Two Years On...

... Or alternatively 929 posts later and I'm still chatting poo on these pages. I was never sure how long or short my time would be here, but I think I've passed that stage where this was just going to be a temporary thing. Then again, I had been posting on the ALMBs (for which this was a kind of replacement for) for an even longer amount of time and then stopped suddenly, so who knows, maybe there won't be a third year?

There's no doubt that the nature of this blog has changed over the past year as more and more people found out about it. I don't think I've written it any differently; it's just that, for some of the new people I've met this place seems to be a major source of determining who I am - up to the point where some may even use it between themselves to discuss and, on a more extreme level, manipulate and even cause trouble. It's all very, very weird and I've mentioned before how it sometimes feels that this blog has a life of its own (although I'm sure recognising its birthday doesn't really help with that either).

I'm often asked why I maintain this place, again by those that don't really get the whole thing. I don't think there's any one particular reason, and I didn't really think long and hard before creating Radio Shak (or as it was then, Spammy's Spam), but in retrospect there are a few things I've found it handy for:

• It's simply a diary or journal, enabling me to record and look up when I did stuff.
• It acts as a reference. So if friends ask me what I thought of a certain film or restaurant, I can usually recall my initial thoughts here.
• It lets me get on my soapbox and comment on various things whenever I want to.
• It lets me share my thoughts with others, allowing them to choose when they want to listen instead of my imposing on them.
  
• It allows me to organise and clear up precisely what I think of a topic, and commit to what I've said (and so I'll never edit the content of a post without making it clear that I have).
• It acts as a quick way to publish documents, how-tos and photos.
  
• It means I don't have to repeat myself, so for example when many people ask me how Dubai was I can point them here. Lazy, I know, but it is handy (and chances are that you were linked to this post after asking me why I maintain this blog).
  
• It allows me to stretch my creative literature legs and practise writing.
  
• It passes time at work and stems boredom.
  

So this was never meant to be a definitive indication of who I am, what's going on in my life or taken too seriously (and certainly not more seriously than I do!). At most it's a complement to knowing me on a more personal level - and those who really do will see where the inconsistencies lie between these pages and real life. There is a huge amount that I'd never post about or mention here.

To understand this place I think you have to really understand me first, and doing it the other way around won't really work. That's probably why I'm reluctant to give out the address to people I don't really know that well (if at all), since there's a proven danger they may misinterpret what I've written. Unfortunately I can't control those that link to these pages (yet) but then that's just part of what makes blogs so interesting, I guess.