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Site Down

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For anyone who was wondering, the site was down for eight hours today due to network problems at my ISP. Then, after they fixed the network problems it took them two hours to figure out they hadn't turned my server back on! SHEESH! It's all back and fluffy now, though.

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The Black Dog revisited sort of...

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To pout or not to pout or narcissists unite or is that nutters or something..

Last week after a slightly hurtful comment exchange, which normally would not cause more than a ripple, if perhaps a little sulkiness on my part, I 'said' I was leaving.

Who cares? you may ask. Well maybe a few. Was this the response of an attention seeking, petulant drama queen? Or did the real world conspire in a dastardly manner to smack me about a bit, just for the hell of it?

Depends how cynical you are I guess.

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Be brave little one

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Laura Michaels (6/18/2006 8:14:24 AM): Hiw are you dong ?
Laura Michaels (6/18/2006 8:16:12 AM): Ooops _ How are you doing girl ?
Laura Michaels (6/18/2006 9:21:33 AM): I hope to chat soon - would love to explore the possibilty of us meeting ?

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Care and feeding of writers and critics

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Another writer has left the fold. Why does this happen here every so often? Look around. This site has got to be the kindest and gentlest of writing sites. It is more of a community than any other. Of course that is the reason that it happens here; people’s emotions get spread to everyone. I mean, leave FM in a huff and who would notice? Other sites seem to be very much about one person. (Yea again, Erin. How do you make all of us feel so welcome and a part of this?)

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Unification

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Currently working on coding a massive unification of BigCloset Classic and BigCloset TopShelf with new software. Besides lots of personal stuff, this is why there have been no cartoons or stories from me lately. Hope to have good news this month. :)

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Chrissie

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Hey everyone, I just want you all to know that when I started writing Chrissie in 2002, I had hopes that someday it would be published. Chrissie - The Pre-Teen Years, will be published by Xlibris Press sometime this year.

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Google Searches Find Nothing

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I was attempting to use the BigCloset TopShelf option on the Google search bar at the top of the home page, and was unable to get any results no matter what I typed in.

(Started out with "Diane" -- I was trying to find  the  chapter of Rhod's  Trip to America where Sandy implies that Diane Biggs is TG.   When that didn't work I typed in major character names from various front page stories (Rhod, Mfanwy, Jones, Jerry, Karen, Becca, Rita, Davy, David, Matt, Kitty), common story words (wig, dress, hair, girl), even story titles (Constant, Bagwell, Tuck).   Every single one said that no document could be found that matched my request.)

This Is So Wrong!

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I just found the following news story on Yahoo:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals. The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

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It's all stuck inside

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It's been bugging me for a while, but I just can't seem to get things into writing lately. In fact it's taken me over a month just to get this little ramble into writing. I wanted to be nice and let all the readers of Their Worst Nightmare - My Dream Come True know why I haven't posted part 3 yet, well it is all ready and complete and looks great; the problem is it's all in my head and I can't get it out! AAAAAAHHHH!!

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Gallery and Amazon Premium sites on Qnez4u.com Down

Update May 27 - The qnez4u server is up again. The Gallery looks to be intact. I'm not certain what the exact cause is/was but the logs show a possible hard drive problem. I've made a backup of the Gallery so we haven't lost anything and moved a copy of the backup file to one of Erin's other servers.

Bob Arnold

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Names...

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What names do people use and why?

Thinking about names that I have seen in TG fiction for the characters that are changed or changing, if the story is aimed as being real to life the name can be anything. But and this is what gets to me in any other form the names largely seem to be boys names that are feminized, so Terry becomes Terri, Nick becomes Niki. Is this a reflection on reality? Personally if and when I ever make the journey I will drop my bith names though I may well keep the initials.

The Taken, Nathan's Story chapter 4

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Sorry for the long break. It won't happen again. :-)

Also a delay while I figured a way to produce HTML this site would be happy with. The French dialogue in the text is enclosed in cite tags like this and is 'dubbed' into English, there being no way to satisfactorily do the subtitling effect.

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Looking for an Editor.

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Looking for a new editor for my TG work.

The person must be willing to wade through my meandering rubbish and understand the Queens English.*smile*

It would be for one novel only as I'm planning to leave the genre - it will be my farewell piece, my final wave from the stage, so to speak.

Explicit thoughts (G rated)

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In Erin's thread about use of tenses, the writing of explicit thoughts (expressing what a character is thinking at a specific moment in a story) came up.

I'd like to advocate a specific style for indicating that text in a story represents explicit thought. I think I first saw this used in some of Bek Corbin's stories, but Angela and I used it in "Peaches," and I've convinced Itinerant and a couple others to use it.

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Was and Were

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They're not just used in passive constructions but also to indicate continuing actions and states of being. In most uses, they tend to distance the reader from the action. Sometimes you want that effect for the purposes of the narrative. Consider these constructions:

Off to Mom's

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I'm off to spend the night with Mom and fix her breakfast in the morning. :)

I'm feeling hugely better after sleeping a great large amount, thanks to everyone who inquired.

I've got some catchup tasks to do on the site and there may be a couple of MAJOR changes in the planning ahead.

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Sick

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I've been sick the last three days and it's worse today. Aches and pains and an incredible lethargy. I've slept about 24 hours of the last 48 and I'm still tired.

I'm having weird dreams, too. In fact, I've dreamed a very nice long-term plot for IWaTACL, if I can draw some of the characters. :) The Alley Oop musical I dreamed is right out though. :)

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Curious About Politics

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Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason. ~ Author Unknown

For the record, I’m a fiscal conservative and a social program liberal. I voted for Bush in ‘00, but only because I despised Clinton for his China Treaty, his shell game don’t ask/don’t tell, his education policy, and his lack of ethics.

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Help finding a story

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Help!   I'm trying to find a story I read awhile back.   The problem is,  I can't remember the author, title, or the character's name.   The story tells of a young man that moves to Arizonia (I believe) with his parents.   The movers inadvertently throw away his clothes, but do ship his sister's (She no longer lives with them).   He works on the school paper staff, and also the Drama Group, where he is seen as a  female, due to circumstances I won't bother to go into.   One thing leads to another, of course!

Exploring the World of Bobby's Rainy Day Adventure

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Have you ever wanted to visit the world of Bobby's Rainy Day Adventure? Ask someone a question? Then join me in this experimental journey.

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I Was a Teen-age Cheerleader - delayed

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Well, I've got one page of IWaTaCl done but I'm not completely happy. Specifically, I'm not happy with my inking. I may hold this episode till next weekend, if I do, I intend to post two pages then. But I just might post it sometime in the middle of the week if I'm suddenly happy with it. Thanks for the patience, story art is harder than gag art.

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Community

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This one is from me. I don't know if Angel is coming here to look, I've communicated with her by email and with Jill but who knows.

Angel has apparently deleted all of her stories except A Life Ever Changing which she says she regards as belonging to BigCloset. I thought all of the writers, editors, commenters and readers belonged to BC in exactly the same way that BC belongs to them. And in a much more important way than it belongs to me.

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Captioning Images and Other Stuff

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I've had some questions about it so this is a few brief notes on how I've been processing images. I hope it will be useful for anyone who wants to caption images or do photo stories but has never tried anything of the sort before.

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Alistair 2 Zook -3- Off His Rock -AND- Should I try a TG Webcomic? Ideas?

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I've managed to do three A2Z's now, the latest being Off His Rock. I'm beginning to get the hang of this tablet and mechanics.

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Alistair 2 Zook

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For those that remember me mentioning this earlier--my roommate Griff and I developed a webcomic together called, "Alistair 2 Zook". Griff is now in the middle of getting degrees in sociology and no longer has time to do any cartooning. So, I took a try at it.

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Server Problems

Our new server seems to have had some problems, it's been up and down several times today. The techs at the ol' server farm suspect a bad power strip, so they moved it across the bay and replugged it in. Hopefully this will solve the problem. Eh-yup.

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Do not Bookmark this site!

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While the numeric address is up there, do not bookmark this site. It probably wouldn't work later if you did. Things should be entirely resolved sometime tonight or tomorrow. We've done all we can today, we're just waiting for new addresses to propagate through the web. ;)

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New Server

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I just rented a new server and in order to get the best price I could, I paid for a year upfront. That's $2126, quite a hit on my credit card, about $190/month, amortized with interest. Next year it will drop to $1776, equal to about $148/month and I intend to pay cash.

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Disappointment: I Must Withdraw My Story

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I regret that I must remove my story "The Dalek Invasion of Bikini Beach." Elrod W. has declined permission.
I respect Elrod W.'s rights as the creator of Bikini Beach, so please do not give him any grief about it.

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TG Stories (Lament)

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I will take a few minutes each week to peruse the writings on the various TG Storyboards. I often find myself disappointed with the lack of quality in the writing. After trying to ensure myself that it is not just a disappointment with the type of story they are writing...(for example, I am not into BDSM or forced fem)...but I still see plain, poor writing. Mispelled words, bad sentences, choppy writing that gets in the way of the story.

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I love Big Closet, but....

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I love Big Closet and I visit just about every day. However, I find the layout of the site very confusing. I wanted to comment on a story and even though I am logged into the site, I can not comment. I figured that I need to have permission from the administrator before being allowed to post comments, but there isn't even a link that I can find to email the administrator.

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Site Changes

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First, anonymous comments have been turned back on but with a spam filter now. This also means that if anyone accidentally posts the exact same comment twice, it will be marked as spam and not appear until I can look at it. You'll get a heads-up notice on screen and I'll get an email to take a look if this happens. Also, comments that contain a LOT of URLs will be marked as spam until I look at them.

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Hey everyone, I'm back

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Hey everyone, I really am sorry that I have been gone for like forever from the site, but my health did take a turn for the worse. I'll start at the beginning for those who do not know me.

On November 1, 2001, I had a major, non-crippling stroke, caused by high blood pressure and a few other health factors. From that time I was placed on home rest, and not permitted to go to work. My doctor, in 2004, was going to give me a stress test to see if I could go back to work.

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BigCloset-Stardust Chat

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From time to time during the day and evening, I check the chatrooms to see if anyone is there. If you want to meet me there, send me a private message. :) I seldom go more than three hours between checking things like PMs and the chatroom so it's good to plan ahead but it should be workable.

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The Editorial Whee!

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I'm recovering from a viral pneumonia, so perhaps I can blame this on the fever I endured.

Too many of you have heard/read my exhortations on homophones and the fact that Word's spell checker won't pick up on homophone errors. I just happened across this little gem, which illustrates the problem perfectly.

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BigCloset - Stardust Chat

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Anonymous Comments Off!

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Anonymous comments have again been turned off due to spam. Sorry, but we've gotten nearly two hundred spam comments today and it takes time to delete each and every one. I'll be working on ways to block the spam while still allowing anonymous comments. Click [Annonymous Comments Off]:read more to see how to leave comments without creating a BC account.

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Story Entries

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My story [The House on Sackett Street] was first written in 1991. It was posted on many sites under my previous pen name of Marcia Stephens. I modified it slightly and republished it the past couple of years. I really like the story and have gotten some very nice comments from friends about it. I have toyed with the idea of expanding this story with additional chapters, both before and after the wedding. I would enjoy hearing what you think about that.

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Disappearing Stories

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While posting the continuing chapters for "Sara's Magic Crayons SRU", I have noticed that the previously posted chapters are disappearing from the Front Page.   I've scrolled through the various pages and cannot find them.   When I enter the "edit" mode for the missing chapters from the Author's Page, I find that the "Publish to the Front Page" option has been unchecked.   Since there is no accessible audit trail with this software, I'm not aware of who is doing this.

Read counts

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Just a little curious, yesterday morning when I logged in the read counts were visible. Yesterday afternoon and all day today they have been gone. I haven't made any changes to any settings so I was curious as to where they went or if anyone else was missing them.

Site differences

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Hey guys. Just posted my first little tale here; if you get a chance.
The reason for this entry is a thought that has been spinning around my tiny mind for a little while. I notice many of you wander around several sites and comment or post a discussion topic from time to time. The main 3 I peruse are FM, Saphire and now here.

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Meaning of words cause confusion

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Even though Britain and America both speak the same language, the different usage of words can sometimes cause confusion. One that came to my attention this week is the word jumper.

In UK English, a jumper is a sweater. A thick garment that is worn to keep the body warm. In American English, a jumper is a pinafore dress. A dress without sleeves and collar that is worn over a top or blouse.

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Google Search

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The newly added Google search capability does not yet work well for BigClosetR.us or QnEZ4U.com domains because they have not been spidered. It will work later but it does work fairly well for ateros.com, the domain where the classic and original BigCloset domains still reside. This is a test, it is only a test, if it turns out to be worthless or worse it will be discontunued. :)

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Wonderfully wacky way with words

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This is from Everybody's Scrapbook of Curious Facts, compiled by one Don Lemon and published well over 100 years ago. The author is unknown and the story line alas is not beyond criticism although it could be read as an early manifestation of feminism!

I came across it in a newspaper article by a Robert Richardson many years ago. He remarked that it may lack Maupassant's humanity and Maugham's style, but it is a story in a class of its own.

I think it is quite remarkable and should be known to a wider audience. Judge for yourself. I was reminded of it on reading the alliteration in Jezzi's sparkling 'Bimbo Bread'

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