i no longer post here. i now post at:
so why did all my crap go there? not so simple answer.
here's the deal: vox has treated me very, very well over the past year-and-a-half-plus-change. however, it seems to me that six apart treats vox like a bastard child, so the love that major apps of theirs like typepad receive doesn't filter down. six apart has worked pretty hard to keep vox nice and simple, but i've unfortunately outgrown it. the social features (neighborhoods, [this is good], explore pages) are all well and good, but i don't use them at all. the layouts look like they're designed more for the hipster crowd, and the "custom" layouts aren't very customizable. posting through safari always ends up spitting out some royally screwed up html (a fact i've come to face during the "import" phase of my new home). what i will miss is the integrated libraries - photos/audio/video/books work splendidly. but seriously, that's about it.
so why blogger/blogspot? customization. the default template is a very nasty thing - it took me about a week to get a skeleton together, then port it by way of sorting through all blogger's xslt-style widget markup and data dictionaries. still, though, blogger actually allows full html customization, which also means external css files. extra div tags i don't need get generated, but it's very easy to silence them. search is automatically implemented (and oh so cleanly), and the ability to leave comments with an openid (something that six apart has integrated into livejournal and typepad, but not vox...at least consistently) exists. hell, i'm even welcoming anonymous comments now, so you don't have to be a blogger user to say "hello".
this has not been an easy thing for me to accomplish - moving away from an end-to-end solution has been a little disheartening. my framework is scattered all over the place now, so i have to rely on multiple nodes in the cloud to be up if i intend to bring you the best in introspection and sarcasm. at the same time, i have done my research and know in my heart that every piece could very easily be replaced on the backend if necessary, and i can re-jigger the solution at any time with little-to-no fuss.
i will keep my vox account active for the purposes of redirecting you to my new blogger site, and to leave comments on other vox users' pages.
well, vox, it's been real, it's been fun, but it ain't been real fun.
regards,
derelictstatic