

Perhaps I should send him a fruit basket. Or would he prefer a cookie bouquet?

Not dead, but not a zombie either

Heya folks. No, I didn't forget about this silly thing again. No, I didn't run out of things to whine blog about. No, I'm not dead.

As it turns out, the wireless adaptor on my desktop computer went kaput.

I'm writing this post from my laptop, so I'm not completely isolated from the webernets. Still, I just don't spend as much time at the computer when I have to use the laptop. I think it's a psychological thing.

In any case, I'll have a "regular" posting schedule again when I buy a new one. Whenever that is.

One other note I should make, this being one of the rare personal notes I toss out there: I'm going to be travelling a lot in the next few weeks, so I will either be absent quite a bit or I'll have loads of interesting things to talk about. I have grad school interviews (again). This weekend is SLU, next weekend is UM-Baltimore, and the following weekend is University of Cincinnati.

And I still have four schools to hear from yet.

Still Not Dead

This is going to be one of those cliche (I had the right character in there for the 'e', but Blogger was choking on the special character, so now it's just a regular letter) posts about why I haven't been posting much lately. I wish I could tell you it's because I've been off fighting for the resistance against the zombie menace, but I don't think that one stands up to scrutiny for very long.

The long and short of it is that the other things I've been busy with in life haven't been worth blogging about. School's out, so my "science intake" has decreased dramatically. I haven't played any new video games in a while, even though there's a couple burning holes on my shelf. Even my standard surfing has been rather dull, as the news is quite preoccupied with the presidential primaries.

Me, I don't feel like writing about the primaries. I wanted Fred Thompson, but his chances in the race are slim at this point. Right now the "leaders" are John McCain and Mike Huckabee, both of whom are unacceptable choices to me as well. At this point, Mitt Romney is the "fall back" candidate for me. All the news analysis in the world won't change that, and I've no intention of writing about the primaries on here just so I can explain to people why their preferred candidate doesn't work for me. (I'm looking at you, Paulbots)

So there you have it. By all means, don't stop coming by. I'm certain the writers block will crumble at some point soon.

Distractions Abound

Y'know, a responsible blogger might have followed up his post, and its consequent linking to by a much larger blogger, with further posts to convince new readers to stay. Then there's me, the guy who disappears for days at a time.

So, what's my excuse this time? Well, crazy school stuff. Busy, busy, busy.

Also, in much nerdier news, I've been preparing for my new Thursday night activity. I'm starting a D&D game with some buddies, and yours truly is the GM. I'm probably cementing my single status for the next 10 years, but my glass is still half-full. I'm looking forward to it.

My other time drain has been this: The Order of the Stick. It's another webcomic about, about a bunch of D&D players. Also, they're stick-figures. It's hilarious, in an incredibly dorky kind of way. I recommend it, if that's your kind of thing.

Retirement!

Well, the Land of Retirement, anyhow.

I'm in Florida for a week. See you next Sunday.

Site News and Maintenance

You probably realize this, but I've been trying to look for a good (free) alternative to Blogger for a while now. I like the ability to manipulate the template graphically that Blogger started with their upgrade to 2.0, but it has become nearly impossible for me to manipulate the site in other ways. The whole widgets thing? I have only the most basic understanding of how it works. So, mostly I try stuff, break the site, and then give up and pine for a site that's as cool as everyone else.

I'm considering a move to mee.nu, but it's just going to depend on whether or not the other website is user-friendly. There's no point in escaping from the widgets if I'm still unable to do what I want with the website out of ignorance.

The only drawback I'm thinking of is that I'll have to redirect everyone to the new site if I move. I don't know how to do that, but I can't imagine it to be terribly difficult. Another consideration is that I do get some traffic from random Blogger/Google searches. Will Google still list me if I switch? Will my traffic plummet even further? Does it even matter?

That's the news that isn't really news. Stay tuned for more.

Cue the Crickets

Sorry for the lame-o blogging lately. The news has just been rather boring to me lately. I don't care to cover the primary candidates much at this junction. The recently defeated immigration bill? It didn't really stay static long enough for me to figure out if I supported it or not. Is there anything else big happening in the news that I should know about? Probably not.

Now, if one of you, dear readers, should happen to find something neat out there, and think to yourself, "Gee, I wonder what Hal's moronic opinion on this is?" feel free to send me a link or a topic in the comments.

Heroes Finale Rundown

I really wanted to write about the end of the first Heroes season with an analysis of what we were left with. I didn't want to spoil the ending for anyone, though.

I thought I might try to work with Blogger to get those posts where you can put the entirety of the post beyond a link, and just a little bit of it on the main page. That would be perfect for this. You know what I discovered? Since Blogger upgraded to v2, their template is ridiculous. I don't understand it a bit (Widgets are much less self-evident than HTML). I'm not sure I could even do basic changes to the template on my own anymore. All that stuff in my sidebar? I couldn't even tell you where the code IS in the template anymore, which means they might be permanent fixtures.

I hear WordPress is nice, or maybe MoveableType.

Anyhow, I still wanted to write about Heroes without ruining it for anyone, so the entirety of my thoughts is going to be posted in the comments for this post. If you're interested in reading a spoiler-filled, geeky analysis of the end of season one, then read on in the comments.

Crunchitize Me, Cap'n!

I actually hate those commercials, but it seemed like a clever post-title.

Anyhow, I'll be quiet (AGAIN) this week. It's crunch time, and I have a paper due at the end of the week that I've barely started. The good news, however, is that Spring Break is next week, so I should at least be able to post something.

In the meantime, read anything from my blogroll. I wouldn't link it if it wasn't worth reading. And have some lysine biosynthesis and catabolism. Just because.

See You Next Week

Two exams this week. Translation: No posting. Go read something interesting. Read actual news. CNN, or something. As long as they're done talking about Anna Nicole.

Actually, before I go into radio (internet?) silence, I wanted to share a thought. I'm used to a lot of bickering over evolution. It just seems like the people who actually understand the inner workings are a rare specimen.

What I mean is, I'm pretty close to having a MS, with 90% of the classes leading to that being biology courses. The degree is in biochem/biotech, but that's not really important. In all of my biochem/molecular bio courses, we've mentioned evolution only in passing. This strikes me as so bizarre. I'm going to have a master's degree in a biological science and I won't have formally learned anything about a subject that is considered the paradigm for understanding all biological sciences.

Not that that's hampering me (that I can tell). Do you have to be a biology undergrad to get courses in this? At my undergrad school, evolution was largely a freshman level course, which most likely means it wasn't exactly scientifically rigorous. Do you have to get a PhD in biological evolution before you get courses where this is addressed specifically?

I find it odd that it's been mentioned so little in any of the courses I've had, and I'm left with a lot of curiosity. I'd be interested to know what the theory looks like on the development of the first nucleic/amino acids and their associated structures. I've heard rumors of an all RNA world before life really took off . . . what is the theory on how things worked there?

That's it. Go read something good.

You're still here?

Hey folks, I guess it's been a while since I've posted. I've been somewhat occupied with grad school lately, so the blog falls to the wayside. Hey, at least I'm doing well in my classes, right?

Anyhow, posting should resume . . . soon. Maybe tonight, if I get a presentation done early.

In the meantime . . . happy valentine's day? Those of you inclined to celebrate, have fun with that. I'll just be chillin' with my cats tonight. (Scott made this picture)

Back-to-school Blogging

Somehow, having gone back to school has left me feeling both excited and totally drained. I'm a complicated person, but then, aren't we all?

Therefore, since I'm feeling lazy today, I'm going to eschew real posting in favor of a link dump.

Impromptus
If you're not reading Jay Nordlinger's regular column of random odds and ends, you ought to be. His latest is, as usual, a great read.

MLK Jr. vs. Conservatives
I neglected to post this on Monday, but Andrew Busch over at NRO has a column about conservative disagreement with Dr. King in the 60's, and how conservatives ought to consider their praise of him today. It's an interesting read, if nothing else, and reaffirms to me the idea that being right on one thing does not make someone right on everything.

Jim Geraghty reporting
If you were paying any attention, you may have noticed that TKS is no longer in my blogroll, replaced by Hillary Spot. Both are actually the same blog, run by NRO's Jim Geraghty (Man, they ought to pay me for this kind of advertising). TKS once stood for "The Kerry Spot," the blog he began during the 2004 election season. The blog continued under the TKS moniker once the election ended, and now that a new season has begun, he changed the name to reflect the times. He's worth reading, as he does a good job of putting his finger on the various political pulses.

My own 10k

Woo hoo! Today, Halbert's Cubicle had it's 10,000th page view!

(Now if I could only catch up to those guys who get that many in a day . . .)

Winter Weather - 1 St. Louis - 0

Two days ago, it was almost 70 outside.

Today, everything is covered in a thick layer of ice. Estimates say that ~500k people in the region are without power (or were). Ours finally came back on after being off for about 15 hours overnight. Unfortunately, the net is still down; our satellite dish is probably drooping under the weight of ice, same as the trees all over the area.

Thank goodness for Wi-Fi at Panera, but I have to leave. Not sure when I'll be back to blogging, but it might be a while.

Blogging Schedule

The next two weeks are going to be, well, hectic. The semester is coming to a close, so I'm going to be working on projects, studying, and doing those other things that grad students do.

I'll post when I can (such as today), but don't be surprised if I only make occasional appearances.

On Quiet and Blogging

This has been a busy week, so the blogging has been light. Unfortunately, it will continue to be light over the weekend and the coming week due to my class schedule ramping up in difficulty.

On the bright side, by neglecting my blog I've been doing fabulously in my classes. Eh, I was never going to be a top-dog in the blogosphere anyhow.

Sporadic blogging in the near future. Regular schedule . . . eventually.