Empty Cage

Sorry for any downtime I may have forgotten to renew my domain this year… But we’re back, happy second-or-third birthday Empty Cage.

And I have internet again — blessed internet.

I have no net in my apartment yet.

Most people who know me know of my unhealthy love of all things Alice in Wonderland. A fandom that is generally a ragtag bunch that has never made much of a splash on the internet. But, whatever, right, I can sit and fangirl over pretty much anything I like. Of course, now that Tim Burton has turned his sights on Alice everyone else is paying attention again.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to make of this film. On one hand, I’m a secret Tim Burton fan (secret because I have this phobia of being one of those gloomy emo kids). Yes, I USED to come pretty close to that classification in the good old day (though, for the record I was pretty sure I was a goth and never wore skinny jeans), but I like to think I’ve cheered up a bit. Inversely, his dark-artistic-goodness never fails to please the part of me that still wears black boots that lace up to my knees. And I know I know, ‘all his movies are the same thing’ its so full of ‘dark side gimmicks’ it makes you a bit ill, but damnit, I like Alice and I like darkness so why am I not allowed to enjoy the hell out of this film?

I’ve been saving watching the trailer of this movie for quite awhile now. I wanted it to be at the perfect time. I still haven’t seen it, but I’m starting to think that waiting is going to build it up as something more than a clip reel of the only scenes worth watching. I will fucking cry if this movie sucks, just a warning. Like actually cry, in the open. And I know, Tim Burton, don’t get hopes up… but really. I want for it to be good so badly.

Unfortunately I don’t know many people who are as excited about all things Alice as I am. But one of them has been plotting an Alice website with me for awhile, and I think now would be the time to make it if ever we are going to.

Oh, what shall I do if this movie is crap?

Come on, why do I always get inspired to design when I need to sleep?

I really don’t need a new domain but, while looking for a name for my online portfolio. (Because if I’m going to design for other people showing them my whiny blog is not the best idea.) I came across madhattery.com (though I vastly prefer the .net extension .com is easier for the neo-luddites to remember). I can’t decide if it’s good or not really “professional” enough for a portfolio.

Either way, I really enjoy the look of it. And Crystal and I were going to start an Alice in Wonderland site. Though, I think we wanted Dream-Caravan.com/net/org for that. What would I do with Mad Hattery…

So I’m off breaking the rules right now and reading other people’s blogs to figure out how “grown-ups” go about reporting their mundane lives like every second is action packed. I am, of course, starting to seriously consider lying to get an interesting blog. In fact, I’ve been planning for awhile the thought of a blog that is actually completely fanciful, but written completely seriously sort of like.

I talked to my pal Ghnugh from Mars the other day. Sheeeet. He says the food in Mongolia is terrible, and really, I’m not too shocked by this meaningful revaluation. Perhaps I am dead on the inside. In other news, I broke into the innermost vault at the Royal Bank of Canada to find all they store in there is bananas with seeds. Go figure right?

Etcetera. Etcetera. That was before I realised that I’m missing the point. These bloggers take themselves just as seriously as I do. I spend almost as much time as they do scraping together the little details of my life into something legitimately readable. For me its more an attempt to take stock of how sardonic my take on the world is before I start turning into a bleary angry mole person. That and if I ever want to write my best seller which I will totally post on the internet because that is the only publicity… man… I need all the practise I can get. (Whoops, my bad, taking a shot at the ‘Author Bloggers’ again). Here I am working on stopping my hate fest and I just can’t do it.

The problem is I am a totally schizophrenic blogger. Some days I want to be the ‘oh woe is me, this is my internet outlet, hear me whine’ writer then the next I’ve decided to be the ‘professional purpose driven, look I even have a mission statement’ reporter. Between those two comes the ‘hate filled everyone if stupid but me’ blog which usually has a perky review the next day. So, basically Empty Cage is a big huge steaming poo most of the time because I have no focus whatsoever.

Of course then I sit around thinking “Well, Jesus, I should just pick one and build me a niche” (preferably by violently clawing competition out of the niche and cuddling my blogger’s bottom in there). But then, I would need several other blogs to accommodate all of my mood swings, and really, I don’t update this (or my defunct livejournal) enough to legitimately need another blog. We happily return to square one.

I think my writer’s “voice” is best suited to a critical blog. My reviews and rants tend to be more interesting then when I try to make an interesting case for reading about my day, but even that is perilous because then you need to both have something to write about, as well as be in a constant state of either rage, disdain or both. And while this is usually the case for me I wouldn’t want to enragggggge any customers because I one day decided to mention how much I lovey-wuv my life. And by customers I mean readers, and by lovey-wuv I mean don’t hate.

At least I haven’t sold out and started paid-blogging yet. I can keep my goatee and indie scarf a few more months yet. Maaaaaaan. (More being mean to real bloggers — wheeee!) But maybe I should I could do with writing a comedic piece on some randomly selected keywords. Shit, maybe I need to stop.

What does all this circle talking mean? Mostly that we should be watching for me trying on different blogging hats for the next few weeks/months/years until people actually read my blog. Righto.

I am learning how to write a login script in PHP for a website I’m doing for someone else. Wish me luck!

This entry has nothing to do with reading, I’m almost done number four, but I don’t want my blog to be all book reviews (especially since I haven’t really gotten the hang of how to write a good review).

Does anyone remember MySpace? (Ha ha, internet snob joke). I have one, I’m serious, I don’t really “use it” (because very few honestly claim they still use their myspace) I do find it interesting that I have 41 friends on myspace and 281 on Facebook, which do YOU think is closer to the truth. But as I recall my myspace always had the default layout because I couldn’t be arsed to write a whole entire style sheet for one. (Oh, the horror, I know).

Anyways, my wonderful friend Sean, who is a brilliant guitarist has asked me to redesign his HisSpace… MySpace ish (http://myspace.com/hucksfin). And I’m just now trying to learn how to work this system. I mean it used to be retina scalding blue with a MS Paint banner, so I can’t do worse than that… but there are slight differences that are holding up the creative process. And I feel terrible because I really want this to look great for Sean. I’ve been thinking something in warm colours like brown and taupe, but I’m kind of just making this up. At any rate, I’d advice you to listen to his tunes, they’re great — not so much my style, but Sean and I have agreed to disagree on our music tastes. Like myself and Andrew, we like all the same bands but all opposite tracks.

In other news, I’m almost ready go face redesigning Empty Cage, and stop hiding behind Amber and the nice people at skindownloadland. Amber’s layout was way nicer than this one, but I’ve suddenly fallen in love with lighter layouts, and wanted EC to be bright for a bit. I’ve been reading a lot about webdesign the past little while because I’ve been wanting to evolve how all my websites look. I mean, comparing In Flames to Valour pretty much says it all for my web transformation.

The plan is that Empty Cage will become almost exclusively blog, hub, and personal details (with maybe some writing and stuff — but I have a fiction press account and a deviant art account that I can use for that…).  Let’s face it, what more was EC ever, really? My guides are entirely too smarmy to be much worth anything. And really, the blog is the only part I ever feel like updating. I hope to have http://27.empty-cage.net up soon for a small portfolio to show the people mum throws at me when they want a website designed. I want the root of the domain to be for me, but showing off the whining in my blog might be bad for business. Plus I’d feel like a twit sticking prices on here, given I am asses at webdesign compared to most of my friends — the only advantage I have is a good manager.

I hope to add more character Fansites to Empty Cage, and I think my next major project is Loyalties (the Regulus Black Fanlisting) while I polish off the Inuyasha manga at One Manga so Cursed can be properly done, and finish the Sailor Moon SNES game so I can finish that page for In Flames. Reducing EC to minimums gives me the time to focus on all my other pages that need some loving. I think one day I’d love to create a ‘full domain manager thing’ where the premise would be like wordpress but it can also create and manage all your subdomains. So, one log in panel and I can tweak a page on any site. Something like this probably already exists, but I’ve never seen it.

I’m getting back into my C++ again (which isn’t helpful for websites, but I enjoy it) because I was a master of things that never got out of the console, but, what I want to learn is programming in windows. I’m told PHP is a lot like C++ so maybe I can translate some of my skills into script writing. I’m not confident writing for the web though I’d fail and my script would get hacked and the interwebz would hate me. Seriously.

I’m also reading Calculus for Dummies, I’ve never taken Calculus before but for my Computer Science minor I have this phobia of everyone else being a calculus genius, and the best I can pull out of my arse being 1+1=5. Calculus I is not a required course, but I’m thinking about taking it anyways. Calculus, C++, 75 books, doesn’t my summer look fun? And I haven’t even found a job yet.

I think for once I’m going to finish a blog entry in its own time, I’m not distracted or just bored of writing, so yay me! Dad got a new monitor while I was at school and its one of those massively huge flat panel ones. Love it as I do it makes everything look small, and when I design on it I feel like I should fill it, which is such a bad idea. But it is very pretty, and I can see everything.

Anyways, I’m going to go read, and then maybe play some guitar!

This summer, I have decided that I am going to read seventy-five new books. I know that’s not much of a big deal, considering I love reading, but in recent years my interest seems to have waned a bit (oh, god, don’t tell my mother). This is mostly due to the fact that I’ve been trying to learn and do new things, and reading brings be back to that really antisocial pocket of life where I had no friends. But the two can be married!

I hope to write a short review for each of the summer seventy-five here, just to keep my writing brain going as well as my reading one. I want to get out a few chapters for a few of the stories I’m writing. Do less random forum writing, and more practical stuff.

Obviously I want to keep up my website design here too.

Anyways, I thought once I wrote that in my blog I’d actually do it. So, Summer Seventy-Five kicking off with Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Any reccomendations for books as offered by you, the internet, will be taken into consideration.

I really adored the layout the Amber made for me, so thank you a million times over to her for her gift to this site, I appreciate it more than you know. However, Empty Cage was looking too dark for me, and so, I cheated this time around and downloaded one. This was actually the first layout I stumbled across, so if I find another I like maybe I’ll change me mind on it. This is vaguely similar to the design I was conceptualising before I hit the snag of no web motivation whatsoever.

To be honest, I’m really frustrated with my websites right now. I feel like they should be more, but that it’s something I cannot seem to put into them. The content I write being flat, graphics being nothing special and, well, let’s face it, it seems all so mindlessly self-indulgent. Which it is I guess, I spend a lot of time sharing my opinions and life with the internet, and really I give nothing back. I dunno, this entry feels like a continuation of that.

I don’t know, I need to think.