I've posted the epilogue for Writer's Noose. I was going to wait for tomorrow but since tonight is Halloween I have no idea if I'll even get a chance to turn the box on tomorrow. I took the easy way out, posting it now with tomorrow's time stamp.

Go enjoy and spread the word. It's a pretty decent Halloween Story after all. >:-)

Posted by: Jim at 02:26 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I think Chuck has said his final goodbyes over at Writer's Noose. It doesn't seem like the tale has ended but I don't think he's coming back from that walk in the woods.

Posted by: Jim at 11:26 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Come on, Jim! Bring him back with a new tale of horror...Halloween's not over for 12 more hours!

Posted by: Susie at October 31, 2003 12:12 PM (0+cMc)

2 Chuck has to die so that I may live. Fitting a short story into a blog was way more work than I thought it would be. It would have been easier if I'd prepared better but I didn't get the idea until it was too late and I wanted it to be finished for Halloween. But don't worry, Susie. Even if Chuck goes away, I'm sure BQ will stick around. Mwah hah hah hah hah!

Posted by: Jim at October 31, 2003 12:56 PM (IOwam)

3 So are you going to reveal your subterfuge over there to the unknowing, or just let them twist in the wind? As you well know, there are some folks who will think that this is something real, regardless of the fact that the last post is by a dead woman. Either way, I kinda figured on the Tyler Durden/Fight Club/mulitple-personality angle. Nicely done. Actually gave me the chills when BQ and Chuck were talking back and forth - and I was in on the joke! However, I don't really get the one comment made by "September '99". Was that you, or somebody else trying to make up their own parts of the story? Also, what's up with the intro to your original Lady of the Lake post on SBD? I kept waiting for Chuck to explain what was up with that 2-foot-tall fairy with the pirranha teeth, and it never came!

Posted by: Mike the Marine at October 31, 2003 01:13 PM (Zw7Hl)

4 I'll let 'em in on it tomorrow. My evil nature prevents me from letting them off the hook tonight. September 99 was somebody else. No idea what they were going for there but it added confusion so I left it. The original fairy idea was good but it fell apart when I was redeveloping the story for blog format. Originally it was going to end with that fairy being the cause of all of Chuck's problems but insane Chuck worked a lot better for the format.

Posted by: Jim at October 31, 2003 01:41 PM (IOwam)

5 Yeah man. But I still want a story with the fairy with big, sharp, pointy teeth! You pulled this off pretty damn well, I thought. It's hard to string people along for DAYS. All of the best known and biggest pranks (War of the Worlds, for example) are done as one-shot deals. You spool people up quickly, you get them almost believing you, and then you smack 'em over the forehead with just enough surreality to keep 'em guessing, while you run cackling into the night. YOU went the other way: keep people guessing for two weeks and then throw so much strangeness at them that in one sitting it would be dismissed, but now that they have that much time invested in it, and have grown to "know" Chuck, they WANT to believe. That's a much harder type of story-telling and I think you worked it out pretty good. BTW, if you want a decent scare in a really short space read this over at Quibbles N bits. Creepy, man.... http://www.quibbles-n-bits.com/archives/week_2003_10_26.html#001866

Posted by: Mike the Marine at October 31, 2003 02:13 PM (IOX+E)

6 There's a Part Two to J's story at Quibbles that just went up as well. Off to read it now.... http://www.quibbles-n-bits.com/archives/week_2003_10_26.html#001875

Posted by: Mike the Marine at October 31, 2003 02:17 PM (IOX+E)

7 I'll see what I can work up for a fairy tale. Thanks for the link!

Posted by: Jim at October 31, 2003 02:20 PM (IOwam)

8 Like i said in the comment to chuck, you are really good at that genre.....hope you write more.....

Posted by: kim at October 31, 2003 02:30 PM (n3RfQ)

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Sorry blogging has been so light lately. Blame all of the usual suspects. And blame Chuck too. Though I don't think he's in a mind to appreciate it after last night.

Posted by: Jim at 09:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've had a couple people interested in the collapsable lists that I use for my sidebar links so I've gone ahead and prepared some easy to use files that will help anybody to implement the same. These can also be used inside posts. Just right click on this link and save the zip file to your PC. Inside are 4 text files. Read the one called instruct.txt and it will guide you through setting up your blog to use collapsable lists.

Note that the instructions are tailored to an MT blog with the MuNu setup. I don't know how differently other blogs function but some tweaking may be necessary.

Also, credit where credit is due: This is a script implementation I got from Microsoft FrontPage.

UPDATE: As MojoMark reminded me in the comments, these collapsable lists will not work for Mozilla. At least not up to version 1.4. Future versions? Who knows. The good news is they fail in an uncollapsed format so the worst that will happen is that they show up expanded, even on Mozilla.

UPDATE2: Just encountered this helping Simon get his lists set up. When you create the outline.js script file you must also build it. After you save it there will be a "rebuild" link (or button) underneath the "body" field. Click on that.

Posted by: Jim at 08:05 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Cool, but can you advise on that site meter thing? I added the site meter code that I use on my main template to all of my archive templates, but now the total seems to be frozen, which does not compute, since some comments have been added. Help me, Jimbo-One-Kinobi! I need your help!

Posted by: Helen at October 30, 2003 09:43 AM (tdh2z)

2 If you want Sitemeter to track hits to comment pages too you'll need to add that code to the Comment Listing Template (under Miscellaneous Templates). You've also got to do a site rebuild for these changes. And make sure you're putting the code within the [body] tags. I think that's all. Ain't this stuff wunnerful fun?

Posted by: Jim at October 30, 2003 09:50 AM (IOwam)

3 Not to burst your bubble or anything, but the collapsable lists don't work in Mozilla 1.4. They simply show as unordered lists down the page....

Posted by: MojoMark at October 30, 2003 12:08 PM (E+LQu)

4 Jim, thanks for all your help. If Pixy is the Emperor, you are Darth Vader.

Posted by: Simon at October 30, 2003 08:13 PM (OyeEA)

5 Happy to help, Simon.

Posted by: Jim at October 31, 2003 08:15 AM (IOwam)

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Looks like Chuck's troll has forced a confrontation with some pretty sad results. Is Chuck's story over now?

Posted by: Jim at 12:42 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I'm not sure if he's falling apart or getting it together. At least he seems to have handled his troll, thanks to a suggestion from Susie.

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. He's got the scoop on a device that can greatly speed up your commute. At least until the next guy gets one.

Posted by: Jim at 09:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Is Jim actually blogging on the weekend? Heck no. It's a beautiful autumn morning that's promissing to evolve into a fantastic autumn day. I'm about to mobilize the troops for an invasion of Stone Mountain.

But you can catch a couple of quality posts over at Writer's Noose. Chuck had a wierd morning and he has his very own troll now. He also has a post on a very disturbing EULA development.

Go visit and say Hi.

How are y'all liking the story aspect of Chuck's site? Good mix of actual development and bloggish entries? Anybody actually following along? Lemme know.

Posted by: Jim at 09:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Looks like Hosting Matters is under attack again. What's this, the 3rd in 3 days?

Posted by: Jim at 02:15 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 yep, they're reporting as such on their forum - apparently, the latest is that they are changing IP addresses.

Posted by: djspicerack at October 21, 2003 03:27 PM (vQ8Zv)

2 The only upside is that it keeps me away from the computer. Sort of.

Posted by: Anna at October 21, 2003 04:38 PM (Bzc/g)

3 DDOS attacks are SO MUCH FUN. NOT. The good news is that I'm in good company.

Posted by: margi at October 21, 2003 05:59 PM (4jrV0)

4 Well all y'all HMers are always welcome here when your home port is being bombarded. Consider this your home away from home.

Posted by: Jim at October 21, 2003 06:13 PM (fkewd)

5 I'm pretty dang certain to be safe over at BlogStudio. I think there's about 7 of us using the service. Sometimes lousy connections but never any DOS problems!

Posted by: Nate at October 21, 2003 07:24 PM (KJQ0B)

6 Yeah, I don't think they'll be hitting up journalspace anytime soon either. Not that there's anything defensible about being on journalspace, but sometimes it's nice to fly under the radar of these clowns.

Posted by: ilyka at October 23, 2003 05:00 AM (aN4WZ)

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It's finished but it won't be posted here. I was about to post part 2 when I had an idea. A perfectly wonderful, awful idea. Don't be saddened by my grinchy nature for in about a week my heart will grow three sizes and I'll let y'all know where to find it.

Posted by: Jim at 08:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I am continuously amazed by the things people search for that get my blog as a match. Let's take a look: more...

Posted by: Jim at 09:29 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I made a blogchange that you might like. The website links in the sidebar are now in collapsable/expandable lists instead of that long-ass string of links. Yeah, I know the category color is too light. I'll work on that later. It was all about functionality so far.

UPDATE: Got the formatting fixed on the collapsable link lists. How do y'all like this? Good? Bad? Ugly? "Oh my Lord I cannot believe I have lived this long without collapsable lists!"? Lemme know.

Posted by: Jim at 09:55 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Strange stuff, me blogging on a Sunday. Lovely Wife is still abed, children #1 and #2 are quietly watching Rugrats and child #3 is still quiet upstairs in his crib. The planets have aligned to give me the very rarest of opportunities - weekend blog time.

So what have I done with this most precious of commodities? I've frittered it away on template work. I'm about 50% of the way towards what I can live with. Links have been brought over and a good portion of the formatting/color is fixed. 2 problems I could use some help with:

1) What code do I use to put in a sidebar item for archive post categories?

2) See that rude little teal section above the sidebar where the body color shows thru? I can't figure out where the heck that is coming from. As far as I can determine, my elements should be covering up all of the real estate there. Anybody care to take a peek and see where I screwed up? As a special incentive, I'll let you disparage my sitebuilding skills if you can identify the problem. How can you pass up that offer?

The DNS hasn't propogated yet but it should happen soon. When it does I'll be closing down the old place and officially start advertising this one. Probably will be tomorrow morning as I hear #3 bumping around upstairs now so I expect my blogging window is about to slam shut on my quickly retracting fingers.

Posted by: Jim at 08:27 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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To Blog*Spot that is. Snooze Button Dreams has left the land of server outtages, messed up archives and broken dreams links.

A very HUGE thank you to Pixy Misa who has deigned to host my poor self and welcomed me to the Munuvanian community. You are the man, Andrew.

Thanks also to Margi for convincing me it was worth it to get off of Blog*Spot and that it was easier than I feared. It was even easier than that, Margi! Andrew did everything. Hehe.

The old posts will be coming over sometime soon (as soon as I get the stuff that Andrew needs) and I'll monkey with the template when I get some time. Otherwise, please bear with me as I make the change to Moveable Type.

Posted by: Jim at 12:10 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Yes, despite my very best intentions this will be a Crappy Post Day (tm). For those of you who have arrived since the last Crappy Post Day, that simply means that the posts you'll find today will pretty much blow chunks of partially digested gastronomica be pundity instead of the individually and lovingly crafted masterpieces you are accustomed to. In other words, I'm too busy to write so all I have time for is bitchin'.

Posted by: Jim at 08:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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