lines of flight

Summer is over. Time for the dusty Bluebird theme to fly away, not least because Twitter incorporated it into their design ages ago (I had it first), but things are just different now. New season, new nephew, new deadlines.

Time for something more subdued. This loamy, static look is called MNML and so far it suits my mood perfectly.

The MNML theme is conceptually related to Twitter in that it lends itself to micro-blogging, which I’m liking lately. Perhaps a bit too much. Something about posting these really tiny snippets of myself feels like a freer form of expression. At least, it’s more portable (phone-friendly) and easier than blogging, that’s for sure. Freer? eh. Whatever. LoL.

I will try not to go all “dear diary” with the content, but I don’t apologize for being inconsistent in my posting style. My published clips are still listed here as for the rest, we’ll see.

Thanks again to WordPress for making this possible.

The much anticipated WordPress 2.5 upgrade has been installed and is working away to power this blog. There shouldn’t be any changes on the front end, but let me know if anything looks off. My cynical friend among many, took the time to highlight some of the improvements.

One of the things I had hoped to do after the upgrade was install the Popularity Contest plugin which would generate a list of the most trafficked posts. Unfortunately for me, that plugin is not working correctly with the new version yet. So I’m just going to guess.

From monitoring my stats and eyeballing the numbers, rankings and search terms that bring people here, these are what I think are the most popular posts from my first eight months of blogging:

1. Lapp it up: Pamela Anderson’s Finnish heritage
2. the pop secret is out–microwave popcorn is super easy to make
3. watch the Boondocks
4. in search of the perfect travel backpack
5. reservations about Anthony Bourdain in Hawaii
6. supreme master moomin vision and the muumibuumi
7. the overwhelming cuteness of twin baby Bengali tigers born different colors
8. Barack Obama- Yes We Can

From the comments in an on Stuff White People Like (a hilarious site whose authors need to stop stalking me!) I happened upon a gaggle of DC bloggers who made me feel fat and provincial.

Even tho their leader gives Finnish girls some props… in his way…

Finnish - I used to call my Finnish girl “finn-skinned”. She almost cried. The upside is that a Finn chick is a naif in the art of head games, so you’ll never have to deal with her flirting with other guys in a bar just to make you jealous. Finns are introverted. … A Finn girl’s introversion hides a surprising strength of character. She won’t tolerate her man walking all over her. Fiercely loyal and commitment-oriented, Finns make fantastic girlfriends. More than other women, Finns appreciate small gestures like spontaneously buying her a rocket pop from an ice cream truck. Finn girls smell fantastic and look ten years younger than their age.

…I’m not really down with this whole anonymous bad-mouthing of the opposite sex. (I’m not anonymous for one thing.) But that site led me to a whole bunch of other blogs that got me thinking about why assholes are interesting. (Ew.) A thought I quickly banished with pop cultural tripe and life-stuff.

Read about it.