refurbishment in progress
July 13, 2005
Hello. Look – everything’s changed. This is just temporary – this incarnation is like the white underlay paper and bare floorboards of a house that’s about to be redecorated. The redecoration, when it happens, will probably return things to roughly what they looked like before, but in the meantime, while the floorboards are visible, you might notice that this site is now made from WordPress. The main practical upshot of this is that you can now write comments!
Up until now, I’ve been making everything by hand, partly because that was a good way of learning web-programming, partly because when I started I had plenty of time on my hands, and partly because it was kind-of fun, in a perverse sort of way.
But anyway, things have changed. For one thing, without any opportunity for people to leave comments, it feels a bit like talking into space, which I don’t much like (after all, what LVA is really for is staying in touch with friends who are far from Okinawa, but without comments it’s not very social) … but hand-making the sort of site that allows people to post comments would take a lot of time – time which would be better spent making the most of being in Japan. And the end result would always be a bit held-together-with-sellotape compared to WordPress’s smooth, purring engines. Also, when I do finally leave Japan, I will be travelling around China (and from there, who knows where else…) without a computer of my own, and a nice, comfortingly smooth interface like WordPress, full of bells and whistles, and which I can log into wherever I can find an internet connection will be just the thing.
Anyway: for the time being, a few links might be broken, but I will be repairing them. In the mean time, you can start leaving comments! Please do!
Posted by Mark — July 15, 2005 at 9:20 am
That’s exactly why I’ve been on livejournal for so long – I didn’t have a computer I could write anything on, and I can post/edit from anywhere. Now, for the first time, I have my own internet computer, so I suppose I may be changing direction at just the time you are.
Anyhow.
How the devil are you? When are you next in this hemisphere?
m
Posted by lva — July 15, 2005 at 9:37 am
Aha! Mr. Mark! Thank you for being the first ever person to write the first ever comment! This is terribly exciting to me.
I’m good thank you. Though next in that hemisphere… don’t know. Not before December, though probably before April. But from August, I have only the very vaguest of plans.
btw. I’m sorry I haven’t yet replied to your email: I have been terrible about emails lately because with one month left on my island, I seem to get about twenty seconds of free time every fourth day. In August, without a job or a plan, things should be different though.
Posted by Alex — July 16, 2005 at 12:00 am
Red Naxela
Hey, Nick, your new site design rocks! I think it looks pretty cool just stripped down like that, but I guess if you want to add pictures of fish and stuff it’s up to you. And also this:
“Sihr os, lad! Nau! O, yot pus stiff!!!
Uts, dna, h..s. If foser ut cipd daott naw uoyfiss it ubtahte kiln wodd eppirts suj lo ocytter.”
ps.
Kool! Tiknihtsk. Corn? G.I. Sede. ’tis wen R U oykciny.
Eh?
Alexander
Posted by Mark — July 18, 2005 at 6:27 am
I feel honoured to be in that position! I would have commented much sooner had the option been open to me.
Glad to hear you’re good, and glad to catch the news every once in a while as it comes online. Was in edinburgh the other week, and it’s still not the same without you.
Hope you enjoy your last month on The Island. I must turn in now; will be re-reading the Philip Pullman books as a half-arsed mock protest at the furore surrounding the new harry potter book. Which I’ll be buying, of course, as soon as it hits paperback.
Posted by lva — July 20, 2005 at 8:37 am
Alex! Thank you for the first ever palindromic comment. I hope there will be more.
This stripped-down design might rock, but it’s also WordPress’s default, out-of-the-box design, and so I think it might be cheating / boring to use it. Plus, I like fish. But when I’m going to actually have time to change it, I don’t know.
Wonk! T! Nod, I tie! (and so on…)
Posted by Hannita — January 24, 2006 at 6:21 am
You are doing a great job for one who just learns. I wish I could go to Japan one day.