After several weeks offline due to holiday, work, festivals and moving house (well room….) I am finally back online, although only temporarily at the moment. I am currently using a makeshift internet connection until our house network is up and running, so I cannot vouch for the regularity of my posts for the foreseeable future. I will do my best to ensure that I try to keep you all up to date on the comings and goings currently making my life about as hectic as it has been in several years!
Firslty, I am currently working ten to eleven hour days for a framing company selling certificate frames to graduates at Leeds University. Good money but hard work! I had to pass up on the last two festivals I was supposed to be working due to a) a better offer and b) the feeling that the work I was doing was going very unappreciated to say the least!
Basically, my life is good. I have a fantastic girlfriend, amazing housemates, quality friends and a bank balance in the black! Not a lot else for me to say at the moment. I am sure that my future posts will include some of the details I have skipped over, but then again they might not. Requests on a postcard please.
Having just Googled my name, I have discovered that www.normanralph.com is the first result returned! That’s quite cool. I did the same for Liz and her site is the fifth result returned. I should probably know this but does anyone know how Google’s ranking works?
On a different note, I found Liz’s limit last night. Cryptic? Yes, it is meant to be.
Seetickets.com have also excelled themselves, I bought The Who tickets last night and they arrived this morning! That is service. Just waiting on another delivery now, which I hope will come this week.
Anyway, off to watch Blackpool lose to Oldham in the League One Playoff semi-final then hopefully see Man Utd beat the crap out of Chelsea in the FA Cup later on.
Whilst I have been recovering froma bout of the flu I have been catching up on some of the other blogs I subscribe to. After reading Kieran’s post on the Guardian’s article on the blogosphere, which basically says that blogging is fast heading towards the realm of a virtual boxing ring, filled with point-scoring alpha males, I felt the familiar surge of rage and burning desire to defend something that I love.
I have not been blogging long, in fact I am a relative newbie compared to many of the more established weblogs out there, but I feel a part of the community of bloggers (the blogosphere) all the same. Since going ‘live’ at normanralph.com I have been the subject of ridicule from a number of sources. These include the general public who see blogging as the last realm of the geek – a view that would anger and offend many bloggers – as well as close friends who seem to see blogging as a passing fad. Both of these views are bad enough, but usually they can be put down to at best ignorance and at worst jealousy. This latest attack from a nationally accepted broadsheet paper is something different. Whilst I normally put the offings from the Manchester based newspaper down to left-wing, nimby style journalism, I am not naive enough to belive that some people will sit up and take notice to this article. I think that it is this negative media coverage that is more likely to discourage potential bloggers than the views of the people that I have spoken to.
Blogging provides so many opportunities for so many people. From the technical minded that want somewhere to offer support and advice on all things tech. It provides an excellent platform for many businesses to discuss their development side and offer up-to-date feedback to their customers and investors. It also provides people like me a ‘soapbox’ from which to shout our many opinions!
Keep blogging!