Category: Blogging

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This Sums it Up Perfectly

From Infidel753:

Different people have different reasons for writing a blog. In my case, there are several. I have ideas which I hope may be of interest to some people. Although I don't engage in debates with ideological opponents, I occasionally think of arguments which I post here because I hope they may be useful to those who do choose to engage in such debates. In some cases I run across information or ideas from others which I think are of value and should be given as much visibility as possible. In many cases I post things simply in the hope of attracting the attention of other people who have similar interests or aesthetic tastes. And on a certain level, I just write because I like doing it. I'm perfectly aware that some people may find my posts uninteresting or distasteful, and that's fine. They don't have to read the blog.

However, I don't like arguing and bickering with people. This has nothing to do with whether or not engaging in debate is objectively a worthwhile form of activity. It may very well be; it probably is. But I, personally, simply don't like it; and as with the TV soap operas, I don't see any negative consequences likely to follow from not doing it, so I don't do it.

Aside from that, a blog doesn't have the same function as a discussion forum. I am not trying to run the latter, and I'm not obligated to provide a platform for views I find offensive or abhorrent. This has nothing to do with censorship. Anybody who wants to say something I choose not to allow in the comments here is free to start their own blog and say it there; and I neither can, nor would want to, stop them. As I've said before, freedom of expression gives you the right to put an opinionated bumper sticker on your car. It does not give you the right to put the same bumper sticker on my car. And I have no obligation to engage in verbal squabbles with whoever feels some entitlement to pick a fight over something I said that they don't like.

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I Just Can't Right Now

With the country shattering in front of my eyes, I think it's time to step back for a while from this here blog thing. Right now I feel that anything I post will never adequately describe the sense of despair I—and people of conscience—are feeling right now, and posting anything silly, salacious, or light-hearted just seems out of place.

I have two more months of Days of UNF auto-posting, but except for those already in the pipeline I'm reasonably certain I'm going to suspend operations until all this madness plays itself out or withdrawal from blogging proves to be an insurmountable task. Whether that's 24 hours, a few days, a few weeks, is anyone's guess at this point.

I feel the same way about Instagram, my last remaining link to social media. That may also go silent for a while, because as I was scrolling through the images today I found myself asking more and more, "How can these idiots post photos of themselves at the beach or shoving their stuffed speedos in my face when the country is fucking burning around them?"

Peace.

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Curiosity Killed The Cat

I have this general sense that the majority of you who stop by here are near my age (plus or minus a decade), but I really have no idea. So, for curiosity's sake…

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I Appreciate You

I appreciate you, my readers…even those of you who never leave comments.

I was having dinner last night with a friend whom I met fifteen or so years ago through blogging, and we were commenting on how few active bloggers still  remain from those days (my friend ironically being one of those who abandoned the medium years ago). Great times were had in the mid 00s. I mean, I probably never would've met Ben if we both hadn't been blogging.

So again, I say thank you to all of those readers who have stuck with me and have endured my ramblings over the past decade and a half. I know it doesn't seem like I actually write much these days (at least not the way I did in the beginning) because it seems there are so many other voices out there—far more knowledgeable on the topics I would write about that you should be reading.

Today I've all but thrown up my hands at the state of politics, and while my tirades early on in this blog helped relieve some of the frustration I'd been feeling with Bush Jr. (seems like a walk in the park now, doesn't it?), screaming into the Void now is doing nothing to alleviate my deep fear that the Orange Russian Wig Stand currently occupying the White House will, through his arrogance and sociopathic narcissism bring about the end of civilization as we know it. Maybe that's being overly dramatic and actually attributing way more power to him than he possesses or deserves, but my first thought upon waking every morning is, "We're still here. The asshole didn't start WWIII overnight."

I could laugh him off as the clown he is if it weren't for his obvious mental instability and the fact his finger is poised over the nuclear planetary reset button. My outlook for humanity surviving this century is growing bleaker with every day he is allowed to remain in the Oval Office, and there's no reason for me to burden you any further with that kind of content when we're all being bombarded with it from every direction already. Assuming we survive his occupation of the White House, it will take decades to repair the internal damage he's wrought, not to mention our standing in the international community.

So please continue to come/cum for the menz and the other silly stuff I post. I mean, what else have you got to do?

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Headers

I know several of you have asked about downloading my headers without having to right-click-save on each and every one of them. Want them all? Click on the image above to download a zip file (approx. 350MB) of all the images in the library (currently something like 600 or so), many of which you've probably never seen!

I've also added a permanent widget at the right of the screen in case you want to do this later.

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Quiet Time

The doggies don't know it's the weekend, so almost without fail they're dancing on me at 5:30 am, wanting to go out. I can't sleep in the way I used to when I was younger (last Sunday returning to bed after letting them out and sleeping until 2 pm was a very rare exception), but occasionally instead of immediately feeding them after they come back in we all head back to bed for another hour or two.

Most of the time, however, I stay up and utilize this quiet time (Ben can—and does—still easily sleep in on the weekends) to write or organize the week's downloads accumulating on my computer, or post nekkid menz while the doggies sleep on the couch in the den beside me. These seem to be the few times during the week when I can actually focus and not be distracted by every shiny object that crosses my path.

Squirrel!

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Probably a Good Thing

I get idea for posts at the weirdest times…as I'm falling asleep, in the shower, on my way to work…

And then totally space them when I actually sit down to write something.

In order to overcome this memory hole, I've started jotting them down in Notes on my phone as soon as safely possible after they pop into my head…

Where they're again promptly forgotten.

I'm starting to think that's actually a good thing, because when I go to add another note, I look at the blog ideas written there, remember what it was I was going to write about, and think, "Nah. That's rubbish," and post another meme or picture of a naked man.

I may get back to actually writing some day.

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I'm Curious…

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Tumblr Update

Tumblr was never big on my radar, other than for grabbing menz for posting on Voenix Rising. (And um…for other, more personal reasons.) It was difficult enough coming up new, at least mildly interesting content for this blog without having to also maintain a fully functioning Tumblr as well. Still, I liked the platform and occasionally posted (or reposted) material there that never appeared on VoenixRising, something that has become abundantly clear as I scroll through the "Media" folder of my recently downloaded Tumblr (and is something I hope to rectify going forward).

As I mentioned when the whole Tumblr debacle started, I already have more than enough unpublished material amassed to keep you porn-dog Voenix Rising readers happy for years, but Tumblr's announcement that it was deleting all NSFW material from its site really pissed me off; not so much because it would make finding new material more difficult, but because it was a direct shot across the bow to freedom of expression.

But where was everyone moving to? A lot of people seem to be opting for Twitter, a venue that I was absolutely shocked to discover allowed porn at all—and one I fear will be the next target of online censorship (although as Ben pointed out, as long as the Orange Menace's tiny fingers are clicking away, Twitter is unlikely to do anything to limit his audience, even if porn-dogs aren't exactly his target audience). I already have a Twitter presence as you well know, and if a lot of my favorite Tumblrs end up posting there I may actually be able to stomach more than two minutes a day on the site, but let's face it: the Twitter experience overall just isn't the same as Tumblr.

Others are moving to Mastodon. I checked it out, and it looks interesting. I created an account there and we'll see how it goes. I haven't posted much of anything yet, but if you want to bookmark me, click here. (I'll also be adding a link to the account on the "Social" widget at the right.)

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Apologies

A few days ago, after forwarding the Remembering World AIDS Day graphic I posted to a friend, she wrote back and asked if I knew the men whom I'd named. "Of course," I said. "That's why I created that image."

She's a retired nurse, and had no idea that AIDS had touched my life so intimately. I told her I'd written at length about a lot of those men and went about locating the relevant blog posts to forward to her.

What this little exercise did was show me how often I've repeated myself on this blog over the years. I suppose it happens. Something captures my attention and I write, not realizing that I'd written about the same damn thing years earlier.

So as I get older and my memory will no doubt get even worse, if I end up repeating myself ad nauseum, I beg your indulgence. As my dad used to say, "Getting old is hell." (I know I've quoted him on this many times in posts.)

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Blogging

Blogging about blogging. Has it really come to this? Am I that bereft of any new, interesting ideas?

Apparently.

I started blogging in 2004. Or maybe 2005. I don't remember at this point and it really isn't that important. I wasn't in on the ground floor of the movement (craze?), but came in at what was probably close to the height of its popularity.

I'd kept a personal journal from late 1987 to mid 2002, mostly chronicling my debauched San Francisco adventures, aborted romances, my near-continual financial woes, and multiple moves to and from Arizona over those 15 years. I finally gave up in 2003 with the arrival of my cancer diagnosis. While it might've been interesting for me to use the journal as a vehicle to work through my fears and insecurities regarding my diagnosis and subsequent treatment, the general consensus (myself included) was that I would beat the cancer and the last thing I'd wanted was a written record for all posterity of what I had gone through. I've never been one for a pity party, and that's what I feared it would turn into.

This decision left a gaping hole in my expressive life that was eventually replaced with blogging. Initially I was more than a little fearful of putting my personal life out on the internet, but realized quickly that while it could be used that way, blogging really wasn't intended to be a traditional journal; I could include as much or as little as I felt comfortable revealing to the world.

As GW Bush entered his second term in office, it also afforded me a venue in which to vent my frustration at the direction the country was taking—and to connect with like-minded individuals who felt the same way—not to mention facilitating meeting the man who was to eventually become my husband.

As anyone who's been here from the beginning (and I applaud you) knows, over the years, my blogging has gone from personal rants, political opining and an occasional dash of male hotness to mostly male hotness with everything else being secondary. 8 years of the smooth-running, scandal-free Obama White House afforded me precious little to bitch about, and nekkid menz always seemed to draw more interest anyway.

My only regret through this journey was my failure to back up my blog prior to our relocation to Denver. I did a damn good job of stringing words together on several of those posts and wish they were still around. (I'm in the process of pulling what I can from the Internet Archive "The Wayback Machine" and back-publishing those posts here, but it's time consuming and I'm only able to retrieve text, not pictures.)

Of course, with the arrival of the Orange Russian Wig Stand in the Oval Office, that's changed. I once again find myself getting very worked up about what's happening in the world and have plenty to bitch about, but there are many days I just can't. Thankfully there are others out there—others far more erudite than I—whose work I can pass on to fill the void when my own words fall short. I occasionally rant about Apple, provide unnecessary movie and television reviews, and post funny pictures and way more male hotness than I ever thought I would when all this started.

I've often thought about shuttering the whole thing since I get so little feedback these days, but after all these years, Voenix Rising has become my online identity, my "brand" as it were, and I don't really want to give that up. I know that one day—like its author—the Voenix Rising blog will take its last breath, but until that time I shall continue to use it it as a vehicle to scream into the void and hopefully provide some salacious entertainment and humor along the way.

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Smokin' Hot

Over the years, many of you have left comments such as, "Ewww!" or "He'd be cute…without the cigarette," when I've posted pictures of men smoking. Okay, I get it. I agree it's a vile habit that more often than not leads to cancer and a host of other inevitably terminal health ailments—not to mention the stink it leaves on your clothing. But there's also something I find undeniably erotic about it as well.

I've never smoked—probably in defiance of my mother, who when I announced as a child I had no intention of ever smoking she quipped, "You say that now, but wait until you get older. Everyone smokes," (it was the 60s after all)—but when I first came out, I was smoking-neutral. I'd have sex with smokers and non-smokers alike.

I don't know what prompted it, but somewhere around the mid 80s, smoking became an automatic disqualifier for me. Just as if you had no hair on your upper lip—which I readily admit now was incredibly shallow—if I spotted a cigarette in your hand I wouldn't give you a second glance.

But several years later, that changed. Seeing some hot guy smoking went from being an absolute turn-off to a guaranteed head-turner. I still wouldn't date anyone who smoked because of that stink, but from a distance and for a brief sexual encounter, it would immediately get my attention.

Maybe it was the Marlboro Man era in which my hormones came into full bloom, or maybe it's simply an obvious oral fixation (as if you hadn't noticed I also like pictures of men sucking cock), but whatever the root cause, I find certain photos of men smoking incredibly erotic.

The more you know…

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So Many Broken Links

I am increasingly disheartened when I have to go back and find something in this here blog thingie and discover along the way that nearly all the YouTube videos I linked to have disappeared. I know the nature of the Internet is to be both ephemeral and forever, but c'mon guys…

That's why I've started saving the videos and linking to them locally.

"It's the only way to be sure."

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A Note About My Blog Headers

Fuckin' Apple.

If you're using Safari as your browser, I've noticed a bug. (A bug with an Apple product? Impossible!) If you refresh my page, the header image (which is supposed to randomly select an image from my library and display it) doesn't refresh. I haven't tested this with IE or Edge (and really don't have any way to, since the only place I have access to those browsers is at work and my site is blocked there, so any of you IE/Edge users please let me know if it's working) but it does work fine with Chrome.

UPDATE: Well apparently it isn't a bug after all. Refreshing to get a new header only works when I'm logged in under my administrator account. So I don't know how the refresh thing works now. Is there a time limit between new images? I guess I may have to contact the template designer for clarification.

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I Just Can't Any More…

I am not generally one to cast aspersions on a fellow blogger (there are so few of us left after all), but I just can't any more.

There is one blogger who I've been following for quite some time. He's  gay, well-read, and at times a hilariously funny and spot-on reviewer of film and television. But lately, every other post has been about Call Me By Your Name. It's like he orgasms at the mere mention of it. He's admitted to thirteen screenings (and counting), and every newly discovered muscle twitch or sideways glance in a screening immediately generates a blog post.

Don't get me wrong: I'd been eagerly looking forward to seeing this film based on his recommendations for months. I saw the film (which I might not have heard of at all had I not been following him) in December. I liked it. I'd like to see it again. (Ben was not as impressed.) I bought the soundtrack on limited-edition numbered blue vinyl for chrissake! God knows I have impure thoughts about Armie Hammer. But enough is enough, dude.

I understand it's his blog and he's free to write whatever the fuck he wants, just as I am. And furthermore I understand from his writings on the subject that this obsession stems in part from his own coming out story; like the young character in the film, this blogger's first male-on-male sexual experience was with an older man while he was still in his teens, so I get how it reaches deep down inside him and tugs at his heart-strings. And if it takes him to his happy place, fine. But dude—please stop shoving this movie in our face on a daily basis! You're starting to turn me off to it completely and I can't be the only one who's feeling that way. Or, better yet—as I suggested to him in a comment I left on the site which seems to have immediately been deleted—create a new blog that is nothing but Call Me By Your Name.

I like reading his other reviews, but frankly I'm at the point where I'm simply about to drop him from my feed for six months to see any sort of balance returns.

Oh scratch that…six months will be about the same time the BluRay of the film comes out. Let's call it a year.

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Blog Hosting

I've been with my current blog host for a little over four years now. I originally switched because I had issues with the service and reliability—not to mention the corporate philosophy—of my previous host. I don't think I need to name this Phoenix-based company; they're infamous.

My current host, while not cheap, has been rock steady, lets me post whatever the fuck I want (obviously), is very WordPress friendly, and when things have infrequently gone sideways, they've been fixed almost immediately.

That being said, they are a business whose job is to sell, sell, sell. Their website is confusing as hell to navigate and find what you're looking for. My current hosting plan was due to expire in two days, so Friday night I logged in to renew my plan for another three months as I have been wont to do for these past four years. This time, however there was no "renew" button available, just "upgrade." Oh great, I thought, they've changed their pricing structure.

Sure enough, clicking "upgrade" took me to a page with horrifically priced plans, all billable only on a yearly basis, none of which was in my budget.

I didn't relish the plan of switching hosts because of the hassle of actually moving the website, but I asked Ben what host he was using because I couldn't afford to stay where I was if these "upgrade" plans were my only choices.

I checked out their plans and they were dirt cheap in comparison to what I had been paying. I got signed up with them and with Ben's help we transferred the domain name and hosting without issue. We ran into a problem, however, when we engaged the company to actually move my WordPress installation. I received a very curt email from their technical support:

Hello Mark,

Thank you for contacting [Hosting Company] Support Team.

Per our check, the voenixrising.com website violates our Hosting Acceptable Use Policy that you may find at https://www.[Hosting Company].com/legal/hosting/aup.aspx , namely Paragraph 8, Prohibited Activities:

'By using any Services, provided by [Hosting Company] You agree: not to use [Hosting Company] services to host any website, other content, links or advertisements of websites that contain nudity, pornography or other content deemed adult related'.

Thus, before we assist you with your website migration, we would ask you to delete the content that does not comply with the above.

Feel free to contact us back anytime.

Well fuck that. I replied to the email telling them that was their prerogative and it was also my prerogative to spend my money elsewhere because of it. I asked that my hosting be cancelled. They responded with a link to cancel the service (which of course turned out to be a hot mess), but I eventually found what I needed and cancelled the hosting. I understand I'm stuck with the domain registration through them for 60 days because of ICANN rules, but I can live with that.

Seeing that I was growing increasingly angry and frustrated, Ben discovered another host that didn't limit what could be posted. I checked them out, but they were the same price as my original host's new plans and also could only be billed in yearly installments.

Reluctantly I returned to my original host's website and looked at my renewal offer again. This was when I noticed that next to the "upgrade" box, there was also a link under what was showing as the price of my current, soon-to-expire, bill-3-months-at-a-time hosting.

When I clicked on that, it took me to a page that gave me the option to simply renew my current plan. Clicked and done.

Why couldn't that have been on the original landing page, clearly marked?

Because they're job is to make money. That's why.

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YouTube

While looking over old posts I'm discovering that not only are many of the music-related YouTube videos I've posted now missing, so are quite a few other, seemingly copyright-innocuous ones as well. I've thought about actually posting the names of the videos under them on future posts—allowing me to readily locate other versions should they disappear—but I think the only way around the problem of the disappearing 'tubes is to download the videos and post them directly. Cumbersome, yes, but it makes sure they're still available years from now…

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Ditching Disqus

After reading this, I've decided to return to the native WordPress commenting engine. I had no idea that Disqus cataloged, cross-indexed and obviously monetized its users to such a degree, and while I personally won't stop using it myself, I won't subject my readers—as few as they are—to such intrusiveness.

If you'd like to me return to Disqus (there is a certain convenience in it, after all), let me know since at this point I haven't removed it from the site, I've just deactivated it…

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Unintended Consequences

I sent off links to this here blog thingie (and my other active social media accounts) to a couple friends I've at least superficially reconnected with after years of silence, and out of curiosity I started looking through the past few years of posts just to see where my head's been at.

Other than seeing how so very little has changed with the batshit craziness the republicans have been spouting since—well, forever, the most glaring aspect of looking over all these old posts is seeing what's missing.

YouTube videos that have been taken down for whatever reason are one thing, but because I am an idiot and deleted my Flickr account about six months ago, all of the personal photos I've posted over the years that were linked directly to my account (in order to conserve hosting space on the server) are now gone.

I suppose I could go back and find all the broken links and upload the the images directly, but honestly, who has time to go through 4500 entries and figure out exactly what's missing? Not this guy, that's for sure! Hell, I don't even have time to go back and locate all the references to YouTube videos that are no longer available in order to delete them!

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Taking a Little Break

After yesterday's last post, I realized that I needed to take a break from obsessing over the downfall of western civilization and made the conscious decision to step away from that nightmare-I-have-no-control-over for a while.

To that end, I'm just going to be posting a lot of pictures.

I'm attempting to organize my photos library and I realized that I have hundreds of pictures that have caught my eye over the years that I downloaded with every intention of reposting. Like with a lot of things however, it never quite happened, and they've been languishing in storage ever since. So for the next several days (unless something truly major happens on the political front to break through the now-usual effluent spewing from 45's administration), this here blog thingie will be nothing more than a stream of visual consciousness.

Enjoy. Or not. Whatever…

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On Blogging

There a few reasons why I'm sad about the decline of independent blogs, and why I think they're still worth fighting for.

Ultimately, it comes down to two things: ownership and control.

Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can't say, and I have complete control over the way it's displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web." ~ Andy Baio

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Any WordPress Gurus Out There?

It seems the most recent WordPress "upgrade" has broken something. Again.  I'm no longer receiving email updates when comments are left on posts.

As you can see, I have the proper boxes checked off in the control panel, and the email address they're being sent to is valid (nothing has changed), so I'm wondering how to get this working again.

Any ideas?

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Very Strange Behavior

I realized a few days ago I hadn't been receiving any comment notifications via email from this here blog thingie and is the reason I posted Is This Thing On a couple days ago. Everything seems to be set up correctly on the back end, but nothing is working. We're going on 7 days now.

The Google has been less than helpful.