Another year. Another big gap in my posts The reasons are always the same – either busy or lazy – but this time I have something else added to the mix: less and less reasons to compel me to write.

See, I blog mostly for three reasons: to “record” my life, however dull, for future reading (it’s fun to go back a few years and see how different things were), to rant about things that annoy me (hello AT&T, MTA and Bank of America!) and finally, to incite some form of communication (= comments) with my far-away friends. Having someone write something – even if it’s a word – is very self-assuring that someone is reading what I write and that makes it worth it.

Lately I’ve been “outsourcing” all these reasons. I started using an iPhone app to record what’s going on daily: it reads my twitter, facebook posts and location check-ins and displays them chronologically, it lets me tag people, events and places. It even stores pictures, for each day. And it’s damn gorgeous.

Ranting happens on Twitter these days, since I found out that 140 characters are just enough to contain my anger with my “beloved” mobile carrier or the very “reliable” transportation authority. And let’s be honest, most of these things make sense only to Americans (New Yorkers, to be more precise) and last time I checked I only had one or two hits from these places (that actually know me and didn’t stumble on this blog by mistake).

The conversation part is mostly done over IM or Facebook. The former has the one-on-one intimacy that’s better suited for some discussions while the latter brings everyone and their friends into the conversation, with interesting results. Speaking of, I’m surprised of the low penetration of Twitter and Facebook among my friends in Romania. At the end of the day, past the privacy scares, they’re great socializing tools. Of course there’s some junk, but you can filter it out, and if you want, you can stay as low-key as possible.

BTW, did you know I also have a Tumblr? I use it for quick posts – a picture, a quote – since it’s faster than going through WordPress’ admin interface and I also like how easily you can like or reblog things you find interesting there (needs registration, ofc). But anyway, both Twitter and Tumblr have RSS feeds for any user, so you don’t need an account to actually follow someone. I use Twitter for a lot of things, like posting links I find interesting or participating in photography projects. Speaking of photos, I upload pics to SmugMug even if I don’t write on the blog about them (it also has a RSS feed) although in the near future I might experiment with a new service.

For longer ramblings, I might try a different approach, if time allows. Which considering the past, doesn’t look good We’ll see. In the meanwhile, happy new year!

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This is the third time I get to sit down and try to write about my life. First time it was in 2005 – shortly after I moved to New York – when I started writing on Blogger about my experiences in America. Everything was new and interesting and I was happy to talk about it. It lasted about a year.

Second time it was just after I got my own domain, when I set up a WordPress on this URL and took things a bit further. Things became more detailed, I was writing about movies I’ve seen and food I’ve tried and posted lots and lots of pictures. The audience was still just my friends back home – all the posts were written in Romanian – since everybody here already knew what I was up from Facebook or, more recently, Twitter.

And yet, in time, I started slacking again. The writing became a chore. Some posts took me hours to write, since my OCD need for “perfection” had me typing with Romanian diacritics and writing HTML code for each image in order to display them just right in the blog’s layout. And a few months down the line, when I found a different theme or layout, all this was wasted.

I lost my patience. I feel the need to write – well, sometimes – and I love the feeling that I know my friends still check up on me from time to time. But I had to make things easier, which is why you’re staring at a brand new blog instead of just a new theme. I also decided to write in English – much to the dismay of some of my readers who were reminded of me just by my style of “speaking” – but hopefully this will let me share this with more people.

Welcome to the third coming. It will be better this time.