Well hey! It’s been forever since I’ve written something like this, a blog post in 2025, Feels kind of strange, right?

Blogging isn’t really “a thing” anymore. These days people stick to micro-blogging — Twitter (or X, whatever we’re calling it now), Tumblr, maybe Threads (does anyone still use that?). For long-form stuff, it’s usually Medium or Substack. The era of the homegrown blog — the “this is my place on the web” kind — feels mostly gone.

In Israel, the only personal blog I can think of that’s still really active is Hasolidit, which a business-minded friend showed me back in the army. Maybe also Ran Bar-Zik’s Internet-Israel.com, which every local dev has probably stumbled upon at some point. But beyond that? Not much.

 We just don’t visit websites like we used to — at least not outside the big platforms.

But when I was growing up with my old Windows Vista laptop, it was different. The web felt alive back then — weird, personal, full of surprises. You’d go from one corner of the internet to another and never know what you were going to find.

I still remember creating my first blog when I was about 11. It was on Israblog.co.il. I spent hours trying to make it look as cool as everyone else’s — tweaking colors, fonts, adding ridiculous background music. There were so many other platforms too: 2all.co.il, the kids channel’s site builder, and of course Blogspot (which is now just Blogger). Those were real playgrounds.

Creating a site or a blog back then wasn’t just about sharing thoughts — it was about building your own place online. You could customize everything: fonts, backgrounds, CSS, even animated cursors. Every site was a reflection of whoever built it.

 I kind of miss that.

These days, the internet feels too clean. Everything looks the same. Every feed, every app, every profile fits into a perfectly safe layout designed for scrolling forever. The problem isn’t content — it’s personality. Customization is dead. And I guess that’s what made me want to build my own corner again.

So yeah, here I am, in 2025, writing on Blogger.

 I know, it sounds absurd. Why Blogger of all things?

Even though I’m a developer — and yes, I could spin up a WordPress site or a static site in ten minutes — I just don’t want to. I’ve done all that: the hosting setup, plugin updates, themes, optimizations. It’s great for clients, but not for me. When I want to write, I just want to write. No maintenance, no setup, no “update your PHP version” warnings.

I tried the static route too — GitHub Pages, Neocities (which is actually awesome, by the way). I even have a little site there: underzero.neocities.org. But then, every time I wanted to post something, I’d have to open a code editor and write HTML by hand. And let’s be honest — I’m not going to do that every time inspiration hits at midnight.

That’s when I remembered Blogger still exists. It’s old, yes, but it’s still there. I can log in with my Google account, open the app on my phone, and start typing. No setup, no friction. And I’ll never lose access like I did with old WordPress sites, because if I lose my Google account, well… I’ll have bigger problems.

Now, I won’t lie — Blogger is a pain to customize. Writing a theme in XML felt like stepping back into 2008. PageSpeed hates it, and the tools feel dated. But weirdly enough, it’s just right for what I want. Enough customization to make it mine, without turning into a project that I’ll abandon halfway through.

So yeah, this blog is my small, messy space on the web. A mix of thoughts, ramblings, maybe some roars. I’m literally writing this post straight from my phone, which makes me kind of proud. It feels old-school, personal, real.

And that’s all I really wanted.