Dullblog’s Greatest Hits

By |2020-01-29T18:18:09-08:00January 29, 2020|Housekeeping|

I call this one, "Prellies and Eyemakeup." In August 2016, a whole lifetime ago, Devin, Nancy and I looked at the vast pile of writing on this site and asked each other, “Which posts still hold up? Which ones do we like best?” So we read back and back and back, and put together a list, which I'm going to append to the end of this post. The pile has only grown larger since then. To be honest, I've never really been satisfied with how we surface old material on Hey Dullblog; the posts at the bottom are simply an algorithm—does anybody [...]

Question Time!

By |2020-01-03T00:14:20-08:00January 3, 2020|Housekeeping|

Private Gripweed indulges his sweet tooth. I am attempting, with only partial success, to stay off my computer. I find, like so many of us, that frequent exposure to Facebook and Twitter makes my mind feel like the bottom of a birdcage; and on top of that, I was in production for Bystander pretty much every day since July 1. So my tanks were low, and this was necessary. Slowly, very slowly, my personality is coming back, and as it reemerges I find myself entertaining happy obsessions like The Beatles and the Sixties that surrounded them. (In the last 24 hours I [...]

Thinking of Linking

By |2019-08-07T01:31:02-07:00August 7, 2019|Housekeeping|

After writing this post on how to defray some of the costs of running Dullblog (keep lobbing over your preferences in the comments!), I've started very tentatively adding Amazon Affiliate links to songs, LPs, and movies. I mean, we all probably have every Beatles song and movie in several permutations, but... [Another way I could do this is have every post sport a little kicker at the end, something like "Media mentioned in this post." The benefit of this is that it doesn't distract the reader in the middle of the text. Better? Worse?] I'm also occasionally linking to older Dullblog posts; [...]

Supporting Dullblog.

By |2019-08-05T17:33:41-07:00August 5, 2019|Housekeeping|

When the site came back to life recently, several readers mentioned that they've really enjoyed it over the years, and—being the top-notch humans Dullblog readers are—asked for ways they could help support its continuation. This is greatly appreciated. Hosting and such costs about $500 annually, and so over the years, I've dropped over five grand, and Nancy has paid in, too. (Devin graciously offered a while back, but I told him "don't worry about it" because I was feeling flush. I am...not brilliant.) If only our ISP took Beatlebux. Actually, that wasn't total stupidity on my part. Dullblog is fun for me [...]

New Commenting Policy

By |2019-07-01T18:22:32-07:00July 1, 2019|Housekeeping|

Do you know exactly what you think? Green. OK for trees, but generally nah.Scissors. Necessary, but I don't trust 'em.Tom Jones. My mom would totally sleep with him, and not just because he's Welsh. As you can see, I usually do. So for me the primary joy of this site has always been reading our comments, escaping for awhile into what someone else thinks. And for the first several years, we had a community that was (so people said) almost unique on the internet. New users would remark on how our site—posts and comments—was both genial and passionate, good-natured and informative, rigorous [...]

Our media policy

By |2016-05-11T18:34:55-07:00May 11, 2016|Housekeeping|

"You sold me oregano!" Folks, just a quick check-in here -- earlier a commenter put up a link to a downloadable .epub of Philip Norman's new biography of Paul McCartney. This file is almost certainly an infringement on several entities' copyright, and I removed it as soon as I was made aware of its existence. As someone who has lost thousands (millions?) of dollars in royalties because of exactly this kind of piracy, I take a very dim view of this type of behavior. You want a book, go buy the book. Or get it from the library. Piracy hurts [...]

Commenting Standards on Hey Dullblog

By |2016-03-24T10:31:33-07:00March 24, 2016|Housekeeping|

Your commanding officer, Mr. Paul McCartney They all laughed when we stepped up to the mic, but when we began to sing... Hey Dullblog is the most popular Beatles fan site on the web, with about a thousand visitors a day. This means that we're getting lots of new commenters, which we love. But now's a good time to remind everybody that Dullblog's a bit different than the rest of the internet: comments here are expected to be constructive, substantive and civil. Constructive meaning part of a good faith attempt on our all parts to learn more, and understand better, [...]

Why not add something to a comment?

By |2016-03-10T11:45:10-08:00March 10, 2016|Housekeeping|

Folks, many of you have asked for the ability to add images, video, and other files to your comments, so I have shelled out the princely sum of $25 and bought an addon that does that very thing. I would love it if our comments regularly contained supporting materials -- this would make them an even more useful reflection of the aggregate intelligence of our commentariat. If you think of it, why not add something to a favorite comment of yours, or to a thread you feel would be enriched?

Like the new Comments?

By |2016-02-19T15:30:48-08:00February 19, 2016|Housekeeping, Uncategorized|

I write all my comments on my screen, in pen Dullblogisti, in my mania to build an ever-better online clubhouse for Beatle-obsessives, I have installed a new commenting system. If you get a moment, could you help me test drive it? Leave a comment — See if it shows up, and is formatted correctly. Give a comment the thumbs up. Share a comment via Facebook or Twitter. Thanks in advance. With the old system, I couldn't follow who was replying to what and when. These days on Dullblog, that's important. You are a voluble bunch.

Lies, Damned Lies and Dullblog

By |2016-01-30T13:20:39-08:00January 30, 2016|Housekeeping|

Story, nothing -- John should've sued over the PICTURE A side-question from the indefatigable @Rob on whether or not Paul McCartney actually was pissed off by Hunter Davies printing this interview in his revised edition of his book The Beatles, sent me off on a desultory Google search to determine the truth. After two minutes I could not, and I don't have more time to investigate this fully. Everybody, please feel free to fire up your own brains/Googling machines. When it was mentioned in a comment thread; seeing that it was a private phone call taken down after the fact, [...]

Go to Top