Blogger "User Profile"

The "blogger" service offers a way to generate a "User Profile" using the blogspot template. Perhaps if I was wiser and more experienced, I could figure out a way to bypass or at least modify their template, but for now, their template is what I have available.

When you click on "Edit Profile" it brings up eight sections: Privacy, Identity, Photograph, Audio Clip, General, Location, Work, and Extended Info.

Under "Privacy", there are checkboxes for "Share my profile", "Show my real name", "Show my email address", "Show my blogs", and "Show sites I follow". The entire "Share my profile" question would seem to depend partly on what information my profile contains. For now, I have decided to keep my identity at least somewhat private, for a variety of complicated reasons -- so I won't be showing my real name, however I will show an e-mail address, though e-mail inboxes can quickly fill with spam. My first blogs were pretty much "practice" blogs, so there doesn't seem to be any point in showing them. At the moment, I don't particularly "follow" any sites; if I DID, I'm not sure I would want to share that info.

Under "Identity" we have "Username" (required), "Email Address", "Display Name" (required), "First Name", and "Last Name". Most of this is covered in the "Privacy" section.

Under "Photograph" there is only "Photo URL", but then you are given a choice between a photo "From your computer" or "From the web". This is a tricky one, but I suppose that if I am interested in privacy, I should either leave this blank or post something vague, amusing, or thought-provoking.

For "Audio Clip" there is only "Audio Clip URL". This is even more puzzling, and I will probably leave it blank for the forseeable future.

General includes "Gender" (with boxes for male, female, and "not specified"), "Birthday" (with an option to leave the YEAR blank, and a checkbox for "Show astrological signs"), "Homepage URL", "Wishlist URL" (with an option to "Create a wishlist"), and "IM username" (with a pull-down list of different IM services). Privacy concerns one again come into play, and there is also the question of relevance. For now, I guess I will admit that I am male. I have a couple different web sites, but none that are specifically about ME, and posting those would also raise privacy concerns. I might decide to post my astrological sign, but posting your astrological sign leads not-necessarily-correct assumptions about how I feel about astrological signs.

Then there is "Location" with "City/Town", "Region/State", and a pull-down list for "Country". I live in a small city in the midwestern USA -- beyond that, questions of privacy and relevance kick in.

"Work" includes a pull-down list for "Industry" and a blank to fill in for "Occupation". Personally, I consider this to be among the most complicated issues -- the entire issue of to what extent our "occupation" is relevant to who we are. I suppose I will deal with this in blog postings, but it's too complicated for a pull-down list and a filled-in blank.

Finally there is "Extended Info". This area provides larger blank boxes, and instructions to separate things by commas for the categories of "Interests", "Favorite Movies", "Favorite Music", and "Favorite Books". Actually, between the "Interests" and "Favorite Movies" is the "About Me" section, with a note that you may write as little or as much as you'd like, up to 1200 characters. The section concludes with the mysterious "Random Question" -- at this point, I can only assume Blogger generates a question. The big problem with these boxes is that without a detailed, complicated discussion, its easy for someone glancing at the lists to come up with wrong assumptions. Once in college I identified the works of Shakespeare as among my favorites, and a suspicious instructor asked WHY I like Shakespeare. When I mentioned that I found Shakespeare to be funny, the instructor replied that "Yes, his comedies are funny," and I quickly clarified that I thought the Shakespeare's TRAGEDIES were funny, much to the instructor's consternation.

Still, I will try and include some info about this stuff: Amongst my interests, in no particular order, are history and travel and animals and music, to name a few. I rarely attend movies in theaters any more, and, as a general rule, prefer somewhat older movies to more recent. This applies especially to horror movies -- if I get a chance to watch a Boris Karloff movie, I will, and will definitely choose it over any more recent "slasher" flick. This brings up the fact that since I do not rent or attend movies, I am pretty much limited to what they show on television, and they tend to no longer show many of my favorites, including comedies like WC Fields or the Marx Brothers -- neither of which I have seen in decades. I like old war movies, especially the stereotypical ones from WWII where a squad of soldiers is on some particular mission, like blowing up an ammo dump. I have a special fondness for the early Clint Eastwood "spaghetti westerns", which are among the most recent movies on my "favorites" list. I like James Bond movies but I have not seen the most recent ones. It is perhaps relevant to admit that I have not seen many of the most popular movies of the last forty years -- I have never seen any of the Godfather movies, and though I saw the original Star Wars I have not seen the sequals, and I have never seen "Apocalypse Now" though I like "Heart of Darkness".

I guess that moves us into the "favorite books" area (I will return to "favorite music"). I do not read nearly as much as I would like. In recent years I suppose I have read more books on dog training than any other topic. In general, I prefer non-fiction. I possess an extensive library of books about polar exploration -- "Scott of the Antarctic" is one of my heroes -- and also like books about adventures like mountain climbing and exotic travel. As with movies, I tend to favor older over newer books. In my younger days, book sales where libraries unloaded their older books made me giddy, and I have a LOT of books.

"Favorite Music" is an especially complicated topic for me. Though my music tastes vary from moment to moment, I like to think I have a certain appreciation for MOST music, with the general category of "rap" being a notable exception. One of the problems with discussing music is that you need to possess a certain basic knowledge to even know what you DON'T like. For example, I am not sure that I have much appreciation for "heavy metal", but I am also not sure that I know enough about what constitutes "heavy metal" to say that I don't like it. I am not a big fan of opera, especially Italian Opera. With time, I have developed a certain begrudging acceptance for some of the less melodic 20th century classical music, though I still have my doubts about whether all of it should be called "music".

There is so much music that I LIKE that it is overwhelming to try and list it. I like pop, rock (though my tastes now tend toward "oldies" rock), country (though I have not listened much to the country music produced over the last decade or two), classical, jazz (favoring dixieland and 1920s Chicago style over more recent varieties), and folk (I enjoy things like Irish music and Peruvian folk bands, but don't have much expertise in these areas). I rarely attend Broadway-style shows, and do not consider myself much of a fan, but I attended an amazing "Phantom of the Opera" performance and now have at least a partial appreciation for the genre.

My listening tastes seem to be influenced by the music that I can actually perform myself. I play various instruments, and sing for myself (I rarely sing publicly), and I find that I tend to listen to music that I can in some way perform. In my earlier days I played in a rock band, and I still play in brass bands and orchestras and a variety of smaller groups. One interesting result is that I more often listen to male vocalists, such as James Taylor or Gordon Lightfoot, than female vocalists, such as Joni Mitchell or Anne Murray, since it works better for ME to try and duplicate their songs. Some of my favorite recording artists are slightly obscure folksy types like John Prine and Steve Goodman and David Bromberg.

This leaves the "About Me" section, with its 1200 character limit. Though I am sure you can come up with a lot of thought-provoking discussions by trying to briefly describe yourself, I am not sure it results in anything approaching truth or accuracy. Since one of my most basic beliefs is that words are inherently unclear, and leave room for misinterpretation, I tend to use a LOT of words in an attempt to be clear. I find it very difficult to be comfortable with limiting my "About Me" section to 1200 characters, but I suppose that is the ONE area of the template I will attempt to fill in.

Truth is complicated.