Four or five of us have editing priveleges for comments. Usually this is used to prevent comments from destroying the look of the site by editing any bad HTML. If you think about it, you will realize that we have to have this capability. Usually, we leave a note when we edit something like this: [Redacted bad HTML - Editor]
When someone is half awake, as Piper was last night, it is possible to hit the edit button instead of the reply button and then hit the save without realizing that one is not on the screen one thought one was on.
This kind of fell between the cracks and didn't get announced but there were five winners in the April Fools and Other Wise Contest. Check here to see if you were one of the top four winners and then PM or email me to tell me what you want done with your $35 prize. Since there was only ONE vote between fourth and fifth place, we decided to go ahead and give five prizes.
I'm not the world's best financial planner and it's caught me a little by surprise that the annual server contract for four of the BC/SD/TGF servers is coming due. These servers run BC, Stardust, TGFiction.Net, CrystalHall, qnez, TGLibrary, StorySite and a dozen other TG and TG friendly websites. If we pay annually, we save about 20% on the bill but that is a $1600 hit this time.
If the site seems slow today or even goes up and down a few times, they are having equipment problems in the facility where we keep our servers. Our equipment is fine but they're going to be working on whatever caused the nearly three hour outage earlier this morning. Patience is the only coin we have.
But her plane coming back from Thailand blew up on takeoff and made a soft crash landing. Birds got sucked into an engine and caused it to explode. She'll get a plane out later today (it's tomorrow in Thailand). She's shook up but okay.
When I was a kid, the first Saturday in August was always a holiday. Just a family holiday but it usually involved a big party with cakes and presents. Why? Because six of us cousins had birthdays within a couple of weeks of each other and two other cousins (including my brother) had real birthdays near Christmas and so celebrated their birthdays with the rest of of us in early August. My birthday is Sunday this year, August 5th, but tomorrow is Summer Saturday, the only holiday in August!
Cheap shipping is available at Lulu now though Friday for US addresses. This applies to people buying books and to authors buying discounted books for personal sales.
It's the time of month again, bills are coming due and to be completely honest, I spent about $1100 bucks on vacation what with hotel room, meals, transportation, kennel fees, miscellaneous and stuff I bought.
Tired, sweaty and footsore; according to my pedometer I have walked something over 30 miles in the last five days.
Not sure I can afford to go on such a long vacation again though, while at the kennel someone taught Cuddles how to fart. You all almost read about it on the news, woman and dog found asphyxiated in their car on the I-10. HOLY SHIT, BATMAN! So to speak.
I'm hoping it was just because she only got kibbles to eat while in the kennel.
Got back to the hotel, ate some chips and salsa and worked on the site for an hour or so and fell asleep. I probably would have slept straight through except some guy outside my window about 11:30 couldn't get his car alarm to shut off. Either that or he was stealing a car. I got up to look out the window, my car is still there but by that time, I was awake and hungry so I made a trip down to the snack machines and here I am.
Had another good day at the con, bought some comics collections, including one of Groo off of Sergio Aragonés in Spanish. I asked him if he wrote the dialog himself but he said no, that he wrote the stories and drew them but as usual Mark Evanier wrote the dialog and then Sergio had some other person translate Mark's dialog into Spanish. Seems roundabout. :) I know that there are comics out there that Sergio has done in Spanish that he wrote himself but he didn't have any at the con. It sort of tickled him that I bought the one I did.
Well this year I finally did it. I applied for a professional badge and listed what I have done in comics over the years and they gave me one! It's very cool to have. :)
The site stays up as long as there are no blowups. I'll leave it up as long as I can and only take it down if there is a mess that I or my helpers cannot clean up easily without me writing a lot of PMs and emails. If I think I'll have to do that, I'll close the site down until, probably Sunday night or Monday morning.
I'm stressed out by things that have happened back stage this past week. I need some time off and Piper's real life is kind of nightmarish lately so I hate to dump any more responsibility on her. My other assistants are really not experienced enough to do what I do here.
I'm going to be gone to the San Diego Comicon from Wednesday the 11th to Sunday the 15th. I'm thinking of shutting the site down while I'm gone or maybe just Thursday to Saturday since I'll be able to work on it Wednesday and Sunday. But really, the place would have burned down if I had been gone three days this weekend.
Today is Alan Turing's 100th birthday. He's the man who helped crack the German ciphers in WWII and pretty much invented the basics of computer science.
I was actually a bit worried, nothing was past due but things were getting tight. And knowing that everyone has their own expenses I wasn't sure anyone would be able to help out. But plenty of you cam through with donations and in two days, we reached goal for June and got a start on July.
Yay, us! :)
I'll be gone for a week in July but I'll have my laptop with me and Piper and my other helpers will be around to keep things on an even keel. Let's have a great summer!
It's June 16th and we're a bit in the hole. We didn't make the subscription goal for last moth and this month is half over. I know not everyone can do so, but if you can, please, send us a few bucks via the Hatbox Membership request box on the side bar. It really does take about $40 bucks a day to keep this place open.
Ranting in the comments on someone else's post is not a friendly act. If you have some subject about which you feel strongly enough to post a rant, please do so at a site where ranting is allowed. It's not allowed here.
I overheard some men enjoying this rather rude joke at a party on Saturday, so as part of the language studies that my brother and I are doing, I translated it into my semi-bad Spanish:
Una vez Caperucita Roja estaba caminando por el bosque, para llevar una cesta de cosillas buenas a su abuela. Caminaba sola cuando un conejo se acercá³ a ella y le dijo: "Me temo para te, Roja. Hay un lobo en el bosque y él podráa intentar herir te."
I went out to eat at a fast food restaurant and felt a bit lonesome and bored afterwards. So I did something I do once in a while and headed over to the nearby casino to people watch.
As usual when I do this, I leave my purse and money in the car, taking in only myself, my keys and my phone and a small amount of cash in case I get hungry.
This link is to the blog of an acquaintance of mine, Mark Evanier, who writes the Groo comic book and the Garfield television show among many other things. Mark is a whiz at words and here he does a marvelous job of expressing part of what I mean when I say, give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
