Monday, September 28, 2009

OMGZ -- an actual entry!!!!11one (I'm going to try to do better guys)

Okay, this blog is not exactly active – that much is obvious. That said, I think that there is still some potential here, and it’s not necessarily time to consign this project to the Failed Blog Graveyard. At least not yet.

“Really, Greg? No updates in a month?” Yeah, that’s not good, I realize. A lot had been going on. Some of it’s personal stuff – making the last couple of updates were really tough because of some stuff going on in my personal life. That happens. Honestly, doing this a little more would probably have been good for me to work through some stuff. But I didn’t. Alas. Also, my computer broke. Maybe I should say “my” computer – it’s really a work computer. I’m lucky enough to have a job that affords me the luxury of use of a pretty nice computer I can take home. But lately I’ve been stuck using the piece of crap I used to write my dissertation in 2005 and 2006. Okay, maybe “piece of crap” is a bit harsh, but I gotta tell ya: half a gig of RAM just doesn’t do what it used to. Well, I got a reasonably functional computer again (one I had loaned to someone), so I don’t have any excuses in that regard anymore.

This is never going to be the Vegan Dad blog (great blog -- go there NOW if you haven't seen it yet), or anything like that. I know this. But I can do better. And I will.

In other events: it seems like Vegifide, the vegetarian social networking site with a lot of St. Louis members, isn’t with us anymore. The site has been down for a while. As of writing this, it says it’s “on hiatus” when attempting to go there. Those of you that follow this blog (all two of you) probably are aware of “The Incident” (of which I was a major character) that happened there about a year ago. I won’t get into it other than to say that many long time users of the site were banned (some for literally no reason), and the common consensus among many of us that used to be on the site is that The Incident was what lead to a drastic downfall in traffic from Vegifide. I’m going to say that I was personally wronged, but I will say that several people were.

So why is this a bad thing? Well, to be honest I do feel a bit of Schadenfreude, but that is admittedly a petty (if natural) reaction. Vegifide did a lot for me personally. I met a lot of truly amazing people on that site – people that remain close, personal, actual face-to-face (irl – omgz!) friends. Also, the people I communicated with, and the info presented on Vegifide is a big part of the reason I went vegan. I won’t give Vegifide actual credit for me going vegan (that would be silly), but it certainly was influential in helping me make what I feel was one of the best personal decisions I have ever made. Finally, the site owner who did the “purging” issued an unconditional apology for his actions. I’m not talking a half-ass “I’m sorry if you think I went too far” b.s. apology, but a full on, 100%, “I fucked up and I’m sorry” apology, where he asked everyone to come back. Most of us didn’t. In fact, I don’t think any of us came back, but at least he made an effort to make amends, and that is worth something in my opinion.

I don’t want to write a premature obituary for Vegifide. Maybe they will come back, and be bigger than ever. But considering the lack of traffic, and the fact that the site has been down well over a month now, I don’t really see that happening. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.

Regarding this blog: I am going to try to make a concerted effort to keep this more active. So I’m going to start a series on this blog, called the Half-Ass Vegan. This will be where I share quick, easy, tasty, and not insanely unhealthy meals, and how to make them. I already have a few ideas, so really all it will take is me actually getting off my lazy ass at least once a week or so. I should be able to manage that.