Like You Really Care 2002–2007

Five years ago, I was still working hard for Defiant Theatre. Webmaster Arlo (that's me) had recently built a fourth iteration of www.defianttheatre.org. In an effort to take some of the strain of keeping the site updated off of my new-student shoulders, I set up a system – my first major venture into web scripting – to allow all the members of Defiant to keep their own profile page updated. It was a wee bit complicated, but it worked. In building that system, I in turn gave everyone in the company a whopping 4 MB of space in which to carve out their own little website. A handful did.

But what about me? I was the web guy; I really needed to show off what could be done with that little sliver of cyberspace. So silly me: I decided to start a blog. And why not? It was one year after 9/11 and I was furious about how our government was reacting to it. It was a transitional period of my life. The whirlwind of emotions in me needed documenting.

After a while, something strange happened. People started reading it. My stats were showing over 2,000 unique visitors a month. I figured I needed to provide more content, and the rigors of juggling a full-time job, a massive class schedule, and a difficult personal life were taking their toll on my writing output. So I brought Kelly on board to spew his unique flavor of bile onto the site. Ultimately, his voice became the blog's voice, and I was happy to follow when I could.

Soon, I graduated and got a great, albeit time-consuming, job. Interestingly, I found that having a job I liked made blogging much more infrequent. When I did feel compelled to write, I wanted to write personal articles about getting engaged or critical articles about design. I was less interested in regurgitating the political thought that I was reading. I was starting to not care about Like You Really Care. My last post was 10 days ago, it was 13 words long, and it was about a television program. What kind of a blogger am I?

Readership is way down, and so is posting. I can't be a professional blogger like Jason Kottke or Matthew Yglesias, and I really don't have any interest in becoming one. I lack the knowledge and wherewithal to keep up the sort of near-daily fresh content updates necessary to maintain reader interest. And my interests are elsewhere now (more on that in a bit).

It's clear that my heart is just not in the same place as it was five-years-ago today. Frankly, it's in a better place. LYRC has changed, and so have I.

So today -- on the fifth anniversary of that simple "Hello, world!" post, I'm pulling the plug.

I want to thank all the writers silly enough to contribute to this corner of the internet with me. Several have have come, and a few have gone, and I'm sorry that none of you who stuck around knew this was coming. I needed this to be a clean break. I'm proud to have shared this space with you.

I also have to thank you, the dozens of you who have still tuned in to chime in on the comments or to post on Open Thread Thursday. You're the reason this was a hard decision for me to make.

If you're still looking for stuff to read, Kelly's new blog is excellent. Christopher and Milroy also have great RSS feeds worthy of a subscription. I have my del.icio.us feed, which I will update more often now, and there is always the insipid drivel of my Twittering.

But this isn't the end:

1. I'm currently transforming ARLOdesign into a site that is more in line with my current needs for self expression.
2. While this is the end of LYRC 1.0, there will be an LYRC 2.0. It will be very different, and I'm not sure when it will launch, but it's a very important project to me. And all of you (not just the ones I spoke with last year during my failed attempt to make an LYRC 2.0) will have a place in it.
   

If you are interested in finding out when I launch these ventures, please enter your email address below. I promise that the email address you enter will only be used to announce the above two projects and will never be shared with anyone.

For me, this is bittersweet. It's sad to see LYRC go in it's current form, but it's simply not who I am anymore. Who I am now is much closer to what I want me to be than it ever has been. I'm ready for something new. I think you are, too.

The content of this site will always remain live as a chronicle of an extraordinary, pivotal period in my life. Thank you for sharing this ride with me. I hope you'll join me on my next adventure.

(Deep breath.)

Moment of silence for Like You Really Care.































(Comments will remain open until 9PM, Tuesday, September 25. Thanks to Grail Interactive with help on the AJAX-y email submission doohickey.)

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Robert Jordan 1948-2007

This comes as a crushing blow to nerds everywhere, as his epic twelve-volume The Wheel of Time series will go unfinished with only one book left.

A moment of silence for James Oliver Rigney, Jr., better known as Robert Jordan.

LYRC Gives Birth

I’ve opened up a new blog: Midnight on the Forecastle. LYRC called me “traitor” for doing so. That hurt my feelings. In any event, there it is.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

My Review of HBO's New Television Program "Tell Me You Love Me" Which Premiered Last Night

A boring show about boring people having boring problems.

Oh, and there's porn.

Please Buy Our Crap

Mrs. Guthrie and I are now the proud owners of a lovely duplex in Andersonville. Before we move, please do your part for the environment and buy our excess crap.

View the PDF.

UPDATE: Here's the obligatory Craigslist ad.

A Word about Net Neutrality

What they said:

The Justice Department said imposing a Net neutrality regulation could hamper development of the Internet and prevent service providers from upgrading or expanding their networks. It could also shift the “entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers,” the agency said in its filing.

Actually, what the Justice Department said was, “Remember what a dipshit our old boss was and how he would rollover and spit out whatever BS his boss told him to say? The Justice Department does the same thing for big corporate donors who are willing to turn over personal data to us.”

The notion that the development or expansion of the Internet has been somehow impeded by its current neutrality or that the burden of network expansion or improvement currently is not on the shoulders of consumers is simply preposterous. Already I'm stuck with limited options for reliable Internet access. (Can anyone suggest a better DSL option than my current AT&T account? That's not a rhetorical question.) If there is better service, I'll move to it. That's the reality of the free market. To say that net neutrality impedes competition or development is simply obfuscation.

(Article from Fitz via Twitter.)