WordPress Reader: So This Is What It Has Come To?

July 21, 2015August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 25 Comments

Opus the Penguin reacts.

LIKE SO MANY OTHER WP BLOGGERS, for the last week or so I’ve fussed around with my Reader* account. WordPress changed the thing and now it’s pretty whacked.

I’ve blogged hither and yon forever, so while I understand why people are upset about the change to Reader, I’ve shrugged it off. There are other ways to follow blogs.

For instance, now I’m using feedly.com to keep track of everyone until WordPress gets this latest kerfuffle under control.

• • •

Bill the Cat opines.

BUT GETTING TO MY POINT HERE, as the above screen shot shows you, what I’ve found to be curious + hilarious about my current Reader account is that it tells me that I’m now following -11 blogs.

This, I’m sure, is a first for me.

Apparently Reader has taken it upon itself to carry out peremptory measures to make sure that I will not read the next 11 blogs that I think that I want to follow here in WordPress.

I’m becoming concerned about Reader. It’s getting uppity.

Truthfully, I have to wonder if when the computers rise up and take over the world, we’ll all look back on this moment and realize that Reader was a leader in the revolution against the human race.

Be forewarned, people. 😉

• • •

* For those of you outside of the WP system, Reader is a way to follow WP blogs. It’s a free feature that involves minimal effort on my part to have access to a current feed of all the WP blogs that I choose to follow. In theory, it’s useful. However, in practice…

• • •

{ It’s back! Images from Bloom County. More here. }

Welcome To Jibber Jabber July

July 6, 2015May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

Scrat, my blogging muse, with acorn.

I STARTED KEEPING A BLOG when the earth was covered in ice.

Really. It’s true.

Like one of my favorite cartoon characters, Scrat, the Ice Age squirrel, back then I focused on getting ~~readers~~ my acorn. Keeping ~~readers~~ my acorn.

No matter what.

I posted almost daily. Sometimes more than once a day even. Can you imagine?

We all did. Egos demanded it.

# # #

I ONLY SHARE THIS RETROSPECTIVE with you, my gentle readers, as a way of introducing you to a concept I dreamed up last week while I sat stuck inside my house due to massive amounts of rain.

This has not been the kind of summer to be outside. Too wet. Too moldy. It makes me itch.

So I thought to myself…

Why not return to a modified version of old-time blogging and post here 3 or 4 days a week? For one month.

Like I used to do when I was new to blogging and commenters were a dime a dozen and there was a sense of community among those of us who were either courageous enough OR crazy enough to share all the details of our lives with virtual strangers.

# # #

WITH THE FOREGOING IN MIND I have taken the liberty of creating my very own unique hashtag: #JibberJabberJuly. It’s what all the cool kids do now, making hashtags that is.

Although they usually use some sort of acronym, or garbled words, that no one outside of their group understands. Which I think sort of defeats the purpose of connection among virtual strangers.

But whatever.

To wit, I have used my propensity toward creative alliteration + my love of clear communication to gift the world with my hashtag. Feel free, gentle readers, to adopt it, or the concept upon which it is based, as your own all month.

Let’s get it ~~started~~ jibber-jabbering in here. Shall we?

Tweeted Twaddle: A Blog Post “Written” Without Doing Much Of Anything

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

• I can’t see straight today. My April allergies are in full swing making my eyes itchy & watery. This happens every year, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Now does it?

• Because I refuse to stop reading while my vision is blurry, I have set my Kindle’s font to old-people-rheumy-eyed large. It’s a feature on there. Really.

• Naturally, while reading I became a bit peckish so I tried a new-to-me snack. I did not like it, so I had to share this fact on Twitter. That’s what Twitter is for, right?

• So in closing of this eclectic [some would say filler] post, I leave you, my gentle readers, with this tweet of creative writing in which I summarize what I wish was going on outside today. Because a girl can dream. Yes?

The Bean Abides

April 7, 2015May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 40 Comments

A Poem on the Occasion of the Beginning of my 12th Year in the Blogosphere

• • •

I started small because I didn’t know,

What to expect from this blogging show.

My friends in real life ignored my blog dream,

It made me so mad that I wanted to scream.

But continuing on I wrote each day,

Knowing that others would head this way.

• • •

My mantra simple, my goals were clear:

Give the readers a story to cheer.

“I will not whine, nor over-share,

I will show up and rarely swear.

I am authentic, I refuse to mock,

I enjoy learning, and taking stock.”

• • •

Perspicacious am I, willing to share,

Light of heart, but still I care.

Nuanced and nutty, in equal part,

I have been quirky, right from the start.

Stick-to-itiveness, I think you’ll agree,

Is the word that best describes me.

• • •

Free-spirited, niche-less, with content well-written,

Yet editors varied with me are not smitten.

No Freshly Pressed badge, will you see here,

It seems what I write, they just do not hear.

But now gentle readers, in you I confide,

No matter what happens, the Bean will abide.

• • •

A special thanks to la peregrina at Santiago Dreaming who’s been here with me from the beginning AND to Margaret at Stargazer who’s been around here for almost as long. You both paid attention to me when no one else did– and helped me, a reserved introvert, gain the confidence to keep on writing. Love you both.

[H/T to D. Parker at yadadarcyyada whose wonderful post “Why I Will Never Be Freshly Pressed” put me in a mind to write this poem.]