[Hereford Eye]

At this time of year, honesty is the best policy as I've heard it rumored that someone is keeping a list. Just admit the Saint of the Northwest could not bear to part with them, they make for such ladylike doses of martini.

[alison]

Hi Kevin - the prodigal daughter returns, looking for the fatted calf (what, no fatted calf?! I cross my eyes in consternation...) I see you've been busy... fairies now? Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a great Christmas and here's to a brilliant 2008. If we could kick out our government, hey, you can do the same over there!

[Radthorne]

Thank you, my dear; and the same to you as well. I have missed your graceful presence dancing lightly through the threads. Perhaps, if 2008 proves less of a whirlwind for you, we might have the good fortune to chat with you more often - your commentary is always most welcome here. And yes, could you please come on over here and kick our government out for us? 'Cause we got another year of this one to have to muddle through with...

(Hmm, fatted calf... I could swear I had one around here somewhere... Wait, how about [MEEEOOWWWW!] Oh, sorry, that was the cat, not the calf...)

[alison]

Kevin, put that cat down! Slowly...slowly... Now, here's a clever book about quadrupeds...

I miss sffworld when I can't get here. But my interest in theatre has eaten up a lot of time this year. I rather enjoy being a cultural pundit, but I have to say it's cmpletely consuming. And for the moment, it's far too enjoyable to stop. But I think it will help a lot not having a novel to finish! Though maybe I'll start another one. Novels are like that, aren't they?

But I must say that I've sworn never to write another series. Ohmigod, they're so exhausting. It's nice short chapters and stand alones for me from now on. I've learned my lesson. :D

[KatG]

Yay, she's back! Have you been to visit your flock in your forum?

I will also be away and out of electronic conduct for the holiday week. But I left lots of long posts for you to read, Alison. (Warning: don't go in the embarassing/awful cover art thread.)

[alison]

Hi KatG - I've been catching up on your words of wisdom. Enjoy your holiday! Yes, I've dipped my toe in at the forum, they all seem to be behaving themselves. Thankfully. Now of course I'll have to go look at that other thread... :p

[KatG]

Things I Have Noticed -- I do not like the taste of sucralose. I tried to buy yogurt the other day. Most of the regular yogurts are now using cream, which is not a workable food item for me. The low-fat and no-fat yogurts used to offer either sugar or asparteme. I avoid the latter and so ate the ones with sugar. Now they've gotten rid of all the sugar and substituted sucralose, the new sweetner that is constituted from sugar molecules. But it doesn't taste like sugar. It tastes like a chemical and it's bitter. It makes the yogurt taste yucky.

Then I came home and found out Heath Ledger had died. Plus, we lost Suzanne Pleshette. Not a great week out there in Hollywood land.

Kevin is still trapped in the thickets of computer disk failure, flailing valiantly with his sword of rebooting.

[Radthorne]

Kevin is still trapped in the thickets of computer disk failure, flailing valiantly with his sword of rebooting.

And having a devil of a time with it, I might add. My plan to buy new hard drives for my primary PC foundered when I installed said drives and could not get Windows to load on them - it just hung up. After doing some checking, it appeared likely that my motherboard may have died (in addition to the original drive dying - it just wanted to be really, really complete about this). (I'm dead, Jim!)

Some of you may recall my mentioning some months back that I had assembled a complete back up PC, since most of the key parts were by now cheap enough to do so. Didn't think I would have to need it, but lo and behold... Unfortunately, while that PC is now working, my graphics software on it is not, at least not yet. So I'm still flailing my sword on that particular problem. Once resolved, my priority is to get some of the existing pictures prepped for Norwescon in April, since it's the biggest con up here of the year and I really want to show my latest stuff. So new pix from me may be delayed for some while yet.

I'm still pondering long term solutions, since I don't think this back up PC is going to cut it. I think overheating was the problem with the primary box, and given that it was a huge case with a bazillion (noisy) fans, and the backup box is just a little eensy-weensy box with one fan, methinks this is not something to bet the farm on (I'm running it now with the side of the case off to make sure it stays cool). It all seemed like a good idea at the time, and having this backup box is certainly better than nothing at all in the short term, but... I think I'll be buying a new box here soon. Something pre-built (I've had enough fun now building my own, thank you very much), from a specialty PC maker in Oregon. With in-house (not outsourced) tech support. :) Said box will be (as usually happens when you upgrade) significantly faster than the old box, allowing for greater productivity.

More news as it develops. And watch out for that enhanced and improved yogurt... :p

[Dazzlinkat]

Put bigger vent holes in the case for the fans to draw air from :p

Good luck fighting the compu-hydra!

As for yogurt, I never really liked it and now I have even less reason to.

[Radthorne]

Under the heading of "Why One Has to be Cautious When in the Public Sphere" comes this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/arts/television/26mass.html) in the New York Times. The gist of it is that a woman appeared on Fox bashing a very popular video game, one that she had never actually seen, passing judgment on it based on hearsay. The gaming community was apparently quite incensed, and as the woman was a book author, the following ended up happening, according to the article:

"Irate gamers have flooded the page on Amazon.com selling Ms. Lawrence’s most recent book, “The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace With Your Inner Overachiever,” sending its user-generated rating into oblivion.

By Friday afternoon 412 of the book’s 472 user reviews were the lowest possible rating, one star. Another 48 ratings were for two stars. Only 12 of the ratings were for three stars or higher. In addition, 929 Amazon users had tagged the book with the keyword “ignorant.” Tied for second place with 744 tags were “garbage” and “hypocrisy,” while “hack” and “hypocrite” tied for fourth place with 710 votes. Gamers have also attacked the book on the Barnes & Noble Web site."

Now this is fairly blatant and Amazon may very well clean all that out. However, it underscores the fact that once you have a book out there, all it takes is someone with a grudge to start wreaking havoc with reviews on such sites that can cause you grief. I know of one other instance, a local POD author who apparently irritated someone on a message board; that individual then created multiple user profiles on Amazon and trashed the guy's book repeatedly in much the same way as was done in this gaming example. On a smaller scale like that, it was very hard to get Amazon's attention to fix it; and in the meantime the author was left with a boatload of fake bad reviews to contend with.

I am by nature not a contentious person, which is one reason my threads here tend to be less contentious than the average "discussion" at SFFWorld, which is in itself a less contentious meeting place than many on the 'net. But examples such as the gaming one are another reason I avoid unnecessary conflict. Out there in Internet land you never know who you're going to come across or what attitudes they might have. And if you're the purveyor of a product, be it as an author or something else you create, it can be detrimental to your success if you set one of those loose cannons off...