Those are pearls that were his eyes

Part of the reason why I’d been thinking about names and identity and the power of pseudonyms has been because for the past few months I’ve been debating registering a domain (morbidflight.com although I’ve briefly been transfixed by the idea of morbidflig.ht). I finally went ahead and did it today, which means that non-lazy people now have another way of finding my real name (despite the fact that it’s on this blog in at least one instance).

It’ll take a couple days to hammer out the kinks and figure out what I want to do with this, exactly, but I’m glad I did it instead of waffling for another few months/years/decades. There’s a pair of boots I’ve been meaning to buy for the past five years and at this point I don’t even think it’s worth it. That’s the kind of waffling I wanted to avoid. Sometimes, spending money on myself is a good thing.

This is just a quick post to mention that and to suggest, however indirectly, that there might be a sea-change in my online presence. I’ve made a home, now, instead of camping out in the guest rooms of friends. It remains to be seen whether this is as momentous as I made it out to be. (I’m betting not.)

Constructive criticism

Okay, so based on the three responses to the readability poll (still in the sidebar), I’m going to avoid using “read more” cuts in the future. I will also go back and remove them in older posts, probably, but not right this second.

Thanks for making your opinions known, faceless readers! This blog thanks you. (And as I said in the other post, feel free to continue to do so, though it would be nice if you could save it for housekeeping posts such as these.)

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Edited to add: I went back and removed (I think all) of the read more tags, so there’s that. Next readability poll might be on infinite scroll. Hate it or love it?

 

On readability

It just occurred to me to wonder whether I’ve been doing the right thing with “read more” cuts/jumps. On the one hand, it makes each front page cleaner and easier to navigate. On the other hand, it makes it harder to just scroll through posts (though you can still click on individual posts and read an entire backlog by using the prev/next links within those).

So I’m asking you lot (all…what…five? of you?) to speak now or forever hold your peace.

Kidding, I’ll probably look at the results in a week and make changes based on those. But if things change drastically after that I’ll reconsider I guess.

If you have comments, leave them here in this post. Anything related to ease of reading for this blog is welcome.

Restarting this thing

I’ve just started a doctorate program, so I feel like I should get back in the habit of writing when I don’t have a big project. I aim to post one thing each week, probably on Thursdays or Fridays, around 300-500 words, on whatever strikes my fancy.

I think my next post will be about “fields” versus “disciplines” as I see them. Stay tuned for some discussion of games studies, iSchools, and other things I vaguely know about. 🙂

Edit: Thanks to a brief discussion on twitter, I might actually be writing about partnerships and grad school from a feminist perspective (do you expect anything else from me, really now). I had thoughts about this post about “grad students’ wives” and gendered labor.

Quick update

For my two readers: I’m working on a set of posts continuing the eSports theme.

1. The terminology and subjects (and location) of current discussions
2. The relation of current discussions to “games crit”
3. Possible directions for such discourse

Welcome

This isn’t by any means my primary blog, and I’m not sure I have one, but if you feel like following the academic (and other) adventures of me, come find me.  Maybe I’ll use this to expand on my rampant random tweeting about video games.