Last day! Has it been fun? I'd say so.
I was going to run this after the event had ended but it makes more sense to keep it in bounds. Who knows? Maybe someone I'm shouting out will even see it now!
As I said a few posts ago (Not going to go digging back through them all to link to it.) for the first time ever I'm actually going to name-and-praise the new-to-me and new to Blaugust blogs I really enjoyed. Handily, I put all the fresh names in a separate pot over in Feedly right at the start so it's pretty easy to find them. God knows it wouldn't be if all I had to work with was my memory.
I'd say they're in no particular order - I'm certainly not ranking them - but since I used the handy OPML file gifted to us by Owls and that's alphabetical, that's what order they're in. Other alphabets are available.
All of the following will be staying in my RSS feeds long after Blaugust ends.
African Music Forum - There were several all-music blogs in this year's line-up and at the start I would have bet against this being the one I'd end up enjoying and listening to the most but the others seemed to focus on music I found very dull so I stopped clicking through after a few posts. I've never been much of a "world music" fan although I've certainly heard plenty over the last few decades. I went to the first-ever WOMAD festival but never felt like going to another and there was a time when I thought if John Peel didn't stop playing so much highlife I'd have to find someone else to listen to late in the evenings. All of that notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed lots of the tracks and artists AFM introduced me to during Blaugust, especially all the funk and jazz.
august morning - There are never as many picture-focused blogs in Blaugust as I could wish. Or in the blogosphere generally, for that matter. I'm guessing most people who want to post photos do it on Instagram. Maybe I should look there. Except I don't even have an Instagram account. Which all means I was very happy to see this one, the picture-oriented blog of Jedda, also responsible for another blog on this list.
Axxuy - Short, friendly, varied posts on a restful green background. I bookmarked several posts by axxuy as possible bounce-offs during the month, mentioned the blog in a couple in dispatches and finally went the full bounce yesterday. At first I thought it was going to be a whole blog about vintage typewriters, which would have been fine, but it opened out to be about all kinds of things and always interesting.
Calishat - Another I bookmarked several times. I liked the chatty and engaging style but this one also has great pracical value. I've already used a couple of the search apps and I'm keeping them to hand for the future.
Joelchrono's Blog - Always a fun read. Very chatty and easy-going. I liked all the gaming stuff but even better were the throwaway asides giving a glimpse of everday life in Mexico. This is the sort of thing I used to eavesdrop on in the old GeoCities days. I don't miss most of that, especially not the juddering, jarring graphics, but I do miss the casual visits to other people's lives, something the more structured blogs we have now don't always offer.
Notes by JCProbably - And here's another one. Again, it's a window into another world or I should say another part of this one. One thing I particularly like about JCProbably is the creative use of fonts. It brings home what I was saying about how we, collectively, seem to have forgotten some of the creativity that used to come with paper and paste. If I steal anything from anyone in Blaugust this year it'll most likely be the use of script instead of italics. This is Jedda's other blog, by the way, although I'm sure you all knew that.
Reay Jespersen - Along with the previous one, possibly the most personal of the personal blogs this time around. A real web log of what's going on in someone's life, or in their mind, or both, which if we're going to be brutal about it, is only going to hold a stranger's attention if it's a very interesting life or if someone has some very interesting ideas or if they're blessed with the knack of making one or other or both sound interesting. At least two of those hold true here. I read every post with interest, attention and pleasure. Even left a couple of comments.
ribo.zone - I was enjoying this one until it stopped about half-way through the month with a post about being half-way through... very meta! Another soothingly pastel green blog with plenty of what I learned is called "dithering". I was clearly lying when I said the only thing I'd steal this time would be the script fonts. I've already stolen the dithering and used it several times.
Small Good Things - Another one that signed out half way through, only this time with an actual goodbye. I was very sorry to see it go although I understood the reasons clearly enough. There are plenty of blogs in my feeds that talk about health issues sometimes, particularly mental health, but I don't often feel I've learned something new the way I did with this one. It helped that Hollie was learning them at the same time, I guess. I hope everything's working out and if and when you're feeling ready to blog again, I'll be happy to hear about it. This is why I never remove blogs I like from my feeds even when they go silent. It's always nice to think one day they might spring back into life.
The Virtual Moose - Just a solid, interesting, well-presented blog that kept coming up with interesting reads throughout the month. I bounced off one of them, thinking it was a subject that might get some traction and of course it got no response at all. (Well, not about the actual topic, anyway.) How very Blaugust. I also downloaded a game demo after reading one of the posts but I haven't played it yet.
The Works of Egan - I generally don't jibe with coding or tech blogs. There were several this year that I didn't get on with at all. It's not so much that I'm uninterested in the subject matter, more that the way it's presented frequently hits me as alienating and exclusionary. Not, I'm sure, with any such intent by the writers but like many specialisms it can be prone to silo architectonics and echo chambering. This one isn't by any means a tech blog although it leans in that direction sometimes. It's more of a general read and it has a very open, welcoming feel about it that invites you to come inside and join in, which I did, happily.
Wavelengths - This one's not so much a blog as the front end of a whole suite of media projects including podcasts and YouTube videos. It's also very professional. I didn't listen to any of the podcasts or watch any of the vlogs but I did read all the blog posts and the introductions to the other stuff, most of which qualify as short posts in their own right. Always entertaining although I'm not a fan of the green and white on grey-black color scheme...
And there we go. An entirely co-inidentally round dozen, all of them blogs to which I'm very happy to have been introduced. I'll go on reading them, hopefully all the way to next Blaugust, when I hope they'll all return for another round.
As I will. It's been a good one. I'm already looking forward to the next.
Thanks to Belghast for inventing Blaugust and to Krikket and the others mentors for carrying it on Bel's behalf this time around. I'm sorry I didn't do more but then it doesn't look like any more was needed. It all seemed to go beautifully.
Hope to see some of you tomorrow as usual and the everyone else next year!
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