Twisted Spinster

Update, January 13, 2011: Ignore most of what is posted below. My blog now resides at the main link. That is:

http://spleenville.com/

Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Update, October 6, 2009: Hi there! This is just a little announcement for anyone who has wandered over here and is confused as to why there is no new content. I closed this blog on December 31, 2008, and opened a new one for 2009. See the original post content below. But if you want my latest web ramblings, please go to the main page for all the links to all my sites, or head straight over to my current blog, The Spleenville HQ Chronicles. What does this mean in the great scheme of things? Well, for one thing, it means NO, I DON’T WANT TO ADD ANY ADVERTISEMENTS TO THIS SITE. (Yes, I periodically get spammed from my old sites for this purpose. Stop it. It is irritating, and is not making your business any more attractive.) Now everyone, change your links to either http://spleenville.com/ for the main site, or http://spleenville.com/v2/ for just the blog.

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I thought this year would never end. Peace out, sparkly bitches!*

New site.

*that’s from here.

Heads up: Steve H’s Hog On Ice website is now Tools of Renewal.

And on a more personal matter, tomorrow (as is my long-standing, in internet years anyway, tradition) will be the last day of this website. I’ll have a new one linked up by midnight tomorrow. Stay tuned.

For some reason that they did not disclose in their announcement, Amazon is discontinuing its “Honor System” payment disbursement setup, so I’ve removed the tip jar link from my sidebar. They apparently have another donation system, but I don’t know if it will work out for website donations, I have to investigate further. In the meantime, I still have the Paypal link, for those who don’t mind using it. (I know a lot of people have trouble with Paypal for one reason or another. I will look into an alternative to Paypal for you folks.)

PS: there seems to be some trouble with my hosting service today as well. I had a lot of trouble getting onto my ftp site to edit my templates. If the page is slow to load, that’s why. (And, well, if it doesn’t load, you won’t be seeing this announcement anyway.)

Update: all of Amazon’s other payment systems look to be for e-shop sites, and its donation program is for official charities, so it looks like I won’t be using Amazon’s services.

I need to upgrade my WordPress install and also figure out a way to keep fake blogs (you know, the ones that want you to buy their World of Warcrap* junk or start in newd* photography) from entering pretend comments and trackbacks in my moderation queue. It’s not that I get a lot of these things, it’s just that when I see that little “comment in moderation” message I get all excited, only to find out it’s something posted to a four-month old entry and it leads to a fake blog.

Anyway, it’s December! December. De… cemmm… berrrr. De. Cem. Ber.

Nope, that doesn’t make it any more exciting or interesting.

I’m trying to get into the Christmas spirit this time. Even though one of my last friends in this area moved back to her parents’ house in Ohio recently and she hasn’t written me yet and I don’t have her address, and my other friend is going to visit her sister in Ft. Lauderdale for the holidays, so it’s gonna be a lone Christmas this year. Not that I usually mind such things, but I do so love free cookies. Anyway, I’ve been hunting around the WordPress theme sites for a Christmas theme, because I can’t seem to get into the groove and make my own. I’ve just lost the touch, as well as the password to my now-obsolete Photoshop install (it’s version 5 — I think they’re up to version 12 or something), and I just don’t feel like wrestling with the Gimp. I do have Paint.net and I’ve been fiddling with that.

I also have to plan next year’s blog. (For those of you who are new to my weird ways, I always end my blog on December 31st and open a new blog. It’s my way of keeping the blog to paper-diary standards, and my way of bucking the trend, and also my way of irritating all my readers, who have to change their links and re-register on my new site. Maybe I’ll be nice and pre-register you — if I do decide to go that route I’ll let you know and I’ll put up a post to collect requests.) Anyway, I can’t decide: simply make a new folder on Victory Soap called “2009”? Or buy a new domain name? They’re cheap at Godaddy, though I really should watch my pennies. And should I use WordPress again? I think I will — Everyone seems to have had it with Movable Type’s increasingly cumbersome and arcane versions, and Blogspot is… limited. Typepad costs money, and I don’t see that they’ve got anything I need that is worth paying for. Textpattern has an attractive admin screen, but it doesn’t seem to do anything better than WordPress.

Anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind, besides applying for jobs.

Update: I forgot to add — I’m looking for a WordPress Christmas theme that isn’t too hokey looking. The 3-D ‘toon Santa look seems to be in this year for some reason, as is the color red. I found one Christmas theme that makes your monitor look like someone was murdered on it, that’s how much red is the main color. That’s… a little too much. Also am I the only person in creation who isn’t so enamored of RSS feeds that they have to have a huge, orange 3-D logo for it? It’s really annoying.

*Words misspelled in the no-doubt-futile hope of fooling spambots.

I’ve been seeing references to this site NetRightNation for a while now. It’s supposed to be a central source for people to find conservative blogs. It seems above-board, but I got an email from one of my readers about how posts from other blogs show up on this website when you do a search on their site. You get a list of blog posts, all “written by Administrator,” that are actually just excerpts from the blog you searched for, none of them with any attributing links back to those blogs. (Here’s one of mine. It should link to this post.) I couldn’t find an email for NetRightNation, so I left the following comment in the latest post on their own blog:

This is off-topic, but I can’t find an email to contact you directly. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but when you do a search on your site for someone’s blog (like Ace of Spades, or mine — Twisted Spinster), you get a list of blog posts which are just excerpts from the blogs you searched for, but they aren’t linked to the actual blogger’s site or attributed in any way, and the posts on your site all say “written by Administrator.” I’ve already had emails from people complaining that their blog posts have been stolen, so you may want to see to fixing this. Here, by the way, is the list of search results for my blog. Since you do link to bloggers properly on your own front page, I am assuming this is just a glitch in your search template.

They really should have fixed this before putting up their site. They should know how concerned rightwing bloggers are about their intellectual property. This was the result, by the way, of just going to their “search” link on the top of the page and entering the name of the blog — say, “Twisted Spinter.” It isn’t some arcane hidden thing. I hope they fix this, or there are going to be a lot of pissed off conservative bloggers.

Update: nice reply — see the comments.

On my previous post I got three trackbacks in my moderation queue from three separate blogs on the bestpoliticalblogs.co.uk website that after long consideration — oh, okay, short consideration, like maybe two seconds — I decided to mark as “spam” and delete. My decision was based partly on the fact that all three blogs, though having different design, had the same content, including their “about” page which explained that they were a news aggregator for US election news. Since I am not a news provider but a personal blog I decided to opt out of the whole “let’s be a global political intardnet” thing. If you want me to link to you I suggest you 1) have a personal blog under some sort of personal name or nickname, 2) actually be a person instead of some sort of conglomeration or bot, and 3) email me (email link at the bottom of this site) with a complimentary email that actually has an opinion in it, 4) register on my blog and leave a comment (the first one will be moderated but I am quick), 5) trackback to me from your own personal blog that you a real person have put up and been blogging to for at least one other time with something that indicates you are a person not a faceless company or bot. KTHXBYE

Update: okay, make that four bloody trackbacks I’ve sent to the same place I send all those drug spams. Die, motherfuckers.

You must, you simply must, read this about the self-important tribe of snobs that runs the New York Times company. Which financial empire incidentally is in Oblivion’s toilet and she’s ready to flush. I hope the sewer system can handle that load.

Skulls! We all got ’em. We all love ’em!

(Soon to be removed: the stupid “Web 2.0 style” striped background. I hate stripes.)

Update: striped background gone! Yay! Coming soon: some sort of theme picker thingie, so everyone can have their own flavor of looks instead of having to be hostage to my whims. Unless I decide that holding everyone hostage to my whims is much more fun. Bwahahahahaha!

I continue to tweak the site. What can I say, I have no life. Anyway, despite the fact that I think Century Gothic is an oh so pretty font, I have changed it to MS Trebuchet, which is a tad easier on the eyes. Those of you who have neither font on your system will see some other sans-serif font.

I know you waited all day to read this.

Update: I think it helps to spell the font name correctly in the style sheet. I’m just sayin.’

I’m trying out this widget thing — the tree-clock thing on the right side bar should show the current time. Let me know if it freaks out your computer or anything. Also, if you click on it to go to the “get a clock page” be careful — it asks if you want to download some sort of .exe file. I clicked “cancel.” The “get widget” link at the bottom of the image is safer.