“I didn't kill myself when things went wrong
I didn't turn to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write I learned to write
what might be read on nights
like this by one like me”

- Leonard Cohen

This is my fourth blog in, what, three years? From Jekyll to WordPress to MicroBlog, every blogging solution had its downsides, so I had to take matters into my own hands. A completely custom solution, one I have full control over, yet so simple that I wrote it in just a couple of hours. Using it is as easy as writing a post and then running a C program.

It’s not a finished project by any means -yet- but in its current state, it’s a fully functional blog. No JavaScript, just pure HTML files with baked-in styles, and it’ll stay that way. I haven’t tested compatibility with older browsers yet, but it should be fine. The only downside is that you can’t disable SSL/TLS for GitHub Pages, which means my 26-year-old iMac G3 won’t be able to view this page. But I’m not really in the mood to spin up a custom hosting solution, maybe a future project with a Raspberry Pi or something.

I plan to add an Arabic section for when I feel like writing in Arabic. The "Who’s Radwan?" section is still pending updates, but I’m not sure how much info I can share before I start doxxing myself online. As for the basement? Well, it’ll be a basement, a home to my darker ideas and entries.

The source is available on GitHub. All anyone needs to do is change the blog name, and voilà! They’re ready to go. It’s not a solution for non-techies, but I’m pretty sure any monkey with basic coding experience can make this their own in less than five minutes.

Shoutout to LLMs and GitHub Pages for making this a reality, and to Tokhy for inspiring me to do it.

Ciao!