Time for another release and its coming to you from the Nevada deserts. Is what happens in Vegas going to stay in Vegas? Or are things going to get messy out here? Let's find out with this fifth part of Bek D. Corbin's six part "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!" Enjoy! Comment!
I did some shopping last week on Amazon... and, as usual, they prefer to split things up in lots of different shipments for efficiency sake (?) and as a result, my stuff arrived this weekend in five separate shipments. Or... was supposed to. You see, four of those shipments came in on time or ahead even. That's my usual experience with Amazon and their shipping services. They're usually very much on the ball... and I will occasionally decline my special 2 day Prime shipping because it gets me added benefits or credit (I've gotten 50-100 dollars worth of mp3 credit this year as a result of declining two day shipping... but still got my stuff in the same amount of time. But Saturday, UPS sent me email that I wasn't available to receive my package and that it would be re-attempted at 6:00 pm Monday (or end of day). Considering my building has a locked gate, I give them a little leeway... but ALL four of the other packages ended up on my doorstep. This UPS one... I get an email. This is more ironic when you consider that my computer desk sits next to my open front window, which is 20 feet from said locked gate. Even a good rattle on that thing usually gets my attention.
So this afternoon, I went out and propped the gate open. We don't like to do it, its not the best neighborhood, but as long as one of the residents is nearby its ok. I also was preparing a little sign for the gate noting that if it got pulled shut for some reason, to call me on my cell #. And then I checked my email and saw that they had already attempted delivery earlier in the day. I was here, mind, but hadn't yet done anything to get the gate open for them. Because they didn't come when they said they would. So now... I have to wait until they deliver to some sort of access point. The point they told me to go to to pick it up is a small shop that closes at 6 pm and its over on the other side of the capital... about a mile over pick up a large box of stuff and then back a mile. The whole point for ordering this stuff on Amazon was so I would have it on Saturday and not have to haul it around town myself by going to the store for it.
So... I'm a little pissed off at UPS. The irony is... the reason they won't leave the box is because they can't get it to my doorstep where it will be secure. And yet... they can't get past the gate. So... drop it inside the fence... it should be secure, right? Complete lack of common sense and clue with these people.
My little craziness aside... for today's enjoyment we're going to bring out the final part (five) of Morpheus' "The Absinthe of Malice" ... Enjoy! Comment!
Today's new content is the fourth part in Bek D. Corbin's Loose Cannons story "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!" Enjoy the madness. :)
For those of you participating in Food betting and guessing what comes next, add Friday to your list this week... we WILL have a second release for you this week.
I'd like to point out that we are now a faster running ad-free site. Well, mostly ad-free. We're free from Google's random tracking info ads anyway. Along with removing the ads, I've also returned the Google censored stories to their original spots in the collection. I'm working on the other improvements on the promise list... https is coming along but annoyingly complicated for something that we supposedly want every site to go to.
We DO have two contributors up at the sponsor/advertiser level (100-150 a month range). One of these has declined any special mention. The second is contributing enough to merit a graphic advertisement on these weekly news posts and in our sponsors page. But I haven't heard from them yet... so I'm just going to keep track of the time for the moment and make it available to them when they have a banner that they'd like to post. The sponsor page IS up to date, if you'd like to acknowledge those who are contributing $10 or more a month. I will note that the total number of patrons is only 22. Considering the size of our community, especially the unregistered community, that's not very many... and I'd far rather see a large number of $2-10 / month contributors than a couple high numbers.
That taken care of... let's talk about new stories!
For today, we have part two of a little something from the overlapping mind of E.E. Nalley and Elrod; the second part of "Dague de L'esprit"
Sorry folks, really did plan to duck out of work for long enough today to get the story up and that completely did not happen. Another good example of 'best laid plans' ...
I''m going to avoid a work day rant that could go on a few more pages, though, and introduce the content that you should have had earlier in the day: Part 2 of Morpheus' new story "Nerves of Steel". Morpheus is already known for some of the best work we've got in the canon and I think this story is going to be a cherry even among those. Enjoy!
Halloween... or Samhain (pronounced sau-wehn or sow-en) is one of my favorite times of the year. Sure trick or treating and giving candy to kids is a fun tradition... one sadly spoiled by malicious people and adults who are disapproving of anyone wanting to have fun. It's also a bit skewed by the recent direction of 'sexiness' and release of inhabitions that is the result of people wearing marks and potentially being 'unknown' to those around them. Even though, usually, they aren't.
For me, it's the one point of the year where even non-believers and completely rational scientists give over to the sense that magick and something unknown or impossible to prove purely with logic might exist in the world. That's worth being excited about.
And, of course, I work in an industry where people take costumes seriously. So when I go into work tomorrow, I fully expect most of my coworkers to be in costume... some of those costumes will be completely black so they can still do their backstage work unseen. And some of those costumes will be replaced temporarily by show costumes for performances to happen... but most everyone will have at leaast something.
Here on the site, we're about to do some changes...the Patreon campaign is moving along as as soon as the first monthly charges come in, I'll pull the advertisements off the site and re-organize the layout of the sidebars a little to balance them out. I'll also be doing some server upgrades... and one of the things I'm likely to spend the time on is the background software and set up... including getting us migrated to https ... and then finishing up the adjustments to make it easier to navigate the site.
For today, we've released the next part of Bek D. Corbin's Loose Cannons story "Vegas, Baby, Vegas" ... enjoy Part 3 and remember, there are still three more parts to come. And as advance notice, we WILL have a Friday release this week... but I'm not tellin' what it is. Those grumpy gamblers over in the Foodie Betting thread gave me grief over the last time I gave advance notice so I'm keeping my lips zipped.
Some of you may remember that we recently had to pull a couple stories out of the collection while we find a way to present them on the site in a section without ads as a result of Google Ads flagging us for content problems. While these ads do cover the cost of the site, especially when we're posting three content releases per week and getting the boost in traffic that brings... it would be good to not have to worry about automated bots telling us our 'off screen' sexy stuff is too traumatic for their advertisers to put up with. Since then, I've set up and tested with some of the forums crew the idea of switching to Patreon for donation support to cover site costs.
We very quickly reached a total that would replace the Google ads (although one patron may have set a 'one time donation' amount instead of realizing that Patreon works on monthly charges... if not, its a very generous monthly contribution). While I will certainly be happy to accept large contributions as well as small ones and have some simple rewards set up (recognition as a sponsor/advertiser on the site for the larger contributions), I would prefer the 'burden' spread over a larger number of people than the current ten supporters. Just a few dollars per month each for all you folks who stay logged in all the time and we could cover all the regular monthly charges AND put a little money in either upgrades or marketing each month.
If you haven't seen it yet, there's a button to the Patreon contribution page over in the left side-bar, right beneath the menu. On a tablet or mobile screen, that is right between the second menu set and the first Google Ad. For now anyway... I still need the ads to cover costs for this month's charges. Once Patreon draws donations from everyone at the beginning of November, I'll shut down the ad feeds. It is important to note (and I do on the Patreon page, but I'll repeat it here): This support is entirely for the site, operating costs, maintenance, licensing, upgrades, marketing, and any extra will compensate Kristin for work hours put into it. I'm happy to keep an accounting of the time, but I've easily put in hundreds of hours that I've not seen any gain from... and have contributed money into keeping things running personally on a number of occasions when the ads were not covering costs. Of course, if things grow to the point where contributions can hire me full time; we'll have to work out some details like that. In the meantime, understand that these contributions do not pay for or account for ownership of the content or authors. Nor does it offer any authority or control over the release of content or operational choices for the site. I WILL continue to take feedback from the community, as usual, and from the cabal to make informed decisions that will benefit the whole community (or as much as possible).
If you haven't, and want to support the site, please find and use that shiny orange Patreon button. And when we get into November, enjoy the ad-free site.
And now, for today's content announcement:
From the mind and muse of Bek D. Corbin: a group of kids, manifested as mutants, experimented on, and now on the run from nefarious organizations, the government, the mob, the police, their parents, the military, Atlantean spirits, Elder Gods, a wandering Shinto monk, four mutated turtles... ok, they're not really on the run from ALL of those things. But they ARE Loose Cannons ... and this is Part 2 of 6 in "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!"
For Friday (yes, there will be a Friday update this week), we'll bring you a little something from Morpheus called "Nerves of Steel".
Hey, had a little time off this evening. Thought I'd do some site maintenance... maybe update a couple modules that have new patches out. Do some reviews for canon authors and generally relax and enjoy not heading towards a work deadline with only half my schedule working right because someone else's stuff didn't get done in time and pushed mine back.
In other words, I was actually going to have a drink and chill for the evening.
And then in the second piece of maintenance I did... the site crashed hard. Fortunately, the FIRST piece of maintenance I did was a backup. But still... six hours down the tubes with little to show for it except that I now know that I have valid site backups and the ability to restore from them. Which I suppose is 'something' ... but way more stressful than I intended this evening to be.
So...
Fraaaaaack!
Ok. Site restored and there were still glitches. The stories 'unbound' themselves and were scurrying around the admin side of the site in their frilly undergarments. Which might have been worth spending the time watching, but it meant that every part of the site where there is a story, a news article, or just an 'empty' page that was created using the CMS... was showing errors. Also, every other page load was timing out. The forums had a whole category that walked off set for a pee break right before its opening monologue. And the menus were sending me to all the wrong places. Which reminded me of some 80's movies and music for some reason....
I ... THINK ... that I've got the glitches cleaned back up. The stories back in their dresses and properly tied or handcuffed to their bedposts. And everything else pointing in completely mundane geometric directions. Nothing non-Euclidean here but the mythos scenes.
I'm going to keep an eye on things for another hour or two tonight... before calling it good. Let me know if you see anything wonky and I'll try to get it solved ASAP.
Thanks!
Hey folks, I know that between Puerto Rico, the NFL, and now the terrible tragedy in Vegas that it is going to be difficult to avoid chatting about current events without at least touching on political issues. That's going to be even trickier given the title and setting of today's release. I don't want to counter that by saying "no politics!" because that really isn't the solution. Truthfully, the condition of our society right now means that political diversity and conflict is on our minds a lot. And 'not talking about it' is actually the worst way to work towards resolving it.
However, if you ARE going to talk about politics; take responsibility for your part of the conversation. Honestly acknowledge that the answer isn't going to be found in the extremes... its going to be uncovered through compromise and understanding that parts of the issue that concern everyone. And working on those... while avoiding stomping on the parts of the issue that we cannot agree on may be enough. If our conversations prioritize working towards solutions instead of on standing on a point of ideology, we can resolve any problem.
If I see people being automatically dismissive of someone's ideas or beliefs, I WILL shut down the thread. If you want us to give you ANY respect and leeway to speak YOUR mind and offer your thoughts; you WILL also grant the same courtesy to contrasting views. If not, the only view that will be expressed here will be that of the moderator closing the thread.
That bit of reminder out of the way...
Today we have the very long awaited and hoped for continuation of the Loose Cannons saga... from Bek D. Corbin: "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!"... here is Part 1... of 6.
If you are interested in assisting us with early draft reading, continuity issues, and general feedback support (check the previous news notice or the forums for more details); please contact DanZilla or I shortly (in the next several days) if you have not already. We'll be getting in touch with everyone who has shown interest about setting up a meeting to talk about things in more detail and how we'll go about selecting who we're going to go with... probably sometime next week.
This week's content, if you haven't already found it... is over in the Second Generation stories, by Elrod: "The Hand You're Dealt" Enjoy!
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