My life has been mayhem of late, and I haven’t had the time to post regularly here (or to finish the Making Movies series of advice to young folks gunning for a spot in the film world, despite a couple of emails requesting more).

But, at the same time, I’ve certainly had spare minutes, and have similarly come across countless interesting articles and sites that I could have at least quickly posted to the slowly decaying ‘salmagundi’ section of my right sidebar.

So, as happens about once a year, I’ve been having a slight blogging crisis of confidence.

This time, however, unlike my normal self-questioning – why am I keeping this blog? – I instead focused on a new area – how am I keeping this blog?

Which is to say, as the underlying infrastructure of this site has gotten cruftier and cruftier by the year – I last redesigned self-aggrandizement.com in 2004 – is the blogging software itself creating a barrier to posting entry, and keeping me from updating as much as I otherwise might?

Tech industry friends have pointed me in a slew of directions: Tumblr was built to address just this very question. As was, at least on the link-sharing front, Twitter. WordPress is so customizable and nimble. And even Movable Type has come eons forward since the version upon which this site is predicated.

But at the same time, I can’t help but think of the proverbial “it’s the poor crafstman who blames his tools.” Or, similarly, but think of the many years – more than a decade – I spent looking for the perfect trumpet mouthpiece, before finally settling into the sad realization that – in the brass playing world, as in the rest of life – there is no secret beyond hard work, done consistently for years at a time, day in and day out.

So, perhaps, updating the code here, or the blogging platform is a fool’s errand. A way of avoiding the underlying issue – that writing posts, and curating links, takes real work. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but think it’s not just the poor crafstman who blames his tool, but also the poor craftsman who can’t tell the difference between a good and a bad one.

So, fair readers, save me. How should I update the front- and back-end of this site?