Finally, a place for music snobs on the Internet

I just want to give some quick blog love to my friends Lee Stafford and Jim McEvoy who have relaunched Diminished Seventh, an blog focusing on an unholy mix of the Washington and New York local scenes.  There you can check out Lee’s take on German reggae,  Jim’s weird taste in music videos, and editor Will Rauch’s love of The Onion.

Incidentally, Jim and Lee are also the guitarist and bassist, respectively, for DC band The Frustrations, my former band.  They’re headlining at The Red & the Black this Friday night, so check them out if you’re in the DC area.

Ch-changes

Now that I’ve got the hang of this whole blogging thing you kids are always talking about, it’s high time I start looking to site design. I’ve got nothing against the particular theme I’m using right now, but I feel I can do better than the WordPress default (although it’s perfectly fine for some bloggers). Expect the entire look of the blog to change at least a few times as I experiment.

Additionally, I’m going to end this ill-fated attempt at tagging. Originally I thought I could keep my categories very broad (say, “Politics” instead of a specific issue) and use tags as a way to narrow the subject field down. However, I tended to simply use people and things I was writing about as my tags. Once you realize your blog is text-searchable, this practice becomes redundant. Instead I’ll simply employ more categories than I did before. Apologies to those who enjoyed having their names as tags.

Finally, I’m going to really delve into the WordPress FAQ and see what this baby can do for me. For starters, I plan on doing a lot more time-delayed blogging, leaving my days free for billable work. For instance, this post and the one preceding it were both written last night. I also plan on instituting a number of other changes that will take me away from the default model; more on those as I learn about them and implement them.

re: this bullshit

Dear Garance,

Reading over your responses to Mike Meginnis, I feel you could use a little guidance. Here are some links that I think you will find helpful in your work here at Blogosphere LLC:

• the definition of poisoning the well
• another definition, this time of the appeal to emotion
• an explanation of the ad hominem fallacy fallacy
• a discussion of the problems with the phrase “you haven’t walked in my shoes”

Please keep these in mind the next time you respond to your co-workers. All employees of Blogosphere LLC need to ensure that they maintain a civil tone while corresponding with their fellow employees; don’t let your emotions blind you. Try arguing through your pain next time instead of freaking out.

I’d hate for this to become an issue during your annual review, but I’ll be forced to if you continue to foster this environment of tremendous personal hostility.

See you at the budget review!

Sincerely,

John Cain
Human Resources Assistant