And remember, this is Spring Ahead night in the US and CA switches from Pacific Standard to Pacific Daylight Savings Time at 2 a.m. Sunday morning.

See you there.

Hugs,
Erin

Well, it's becoming more and more obvious that we need to upgrade to Drupal 6. We've got several Drupal 6 sites now running, Stardust is on 6. So, it's time to upgrade TopShelf.

We're going to do a dummy version first, probably this week and then later, in a week or a month when we're convinced it's going to work, take BCTS down while we do the conversion on live data.

Here's a link to the latest update of the nominations list: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/25855/bc-v1-nominations-t...

It can't make up its mind. First it rains hard enough to scare the dog with the rattle of big drops against the windows and roof then we have ten minutes of big wet flakes falling in stillness, then the sky whistles and chuffs and it rains again, drops as big cashews, twisted by the wind.

Here's the idea, a trade paperback of around 300-320 pages featuring some of the best stuff that has appeared on BigCloset over the last eleven years and perhaps some new stuff, too. The book would be 6x9 inches, more or less, and retail for $15. That's around 100,000 words, btw. The book would be available to be ordered here on BC, through Amazon and possibly through other channels. There might be an electronic edition which would probably be sold for $10. And we might put the electronic edition into the Hatbox for contributors.

A few minutes ago, Cuddles killed her toy Skunkie that I got her for Christmas. Skunkie had been on life support since Cuddles bit the squeaker out of the tail on Sunday. Now, both of the squeakers are broken and pulled out of the plush. It's the nature of dogs to kill the toys they love the best fastest. She's never killed a toy quite so quickly before, just 6 days; it usually takes more like four to six months. But she had never loved a toy quite as much as she loved Skunkie.

Skunkie is dead. Long live Wheelie, the toy that squeaks AND rolls like a wheel!

We've got rain here. After two days of sunshine it's back to rain again. It's getting downright soggy. I don't live in any of the mudslide-threatened areas but there have been evacuations and road closings. Even one of the freeways was closed because of boulders loosened by the rain rolling down the mountainsides and into traffic.

We've only had SEVENTEEN stories posted today. What's the matter with you people? :)

For the past month, from November 16 to December 15, we've AVERAGED over 19.5 stories a day.

For the past week, we've averaged almost 17000 visitors a day! For the busiest five hours of the day, we're averaging about 1000 visitors an hour. Sometimes, there are as many as 390 people all visiting a page within the same five minute window!

No wonder the searches were bringing us down!

The site was out for about an hour due to an attack or just a clumsy bot hanging the site by trying to use the search. Search is off while we keep trying to figure out what was going on.

Hugs,
Erin

There are folk who are hungry,
But we have food.
There are folk who are cold and in danger,
But we are warm and safe.
There are folk who are alone,
But we have each other.
There are those who have sacrificed
Peace, comfort and joy
That we may have all of those things.
Let us be thankful then,
In memory of them.

Go to Stardust to see Bob's own words on this.

Hugs,
Erin

I had to make my morning fritatta with no eggs in the house this morning.

Too sick to talk about it.

- Erin

When writing fanfiction, like the current Comics Retcon Universe stuff, it's polite and considerate to acknowledge the current copyright and/or trademark holders, when known. Especially if using artwork or logos.

Just a line near the top or bottom of a story, or on the Title page is enough. And it isn't required here, it's just a nice thing to do for the original owners of the stuff.