scribbling in ink
This is a recurring issue for me: Although I've yet to find anything I actually like overall, I keep thinking I need some tumblelog software that's more inviting for quick quips and quotes. Sometimes, the affordances of the WordPress posting page make me think I should really write more than a few lines to fill up the space. So, I don't post anything because I just kind of wander off and never reach the imagined threshold for posting.
This seems oddly related to when I first let myself start writing in a journal with ink instead of pencil - I couldn't stand not being able to erase things and correct them and make them perfect. Nowadays, one of the first things I do to an Moleskine is ritually tear out the first page and scribble in pen on the next. Then, I can write on the rest of the pages. Hmm. I wonder how I can scribble on a blog?
Archived Comments
How about posting a "test post, please ignore" entry?
Have you seen http://www.tumblr.com/ ? A very good implementation and it's very customizable. You can even have it pull feeds from other sources.
Maybe re-kindle your OPML blog? I realize it's a separate entity, but it's already there:
http://blogs.opml.org/decafbad
Allow Google to cache it.
No erasing after that. :)
This is exactly what I use Twitter for. Glancing thoughts, and not-quite-posts. It's why I get pissed when people do "@whoever - blah blah blah" posts. That's what IM and email is for! :)
Perhaps start a Twitter account for JUST blogging/microblogging, and then swing it over to WP?
For Twitter-to-WP integration, check out the Twitter Tools WordPress plug-in, by Alex King. [http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress]
You can either have each Tweet go to a separate post - or archive the day's tweets in a single one. The once-a-day-archive-to-WP is what I do. If anything, to backup my postings to Twitter.
Jott is pretty sweet too. I have donked around a little bit to do a Jott-to-WP thing, but it doesn't allow for drafts!
-b
Several Wordpress themes like K2 have incorporated the idea of "asides": blurbs and halfbaked thoughts in a different layout and syndicated separately (so you could have a "serious" articles feed and a combined serious + asides feed for the groupies). See my del.icio.us links on the subject: http://del.icio.us/pascalvanhecke/asides
Ditto on tumblr.
I used tumblr to blog my notes from JavaOne for my friends back home, and it worked great:
http://javaone.tumblr.com/
Adding photos, videos and audio is very straightforward, too. It's a nice tool.