On behalf of Mrs "Damned Rodan" Rainey and Mr author William Bill "Winter Fire" Trotter, partying with us, Happy farkin New Year! 

--M
http://home.triad.rr.com/smrainey

I don't believe I've ever plugged it here, but there's a blog called "Storytellers Unplugged," in which a different pro writer posts an essay each day out of the month. Contributors include Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Massie, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon, Thomas Sullivan, Richard Steinberg, and a host of other dark fiction authors. My slot is the 29th, and my current entry (posted a wee bit early), titled "Sam Lion's Trail," features a little mention of DS. It's just a reference in passing, but is personally meaningful.   Feel free to drop by.

www.storytellersunplugged.com

You know, it wasn't until I my "later" years that I even comprehended the fact of bloopers in DS. As a kid, when unexpected things happened in the show, my mind's eye more or less blocked them out. I know I never felt a moment's amusement when gravestones wobbled or lines drifted into the incomprehensible. If you've ever been in an old graveyard and bumped a gravestone, guess what. It wobbles. Of course, it rarely sets a whole row of graves, as well as the nearby trees moving. <G> And in real speech, people's points sometimes wander into weird territory. All those aspects of the show were just things to be taken in stride. In my youth, my focus was solely on the story and the people, and that's what's stuck with me over the years. Certainly, it's almost impossible -not- to find humor in the gaffes, but making those the main focus is, to me, an exercise in foolishness -- a mindset uncomfortably close to deriving of pleasure from others' misfortunes. I can do without it.

It gives me the Willies.

--Mark

As far as I know, Bob didn't initiate one this year. Alas, with all that's going on here, I couldn't have contributed to it, as I have for the past several years. Perhaps next year we can get one going again.

Our IT guys at the office:
"On Thurs. 12/22, the work server will be down from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m."

Translation:
"On Thur. 12/22, the work server will be down from 12:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and then intermittently on 12/23 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.  It will likely be very slow when you return from the Christmas holiday, and on 12/27, it will be down again from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. If you experience any difficulty after this date, we will have to take the server down again."

A keylogger is a little program that captures your keystrokes, particularly username and password information; when used as malware, it usually works in concert with a trojan to send the info back to parties who ought not possess it.

In my "unofficial" DS novel, The Labyrinth of Souls, I justified it this way:

"Collinwood was neither a warm nor a happy house. Its oppressive hulk had perched on Widows' Hill for two hundred years, jealously guarding its secrets like a depraved mother, and within its walls, light succumbed to shadow as if in fear of what it might illumine. The house had been patterned after a French chateau, with spacious wings designed to accommodate a prosperous and prolific family; yet, since the day of its completion, rarely had even one wing of the mansion been fully occupied. Had its builder envisioned the years of tragedy and heartache that would ensue for the endlessly troubled--some would say cursed--inhabitants of the house, he would have surely burned the plans for this grandest of his dreams before construction even began."

I can confirm that it absolutely does not; perhaps the reviewer got the super-secret special edition that nobody else can purchase.



--M