So, when I’m not rattling on about my lack of blogging, I can often be found rattling on about writing and language. Why? Because, dammit, language is important to me, and I happen to be fairly proficient at stringing linguistics bits together in coherent and interesting ways.

[Aside: Would we call a string of linguistic bits a linguine?]

[Aside Followup Fact: The word “linguine” literally means “little tongues” in Italian.]

I have on occasion been accused of the crime of pedantry in the sphere of language. I will confess to bouts of nitpickiness bordering on pedantry, but as to full-on pedantry, I don’t think I have the qualifications for that. One thing’s for sure. I need to loosen up a bit. While I’m not prone to fits of letter-writing when I read or see something that is grammatically, punctuatively, or orthographically incorrect, I do often cringe, and I do often complain about it. (more…)

Well, I guess the old blog has a new birthday.

I don’t mind, really. I like September 1st. It always speaks to me of the start of fall, and to me, fall has always been more of a beginning than New Year’s Day could ever hope to be. January 1st might begin a new calendar year, but it’s stuck in the middle of winter.

Fall, on the other hand, marks the start of school, the end of vacation, and harvest time. The air becomes cooler and crisper (though, unfortunately, we’re in the midst of a heat wave as I write this), the sun’s angle gives everything sharper edges, and there’s the smell of change in the air.

Call me crazy, but I like fall better than I like summer. I’m no fan of the heat (or humidity), and the cooler, crisper weather gives me energy I could never hope to drum up in the dog days of summer. The only real down side to fall is that it leads directly to winter, of which I’m not such a huge fan.

So it is with fresh starts and changes in mind that I write this, the first official post of the new, improved, streamlined, redesigned, and rebooted Faltarego.com. (more…)

Dear Readers:

As some of you know from my Twitter and Facebook updates, my site was recently hacked. This has proven to be a powerful pain in the ass, as my web hosting provider later informed me all my files had been compromised and my account needed to be reset.

This has now been done. All my files and databases have been removed, and all my account settings have been reset back to their defaults.

Because I had no proper backup, I am basically starting this site over from scratch. I do have all my earlier blog posts saved in text format, and I have copies of all the images I’ve used, so that is some comfort.

I also had a backup copy of the theme I designed, as you can see from this page.

I have more tweaking to do, but at least the site’s look is back. I’ll mull over what to do with all my older posts, but I’m going to start blogging anew over the next couple of days.

Thanks to all who’ve been reading this blog, and here’s to better days ahead.

Stay tuned.

All the best,

–Eric (aka Faltarego)