Sidingsound

You may be aware (or probably not) that I have a few other outlets online for my various jotterings, pics, vids (occasionally) and so on. It’s been a while since I referred to many of them in any depth, and I don’t actually remember mentioning them all together, so here is my attempt to corral my online “presences” (or at least the ones I use much) into one post, in no particular order…

• I’ve been saving photos to our Flickr account since at least 2005, though I didn’t start using the service in earnest until 2006. The majority of our photos are there, although lately I’ve been considering a move to Picasa Web Albums, owing to a few advantages it currently has over Flickr (e.g. no limit on the number of items in a photoset RSS feed—Flickr can only output the first fifty—and apparently, better integration with Blogger (a fellow Google-owned service). However, with over 550 photos in Flickr, and no easy way I know of to migrate, I think I’ll be sticking with Flickr for the time being.
• For about the past year, I’ve posted regularly to my Twitter feed—i.e. long before the media found out that Stephen Fry rather likes Twitter and thus made it the Next Big Web Thing Usually, I “tweet” at least a couple of times a day, most days, though my usage fluctuates depending on where I am, what I’m doing, etc. It’s probably the Web service I use most often, and is therefore most likely the best way to keep up with what I’m generally up to.
• About two months ago, I discovered Delicious, where you can save Web bookmarks and comment on them (a sort of “bookmark blog”. To cut a long story short: here’s my Delicious page.
• I dabble with video, but have only posted very occasionally to the video pages I have set up so far: my blip.tv and Qik accounts. My videos go out under the name “Digital Ramyun”, which will be the name of my video blog if I ever get the time to make it regularly! As I write, I am also setting up a YouTube channel for Digital Ramyun, so that the many more who use that service will be able to tune in, but more to the point, because YouTube integrates a bit better with another service I’ve just signed up for…

As of today, ladies and gentlemen, I have joined Tumblr. Basically, Tumblr is one way of integrating many different kinds of content into one big “super-blog”, so if by some immense stretch of the imagination you were hoping to find all my different writings, tweets, videos, photo uploads and so on, all in one handy location… well, here is Digital Ramyun @ Tumblr, to provide you with your regular fix of all things Tim Walker-esque.

My Tumblr page is currently very much “out of the box”, but I’ll be customising it with new feeds, visual tweaks and so on, just as soon as I figure out how to do most of them It currently pulls together my Twitter updates, Flickr photos, Delicious bookmarks and YouTube video uploads, and you’ll also see posts from the Sidingsound blog, once I find out why Tumblr doesn’t seem to like the details I’m putting in.

And before I go: no, I haven’t joined Facebook yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time now…

As 2009 approaches the one-twelfth-through mark, I thought it was long past time that I dropped by here and updated you on a few happenings (and not-happenings, for that matter) in Sidingsoundworld.

Actually, I’m typing this through a bit of a fatigue-haze: we all arrived back home at about 1.30 this morning, having spent the previous five days at Disneyland Paris (which, if you’ve ever been there, involves a lot of walking, late nights and early mornings). There’s a whole blog post or two right there, but more likely I’ll just upload a brace of pics to our Flickr photoset and link to it from here in due course. Let’s just say that the collapse of the pound against the euro is A Very Bad Thing, Naomi (4) had the time of her life, and we’ll probably be holidaying close to home this summer (if at all)…

But what of other things?

OK, the concept album. I’m coming to the conclusion that life is not going to let me complete it in the form I envisaged, so I am seriously considering just tying up the remaining loose ends and making available what I did manage to complete. More to the point, I’m thinking of treating the recordings as demos for a ‘proper’ album I may or may not make, and just uploading the lot to the Internet Archive, for the listening pleasure or otherwise of the Webbing public.

From there, I’m not sure what direction I’ll take next, musically speaking. I feel it’s time I made another instrumental album—possibly, a multitracked solo collection with lots of guitars, basses, dulcimers and stuff (and no synths, maybe), or perhaps a collection which showcases my new electric mountain dulcimer (like those old instrumental albums from the 60s, with titles like “The Hot Blue And Purple Guitar Of Chet Flinger”). And no, I’m not making that a formal resolution for 2009: I made that mistake already last year!

I’m still Twitter-ing regularly—far more than I do here, I’m afraid—and that’s probably the most up-to-date way of keeping up with me. I’m thinking this may be the year that I finally get on Facebook (having avoided it like the plague all this time), but only because it’s one of the few Web services that lots of people I know use.

What else? Well, I’m hoping to get to sleep before too long, and I’ve run out of ideas here Hope you’re all keeping well, and see you soon.