Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again."

So. Here we are again. Well, I say again, it's the first time I've been "here", so to speak, but I'm actually writing up a blog post, for the first time in $deity->knows->when(). And I've started with a HHGTTG quote for my first mostly unimportant post, as all blogs should probably begin with. A bit of fluff to start with, shall we say.

Mind you, things have come a long way. LiveJournal is all but dead except for all the Russian people. I've nothing against Russians of course, they're lovely people - well, they've got a spread of people lovely to lousy just like everywhere else has really - but unfortunately, being unable to communicate in their language, it does put a bit of a barrier up for me. The communities are all but dead too, sadly, replaced with the likes of Facebook and Google+ (well, okay, perhaps the latter is wishful thinking, but it's still very early days. The release of G+ without suitable APIs - even in alpha format - was a bit ridiculous in my opinion, and ensured Facebook was just going to sit as the dominant social network. Who knows what the future holds on that one, but... we shall see) for the most part. And, to be honest, I did question the wisdom of starting a blog when G+ and Facebook (and even Twitter) are perfectly good platforms for writing things up. Perhaps it's because I want things here to be taken a little more seriously than the irrelevant day-to-day drivel and rants I put up there, or very short real-time posts.

As an update to this post, I used to go out of my way to set up my own local copies of the blogs, organise the databases, get all the files in place, get all the plug-ins there, make it all work, fix the inevitable permissions issues, etc. But I've realised it really isn't worth the time or the effort when a perfectly good publishing platform is already available to me. Same with my mail now running on Google Apps, and generally wanting a nice easy life. Sure, Google gets to know about what I write about, the sort of people who visit my blog, the email I get, and use all of the above to customise my search experience and adverts served. That's okay, I can live with that, I usually find what I want, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. I've had enough of taking the approach of fashioning tools and then building my own house, or even just getting pre-made tools and still building my own house, or at the very least severely remodelling. I'm happy enough putting a bit of paint here and there, and connecting up bits and pieces. It's good enough, and it's a smooth enough experience to "just work" for me.

So here I shall begin my journey. My journey into a synergistic technological life. My battle to make it all work smoothly together, seamlessly integrated. The changes in attitudes I've had, and the journey I make, the tools I use to get there. My experiences in programming, with operating systems, and hardware. And perhaps exploring bits of the inside of my thought processes a little too.

So, in that spirit: are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.