Day Two - Blaugust, Blog Rolls And Beryl

The second day of Blaugust and I'd like to assure everyone not every post here this month is going to be about the event. That really would be taking the metatextual high road, which I can't deny has its appeal, but no. There are more things in life than Blaugust.

This one is, though. It's in the nature of a set-up post and also a grab-bag of sorts, although it's a mighty small bag. You wouldn't get much shopping in this one.

Wilhelm opened the bidding yesterday with a complete list of all 98 runners in this 2025 Invitational but by this morning I see he's had to update that four times already. We're now up to 114.

I left a comment last night saying I wasn't sure how I'd keep up with all of them, not just in terms of time spent reading but, more pragmatically, how I was even go to know when anyone had posted anything new. In previous years, I'd been in the habit of adding every new blog to my Blog Roll but that was when almost all of them were at least somewhat related to the boroad theme and purpose of this blog, namely gaming and popular culture. 

Last year Blaugust made quite an effort to spread the net wider and draw in bloggers from all kinds of non-gaming sources as well as vloggers, podcasters and who knows what all else, which was great for me as a reader, viewer and listener but it no longer seemed to make quite as much sense for to include all of them in the sidebar. Instead, I just whacked them all into my Feedly and followed them in private.

At the time, as I recall, the free version of Feedly had a limit on how many RSS feeds you could add. I seem to remember it being a hundred but I may have made that up. I'm pretty sure there was a limit, though, and I think I was getting quite close to it. Consequently, I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to follow all the dozens of new Blaugustinians. (Thanks to Gaudete Theology for the new collective noun - it rolls off the tongue a lot more sweetly than Blaugustians, which is what I'd been using until now.)

I was toying with the idea of making a separate category in the Blog Roll and adding them all there but I didn't relish all the cutting and pasting it  would take. By this morning I still hadn't done anything about it and just as well, too, because the very first Blaugust post I read after breakfast was from Owls at Owlblog, (Aka Owls Of The Godless Internet.) who'd solved most of my problem for me!

Owls has put together an OPML file (I say it like I know what one of those is...) with RSS links to all the current Blaugust blogs. You can import the whole lot into your RSS feeder of choice with one click. 

I cut and pasted the link into Feedly this morning and it worked perfectly. You do then have to go through them all and "Follow" them individually but that takes about 1% of the time it would take to add the whole lot the old-fashioned way. Thanks Owls!

I did also try the same trick with Blogger's Blog Roll widget but it wasn't having any of it. It didn't reject it but neither did it add anything at all. There may be some way of getting it to co-operate but although this year's new intake doesn't seem quite as wildly disparate as 2024's, I still think it's probably not going to be appropriate to add every one of them to the roll, so I'm not going to pursue it any further.

To give some idea of the challenges ahead, I read just the latest post from each of the new blogs I'd added, which was about a third of the total number of participants and it took me more than an hour. I know from experience that a lot of blogs will slow down their output as the event rolls on but this first week is going to be rough!

It's always fun to meet everyone for the first time, though. I was surprised to find several new Blaugustians posting in languages I don't read so those aren't going to be taking up much of my reading time. Nice to see the range of the event expanding, all the same.

Better yet from my perspective, there are a couple of blogs that seem to be primarily focused on images. I'm always happy to see more pictures in my feeds. And in that spirit I'm acceding to a request from Redbeard in the comments yesterday, when he asked for "more Beryl pics".

Here's she is, lounging in what used to be Mrs Bhagpuss's computer chair before it started to list to one side and rattle alarmingly. Mrs Bhagpuss bought a nice, new chair but Beryl had always liked to slip onto the old one whenever the opportunity arose, so I brought it into my study and now she sits on it behind me, keeping an eye on what I'm doing. She can also just about see out of the window from it so that's another attraction.

A few of the new blogs this year seem to be actual, old school web-logs or personal online diaries, which is very welcome. Takes me back to the old GeoCities days, when I used to randomly wander from homepage to homepage, reading about the small incidents in lives of people I'd never otherwise know. 

There are also several music blogs, something both very welcome and, I think, a first for Blaugust.  I
wonder what contact pulled those in? Unfortunately from my point of view, the preferred linkage among them seems to be to Spotify, which I don't use, but if nothing else the presence of nusic-based blogs will empower me to make more music posts of my own. Like I need any encouragement...

That's almost it for the round-up but I'd like to call attention to two particular posts I read this morning, both of which had some very helpful, practical advice to offer. (Three, of course, counting Owls.) 

The first was Calishat, who was talking about an app she's developed that goes by the name of Attention Junction. Or maybe it's a website she curates. I'm not sure on the naming conventions these days.

Anyway, whatever you call it, what Attention Junction does is "analyze the historical views of two Wikipedia pages, identify spans of public interest as expressed by unusually-high page views, find overlaps, and turn them into Google / Google News searches". It looks very interesting and I've bookmarked it to play around with later.

Finally, I'd very much like to highlight a post by Nick Simson in which he recommends an article by Ben Werdmuller called Evaluating AI. It's one of the most lucid, balanced and downright useful examinations of the ever-controversial topic I've read to date. What's more, it's not just of academic interest, it contains practical information and advice that I will certainly be referring back to as I explore, experiment with and make use of the various AI options and vendors in the future.

And that's my little trawl through the new stuff. Incomplete of course, since more blogs have joined since Owls compiled his list. I just hope I haven't missed anything amazing...  

Ten Glorious Years! Give Or Take A Year. Or Two.

 

And so it begins. Did I say that last year? Let me just check... Nope. But I bet I said it some year, on the First of Blaugust, because if keeping a long-running blog tells you anything about yourself, it's how predictable you can be and how many of your supposedly original thoughts and ideas are just ones you had many times before and then immediately forgot.

Or maybe that's just me. I quite like it, actually, It does at least denote some welcome element of constancy of character, which I was brought up to think of as a good thing. 

So, anyway, Blaugust. As I was saying yesterday, it's even more welcome this year than usual because I'm low on the ideas front just now, at least for things to post about that aren't alienating to some and of no interest to most. It means I'm more than averagely grateful for the leaning-posts of Blaugust's special-interest weeks and topic suggestions. 

Let's see what we have for Week One... hang on a moment, I think Krikket has a list...

 

 

There we go! That's the Themes nailed down. And what topic suggestions do we have within those headings? Just Week One will do for now, I think...

Week One – Welcome to Blaugust Week
August 1st – August 6th

• What made you decide to do Blaugust this year, and what are your personal goals?
• Did you start preparing for Blaugust before the August 1st start date? If so, what did you do ahead of time to make sure you’d stay on track?
• Do you remember how you heard about Blaugust for the first time?
• If this isn’t your first Blaugust, what keeps you coming back to do this year after year?
• Community Builder Bonus Prompt: Who are the Blaugust bloggers who you keep reading all year round?

Let's have a bash at those, why not?

Why did I decide to do Blaugust this year?  

Not quite as simple an answer as it might be. Most years the reason would be "Because I always do it" or "Because it's fun". Last year, though, it wasn't as much fun as all that, especially towards the end, by when I was feeling quite burned out, trying to keep up with the immense volume of posts from a record number of contributors while also hitting my 31 posts in a month target. 

By September, I was very much of a mind not to do Blaugust in 2026, by which I really meant I wouldn't formally sign up for it. Every year a few people shadow the event without filling in the registration form. I did it myself before I took the wafer back in... ooh, look! 2015!

That was unexpected! It appears this is my tenth anniversary Blaugust. My first was in 2015. Which of course makes this the eleventh time I've participated. Except there was that one year we did it twice with Blapril as well and wasn't there one year when it didn't happen at all, or am I imagining that?

Of course, another benefit of having a long-running blog is you can go back and check things like that. Give me a moment...

Okay, now that's weird. So, it seems that after making my 31 posts back in 2015, I didn't do another Blaugust for two years. 2016 and 2017 are just normal posting months with no mention of the event. 

Doing a little primary research, it seems that 2017 was the year the event lay fallow, so that fits with my memory of how things went. But what about 2016? Did I have such a bad time in my first Blaugust I didn't care to repeat it? Let me check...

Don't burn out. Enjoy it. Keep it casual.

And here we go! On the last day of Blaugust I posted a full account of my experience, in which it transpires that I hadn't signed up after all, only shadowed the event, all the while acting as if I was part of it. And it seems the reason I opted out of the opt-in was a requirement that you had to also sign up to some service by the name of "Anook", which I didn't want to do. 

What the hell was Anook? Why was it deemed necessary? I don't recall ever hearing of it again. 

Interestingly, it seems from my review that I didn't enjoy my first Blaugust all that much and for almost exactly the same reasons I found it a bit stressful last year - too many posts by others to keep up with, too much effort posting every day myself. Blimey, Charlie! If I'd known what was to come...

I concluded by saying "If Belghast runs Blaugust again next year I'll think very carefully before deciding whether to join in" and clearly what I thought, when I got to thinking, was that I wouldn't. Then Bel skipped a year and in 2018 I signed up all official like nothing had happened and I haven't missed a Blaugust since.

All of which means that, if we count Blapril, this really is my tenth Blaugust! Yay! Didn't miss it after all!

What are your goals?

Don't burn out. Enjoy it. Keep it casual.

Every year I've taken part I've hit the 31 posts. Sometimes that's been very easy. Other times it's been a struggle. This year I'm going to let it be what it will be. I do think that using the topics and suggestions will make it a lot easier if I do decide to go all in. I mean, look at this post. It's writing itself.

Do you start preparing beforehand?

I have done in previous years. I've planned my own series of posts a month or two ahead of time. I've written things in advance so I had completed posts in the bag, all ready to drop in on days when I didn't have time to put anything new together.

Last year I had the bright idea of saving up the idea I had to celebrate EverQuest's 25th Anniversary until August, so I could get the benefit of all those extra posts during Blaugust. That worked really well, although in the end I only used eight of the proposed twenty-five posts during the event. I'm still working my way through the list even now, so I guess I could roll out the remaining seven EQ25 posts this Blaugust...

Othe than that, this year I have made no preperations whatsoever.

Do you remember how you heard about Blaugust for the first time? 

Not exactly. I mean, I know vaguely how it happened - bloggers I followed mentioned it or were participating in it so I came to it organically. Precisely where my first sighting of the word "Blaugust" itself occurred, though, I can't be sure but I said in that 2016 post linked above that I first became aware of Blaugust the year before, 2015, which I believe would have been a couple of years after Belghast came up with the original concept.

So I wasn't there at the beginning but I arrived at the party not too long after it started.  

What keeps you coming back to do this year after year?

I think many of us feel the duality each year
when Blaugust heaves its mighty bulk into view.

It's so, so tempting to say "masochism", isn't it? I think many of us feel the duality each year when Blaugust heaves its mighty bulk into view. It's one of those things you both look forward to and dread at the same time. It's fun but often it can be too much fun and too much fun is enervating. 

I personally have no interest in all the awards and challenges, as can be seen by the complete absence of any of the badges on the blog. If I'm brutally honest, I don't just not care for them, I dislike them. Reminds me of being in the Boy Scouts, something I never once in my life, even as a small boy, thought was something I'd want to be associated with. Not my kind of thing at all.

Conversely, though, it certainly is the community that brings me back every year. It's a club, isn't it? And this is the Annual General Meeting.

When I was in the British Amateur Press Association (BAPA), which for anyone who hasn't heard me bang on about it before was a kind of analog version of blogging from back when the cutting edge of technology was a photocopier, we used to have an AGM, usuallly held at the Central Mailer's home and often involving an overnight or weekend stay. 

It was a big party, basically, to which many of the people who contributed zines to the bi-monthly APA came from all over the country and even from other countries, since we had a few members from outside the UK at times. 

Blaugust is basically that, only for a month and without the drunkenness and fist-fights. It's when many of the people whose posts I read every week and with whom I swap comments all year get together for a big party. Who wouldn't want to come back for that every year?

And here we all are! Happy Blaugust everyone. Let's get the party started! 

(As for the "Community Builder Bonus Prompt: Who are the Blaugust bloggers who you keep reading all year round?" I'm not touching that! It's "Who's your favorite child?", isn't it? Let's just say "All of them" and leave it at that. I mean, obviously we all know it's actually "some of them" but this way everyone gets to feel they're included. And of course everyone is!) 

 

Notes on AI used in this post.

For new readers, if I use any AI images or other artifacts or services in a post, I'll always annotate it in a footnote. My view on AI is that it's a creative tool like any other but in the current climate I feel it's polite to mention when it's being used so anyone with strong objections can, like, erm... I dunno... unsee it or something? At least not be fooled into thinking they liked it and then find out later they really didn't.

I like to use a lot of illustrations on the blog and abstract posts like this are notoriously difficult to break up with images so these are the posts where you're most likely to see AI. I use NightCafe almost exclusively, where I have a huge bank of free credits waiting to be burned and that's where both of these were done.

For images in these kinds of posts I like to pull out a phrase from the body of the text and throw it to an AI image generator to see what it comes up with. It's a game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case I got an image I was willing to use first time, both times, which is rare.

The specific model I used for both was something called Virtual Utopia XL. It happened to be the last one I'd used for reasons I may get to in another post and I just left it as it was when I ran the new prompts. 

As for the prompts, you can see them in the captions to the illustrations. Both had the same style instructions appended, namely "line art, color, retro-futurism". Again, those were already set, for reasons I may get to later in the month. Runtime was "Short" and all the weights were 50%.