What is this?
I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a personal “blog” of some sort for years, and the recent social media chaos finally pushed me over the edge. So, welcome to my Substack…which is tentatively called Postcards from Far Away (named after a Coldplay song, of course).
My goal is simple. I want to share all of the things I love and enjoy with you. Add it to your RSS reader here.
Why Substack?
I chose Substack primarily because it’s easy to set up and there’s pretty much no overhead for me. I wanted a place to put words and links that wasn’t Twitter, Threads, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, or whatever.
My friend Michael Steeber encouraged me to give Substack a try. Be sure to check out his excellent Tabletops newsletter, which offers an obscene amount of detail on Apple’s retail stores. I’m a happy paying subscriber, and I encourage you to do the same.
Part of the appeal of Substack to me was that it’s just a place to write, and it’s only as complicated as you make it. I don’t want to worry about things like SEO, link structures, keywords, Google, and all of the other things that go into running a website in 2023. Substack lets me write and share, with no obligation to do anything more.
There are a few things I dislike about Substack, the biggest one being that the “Welcome” page makes it seem like there’s a paywall, but there isn’t.
If you want to become a paying supporter, be my guest. I don’t know what I’ll give you in return, but I’ll happily take your money. Pretty much everything will be available for free to anyone.
Sharing things I love
I plan to treat Postcards from Far Away as a scratchpad of random thoughts, links, and things I like. A lot of it will be music-related, but not everything. If you follow me for my tech news, you’ll be disappointed by this Substack. I do plenty of tech writing on 9to5Mac, and I have no plans to post tech news here.
I don’t know what exactly this will turn into, but I’m excited to have one central place to share things that I love, whether that’s music, TV shows, books, random links, or dog pictures. There are so many things in this world that can bring people happiness and joy, and I want to share my favorites with you.
A lot of the posts here will be short, and that’s by design. I’m putting zero pressure on myself to craft long-form, well-thought-out articles. Even though the posts will be short, there will be typos. I’m a one-man team.
You can add this thing to your RSS reader using this link. I don’t really plan on using the actual “newsletter” part of Substack very often, maybe just for an email every so often rounding up stuff I’ve already posted.
Oh, and the name is a ripoff of a Coldplay song. The background and text colors are based on the artwork for Coldplay’s album “Ghost Stories.” Originality!