Remember my post on spammers’ creativeness? Lately, I’ve been bombarded quite regularly with bot-produced comments that appear as “compliments” from accidental readers. The idea, of course, is that I’ll take them for genuine praise and allow them through my spam controls, opening the door for future deluge. This looks like…
Several months ago, via Brian and/or Jason, who are my oldest blogging buddies, I started reading Whatever, a blog by the acsendant sci-fi luminary John Scalzi. I am not much of a sci-fi aficionado these days, and John’s outspokenly liberal political views occasionally grate on my sensibilities. But he is…
I spent a good portion of the weekend updating my Travelog with entries related to our recent trip to Spain, including some of the stuff from the trip four years ago. If anyone is interested, the good starting point for new entries would be here. The pictures are coming in…
Surprise! I spent a little bit of time and moved the main blog to the WordPress platform. Initial reasons for doing that were outlined here, and I have gotten more and more convinced of the overall superiority of WordPress as I kept playing with it. I might write more on…
I am happy to announce that my elder child now has a soapbox of her own within confines of this website. The link is now prominently featured on the navigation bar. Warning by the newly-minted authoress: You are not really advised to visit if you were born before the 90’s.…
I realized that I needed to expand on my post about online translations. This is a public service announcement to those who have already read it, to go and read the addendum 🙂
The excellent spring weather – what actually qualifies as summer in London; the next stop is dreary autumn – has seemingly spread across the Channel, and we are finally wearing short sleeves, having dinners on the deck in the garden, and deceiving ourselves with “British climate is not so bad”…
I have spent the good portion of the weekend moving our Travelog onto a different platform. The results can be found by clicking the link on the navigation bar, or here if you prefer. As of this moment, the content is almost exactly the same as what it was before…
There are many indications that I suck at blogging. Among the most obvious are: The inordinate amount of time that it takes me to compose a worthwhile post (I first alluded to this problem all the way back in my very first – dare I say inaugural? – entry),…
A meme that I picked up via my favorite bloggers Brian Greenberg and Jason Bennion asks the author to re-post the first sentence of the first blog entry in each of the previous year’s 12 months. Similar to Brian’s and Jason’s compilations, mine ended up somewhere between esoteric and nonsensical.…
For the first word, take our Ruslish-fied family name. You know, the one that appears in the URL between “www” and “com”. For the second word, take a three-letter word that describes every adult’s favorite thought. You know, the one that starts with an “s” and ends with an “x”.…
Natasha posted my Bath travelog entry on Fodors and the traffic to my website immediately shot up. A little marketing never hurt anybody, I guess. What’s rather weird, though, is that the most frequent internet search that led people to my website in the past month has been one for…
Exactly one year ago, I wrote my very first post in this space. In certain sense, I am amazed that I lasted this long. But I did, and it is time to raise a pint to being a seasoned writer. Or, at least, to being stubborn and dedicated, even if…
My British colleagues are happily exclaiming that the summer is finally here. From my perspective, the weather is a lot more like spring than summer, but with no rain, and it certainly makes it feel considerably more cheerful. Too bad we won’t be around for a while. Let’s feel the…
Of all her various endeavors, Becky lately has been concentrating on singing a bit more. She lacks a strong voice, but she definitely has a musical ear and she loves to sing. It helps the matters that at her school, every Year 7 student has to participate in the choir.…
Four days without a post is hardly a way to keep the audience engaged. An article in Economist recently was talking about people who make blogging their main occupation and actually build huge followings by writing about their everyday life. How exactly do they do that? I struggle to find…
I guess for the very first post of mine I should warmly welcome all readers and wax eloquent on the subject of how this blog might change the world… Nah!!! If all goes as planned, this first post will be buried under a ton of others. Or not, and this…