It was very, very, very, very easy to create a new account on dreamwidth.org and to import all of my LJ entries, comments, userpics, tags, bio, friends, custom friend groups, and everything else.  I mean like stupid-easy.  Like 4 clicks easy.

Go here to learn how easy it is to import your LJ and all its goodies (or all the goodies you choose) to Dreamwidth: ​​​​​​​http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=127

Right now I'm running a job on LiveJournal that takes all of my entries and makes them private, except for one public entry that points everyone to dreamwidth.  It'll be a while before all my entries turn private though... (I figure LJ is getting a lot of traffic), but as soon as that's done, I'll purge it.

It's the end of an era.  Looking forward to seeing you guys over on dreamwidth.  If you go there, shoot me a friend request.

1,000,000 thanks to Thomas Boutell for the under-ass-fire-lighting.

MORE
4/4 '17 9 Comments
Lj doesn't turn custom friends group entries private. So if you have custom groups, be careful. DW imports custom privacy, though, so I think it will save the security.
Ah, thank you. I'll take a gander!

Also, do you know who "purlewe" is on Dreamwidth? They friended me on DW, which is awesome, but I don't know who they are and their profile doesn't give their name or enough hints. They're friends with you and Ella and they're from Philly, but I don't recognize the name so I'm not sure if I should friend them back or not. Gracias!
Ann-Jeanette, she works in a library, she's married to a woman named Sue, she knits and she's pretty cool.
Hi again!
So it looks as though all of my custom-friend-group posts were all successfully made private through LJ's script, so I think I'm OK. (Unless it just shows it's private but really isn't.)

Whew!
I'm assuming you'll be xtingu there too?

Also - good call turning all entries private before the purge. I'll be doing that as well.

Also also - have you tested your IFTTT scripts on Dreamwidth? Curious if it's as easy as switching A to B.
IFTTT scripts were all easily tweakable. They all relied on LJ's "post via email" capability, and DW's "post by email" funtionality works the same exact way. So I just updated my IFTTT with my Dreamwidth info, and boom.

Yay!
W00t! Nice. :)
doing that now. I have over 10,000 entries. Whoot.
See you over there!
 

Look, I don't care where you go, but get off LiveJournal. Today I was presented with this:


"The translation of this User Agreement is not a legally binding document. The original User Agreement, which is valid, is located at" [see document in Russian].

OK, so other sites change their terms... WITHOUT telling you they are NOT BOUND by the English version, that is... But LiveJournal also got rid of HTTPS recently. (Translation: completely sniffable on the wire.)

It's been circling the drain for a long time but COME ON CHILDREN, we need to FIND THE EXITS AND DEPART.

I will have to make time to check my backups and delete my LJ. What a PITA.

Well, it was good while it lasted. And it lasted a long time.

MORE
Just wanted to say that I'm looking into a number of different backup options. One that I found interesting: https://www.blogbooker.com/
(Though I'm more focused on finding one that backs up comments as well...)
Also, some interesting reading if anyone is curious: http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=LiveJournal
I'm looking at that one for something I can save on my own system. It looks pretty slick.
Agreed. I was thinking of it as a 'secondary backup' / easily portable.

Still - so much of why I loved LJ was the conversation with friends - which is all wrapped up in the commenting system...
Update on BlogBooker - the free version only allows 1 year to PDF or 6 months for Word Doc.

I'm considering the $30 for unlimited.
Update: I bought in. Worked perfectly! I now have a PDF book of all my entries, comments, and images.

My only complaint is that the images get crunched to pretty small sizes, but that's really about it.
Nice! Did you have to accept the agreement on LJ first?
Sadly, I did. I tried without it, but received an error message. Dug through that and saw something about 'accept license agreement'.

They've blocked e'erythin.
To answer the question about import to opw: opw allows only one post per day, and I'd need to make some big changes there. Also everybody should leave LJ now, not when I get a round tuit. I think the sensible thing is to move to one of the directly compatible sites folks have mentioned.
Also there's something called BlogBooker that changes LJ/DW/blogger posts into pdfs or Word Docs. It works on Mac (and PC). The service is busy right now (shocker), but I plan to use it in the future so I can get my posts about the kids in a format that I can give to them when they're older.

https://www.blogbooker.com/index.php
This is a thing. Thoughts? Your skills and experience are greatly valued in this regard.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=127
This was super super duper easy to use. I brought over all of my entries, comments, userpics, custom friend groups, etc. with a click or 4. Nothing to it.
I ported my LJ to Dreamwidth awhile back. I forget what exactly the triggering event was, probably either the sale to a Russian company or one of LJ's many outages, and the realization that the platform was starting to die. I've had no complaints; only thing I need to do now is turn off crossposting.
Oh crap. I'm glad you guys mentioned this. I think that _I_ did a dreamwidth account. (How many damn blogs do I have?!)

Anyway - thanks for the reminder.
I'm no expert on Dreamwidth, but Genevieve is pretty smart, and she likes them.

Unfortunately it looks like we'll all have to accept the agreement before that tool can work. (If it somehow works without it, COOL. Let me know.)
The main potential issue with Dreamwidth is that as far as I can tell it's a labor of love for one or a few people, and those can be kind of unstable. But they haven't, for example, sold themselves to Russia, so there's that.
Indeed, it is extremely similar to OPW then, with the same risks, but also the same relatively low likelihood of active jerkery.
Sounds like a good temporary measure, at least.
Also very interesting that their "account management" page where you can discontinue recurring payments for Paid LJ accounts is conveniently 404'd. I can't stop my payments right now. Fuuuuuck thaaaat.

I just backed up my journal and comments using LJArchive, and am currently in queue to have my LJ posts, comments, userpics, tags, and everything else imported into dreamwidth. I imagine their servers are drowning right now under the load since everyone is probably jumping ship, but there you have it.

So, soon I'll be xtingu.dreamwidth.org. Weird. End of an era indeed.
"Interesting" in a "Man, you folks are really making me want to punch you in the baby makers" sense.
I think they ended paid accounts. The agreement justifies a lot of its terms by pointing out it's free.
Sure, we're waterboarding you, but we're not charging you for it, so...
Ah. Right.
I'd still like to remove my CC info if I can.
EDIT! I was a paid LJ'er, and I also paid a few teeny bucks extra to have extra storage space and extra userpics. Those payments were STILL sent to be recurring... I just turned that off now. That account management page is no longer 404-ing.

So even if things are "free," there are still some things they were charging for.

This comment has been deleted.

*nods*

What she said.

*pumps fist*
Did anyone tell Jenn Abrevaya? She doesn't read OPW, even though she has an account, and she still uses LJ.
Good call. I'll ping her.
Fuck. Now I have to put my glasses on and figure out how to backup and/or destroy 14 years of LJ.
Jill had a version of an LJ Backup App (the only one I know of that worked) for Windowz.
Tom, how hard would it be to make it possible for us to import our LiveJournals here, in the way that Dreamwidth offers? I tried Dreamwidth briefly, didn't really turn me on, got completely out of the habit of online journaling, and finally landed here. I was just saying to myself that I wanted to start writing more, too.
Wow. Yeah. Guess I know what I'm doing tonight.

Tried to go to the site. Was presented with the same. Tried to use the "Not Now" option and that took me to a page with two options:

1. Log Out
2. Expire All Sessions

Well crap.
So... if you were very clever, you might manage to back up without agreeing.

However, you can't delete your livejournal without agreeing.

Wow.
They blocked the API too until you agree.
Trying to figure out what the best step is. I did read the agreement, which is pretty short and basically says it's free, you don't have any rights, and the whole thing is subject to Russian law. It used to maintain a certain distance, which is definitely gonesville.

I think the best option, which is still a pretty crappy one, is probably to agree, back up, and delete. The agreement does emphasize that delete is still an option. I ain't no lawyer.

I'm doing exactly that: agree, back up, switch off the lights and toss a Molotov cocktail.
Well shit.
Just read this: if you wanna delete your LJ w/out agreeing to the new TOS, install noscript and go straight to the acct status page http://www.livejournal.com/accountstatus/
1. That's excellent - thank you.
2. It makes me think - I'm planning to delete my comments as well, but have all my people pulled them down yet?
 

Number of sweet looking older gentlemen who gave me their number and told me they were into hedonism : 1 

Number of sweet older gentlemen​ who regaled me with stories of being harassed by police for fornicating in their automobiles: 1

Number of married gentlemen who stroked my fur vest, purred, and whined when I said byebye, time for me to split: 1

Ah yes. Still living the dream.

MORE
4/1 '17 2 Comments
3 different guys?
yes... the story would have been epic if it was the same dude haha.
 

Pet theory: social media became much more intense and notification-y during the years 2006 to 2016, years when liberals were used to being frustrated or angered but rarely terrified by the news. After all, we were in control of the House, the Senate, the White House or all three. Things got better and worse but rarely took a huge jump for the worse.

So being bombarded with a lot of information about the state of the world was easier to bear for a majority of those who initially liked and adopted it.

Now the habit of bombarding ourselves with maximum input has been locked in... and in the Trump era, all this extra data — meaning all these extra camera angles and echoes of the same thing — has become a curse. "Total situational awareness" of a frightening situation is not good for you.

You need sufficient awareness to assess the problem and decide what you can do about it. More than that is an express train ride to burnout or worse.

Of course I'm posting this to One Post Wonder, which shows I was thinking about this a while ago, but it was a whole lot more theoretical then.

MORE
3/30 '17 1 Comment
TorcanoquakeblizzvalanchefirecaneBEES!
 

Vince brought home a set of Marx Brothers movies, and subsequently, the books Harpo Speaks and Groucho And Me. 

As a result, a particular speech pattern has burnt itself into my brain. 

Last night while Vince and I were making dinner, I applied the formula of the first 4 Marx Brothers movies (they're all pretty much the same plot), applied it to the HBO version of Westworld, and came up with a pretty solid treatment for season 2 of Westworld, or, if I could condense it down into 45 minutes, a passable Fringe script. 

I'm not going to spend a ton of time and money on producing Marxworld. You're welcome. Maybe a podcast. I don't know. 

IN MY MIND, IT WAS BRILLIANT. Exposed to oxygen, I'm not so sure. It was one of my Ehrlich Bachman moments. 

HEY GUESS WHAT. I bought a wristwatch for the first time in this century. The photo was awful so I added a filter. 

My commute to the new job is going to suck, so I need to be able to check the time without pulling my phone out of my purse or keeping it in my pocket. Securely stow all your personal belongings, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Vince and I got to sit in the back yard and enjoy the fresh air this evening. It was great. Until the ATV Brigade started using the alley behind our house for practice. 

Ok. Goodnight. 

MORE
3/30 '17 2 Comments
"Last night while Vince and I were making dinner, I applied the formula of the first 4 Marx Brothers movies (they're all pretty much the same plot), applied it to the HBO version of Westworld, and came up with a pretty solid treatment for season 2 of Westworld, or, if I could condense it down into 45 minutes, a passable Fringe script."

I just wanted to say that I FUCKING LOVE THE WAY YOUR MIND WORKS.

Ahem.

Aight, goodnight.
It's pretty airtight, actually. Thank you, I feel better.
 
 

My neighbor Madeline is the shizznit.

i came home today to find she'd gifted me a bottle of Rowhouse Spirits Nordic Aquavit, and a new Moleskine journal. It has watercolor paper. She said, "write more Jarnsaxa."

I tried half a shot of the Aquavit. It tastes like winter and revenge. And cardamom. 

Vince and I are watching The Marx Brothers' Cocoanuts. It's interesting how the dialogue is timed out for audience reaction. 

Went to the gym with Michelle (from work, not Shelle) . I might ache tomorrow. For right now, I feel like a baller. 

MORE
3/24 '17 10 Comments
A damn fine day.

I have to find myself some Aquavit. I need to see what winter, revenge, and cardamom tastes like.
If you do, let me know, and I will PayPal you the ducats.
I probably will. I saw that there are a couple locations in Dallas, though I didn't have the energy last night to go get a bottle, and I left town today.

I'll probably circle back around though.
No rush, seriously. I'm a little bit afraid to try it. I read a review of it once where the person said, "it made me stay up all night trying to master the handclapping rhythm in Nina Simone's "Sinnerman."
This just sounds like more reasons to try it!

(I'm not really as amped as I'm pretending. I do want to try it, but I'm not going to move heaven and earth to do so. ;) )
One of my co-workers went to Iceland and told me about the Aquavit. She enjoyed it in the way you enjoy things that burn.
It makes me cautious, and that's saying something.
You realize, of course, that you're selling me on it more with every word?
I am not the Helpiest Helpterton.
 

So often i have bought paper journals, inspired to write the words of my heart for future reflection and memorial eternal. I have a milk crate of these journals now, along with a personal moratorium on buying any such books for intended purpose. Most have one of two conditions of note:

  • One viviacious entry full of bubbling enthusiasm
  • No entries, blank as the day born, awaiting the proper moment to crack open the floodgates of time

It is not all in vain, however, as the inspiration came to me from the days of college creative writing, where we had to keep a small spiral book with us to write something every day. How was that so much easier then than now?

  • How do you inspire yourself to write?
  • What do you deem as "write-worthy?"
  • To whom are you addressing in your compositions?
  • How much win is this chalk drawing?

n.b. I haven't posted on 1PW for a while, I love all the enhancements I've missed, and I think I must have had my posts all private will mark them all public (all two that is #rofl)

MORE
3/23 '17 5 Comments
Since you asked...

I don't deem anything worth writing down until after I've written it. I brain-barf, and some of it happens to be good.

I highly recommend it. Just spill words or hieroglyphics or spirals or whatever for 30 minutes a day until the timer goes off.
thanks i think that is exactly what i need to do. i had set some reminder to write but i hadn't thought about a timer on writing itself.
Welcome back!
thanks, the site looks so nice now, very inviting. i will have to try this from mobile too.
Found your account via Tom’s recent post comments. Hope you don’t mind.

I have had the same affliction. Bought many a notebook (I have a whole ‘system’ for my daily driver’s log book that I set up with the hope that it would be more than ‘just’ that).

But with the ubiquity of digital platforms, I find digital… better. If I don’t have the notebook with me, or I’m not inspired when it IS with me…

Or what if I want to share something? I have to go find that notebook and dig it out, then thumb through it and… just… no.

I’m a bit like Lindsay. If I am not feeling inspired, but I’m reading the latest posts on OPW, I’ll try to ‘brain barf’ and see if anything comes of it. If not? I just mark it as private.

Because the thing is - I /want/ to write more. To journal more. I like getting my thoughts down. It’s similar to (but also different from) meditation.

Oh, and dictation on both iOS and Android have both improved enough that I even use that sometimes while rolling down the road if I want to get a thought down before I forget it.

So, journaling - yes. Paper - no. OPW? Perfect. (I may be a little biased, though.)

/War_and_Peace_that_you_never_requested
 

I have eyes again, and I can breathe through both nostrils. It's amazing. 

EDITED TO ADD: A friend asked a question and I answered. Here's the long version. 

So, I was hanging out in a dorm room in high school, when I was a freshman and still a day student (at Hogwarts. You know) with a couple of other girls. One was new and from Korea. The other was a friend I'd known for a few years. 

The Korean girl filled up her electric kettle and broke out a few packets of Korean ramen noodles. She said they'd been sent in a care package from family in New York. This would have been 1984 or so, so getting food from New York was exotic enough, in the Philadelphia suburbs, let alone Korea. 

I have no idea what was in these ramen noodle packets. The wrappers were printed in Korean. Could have been anything. She mixed up some cups of ramen and we sat down to enjoy this delicious tasty snack. 

Had I poured gasoline down my throat and scraped a match across my tongue, I could not have been hotter. The noodles were spicy enough to scare Guy Fieri. Additionally, I could feel my skin crawling into redness as hives burned up my neck and into my scalp and face. 

These two girls were chowing down like they were eating Cheerios. The Korean girl, obviously, was used to this stuff. My other friend is Latina, and said a couple of times how great it is to eat something that's actually spicy for once.  Meanwhile, here I am with a couple of girls who are actually cool, who have this wider cultural experience,  and I was too embarrassed to admit that my white-girl Quaker Oats tastebuds and metabolism couldn't handle Korean ramen. I couldn't even ask for a glass of water, without looking like an idiot, and her electric kettle was dry. She didn't have a kitchen, and I think her kettle's water may have come from a jug. 

And, of course, stopping eating would have been even more rude. I kept eating, so I could be in cool boarding student culturally broad girl land. 

I don't remember how I got out of this. Maybe I went to the bathroom and stuck my face under the faucet. 

I haven't heard from the Korean girl in nearly 30 years, but my Latina friend still talks about how delicious those noodles were and how she wishes she could find them again. 

MORE
3/23 '17 8 Comments
Ha! Of course, my palate has been reset to that level, sorta.
Yeah, these were 14 year old taste buds. Now they're like shoe leather.
Yayyy!!!

*KermitFlail*
(Seriously - glad you're feeling better.)
I don't know what to do. I have my knitting, journal and a book all lined up next to me, while I fall asleep playing with my phone.
Story of my life!
had a friend from china in college, he used to make me all these herbal teas of ginger, ginseng and stuff we know now that was semi-mystical to me back then. he would explain what and when each was suited for and it was very fun. most striking experience with him was the time i was invited to join the chinese kids study group. i must have stuck out like rudolph reindeer. it was memorable nerd memory.
But you could guide them through the fog! That tea experience sounds amazing.
 

So, I'm a burner. I'm not a rabid burner, but I've been to burning man 4 times, go to regional events, plan to go to more of both in the future.

The Hilton is opening a swank downtown property in Norfolk Virginia called "The Main". It's preopening weekend this weekend, where tickets are $1600 a pair.  Apparently the governor will be there. There are bands booked, some Broadway singer will entertain, multitude of musical groups, visual art from some of the area's best galleries and museums.

Somehow, the Norfolk Hermitage Museum & Gardens decided they wanted to bring burning man art to the event.

Last time I went to burning man (2014), I was part of a large art project out of Washington DC (Pyramid of Possibilities). One of the guys on the project was Wolf. He was so inspired that the following year he went balls to the wall and led the creation of several art pieces for that thing in the desert. It was a carnival theme that year; Wolf and team created pieces for what he termed Hall of Mirrors Arcade. Included in that was a giant Pachinko machine. 

Wolf shipped the giant Pachinko to burning man, then back to DC. And then, a few months back, he decided to move to the west coast. He was on the verge of tossing the Pachinko - "As I will be moving very soon, ALL assets of this art project must be disposed of, and by mid-December. If a new home is not found by then, it will simply be TOSSED IN A DUMPSTER. I'm not kidding" -  so I connected him with someone who would take if off his hands. Her name is Tracy, thought she sometimes goes by Squirr Lee and she's also a burner.

So the Hermitage has decided to bring burning man art to this swank Norfolk event, reached out and connected with Tracy. Who agreed to bring the giant pachinko to this swank event. And then Tracy asked for help at the event - tos setup/breakdown/man the "exhibit"- so I'm going, as is another burner named John. (plus a non-burner or two)

So yay, I get to represent burningman to people who think $1600 for a weekend isn't crazy. People who hob-nob with Governors (and not like Delaware governors - cause that's no biggie. I mean governors from a sizable state.). Burningman that goes on about radical self reliance and decommodification and participation.  I get to stand in front of (atop?) a giant dusty Pachinko and play carnival barker.  And emissary I guess, being one of 3 burners in the mix.

I feel so much like the shark has been jumped. 

I wonder if they will supply a bullhorn. And/or champagne.

I wonder if I should wear my "Got Balls" t-shirt. 

MORE
3/23 '17 5 Comments
Oh man do I love the mental picture this provides! Please take many photos? I would especially love to see some playa dust on the swanky carpets. :)

Also, the name Squirr Lee is delightful.
Squirr Lee was a bit wound up about getting it clean --- or at least containing the dust. But personally, I'm glad she ran out of time!
And one never - ever - gets ALL the playa dust. It's a law of physics or something.
Yes you should wear that shirt, and if the shark has been jumped, it can still swim very deep in the ocean, gain momentum and spin around to attack.

Consider that some of these people will be drinking and can probably be gently goaded into a small cash bet or two, resulting in donations to various charities.

I'm just imagining possibilities.
Never mind. Don't do it. I clicked the link and if it's an arts fundraiser, welcome these people even if they're muggles. Think of yourself as the gateway drug that leads to them eventually seeing squatter basement Beckett or funding Tibetan dance companies.