Where Else You May Find Me
- Glass
Glass is a photo-based social media service without a default algorithm, ads, or really, any funny business. As such, it does come at a cost ($5/mo). It’s a lovely photo-sharing service that puts the photo first and manages to capture a little bit of the mechanic of early Instagram, while also supporting full-resolution photos. It’s the only place I share my film scans at a resolution close to the full size. - Flickr
Admittedly, I have run hot and cold over the years with Flickr, but I really quite appreciate it for remaining more of a photo storage and display website site with social features than a social media site. Like Glass, you can upload images at full resolution. Also like Glass, it comes at a cost ($11/mo), which I find reasonable. - Bandcamp
A few years ago, thanks to the famously low payouts for artists, I decided to stop using music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, and would instead buy music. The service I like for that the most is Bandcamp, but thanks to the nature of some artists’ contracts or the artists own preference not everything I’d like is up there. In those cases, I use the iTunes Store. - Storygraph
Since transitioning, I’ve gotten back into reading fiction in a way that I never thought would be possible. Less of a trophy case, I found it would be helpful to keep track of the books I’ve read. I don’t rate or write reviews of books I’ve read, but do like to use the “similar books” function to get ideas. - Letterboxd
Much like Storygraph above, I do not used Letterboxd to write reviews or even rate the movies we watch. I mainly use it to keep track of the movies that I’ve watched. As we watch most of our movies through Criterion Channel (which has a short memory due to how it rotates), I don’t always know whether we’ve seen a movie or not. - historynerd.ca
I used to be quite interested in writing bloggy local histories, but I really began slowing down in 2018 and decided to stop updating the site entirely in early 2020. As I usually put it, “In a previous life, I…” While I have kept the site up since (i.e. continue to pay for hosting), I doubt I will keep it up forever. I just wish that local history blogging scenes, such as they are, were as vital as they once were instead of giving way almost entirely to Facebook nostalgia posting.
Lovely Websites by Lovely People
There are just too many lovely and talented people out there and too few of them take the time to maintain their own websites. Below is an ever-growing list of sites that I really like done by people I really like.
- The Heavy Pen
I might be a *little* biased, but Kathleen is a super talented writer. In addition to being a fantastic sewist, knitter, and quilter. If you happen to see me around, there’s a pretty good chance I’m wearing something she has made too.
On The Heavy Pen, she posts one piece of writing per day. It could be short fiction, it could be venting, journaling, or whatever comes to mind.
Because Kids in the Hall references are a *really* big part of our love language, it should come as no surprise that the site’s title comes from a Kevin McDonald sketch. - Truck Stop Coffee | PiperBly.com
Piper Bly is too talented. It might sort of hurt, really. Not content with phenomenal skills in photography, her way with ink and words is something I don’t see often these days and have very much missed. You can even purchase some of her comics if you’re so inclined!