This is precisely the reason I registered a domain short enough to give out easily. Having a surname like Woolstencroft makes for not only long addresses, but you also have to spell the surname to people at the same time. I ended up going for a domain based on my initials (DTW) but probably made two mistakes:

• repeating the initials confuses people – so dtw@dtw throws people off, because they expect x@y instead of y@y.
• using an less common suffix confuses people – .com and .co.uk are things people are quite familiar with these days. Something like .me.uk or .uk.net is not.

Another thing I got into a habit of doing is changing the front part of the address depending on what or who I’m giving the address to. So if I’m signing up for a WordPress mailing list, for example, I’d use wordpress@mydomain.com. That way if you start getting spam, you can see who shared your address because they’re all unique. I’m starting to think that’s possibly overkill these days, but it’s an old habit now.

I’d highly recommend thinking this through if you’re signing up for, or getting cheesed off with, a long email address. Bear in mind who you’re giving it out to, and how often, and you might save yourself some time and frustration by shortening it.

re·dun·dant/riˈdəndənt/Adjective

1. No longer needed or useful; superfluous.

2. (of words or data) Able to be omitted without loss of meaning or function.

As of today, Monday the 8th of August 2011, I have no job. I’ve been made redundant by the company I used to work for. This is not something that’s ever happened to me before. And it’s been an interesting experience.

I have no desire to badmouth the company I worked for. There’s no bad blood, and I’m grateful for the things they’ve taught me and the experiences that have shaped me professionally while I was there.

But this is an interesting sensation. You always envisage things being under your own control, or at least I have. I’ve always thought that the next move is my own, that my hand won’t be forced, and that working hard, being professional, and striving to better myself is the right thing to do. Part of that is correct: you do the best job you can, because otherwise why do the job in the first place? I firmly believe that. If you stop bettering yourself, stop learning new things, then why get out of bed in the morning? But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience it’s that professionally, you’re not always in control of your own destiny.

And yet, in a delightfully contradictory fashion, I am now very much in control of my own destiny. Every cloud has a silver lining, right? So I’m flipping this on its head. My hand has been forced, I’ve been left with no choice in the matter: it’s time to find The Next Thing. Which in a lot of ways is exciting.

Redundant can be a damaging word. One could become consumed by the definition of the word,  crippled by the apparent lack of usefulness or function.

I like to think I’m not being made redundant. I’m being made free.

What I do know is that lately, as in “for the last couple of years”, I’ve not written a great deal here. That’s not to say I’ve stopped writing entirely – I’ve posted things elsewhere – but I think I’ve lost track of what I started trying to do here, and what I was actually doing it for.

I noticed when I set this new theme up that there’s a tag cloud, by default. Usually I’d take them off, but this caught my attention. Why? Because the main tags were/are: Blog, Film, Games, Horror, Review, Technology, Zombies. The tags, for anyone that doesn’t know, will have been generated since the start of this blog, and it struck me: I’m so far away from where I used to. I need to get back on track.

So, from now on I’m reining everything in. To hell with splitting content depending on where it’s going, worrying about upsetting readers by posting things they might not be interested (it’s not like a blog that’s laid pretty much dormant for so long can have that many regular readers anyway). I’m just going to throw everything on here and see where it takes me.

I’m still going to post film reviews (still?), I’m going to write about technology, and I’m probably going to write about apps. Apologies if I post something that you’re not interested in, skip it and read the stuff you like. I can’t believe I’m the only guy in the world with a deep love of film and technology, so hopefully this won’t be too jarring a mix for people.

Final note: the new theme Wu Wei by Jeff Ngan (with a few tweaks by me to add the movie posters in). Jeff’s done a great job on it, and I wanted something that would make me try to focus on my writing as opposed to tweaking bits and pieces in the sidebar, or the header, or blah blah CONCENTRATE ON YOUR WRITING, DAMN IT!

Moving on then…

http://www.istherefood.com/2010/

Four. Bloody useless. What good is a blog with four posts in a year?

2011 is the year of rebooting the blog. Writing stuff that might actually be enjoyable for people to read. Broadening horizons and writing about more than just horror stuff. Maybe linking to – and reacting to – other articles. Blogging used to be about meaningful topics, trackbacks and community. Now it’s often an excuse to preach to thin air and murder the English language.

What I want this place to become is something like Daring Fireball. Not in terms of traffic or popularity – that’ll never happen. Almost certainly not in terms of the quality of the writing either. But a combination of enjoyable bits and pieces to read, and links and comments to other content on this great big Internet we call home.

I’m not going to commit to one a day. Partly because the initiative passed me by until several days into the year, and partly because, well, four posts last year…need I say more?

Some are doing, and good luck to them. In particular those nice Twitter folks Rachel Jackson and Evrim Ersoy. Not to sound defeatist, but there’s no chance in hell I’d manage one post a day so I take my hat off to them.

The final thought for today is from another Twitter acquaintance, Mysobscura:

#BBB really blogging = thoughts themed on yourself and interests, meaningful muses, comments, views – in proper sentences!

BBB is Bring Back Blogging. That’s the plan folks. That’s the plan.