Where Did the Week Go

Seriously, I can't believe I let another week go by without a post. It was a rather cold week here in NYC. I hunkered down, didn't do much of anything other than play Cityville on Zynga.com. I do love building my virtual city.

I do have some posts I want to write, about my time working, but they'll take time and I've been so damn lazy. I haven't even seen a movie yet this year. I was going to go last week, then the temps plunged below 25 degrees F, which is my dividing line between venturing outdoors and staying put. When I had to work, work forced me to ignore that line, but now I can pretty much indulge it unless I made plans I can't change. This is one aspect of retirement I was looking forward to: staying home whenever I wanted.

However, staying home means making do with store-bought chocolate, which means M&Ms and Mallomars, and there's nothing new for me to say about them right now. :)

Feeling: lazy

~~~o0o~~~

Housekeeping

I updated the Chocolate Links page, removing broken links (L.A. Burdick Chocolate seems broken, but I'm leaving it until I can check it again in a few days.) and adding a couple of new ones. One new one is pretty cool: Historical Chocolate Co. which will reproduce US Landmarks and Monuments in chocolate. I know! Pretty cool, right?

I was sad to see many of the other chocolate bloggers have quit. *sniff* I left a couple on the list because their archives include recipes that might be worth checking out. I think I've been able to maintain this blog for, uh, 8 years now (starting back on AOL in March 2004) by not just blogging about chocolate. And by sharing photos I've taken of chocolate even if I don't have anything interesting to say about them. Making folks drool is sufficient. ;)

If you know of a good chocolate company not on the list, let me know in the comments. Let's try to not spam the place, 'kay? Thanks. :)

Feeling: mellow

~~~o0o~~~

Links to Warm Your Heart

Or not.

Here's a collection of unusual snow creatures. Found on Miss Cellania.

From College Humor: Five Sci-Fi Children's Books. Wouldn't you love to read these? :) Found on Chaos Theory.

Need to buy a gift for a photographer? You probably can't go wrong with anything from Photojojo.

I created a Tumblr blog to post quick links and fun stuff and some not really fun stuff. It's called Random Shelly, because, really, I'm running out of fun names for blogs that no one else thought of first. I've got a feed from here posting to there, in brief form. Truth is, I wish I could find an actual theme for it. Tumblr blogs work best when they specialize in something. But I wanted to play with it, so this is what I came up with. There are a lot of cool templates to play with, but unlike Blogger with its uniform widget structure, each Tumblr template works a bit differently. Fun, though.

Feeling: neutral


~~~o0o~~~

Six Years

That's how long I've been blogging. I started Cyber Chocolate over on AOL, back when AOL had its J-Land. They called their blogs "journals" and they were still relatively new when I decided to try them out. They were so limiting in design and what you could post, but they were easy to set up and use. So in early March 2004, I set up a few AOL journals. And I Googled subjects I was interested + "blogs" and found many fun blogs to read. Which led me to try some other blogging services that looked interesting, because their blogs were much cooler looking than AOL's.


And not knowing what to do on the other blogging sites, I set up shadow blogs for a couple of my AOL journals, including Cyber Chocolate. I dropped most of them after a few months, but one I kept. The one on blogspot.com.

Oh, Blogspot was difficult to use back then. I couldn't make heads or tales of the templates and had no clue how to customize them. I was just learning basic html codes to use in AOL journal posts. But Google had bought Pyra Labs, creators of Blogspot and I liked Google and figured I'd let things sit for a bit and I ended up being very glad I did. Even if I'd been contemplating dropping the Blogspot Cyber Chocolate by June 2004. After all, I really wasn't using it. Then, Blogspot got the promised redesign and everything changed.

Gone were the banner ads on top. Blogger was a nice, streamlined site with some new, easily customized templates, even if the options were limited. If you knew some html and css, at least enough to maniuplate the existing code, you could do a lot. By then, I knew enough to fiddle and tweak. Blogger became my new playground.

I was loyal to AOL. I kept Cyber Chocolate there as my main blog. But whenever I wanted to post some quiz results that used javascript, not allowed by AOL, I posted it here. By August, I was using this and my other Blogger blogs fairly heavily, double posting nearly everything.

I don't recall when this blog, once called Cyber Chocolate, Jr, became just Cyber Chocolate and the AOL version became the junior edition. And over time, I grew tired of double posting and let it die, finally deleting it, though I don't recall when. By the time AOL got out of the journal business a couple of years ago, I no longer cared. J-Land was a good place for a newbie to start, but Blogger is so easy now, it's just as good for a new blogger. And the Template Designer in draft.blogger.com makes it easier and more customizable than ever.

Six years for this blog in one form or another. It's been quite a ride and I'm still having fun, so here's to the next six years, and all of you who have been reading along the way.


Feeling: accomplished
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Yes, I'm Still Here

Reasons I Haven't Blogged Since New Year's

• New year's blahs, that's what it is. And I need extra time to practice writing '10 instead of '09. 
• Server at work crashed, so nearly no internet for most of the day. Then it came back up and crashed again.
• Have too much to do and am too tired to do it.
• Using a beta version of Firefox that freezes a lot and also takes forever to load some sites.
• Downloaded Chrome and love it, so I'm playing on it rather than blogging with it.
• Rediscovered FreeCell. 'Nuff said.
• Fonts. Finding. Downloading. Installing. A job unto itself.
  

Feeling: blah

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: miscellany

Once Upon a Blog

Somehow, while I wasn't paying attention, I passed my 5 Years of Blogging Anniversary. That was in March. In March 2004, I started blogging (I don't count the LiveJournal I started in the fall of 2003, because I used it for about a month.), first with AOL Journals, then soon after on Blogger and LiveJournal (under a second account because I'd forgotten the login info for the first). The first Cyber Chocolate was that AOL blog and this one was Cyber Chocolate Junior, started that summer for things (javascript memes, etc) that I couldn't post on AOL (which didn't accept javascript). After a year or thereabouts, I switched CC and CC Jr and this one here on Blogger became the Main Shelly Blog. The AOL version is long gone and now, so are AOL Journals.

This place could use a bit of freshening up, but I won't think about that until the summer. Meanwhile, I'm being cautiously optimistic that I'm actually a bit better health-wise. And busy trying to get things done before my vacation in two weeks.

Feeling: okay

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

A Compliment

I'd probably be more excited about this honor from Blogged.com if the topics listed for CC were the actual ones. You know: chocolate, tv, toys, personal, health, the daily grind, etc. Not insurance, mortgages, and financing. Talk about a real WTF? moment.

Feeling: amused

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Why I Don't Use My Real Name

My employer now has a blogging policy. While it mostly covers blogging (and by blogging, they mean all interaction online on social sites as well as blogging) at work, which is allowed if it advances the employer's services in some way, there's stuff about blogging outside of work with regard to what can and can't be said. Not that I'd ever insult my employer online, but it's quite clear that being careful is the prudent way to go.

Meanwhile, I had my procedure and the test results are due back on Monday. Ninety-nine per cent nothing to worry about. So of course, I'm wondering if that one percent could be me.

In writing a post on my LiveJournal, I mentioned that I can be more upfront about some things anonymously than where people actually know me. Some of my LJ friends are real life friends. My Facebook friends are all people I know in real life. While I mentioned on LJ that I had a health issue to deal with, I didn't explain. I haven't mentioned it on Facebook. And yet, while a few people I know offline read this blog, I have no hesitancy in mentioning that I had a biopsy (and the doctor took more sample this time than the last time I had this done. Ouch!) and now my boob is sore (I can see the search string now for "sore boobs"). And it's the left one, yep, the side with the frozen shoulder, so now my left arm aches and I can't do my stretches because that makes the boob hurt more and it's a big annoyance right now. I really don't want to go backward with the arm/shoulder and I don't have another physical therapy session for 2 weeks.

I should go find some fun links to share, but I'm too distracted and lazy to bother. Oh wait, I bookmarked this video the other night, of David Letterman's Election Coverage recap. It's truly amazing. I watched it live, then on a whim, Googled it and the video was online in a number of places. We do live in interesting times, immediate and connected times.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: health

Well, Damn

Thanks to The Presurfer, I found out how I could check the cussing level of this blog.


Created by OnePlusYou

I obviously need to toss a few damns and shits and fucks in here, don'tcha think? ;)

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: cussing

Going Mobile

So I decided to test out the camera on my new cellphone (calling it a phone seems so inadequate) and try out mobile photo posting. Success all around, although I still need to get comfortable with the camera. There's a delay in the shutter release that has me a bit off in my timing.

So I should be set to upload photos during my trip. The nice ones will still be with my digicam and uploaded properly via my laptop, but for some instantaneous fun, I'll be able to post the excitement of highways and traffic cones in real time. Thrills and Chills will abound.

This is the pic I sent to flickr.


I tried setting up mobile blogging here, but still haven't gotten a text message back from Go.Blogger to finish the set-up. If nothing happens by the end of Saturday, I'll try again. I would so love to be able to blog from the road as we whip through Pennsylvania and Ohio and into Michigan for the annual pilgrimage to a fan-run convention for fans of tv, movies, science fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, etc.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Thursday Night Blogging

I've been working all the Thursday evenings as of a few months ago, so I come home a bit late and by the time I catch up with everyone else's blogs and the latest photos from my flickr contacts and friends, there really isn't much time for me to blog. So, unless I have something chocolicious or fantastical to report, let's just consider Thursday an off-blogging day til further notice. That way, when a post does appear on a Thursday, it should be a real treat. :)

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Categorically Speaking

I went and added labels to some of the oldest posts on this blog. I'd forgotten how those posts were more serious and longer than what I generally post here now, but that was before I had the other blogs for politics and books and comics. I'm sure I've caused some consternation for those of you reading via feedreaders. At least, I think reposting occurs. I'm not sure. So, if that does happen, I'm sorry.

However, I want to keep going, but it's gonna be slow. Blogger keeps popping me back to the main post screen (ie, the most recent ones) after I add one category to a group of posts and I have to go back to do others or even to add a second label to a post. And I've got 1469 posts (well, 1470 with this one), most of which pre-date the categories/labels feature, so there are a lot to do.

Is this causing problems for anyone? Does anyone think I'm nuts for trying to do this? Anyone care to cheer me on?

I'll be hitting my other blogs, too. Oy vey.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: tagnamehere

3rd Blogoversary

I've been blogging for 3 1/2 years, but this version of Cyber Chocolate, which began on AOL, isn't quite that old. Still, it's been a blast and I still enjoy doing it, so I'm gonna just keep going.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Too Busy to Blog?

It feels that way. Oh sure, I post photos on my photoblog and entries on my work blog, which I then crosspost on The View from Here. I review comics with some regularity over on my comics blog, but I haven't kept up my usual posting schedule here. I don't think it's because I've run out of things to say. Maybe it's a fallow period. Or maybe I'm just too focused on those other things/blogs right now. It seems that every time I seem to get a handle on things, something new comes along to attract my attention for a while.

Even link posts, maybe especially link posts, require time and attention. Lots of reading and checking. Quizzes are always a nice fallback, but I haven't seen any the last few days that appeal to me, so that's out. What's left? Rambling posts that don't say much of anything. Like this one.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Day of Frustration

LiveJournal is down. So is VOX, not that I care as much about it. But LJ.... It's all due to the power failure in San Francisco earlier today that wrecked havoc with the servers. My LJ friends list must be going nuts. I have Blogger and Twitter and flickr to keep me busy. But still.... Nothing like having something offline to make one miss it.

And it's not like I don't have anything to do. There are so many books I could be adding to Library Thing, or comics I could be reading...

Or driving my readers crazy by tagging all my old posts here. heh

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Addicted to Blogging

Yeah, I know. No surprise. The fact that a blog for work, as part of a great beta experiment, is the source of the recent obsession is a surprise.

Meanwhile, I decided to put back the chocolate swirly line at the post footer, by placing it in the post template. Hope it looks okay. If not, I'll remove it.

Voting on the current poll will end soon, so be sure to cast your vote.

Now, back to the endless Mets/Dodgers game, over 3 1/2 hours long so far, currently 13-9 Mets. Good thing I took a long weekend, because bedtime won't be for a while yet.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Surreal Life

My work life and my personal life and my blog life have intersected. I've been maintaining the library's blog for a year now, and now we're beta testing personal work blogs, so I started one of those. I'm blogging coming and going. I think my head might explode. Never would I have thought the lines between work and play would blur so much.

I'm keeping sane by eating chocolate. Naturally.

Meanwhile, for those of you who read Cyber Chocolate via feed readers, I've been posting polls in the sidebar every week or so, so please stop by to vote on CC's chocolicious polls. Thanks.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

The Intricacies of Blogging

I update Twitter and it shows in the widget here. I also update here and it shows on Twitter thanks to Twitterfeed.com, a nifty little service I joined. David Hewlett who plays Rodney McKay on Stargate: Atlantis has a Twitter. Is that cool or what? And it is kinda cool to do quick updates of my day. Since I do it via computer, not my phone, it won't take over. Since I barely use my cell phone, I'm not likely to start updating via it any time soon.

I had other interesting bits to blog, but forgot them. Maybe later.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

All ATwitter

Yeah, I'm in, Twitter, that is. I have a Twitter widget here on Cyber Chocolate in the sidebar so all my *fans* can keep up with my mundane doings, when I remember to update. I might find an even better use for it, so who knows. Anyway, if you're on Twitter and want to add me, I'm ShellyS. Yeah, I know, oh so original and clever a name I picked.

And yeah, this here blog must have one of the longest sidebars going. For everything I took out, I think I put another 2 in.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

In Lieu of an Actual Post

I present yet another update of construction here at Cyber Chocolate. Work has pretty much ended. I would still like to know if there's a way to put the graphic next to the post titles, but for now, it looks fine where it is.

The sidebar is still rather long. I have more labels than I thought I had, so I found a hack to put them in a cloud, which helps a bit. I added a few things, and redid the headers so there are fewer with graphics, but now there are sub-sections, which makes things a bit more cohesive, I think.

The header graphic and the sidebar title graphics are now hosted by Blogger. Yay! The sidebar widgets make editing the sidebar easier. I'll probably label more posts, but I'll do them 5 at a time, to keep the feed manageable. I think all the colors work. Let me know if you have a real problem reading anything. I don't want to bump the font up because that will just make things longer. Reading entries in feed readers will make them very readable.

I deleted the more informational links. They're on The View from Here, which is more appropriate for them. There's a link to a page of chocolate links as it's easier to maintain one version of a link list than two. I left all the fun toys in the sidebar because I think of this blog as my fun place as well as my personal blog where I occasionally discuss my life. But opinions are mostly elsewhere. I hope folks think of this blog as a nice place to unwind, enjoy some cyber goodness, and maybe leave with a smile.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: template