How many people base stories on dreams they've had? I had an odd one last night, got up this morning and wrote it up. I've done very little to make it make more sense but it's posted over on http://Fictioneer.org.
Well, at least this time they are getting me out a dental appointment. Ax murderers behind the eyes and oozing body fluids at both ends are not a good time to go to the dentist, not to mention the choking and gagging fits. I'm going to take some pain pills and take a nap and maybe call to see my regular doctor this afternoon.
I'll be here, I'm just not firing on all cylinders.
Since there are so many comments I'll leave this message in place. As of about 3:30 PM EDT the power has been restored and all of the critical servers are back in operation. One of the general use systems that runs my lightning detection system is having problems but it isn't as critical as the other servers were.
Bob Arnold
Bob tells me that power is out due to lines brought down by winds in his area of central New York. May be back up today but more winds and storms expected, so it could be a while. Bob will remove this notice when the power comes back up. He's fine.
Pretty sick this evening with hayfever and what feels like an incipient sinus infection. Let's hope it's just hayfever. I've got finals this week and next starting Thursday, but they're playing four of my pieces in the composer's recital at college. I hope I'm not too sick to go.
In the future, I'd like to request that people who want to violate the rules of posting here, or annoy others for such transgressions, or anything that does not contribute to the peace and tranquility of what is essentially a library -- I'd like to request that all such disturbances, disagreements and denunciations take place while I'm here at my desk and not in bed, at dinner or in the bathroom.
If anyone sent emails, including ones with stories attached, any time during the last two or three months, please send them again. My email save file got corrupted and I've lost a bunch of emails and no way of knowing which ones I lost because I don't have them to count them.
I hate this sort of thing. My redundant backup turns out to be incomplete so that was no save.
Please, if you sent anything important to [email protected] in the last 90 days or so, send it again.
The server is up and is running a version of BC and it looks pretty good for moving the site tonight or tomorrow. The problem will again be propagating the domain so that bigclosetr.us/topshelf will take you to the right site. So, I'm going to set up a temporary URL that will take you to the new site if you can't reach it through the usual address.
The current server overloads are causing glitches that to some people look like a post has failed to "take", so people are hitting send again and double posting.
The new, new server arrives tomorrow. Bob and I are going to spend tomorrow conditioning it to go in place as the main server and hope to have it in place by a week from Saturday, or maybe the Saturday after that.
The highest day ever in terms of visitor and the second highest in terms of pages at 43,739. (We had one freak day last February with just over 50,000 page downloads because of several site reapers running at once).
But 13,658 visitors is more than twice the number of visitors on October 31, 2008. A few days later FictionMania went down and BC began a runaway traffic inflation. So fast that Bob and I have spent a lot of the last three and a half months trying to keep the server from crashing on a nearly daily basis.
Bob and I will be experimenting with a new server configuration (not with the current BC server) over the next few weeks. If things work out well, we expect to be able to increase BC speed and reliability to a noticeable degree. Wish us luck. :)
Links to a site called FictionMirror have been placed here but I have suspended their publication because the identified "advanced search" on the page brings up instead a series of pop-under ads for sports sites. I consider this technique a form of spam by deception.
This link is discussed in the WikiPedia article on FictionMania where it is implied but not stated that the FM TaskForce has approved FictionMirror. I would appreciate communication from some person knowledgeable about this but I will not pursue the information.
Sometime during the evening of January 31, 2009, TopShelf will register the five millionth visit in a period of three years, seven and one half months. Also, that day is likely to see BCTS to go over 1/3 million (333,333) visits for the month of January.
This comes from a suggestion on Crystal's Cyberboard about an indexable story link database. BC already allows for a link database but I can easily add a capacity for indexed and searchable specialized story links on BC. In fact, I just did. :) These story links would be for stories not stored on BC but on sites that allow such linkage and with author permissions for such linking.
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.