Hard to believe it is December already, time's been flying by recently. I don't know if I mentioned that I was excited about having an assistant hired for much of this year and the easier work load that was going to come from that. Unfortunately, my extremely savvy assistant was savvy enough to be working with the company that does the sound for the Universal Studios Halloween event... which meant she was being paid lots more money than we could pay her for the first couple months of our season. So we knew she wasn't coming in until November-ish. I worked out my schedule to make that work... and have been looking forward to having her here for the months that are the most work... when we're going musicals with body mics and lots of overlapping events.

A couple weeks back, she let me know she'd been offered a gig in China. The money would be good enough that that alone would be appealing... after al, my boss doesn't even pay ME what a sound engineer with our qualifications should be making, let alone what he'd offered her as the 'assistant'. But on top of that... well... China. So... no assistant. for a couple more months. And more than likely, this job in China will spin off other jobs (as such things often do). So... I don't think I'm getting my assistant this season. On the bright side, my boss DID budget for her being here... if I can make due without and convince him to apply that part of the budget to the equipment that we need ... it would accomplish some of the same purpose. 

In the meantime... anyone know where I can get a good deal on some wireless ClearCom or Telex intercom gear? The stuff we currently share with Music Circus/California Musical Theatre is more than 15 years old and is predominently in the 600 MHz band that the FCC sold off this year. I need at least two 2-channel systems (where system is 1 basestation that can tie into a wired ClearCom station and have two belt packs and two headsets). We currently have/use two 4-channel systems, but I don't ever need more than two wireless at a time in one of the spaces, and the other space only needs more than that for one production per season. We would buy used as long as everything is in good working condition and nothing is in unusable frequency bands.

 

Enough about my other work... for today, we have something a little off the beaten path... and thus, will be going into the Library Collection (So you'll see it at the top of the Newest NON-CANON Story list - it's in the Library-Misc section, if you're looking specifically for it). This is a piece from Nagrij called "Haunted"   Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

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! 

 

 

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"

 

 

 

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.

 

  

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!