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The Second Blogging Year

Year two, hmm? The blog hits two on the 18th, but I started it a few days before and decided to steal the start date. I'm the only one who cares even mildly about this technical aspect of things yet here I am, justifying myself for absolutely no reason. :) Of course I could rage quit between now and the 18th, invalidating everything that I do as I transcend and erupt like cold fusion across the Eve Online Official Forums.

How interesting that is to me, as the writer of all of this. I decided to do something a bit different. I made a little recording of myself. It isn't fancy. It's me, my headset, and Audacity to record me. I thought that after two years and over nine hundred posts I'd try something new. I spent a while doing tests and thinking of things to say. I started to cry some after listening to myself over and over again.  Nivin was kind enough to link me a nice article from Scientific America about how the voice sounds different when heard back. I know this, but it still sucks and I find the entire process rather embarrassing but I did it anyway! :P

I brought a domain name last week. Some may have noticed. www.lowseclifestyle.com is now a thing. It is supposed to work without the www as well but that is still not picking up correctly. That is my husbands task to fix. He is the DNS lord after all. When it transferred over my blog list vanished. No idea why. Because of that, I've been piecing it back together with some changes. I am trying to use Feedly more too. But, I think blog lists are important. I get a lot of traffic from them and I discover new blogs all the time through them. The blog is still hosted by blogger. lowseclifestyle.blogspot.com will continue to work. If I ever let the domain lapse the real site will pick back up. I've watched bloggers leave and decide to let everything they wrote vanish. I find that sad but some people have to shoot their memories in the back of the head I guess.

Enough of that. This is my narcissistic moment. When I get to revel in the glory of my words. Ahahhaahha. Not really. I've asked those closest to me to beat me with a stick if my ego ever expands to the point that I can't get through doorways or use public transportation due to the side of my over bloated sense of self worth because I write words and people read them. They love me dearly and have promised to beat me thoroughly if it becomes a problem. I will admit that it is nice that people link me and drink my words. The daily hit count is probably the greatest motivator to write moar and try to improve my quality while keeping things interesting for both the people who grace me with a piece of their day and me, who has to listen to myself write all this stuff.

When I started the blog, with no task but to record being a newbie, I had no idea I'd still be writing two years later. I've been keeping some type of blog or journal for most of my adult life. I had about a year long break between my last project (about raw feeding dogs and cats which I wrote for three years) and starting Eve. At the time, there were not many current new player blogs. Over the last year or so more and more have popped up, to my joy. There are few things more encouraging then for a new player to read the things that happened to them happening to other people. The technical stuff is vitally important but Eve is so cold and vast at first. Knowing that you are not the only one who wound up in that situation helps in my opinion.

December is a reflective month for me. Not because it is the end of the year. The year thing is an arbitrary decision for our calendar. Other cultures celebrate at other times. The cycle of the Earth about our Sun does not stir me to reflect. However, reaching the achievement points of each year played, and to an extent, written, does. I like where I am. I've been a bit down the last week or so but even as I wallow in my funk (of mood not body odor) I know that I'm not in a bad place in game. I think I'll perk back up soon.

There is no rhyme or reason to my writing. I tend to write in spurts. Sometimes I'll have an entire week done. Others, I write day to day or a post or two and schedule them out. Sometimes, I sit before bed, hashing out a topic that has me struggling a bit. Sometimes I write a topic in an hour. Other times I chew away at it over a week or more. That's why I have so many damn drafts. I tend to have lots of singular posts. Things that I wrote cuz it was a thought. Those get moved around a lot when I have issues to write, rants, responses, or reports.

My husband keeps suggesting I put up adds. I just smile and nod at him and don't do it. I'm not interested in that. Ads annoy me. My blog isn't here to annoy me. It may annoy some people but that is their call.

I also sometimes wonder if I should advertise. I see people posting their blog posts on Reddit and Twitter. But, I can't let go of the feeling that I'd just spam. I couldn't see myself every single day going, "Words!" or two or three times a day in case someone missed it. Sometimes I post stuff I really liked, but mostly that is Origin posts. I just feel like I'm jumping up and down screaming for attention if I were to every. single. day. post that I wrote another post. I'm bad at advertising. I also don't absorb advertising well. I just figure if I tend my little corner of the internet it will grow. That principle has worked in general so I'll stick to it.


I also know I don't only write about low sec. I shall forever be amused at the person who convoed me to tell me I didn't write about low sec and he was disapointed. I know that I wander off and onto other Eve related topics. I do sinful things such as Build Orcas and Try Incursions and mine and write fiction and stuff. But, since low sec is my home and my focus I think I'll keep the blog name. Someone has to advocate for it and I'm willing to do it as much as I can. I don't believe in waiting for other people to do the things that I want done as much as I might wish for that to happen. I was greatly disappointed by the CSM elections when it came to low sec and the lack of representation. I don't think I'm that person. I don't feel that I know a thing about the game and I know I don't have the personality to do bullshit political kissy face and election engineering. Take me as I am or don't take me at all but I won't be some false puppet spouting pretty lies and social engineering myself into someone elses approved mold.

I think that is about all the random things about me and my blog and its focus that have come to mind at the moment. Back to my regularly scheduled random.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

  1. Cheers on getting close to a second anniversary as blogger.
    I am often surprised when I read a blog by a 'veteran' and I find out they've been playing shorter or only a few months longer as I have.

    But most bloggers are heavily invested in the game and will often see and do more in Eve as players that have been around for much longer. Lots of people play eve as a single player game where other humans might just as well be advanced AI rats with a nasty streak.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Lots of people play eve as a single player game where other humans might just as well be advanced AI rats with a nasty streak."
      A game of jungle survival within a sandbox.

      Oh, Sugar Kyle, happy anniversary. I blogged for years (not on games) but deleted the whole shebang recently. At some point it all becomes irrelevant.

      Delete
  2. The second year only? I thought, I´ve read your blog for a whole while longer... Keep up your style and your arbitrarily changing topics :) Thanks, PT.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations on your two year anniversary. I've enjoyed reading every word and look forward to more, so keep it up and write what you want, when you want. <3

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  4. Congrats on 2 years of blogging. I remember way back to those heady early days ... *sighs* ;)

    Also, I think you sounded very good in your recording and should have no hesitation to do more audio work. I absolutely hate the sound of my own natural voice yet force myself to record a podcast with it as I realized that people generally don't care what you sound like, just what you have to say.

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  5. Happy Anniversary!

    You have a good voice. It's not just the tone, which is soothing (a good quality for an interviewer), it's that you speak slowly and clearly and with a variety in your tone and pacing. A little extra bit of breath control and a mic that doesn't make your 's' sound like static, and you'd be good to go if you chose to.

    Whether or not you do, here's to another year's worth of Sugar.

    (And yes, I hate the sound of my recorded voice, too.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congrats!
    I like your style. I often find, after reading one of your posts, I 'm thinking
    "Yeah, damn straight."
    Glad to hear you're keeping them coming.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This one really made me think….

    11/23/10 Tur’s was born, 5 months later on 4/24/11 I posted my first Blog Post. Been playing just a hair over 3 years and blogging ‘bout it moar ‘n two and a half… and have produced only 162 post all told… not quite the Roboblogger huh? LOL

    I too wonder at times on the ethereal nature of what we do here in the metagame… blogs are so transitory and impermanent. We speak from our experiences and tell our stories and opine from on high ‘bout this n that as ‘twere and yet, unlike putting pen and ink to paper, all we say and think and express here can disappear inna a puff of recycled electrons…

    I began writing all my posts in Word primarily for the ease of portability and editing and secondly so if anything ever happened to my site, I would still have at least the xxth pre-publish draft of all my posts in some form of semi secured record. Though even then it is not the end version as published… I oft make corrections and edits after I copy the word doc to blogger and of course, then there are the comments, none of which are captured in any form.

    Unlike you I am motivated to write only by my muse. I do garner some pleasure form a nice hit-count ‘spike in local’ after I hit the ‘post’ buhtan… but what drives me most is my muse and the banter 'tween bloggers such as yourself and my friends Mab, Epigene and Hermit… my best times are when I get a good comment thread going or am mentioned on other blobs etc. Doesn't happen often as my blog is moar journal than metagame.

    Funny though… I have oft gone back and read old posts of mine… especially that first one, “Wormhole Rules & Wormholes Rule”… three years ago I was SOOOOOO into EvE. I was sooo excited and wormholes were NEW and PvP was NEW and EVERYTHING was NEW… I was not yet jaded, which is not true now. I still love EvE… but like any long term relationship, there are days, as the saying goes, when the only ‘gleem’ left in my eye is the name onna tube of toothpaste on the ‘fresher shelf in that cold lonely room with the welded-up door…

    As I see it, EvE has no end game… you can’t "Win EvE", you can only win or lose at playing EvE. It is a virtual life in a simulated 'verse and as such bears many striking resemblances to RL… among them, ‘Familiarity breeds Contempt’ or at least, complacency… oft referred to as bittervet disease.

    With the changes HBHI is going thru, our CEO (my son) being Stationed in Korea (+14 HOURS from my TZ… sheesh), Mab off doinmg the LoneBear thing and SYJ leaving Anoikis for NPC Null to be the NBT (Next Big Thing) in nullsec… I feel like a homeless guy wandering around Hartsfield because now, to paraphrase Ripard, I wander the ‘verse seeking to recapture that heady excitement of my younger days…

    (PS Hartsfield is: Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, the world's busiest airports by passenger traffic… IE, the RW Jita 4-4)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congrats on 2 years of successful blogging. I started reading your blog when I was in the molden heath area working for dust mercs. That has long past since dust hasn't really been of much consequence to Eve. However, that hasn't stopped me from reading your posts. I come here every day to read what you have to say and it's always entertaining.

    Makes me miss the PvP so I live vicariously through your posts. Keep up the good work. I also enjoy the breadth of posts...Eve is all about doing whats fun at the time and keeping the game fresh. I like learning all the bits and bobs of Eve through blogs. They teach me things that the game can't.

    Fly safe,
    o7

    ReplyDelete
  9. 952 posts in two years? Congratulations on that amount.

    As for promoting yourself, one of the best ways is just to post intelligent comments on other people's blogs. With most comment systems allowing you to have a link to your blog, that will drive traffic.

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  10. Congrats on your second year ! Always a pleasure to read your thoughts.

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  11. Congrats on two years, Sugar. I read (almost) every post. I'll have a bag of Skittles for my afternoon snack today and think of you. Keep up the good work.

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  12. Congratulations on year two...Your blog gets me through many long work days...

    ReplyDelete

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