NOTE

As I continue to work on things away from this blog (which is a collection of Free-Time/Casual Online Writing, Remarks, And Notes By ME Whelan) and continue to figure out what goes and what stays of my existing online-writing, the de-emphasizing of one or another continues as well....

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Wrapping Up The Orange-Flower/Smiley Guy "Project"

With this online stuff it's so easy for one thing to lead to another.  Much of the stuff on this particular blog is stuff that I moved from the no-longer-in-existence, Bubblews. I never really knew what to write on there, and I wasn't all that active on there.  But, over time, I built up a bunch of stuff.

It was a weird mix of sometimes equally (kind of) weird writing.  Some things that I wrote won't at all weird.  The profile page showed a bunch of things on it, so at the time I decided to use one of three header images for each post as a way of indicating whether the post was super-serious/business-like, fairly serious, or some light and/or weird thing.  So, I had three header images - a plain, tan, backgrond, the orange-flowers that are everywhere in this blog, and the smiley guy.  It was my version of "sort of a theme" (not to be confused with "brand" because I didn't see Bubblews as anything to take seriously.

When the site closed I started moving some things to this blog and another one.  Then I decided to use the orange flowers as a way to indicate, if only to myself, that a post was from Bubblews.  I didn't see the tan background image as something to bother moving here (it's one of my stand-by's, so I've used it all kinds of places).

Eventually, I decided to dig out the smiley guy just to add color somewhere.  Then I started thinking that using the three-image "set" I'd used on B's would indicate (at least to me, but also in general)
that x-percent of stuff on here does come from that site.

That led me to think again about finding a way to blend the three images as part of indicating that they were (again) some version of a theme, and that "theme" is that the three-image "set" indicates stuff I'm not all that serious about, for the most part.  In other words, it's my "frivolous-stuff-sort" theme. 

So, I made a few images that combined at least two, sometimes three, of the "set".  All of this is actually a kind of pointless waste of time because I'm phasing away from any number of things related to my more casual, free-time, writing.  Still, I'm someone who doesn't like to leave loose ends and unfinished business even if I'm not going to spend much time doing something.

Since I have no plans to completely close open accounts (because I do plan to return and do something on them later), I don't want to return to old, stale, looking pages that aren't organized and don't look at least a little current.

So, since I've been in a kind of a "slow-down" mode in recent times it's also been a good time to take care of some loose-end type stuff.  I'm pretty much finished with that particular little project, but I went to Facebook and added the "theme".  My neglected FB page needed a Spring lift, and since FB is what it is, not only did the "casual" theme seem to go well, but it was easy to think up rather than try to think up a whole new thing or dig out some other images.  I don't care that much.  If it looks reasonably pleasant that's all I care.  And thus began the transition for the three-image set to become associated with the stuff I have/do online that isn't all that serious and/or is just personal.

Earlier in the night I decided to give my Google profile a Spring lift too.  I used the the "set" "theme" there too.  It was kind of funny, though, because the way the heading on there is it turned out the combo image I had didn't look good.  I just used the orange-flowers instead.  It looked fine.

There's "header image" and "profile image" on there.  What I had was a new header image and the old profile one (which was a keyboard).  Anyone who knows Google profiles knows that the profile information/image shows up in a little block at the side of the header image.  The image, itself, shows up in a circle.  I had no intention whatsoever of using the smiley face in the profile "block".  My original plan was to use the combo image as the header.  It just didn't look good with the transparency of the profile block.

So, I figured I'd just see what it looked like if I used the smiley as the profile image, and I kind of laughed when I changed the image and when it turned out that it looks like the profile image circle was tailor made for the smiley face guy.

With my Google profile stuff I didn't really want to use the smiley because the stuff I have associated with the profile isn't all just fooling-around and/or personal stuff.  With the smiley face guy as the profile image, anything I post or do on there is dotted with that little smiley.  (Did I mention he's not just any smiley?  I drew him with a particular type of expression in mind and hand-picked (no, drew)
the flowers (which used to be a different color but changed when I started using him on one site or another.  (He's been around for ages now.)

In any case, for now he's on the Google profile too.  Just as with Bubblews, there'll come a point where I de-emphasize the smiley guy and use him more sparingly (very sparingly).

For now, he's a change from the keyboard image I've been using.  Besides, when all is said and done,
I do want to emphasize that my online stuff is more casual and separate from anything I take more seriously.

It's probably telling, in its own way, that I take the stuff I don't take all that seriously as seriously as I sometimes do.  


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