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Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”The End” is on the Abbey Road album, and was 100% written by McCartney.  “Appropriately, this was the last significant song at the end of the last album recorded by The Beatles.”

This is me admitting defeat. If it takes 10 months to finish Beatles Week, it probably isn’t going to happen.  Of course, by admitting I am not finishing Beatles Week, I am actually finishing Beatles Week… hmm…

Anyway, this is the end of Beatles Week.  I’ve had several ideas for posts over the last few months, but none of them fit Beatles Week, so I didn’t do them and now they’re gone. If I don’t call this Week finished, I may never write again. I still want to average a post a week this year before I turn 40, and I’ve only got 9 months left to do it, so I had to do something. I hope this gets me back to writing.

I think I won’t do a 2011 Beatles Week. I love the idea of it and will most likely come back to it some day, but it seems silly to start one so close to the end of this one.

Thanks for reading!

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”Ask Me Why” is on the Please Please album, and was 70% written by Lennon, 30% by McCartney.  It was not a Top 40 hit.

Courtesy of PBF Comics, which aren’t necessarily always something I’d recommend.

This last year was a good one!  I went and got myself married to a wonderful woman and we are going about the business of building a home and life together.  We’re a month and a half away from being married for a year, and I’m looking forward to many great years ahead.

So that’s my List of Things Done from this last year.  Shorter than the last couple of years, I know, but I don’t care.

Here’s the thing, though. If I live that long, next year I’ll turn 40. 40!  I never for a minute figured I’d get to 40.  I still might not, but it’s close enough to think about. Forty is that age where you are required by law to have a list of things you wanted to do before you got there. I never put a list like that together, and it seems like it might be a little late to cram “go skydiving!” and “learn Klingon!” into this one year.  Beside all that, I don’t really have a list of such things that I want to accomplish.

Well… there is one thing.

It’s been on my mind a lot lately that I don’t write. I certainly don’t write here, as a quick perusal of the dates on the last 5 entries will attest. I don’t really write anywhere. My Twitter usage is down and I don’t even update my Facebook status much. I don’t really have any creative outlet at all. I’m not sure if it’s my lack of ideas that keep me from creating, or if it’s my not actually doing any sort of output that is squelching ideas.  Either way, the result is the same.

So. I’ve considered this for a while, and though I am hesitant to say it out here in public, it really is something I want to do, so maybe the accountability will help.

I want to write at least one blog entry a week. Considering I’ve only done 12 in the last year, that’s a fairly sizable goal. But there it is.  I don’t know why that’s what I want to do, I only know it is what I want to do. I’m fairly certain I’ve lost any audience I had at one time, but I need to do it for me.  Sure, I’d like other people to read it and enjoy it, but I really feel like I need to do this even if I’m the only one who reads it.

If I miss a week, feel free to Ask Me Why. First goal is to finish this Beatles Week!

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”Revolution 1″ (more commonly known just as “Revolution” was 100% written by John while The Beatles were in India in early 1968.  It was released as the B side to the “Hey Jude” single on August 26, 1968, and got as high as #12 during its eleven-week stay in the Top 40.  Paul didn’t like the song.  “In the lyrics, Lennon comes out against violence on the single version but is equivocal on the White Album‘s slower version, following ‘count me out’ with ‘in’.”

UPDATE: Mandy is our mug winner!  I picked the winner old-school style: printed out the names and had Megan choose one at random.  Mandy – get me your address!

The date on the last redesign of my website was February 23, 2005.  Five years ago?  Really?  Seems unlikely.  I was really, really into green and gray at the time.  Actually, I kind of still am.  In fact, one room in my house is painted in a similar green as was in that design.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, that means the newest design is live.  As before, I had a lot of help from Brian, who was once again very good about dealing with all of my “What about this?” and “Hold on, I changed my mind about that” nonsense.

The main reason for the redesign is that Blogger no longer supports FTP publishing.  My choices were to stick with Blogger but use one of their URLs or switch my blogging software, which is what I ended up doing.  While switching all that, I’m also changing my hosting situation to Dreamhost via the aforementioned Brian.  Lots of changes!

I’m very pleased with the new logo, and I have Rock Band to thank for it.  A screenshot of my character in the game got edited down into the glasses-and-goatee you now see, and it’s almost exactly what I had envisioned at the outset, even though I had no idea how to produce it.

Most everything transferred over pretty well from Blogger, and there’s a pretty good chance that most of the links to stuff still work, even.  And, since the archives are actually working now and seem to be a little bit better organized, now’s a perfect time to catch up on all the stuff you’ve missed in the now-7 years I’ve been writing.  Yikes. That’s crazy to me, too.

Don’t neglect to scroll all the way to the bottom – all the links that used to be on the sides are down there now, and I’d hate for you to miss the store or something.  And make sure you update your feed readers – the RSS feed has changed.

To celebrate the new design, let’s have a little giveaway.  Leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite topic here on the blog and I’ll pick a random commenter to receive a MadMup.com mug or T-shirt with the new logo on it.  Let’s make the deadline 6p Eastern this Friday.  Multiple comments won’t increase your chances, so don’t try anything funny.

Now here’s hoping (once again) that a redesign sparks more writing.