I am a frustrated writer. It’s the kind of low-level irritation that, if it were an audio frequency, would be carried for miles and miles by the perfectly configured woofer; it’s that bass frequency that you can hear from across the continent.

Here’s my frustration:

As a writer, I can churn out stories relatively easily (given the right circumstances and the presence of the Muse – more on her later). A fortnight ago I wrote 10,000 words in 3 days, which is pretty good given a book is on average 80-100,000. The muse was with me that night. She’s hanging around nearby but I’ve yet to get her attention; she’s a bit drunk on what looks like a quart of absinthe… yes, Absinthe, she just swigged the bottle and giggled, the bitch.

What I find irritating is that there seems only to be one way to get work “public” – to rely on publishing companies that are inundated with manuscripts, or to try to find a magazine that has a gap or likes your work.

I’ve whined about this issue to friends: artists have the option of galleries (and I’m not talking the major ones as they’re the equivalent of the publishing companies). Art is something you can look at, regard, like or dislike in a community setting. There are many different open galleries that can exhibit your work.

Musicians have a similar way of getting work out there. My fabulous housemate is at an open-mike night in Northcote tonight (I’d be there too if it wasn’t that I finished work only about an hour ago and was ravenous to the point of tears. Not going into that at present). A musician can stand on a street corner and strum. If I stand on a street corner and start reading, odds-on I’ll be heckled as a religious nut. Could be amusing though.

I’m aware this could be sounding like sour grapes. It’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to.

A writer is, by definition, a lonely person, slaving over a hot processor creating work of potential genius… for… what? Sure, we can submit work to competitions. We can try and get things published, but there appears to be no way to cut out the middleman and just perform the work in some way, get it out for general consumption without involving the money-men and what’s “likely to sell”. Publishing is, after all, a business.

Am I wrong? Have I missed something?

I just can’t find anything. Writers groups have meetings and chat about their work. It’s a community, sure, and by joining one I get a stack of magazines I’m not interested in, cheap courses that I don’t want to do, the right to go along to meetings (which is nice) and I can even get, in some cases, a professional assessment of my manuscript (for a few hundred dollars that I don’t have. I’m a penniless writer as well as a frustrated one). It’s like when I joined the Australian Society of Technical Writers; what did it get me? A place on a mailing list and nothing else in particular. I’m thinking in purely selfish terms here, I’m aware: the society is great for many people, as are writers groups. But I know (pretty much) how to write, and throughout my life — regardless of courses on offer, being told I should read a great big book cover-to-cover — I’ve learned how to do things by simply DOING them: Practice Makes Perfect. I’m simply not interested in courses on writing, in someone standing at the front of the room telling me “this is what makes a story good” and “this is what makes it bad”. I’m not for formula, I’m for innovation through experimentation. And I know this won’t necessarily make me a bucket of money, either. I’m in it for the enjoyment of the writing; I’m in it to see where the muse takes me.

So what’s the answer?

It’s looking increasingly like I have to get off my arse and just do something myself. Have duplex printer, will produce zines. The magazine I produced with good friends back in 2004-5 worked to a degree. The magazines certainly disappeared from their spots in cafes. And I even managed to sell some. Perhaps that’s the short-term answer to my bleating: take it to the people.

Opinions greatfully accepted at this point. Me, I’m going to eat my rapidly cooling dinner. Au Revoir.

I once knew a girl, clever, direct and with her head screwed on right (so in this case she was able to look me in the eye). I think what attracted me to her was her experiences and the feeling that she had wisdom that I could learn from.

Over a period of time I surrendered myself — and why not? My life to that point — other than some interesting bits — had been a bit of a fuck-up, with dabbling in idiotic pursuits, no achievements to speak of and still in the same crap jobs that made me miserable (but gave me a good income stream to blow on almost any old tat and rubbish you could think of).

She offered me a way out of that at least, to start a small business where we could make money and get out of the industry that I loathed.

And yet, almost immediately, I began to ignore the things about her that were at-odds to the confident strong persona she showed the world, for she was right and I was wrong.

It was something that dogged me throughout the friendship. She was right. I was wrong. If I expressed an opinion that was at odds with what she wanted, I was wrong.

Today I woke up after a long sleep and began thinking about the things I did, and my behaviour. It was draining in the same way that certain relationships have been.

And it became very apparent that she — somehow — was the ghost of  two major relationship in my life. Telling, not asking. Do this my way or not at all. Bouncing all responsibility back onto me where I was a participant rather than an instigator. Failing to do things I needed her to do.

I’ve been over all this before in other posts. Today I’m considering and wondering why exactly I fall into this passive, submissive role.

I came to realise she was doing the same things as my father did, I was the one expected to do the work, but she had the right to say no. And she avoided committing fully, despite saying she would.

And this just meant she was human. I expected her to reciprocate at least in the way she had said she would.

And at the end, she changed her mind, and all my expectations, all my hopes crashed and burned.

I fall into these roles so very easy. As the child of a dominating father — who was also a closet depressive — I was constantly controlled and pushed. If I spoke, voiced an opinion that opposed his views, I would be constantly run down until my views were his.

She was not that person, but I slipped so very easily into that role and I did things that I regret to this day. And regret is so very boring.

Mostly the regret is to do with purging possessions which now would be nice to have around. She didn’t ask me to get rid of them, merely hinted, expressed an opinion. I did all the work, and when I told her what I’d done, she told me she was very proud of me.

I seem to fall so very well into a role where I put into action other people’s opinions.

A “can-do” kinda girl becomes an automation after a while, a pawn if you like. Choosing to do the bidding of others — no matter how thoughtful — makes me an employee. And an unpaid one at that.

Now I know this, i walk the fine line (at least for the moment) of working out what to do when someone expresses an opinion. Do I leap into action as I usually do — and I’m good at this — or do I sit back and choose the things I am to do.

The latter is a better way of doing things, and it also means I don’t fall into behaviour pattern #2: expectation and interest.

Expectation and Interest comes from the feeling that energy-in = energy-out. That is, in the past when I’ve leapt into action on a constant and consistent basis, I do expect (hope?) for something back.

It’s a hope I’ve held since I was a child, and in-fact, this is where all this comes from. I’m stuck at that moment in time, 6 or 8, when I did something for my parents in the hope they would do something in return — most probably, stop screaming at one-another in their apparently regular rows (I have to qualify this: I didn’t keep a count of the arguments, they’re just burned into my head). If I was a good child, and did what I was told, things would be all right.

And there’s the core of this little story: you run that sentence backwards, I felt responsible for the problems my parents were having.

If I was a good child and did what I was told, things would be all right.

Things would be all right if I did what I was told, if I was a good child.

There is the core of the fuck-uppidness of this writer, and perhaps of every person who is in a similar situation.

We took responsibility for the screw-ups around us. Not thinking for a moment that the people we regarded as gods were actually just flawed human beings, with their own issues.

We believed — I believed — that if I would do what I was told, everything would work out.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the bear-trap at the bottom of the garden, the giant venus fly-trap that I have a leg caught in.

I am not responsible for the well-being of others. I can’t fix them by doing the right thing. I can only fix me by doing the right thing for me. I can choose to help others, as they have chosen to help me, but I’m not responsible for their lives as well unless I’ve been involved in their birth or have chosen to be responsible for a child.

Ultimately what I was doing as a child, and as an adult, was to take the responsible role without the power that role has. I was doing all I could to make things work without understanding that it wasn’t my responsibility to do all the work. My responsibility was to look after myself, my interests.

And that sounds so very selfish to me.

But I think that’s the way out of the trap: To look after me first — and I’m not a selfish person — and to help others when they need help. To help for the sake of help, expecting nothing in return.

There. Now I can have breakfast in peace.

A report in todays newspapers:

South African minister threatens ‘world war’ if Caster Semenya is banned

I agree that great injustice is being created with this mess.

I agree with the statement:

“…It is very, very clear to us that Caster’s human rights are not being respected…’

What I’m sick to death of is seeing a war paradigm used to back-up a statement or an approach to something. War is the ultimate abuse of human rights.

It is a grand generalisation to say that men are obsessed with war, that they’re obsessed with combat and violence. Why is it though that we have wars on things?

And why is there not a “war on war”?

Exhibit A

I have a specific reaction to stress: itchy knuckles.

Contrary to the suppositions of people I used to know, this does not mean I need to hit something and that I have a lot of repressed anger (‘The teachers on Minbar said I had a lot of repressed anger.’/'And now?’/'It’s not repressed any more.’).

What it means is that I’m stressed. And this means I break-out in little milimeter wide lumps which, like mosquito bites, are itchy and need to be scratched, which results in cracked and incredibly dry skin.

The solution is that I need to work-out how I’ve gotten so stressed.

Oh, the work I did last week. What a complete disaster.

Contrary to already established intent, I did not have Monday as a writing day, work 3 days, and have Friday as a writing day. No, what happened was that I got stressed about a job I had to do on Tuesday and did some of it on Monday. This irritated me no end, but I still did it. Then on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and — dammit — Friday, I worked. I worked Friday because I had a client meeting presenting a website and copywriting I’d done.

But, I thought, I’ll take most of the next week off.

I was supposed to write on Monday this week, but didn’t. Why? Because I thought that having four days straight of writing would be better than one day, then a work day, then 3 days.

I was wrong.

This week is proof that I have slipped back into work stress. And it’s really showing.

Exhibit B

My lovely housemate “C” has moved out. This meant much of last week, and all weekend was really taken up with moving which, as wiser people than I have pointed-out, is one of the most stressful activities a person can do to themselves. This, presumably, is why god invented moving companies who do it all for you.

My lovely new housemate, “E” is in now, and we’ve added a few pieces of furniture to her room. She’s really great, but as I say, the moving experience of others has probably rubbed off onto me, resulting in itchy knuckles.

Exhibit C

For reasons I have yet to ascertain, I am storing and holding my body up with my shoulders again. This is, frankly, a near impossible feat, but still I do it.

Ultimately, I have slipped back into old habits. It could be because I relate to the desk in my room, set-up pretty ergonomically, as a “workplace” rather than a “computer place”. This being the case, I write on the computer in awkward positions, on the lovely little table in my room — designed for eating off, not typing on — and the table in the back yard, similarly designed. I also have — until recently (when I realised I was going through $20 a day in cakes and pots of tea) been using the tables in nearby cafes to write the splendorous stories to which many have become enthralled on the daisydonnie site. Again, the height of the tables — designed for the consumption of foody goodness, is not ideal for typing out prose of any nature, unless you’re taller than I. So my shoulders unconsciously (well, they’re not conscious of course) rise so I don’t get RSI of the wrist.

Of course the rising of the shoulders means the stress of the rising is stored in said shoulders and thus I become stressed.

And my back hurts.

Solutions

Well, as exhibit A proves, I should bloody well stick to what I said I was going to do (and really enjoyed) and do Monday and Friday for writing, and tuesday to thursday for work.

End of story. No negotiation. No exceptions. Just Bloody Do This!

Exhibit B will sort itself out. The lovely “C” has gone to her new home, and I really hope she loves it there. The wonderful “E” is here, and we’re getting along really well. This is good. No more stress there.

Exhibit C is rather simple: I just need to build a bloody bridge and get the fuck over it.

See how writing sorts my problems out!

Often when I’m awake late at night, I reach for the pen and paper and write a stream of consciousness that usually – if not always – resolves the issue very neatly. I work-out what’s wrong just by getting it out of my head.

I’m awake, but it’s only 7.45pm. I’m writing because I’m very sad that my lovely housemate has gone off to a fabulous new place of her own.

I’m not sad because she’s found a fab new place. I’m sad because I won’t see her anymore, and I’d gotten used to her being around.

Does this make me co-dependent? Does it make me someone who lives vicariously through others.

Does it explain why I’ve been alone for so long – housemates, friends, whathaveyou become — what’s that word that means stand-in? Dunno, and I’m not in the mood to go looking — the proxy (?) for that close relationship.

I get a relationship, but no sex and no touching.

(I’m down, so anything I say may not be taken in evidence and used later. Please.)

So what does that say about me? That I don’t want someone close? I never seem to be interested in anything personal or intimate (but consistently say I won’t object if someone else takes the first step, makes the first move).

I consistently say that I’m fine on my own. It doesn’t even occur to me to “be” with anyone, to “seek” that special someone who we’re all meant to meet, the perfect match (that faux-robot was called dexter wasn’t it? Imagine if it were a secret serial killer, meting out justice according to the “code-of-harry”?); In fact I think (or say I think) that seeking deliberately will gain only pain.

Or am I avoiding pain?

If I’m this upset about a housemate leaving — someone who I shared a house with to be sure, but not anything intimate (does washing liquid and the occasional meal count as “intimate”? No.) — then how would I be about a partner who I was intimate with, who I did say I love, and they reciprocated?

These are the rambling musings of an upset person, so do go and get a coffee if it’s getting too much.

Is that passive-aggression? Or merely “poor me” (which is likely the same). I’m actually trying to inject a little humor.

Moving on.

The last relationship I had was about 5 years ago. M was good, but the touchy-feely was so very disappointing. Then there was the fact he was running a business with other people’s money and running someone elses business (long, complicated story which can be summed-up by saying “loyalty is good thing. And helping a friend is a good thing. But if you’re dealing with lots of other peoples money and have so little time to run your own business, don’t take on the running of your friends business at the same time. That didn’t end up being short at all did it?) and as a result he was very very stressed all the time.

On top of that he had family issues much like my old ones – dominationg, controlling father, etc. It ended pretty quickly, despite (or perhaps because — who knows) me doing a lot of hard work to try to help, to try to be there for him to relax away from work, to be an easy-going gf.

His parting words: “You don’t hate me do you?”
My response: “No” (thinking I was really disappointed). The evening concluded with a lot of chocolate and a movie. I think it was Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and perhaps that’s what I should do tonight)

What was I going on about?

*sigh*

Do I “need” someone? Or do I “need” to be around someone? God knows I do nothing but hibernate. I work on my own, I write on my own (is there any other way?) I live with one other person (new one tomorrow).

Do I just attach myself to the nearest person?

It’s looking increasingly like I do. It’s something I’ve been aware of, but… god does that make me one of those people who suck the energy out of others like a frigging vampire?

Holy crap, I hope not.

…

No, that’s taking an idea and looking to that extreme end of the bell curve for the worst possible thing. Slow down Lisa, calm… it’s okay…

So. where to from here?

I have identified that I become attached to nice people. Who doesn’t? And when they leave, I get upset. Natural? Possibly. I don’t like goodbyes. So do lots of other people.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong and I’m just allowed to be upset?

I just watched Vampire Hunter D again — an anime with a real set of vampires. You know the ones, don’t like sunlight, suck the blood, hunted, pale skin and definitely don’t like sunlight.

The burning in UV kind of Vampires I’m talking about, not these sparkly tossers that someone has used as a warning against sex.

It occurred to me that there are quite a few cures for this monstrous approach to our pointy-toothed friends of the underworld.

For a start is the aforementioned Vampire Hunter D — a quite interesting story with NO spidermonkeys:

Interview with the Vampire, the movie of Anne Rice’s novel is next on the list.

Then there’s the modern take on Vampires — or at least the late 20th century take with Ultraviolet:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Joss Whedon’s long running series (and this video does to Eduardo what we’ve all wanted to do!)

And, of course, Angel.

I’ve yet to see TrueBlood, but I’m told it’s good.

Bottom-line though, there’s plenty to cancel out the horror of Twilight and its soon to be rushed into a cinema near you abomination… god, I don’t even know the name of the next one. And I don’t care either.

Over the last few years, there’s been more and more reporting of news in “present tense”

Try this one for example, a report on the winds that whipped through Melbourne today.

What irritates me about this is they mix tenses in the same report.

The winds and damage was present tense, yet the SES received — past tense — lots of calls.

You might call me a pedant for pointing this out (hey, I’ve been called worse — although the funniest title, Word Nazi, was one I chose myself when working on Goth Nation magazine, back in the day), but frankly, I’d say they should make up their bloody minds. Present tense, past tense; pick one and stick with it, don’t mix them up because all it does is strongly suggest you’re a lazy git.

This may make me a pariah of the internet community, but so-be-it!

I am not a fan of LinkedIn, the “professional” social networking site. I’ve recently closed my account with them actually simply because I was getting lots of lovely emails regarding people in my “network” and their activity, and nothing else. At all.

Oh, there was that one message from someone in Russia making me a business proposition, outlining their requirements, pricing and a promise to push work my way…

I passed. Like Bernard Black mentioned after Manny had sold all his books, It’s not that kind of operation that I run.

But back to LinkedIn…

My first major quibble is that it’s not in the slightest bit intuitive. Everything is structured in a way that means you have to go through page after page of guff before getting to the point.

Do they allow upload of CV/Resume? Who knows? 

Can you ever complete your profile? Not as far as I can see — you have to get more references than a rat has fleas

Is it possible to just email people through the system without having to search for the frigging way to do it (I’m referring, of course, to messages attached to network invitations where if you’ve accepted said invitation, you can’t actually email a response to the person in question).

It’s only recently that I’ve found a way to delete people I’d rather not be networked with (for personal reaasons, as I found out they were total nutters; a story for another time). 

And finding where to turn-off the bloody messages that come through with monotonous regularity telling you what other people are doing (Geoff is picking his nose; Sally is considering moving into waste management after dealing with the CEO of her company for 3 years; Jennifer has linked to thirteen people you’ve never heard of).

Some of it is — and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this elsewhere — like a small child or a Yorkshire terrier jumping up and down next to you trying to get attention.

I’m a busy person — I’ve got things to do that don’t include reading inane email messages telling me what other people are doing. And I only work 3 days a week, so what’s it like for people who work full-time?!

And this is the rock-solid basis on which sites like this are built — Facebook is another bloody awful example of it — the functionality you want is buried under layer after layer of bullshit. 

Douglas Adams puts this feeling best when talking about the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation in “So long,  and thanks for all the fish (on page 145 of the paperback edition if you’re interested):

“…It is very easy to be blinded by the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all…”

And by Ford Prefect thus:

“… their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws…”

Ultimately what I’m getting at is this: We shouldn’t have to learn something by being forced into it when we just want to communicate with people — that’s the genius of Twitter (and what Google gave us in search engines) — we should just be able to bloody do it when we want to and HOW we want to.

</end rant>

I’m now using BlogThing to upload to this blog… it’s nice simple, and I wrote the help!

You can download BlogThing for your mac here: http://www.automagic-software.com/products/blogthing/

I’ve had near endless problems with the wireless modem I got from Vodafone last year. The reception was crap, the thing would drop-out, it died on at least four occasions, terminally last week.

I called them and tried to explain that I’d done everything they usually told me to do, including trying the modem in a second machine, with a different cable, uninstalling and reinstalling the software, spinning three times on my head and barking at the moon, all to no avail.

I was instructed on Friday to go to the vodafone website and to a particular page to download new software.

I said again that there was a problem with that: no modem, no net.

The gent on the other end was — as usual — perplexed; the same as happened when I said I didn’t have a PC or an unlocked mobile so I could get the online billing system activated (once when I mentioned it last year, and again this year: how hard is it to get this working for a Mac? I’m not asking them to split the fucking atom here!).

I got a net connection in Soulfood cafe in Smith street on Saturday, after breakky with the Jaimes, and during my Saturday morning writing-with-tea-and-cake extravaganza.

Ker-ching!

No deal: the hardware was definitely knackered.

A call yesterday revealed that they don’t fix these things — unsurprising in this throwaway culture — and that I should try getting a replacement SIM card for the thing, which was another option.

A replacement SIM this afternoon failed to sort the problem, and after ten minutes of fiddling, testing the USB ports and cables, my initial supposition was confirmed. The modem was kaput.

Now came the event that made me — as the title says — rather happier: I was sent to another nearby store for a replacement.

Yesterday on the phone I was told that these things had only a 1 year warranty, and that I was 2 months over. No problem, they said, just pay $129 for a new one, you get a 2GB account and you’re sorted.

The gent in the store said they had a 2 year replacement when he sent me to the other store and after the lady at the other end had pointed out that I was 2 months out on the warranty, I mentioned this to her.

I’m now convinced this is code for “this lady’s had endless trouble and is a pain in the arse; just look at her account: it’s got complaints and discussions going back a year now – just replace the modem, they cost us $2.50 anyway”.

Her expression changed quite suddenly and she dashed to the back and retrieved a new modem for me:

And I’m using it now. So W00t for me.

Melbourne’s public transport, under a Labour government, has been on the slide for a great many years. Odd, really, as you’d expect them to embrace and enhance it.

The previous government — under Jeff Kennett — sold the running of the system off to private companies. Years earlier, the tram conductors had been removed also, in favour of nazi-like ticket inspectors, the kind of situation that can only breed contempt.

The paper ticket system, while somewhat wasteful of paper resources (why I wonder didn’t they put boxes on stations or stops to collect people’s used tickets?) has seemed to work for a good 20 years. But with the steady jack-booted march of technology, this is now being supplanted by electronic smart cards, like in London.

But not like in London…

The Oyster card system, while a little invasive as far as personal details are concerned, was easy to use and cheap. You got a card straight from the rail station you happened to be at, and off you went. Open the barriers at a station, you put your card on the oyster-shaped (all-right, round) lumps of plastic on the barriers, the barrier went up and your account was debited by a small amount of money. The only query I have is why it wasn’t rolled-out across the country. But c’est la vie.

Transport Minister Lynne Kosky (and presumably her predecessor) has ordered a now astonishingly costly reinvention of the wheel with the Myki system, originally intended to cost 300 million dollars, but which ended up at 1.4 billion (that’s an excess of $1,100,000,000, which as many have put, could have been spent better on adding new rolling stock — trams and trains — to the overstretched system).

And to add insult to injury, not only was the company that developed the system given additional cash rather than being fined,  and people using the card overcharged, AND the system is designed so you are forced to touch the reader when you go on BUT ALSO AS YOU GET OFF (which is, frankly, proof-positive that the people who developed it, and those overseeing have never been on a crowded tram, train or bus — and why didn’t they set this up like the barriers that have been sitting on the exits of shops for absolutely years now — you walk through with a tagged item and it goes nuts. Similarly, if they did this on Public Transport, there wouldn’t be the need to physically touch the reader on the way out; Morons), but now, surprise, surprise, we’re going to have to pay $10 to get one of the stupid things!

This is roughly equivalent to being mugged, beaten up, and then left an invoice for the service performed.

Can anyone explain to me how these kinds of — I’ll be blunt — fuck-ups can be allowed to occur? We’re not a third-world country that we hear so much about in newspapers, where idiotic decision after idiotic decision is made by government ministers with more interest in lining their own pockets than doing their jobs.

Are we??

But to the issue of public transport, I say this: The debacle with this ticketing system, the excessive cost placed in an electronic monstrosity (which I expect will be hacked relatively quickly) versus almost zero investment in infrastructure and trains, trams and buses that actually carry people will only force people back into cars. And in the world in which we live, this is as counterproductive as cutting down all the forests to chuck into powerstations.

Rupert Murdoch wants us to pay for content…

The interwebs are all about free content. It’s what the whole ecosystem is based on.

And Murdoch papers aren’t exactly devoid of advertising are they?

Same as everyone else (banks anyone?), Rupert Murdoch wants a second bite of the cake. But all that will occur is people will go elsewhere for their news.

Which is what many do anyway — I look at the Melbourne Age, The Guardian and The Times. And I research things through google. It’s a good way to confirm if something that’s reported is real, rather than concocted.

The same as the recording industry, the old-school of business doesn’t get the web, and the concept of free content, which encourages the purchase of their products.

And their attempts to enforce their outdated selling models is just the thrashing of dinosaurs slipping slowly into the tarpits.

Addendum:

Seems I’m not alone in thinking Rupe has slipped into early mental retirement. This comment is one of the funniest

Further news on this…

Murdoch to charge for online news

Rupert the internet rube

Read all about it: Outrage about camel cull in Australia

If only they thought before their mouths were opened. If only they’d researched the issue; that Camels are an introduced species, like feral cats, Cane toads and bloody rabbits.

If only they realised the damage to our flora and fauna that said introduced species wreak; that they’re competing for the food that native wildlife need, and therefore pushing animals that only exist in Australia to the wall.

And I wonder if they thought about the issue of predators and that introduced species have none. So an animal that is regularly killed by another bigger one would therefore be more likely to reproduce faster.

I wonder if they thought of that?

Morons.

PS. now read the backdown, with an appropriate excuse.

July 20 was the best day for this blog. Ever. 920 visits:

I thought to myself: “cool.”

Then I thought “Why?”

Based on the fact I haven’t written a proper post on this blog in over a year (or thereabouts), it seemed odd that I should get so many visits that day.

Here’s why:

1-14:Porn Again (part1): http://ping.fm/hn1Le

Note the first word.

In actual fact, it’s the title of one of the daisy donnie stories. I wasn’t deliberately trying to fool the visitors; it just happened. The title is a play on “born again” (followed by Porn Free = Born Free) The last title was more of a biography story, as it addressed Daisy and Donnie’s past, hence Pornography = Biography (note the ‘graphy’). Yes, I know that it doesn’t really mean that. I was working with the other two story titles. And the reason I chose these is that Donnie jumps into a reality in which he’s taking part in a blue movie shoot.

What this goes to prove, moving on, is that a lot of people are happy to click links relating to porn. It’s a quick way, I expect, to get visitors to your site.

Not that I had that in mind when I wrote the stories… really…

Normal people – I expect — wake up thinking about their kids (well, some don’t have an option to think of anything else as they get woken up by their offspring, who are happy and rearing to go. I suppose the revenge comes when said kids are in their teens and won’t get up save for a zombie invasion or a rock star). Some might wake up thinking of breakfast, the day ahead, things to do.

Not me.

I wake up thinking about USB cables; specifically the USB cable that comes packaged with all Apple keyboards.

And the fact that it’s an environmental issue.

Yep.

Seriously.

The reason I think this is that the bloody things are useful ONLY for a Mac keyboard. They have a little kink in the female end which renders them useless (and indeed, break the standard, such as it is) for that size USB cable.

The result: people don’t use them and they’re the first thing to get chucked out and/or put in a box never to see the light of day.

So why is this? Anybody? Anybody? Steve…

I think the designers of Facebook are having a good old laugh at everyone’s expense with their pages dysfunctionality.

Seriously — it shouldn’t be so incredibly difficult to set things up!

Here’s my objective:

First, Set up a “fan” page for two blogs: daisydonnie and smell of love.

Second, set the wall up so it will be able to receive posts from either an RSS feed from the blog itself, or feedburner.

Now this is not incredibly difficult to do on a personal profile. I can do it in a number of ways, using ping.fm (not brilliant, but it works), or with a share button on the blog itself (I use Add to any which is easy to configure and use). The former can be set to post automatically to a number of different sites whenever you save a new post, and the latter is manual – you select the right place to post, log in and it’s done.

But these — as I say — only work properly on personal profiles. They don’t work on pages.

And believe me, I’ve tried to get this working, using each of the RSS feed applications in turn; I tried wordbook, a wordpress plugin (which it turned out only worked on personal profiles), and even ping. Which might work, but I need something a bit better.

See, the ultimate issue is that Facebook needs pages to be linked to profiles. I presume this is some way of ensuring they are for real things and not for spammers. What results is somethng that’s neither fish-nor-fowl (as my old boss Mike West put it). It’s not quite a profile for a business or site while having nearly enough functionality to make it useable.

In short, the system is in need (IMHO) of an overhaul. Because it really only works like Facebook 1.0: you can post to the page and that’s about it.

Now, for a multi-million (or more) business, I think (and again, My opinion here) that this is a bit on the backward side. I’d hope they’d have fully modularised their code and databases so it’s at least feasible to use the same functionality for both.

But at this stage, it really doesn’t appear that way. What it looks like is the “Page” in Facebook contains a proportion of the functionality that a “Profile” has. And this just seems daft in the extreme.

Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised; this is the company that ignored something like 90% of its own users when they changed their UI to something that resembles Twitter.

There is, of course, a workaround for all this: create a profile page — in contravention of their usage policy — and take the risk that they’ll take it down.

The Jag: http://ping.fm/DqoKe

I’m working quite hard on another blog at the moment. It’s nothing personal.

The blog, called daisydonnie, is for my book, “The grand adventures of Daisy Donnie”, as the former 20 or so posts attest. I’ve got ping somethingorother working to distrobute links here, there and everywhere.

I didn’t realise it was *just* a link though on this site. Mia Culpa.

But now I’m back, I’m intending to stay a while, and will start updating the blog on at least a weekly basis (time permitting).

The issue over the last few months has really been one of general contentedness. It’s hard getting pissed off with your employer and the work when you’re the boss and you get to choose the jobs you take.

I have had some minor annoyances lately, one with a client who just kept asking for more, due to a different interpretation of the quote I gave him. Won’t make that mistake again.

And then there was the sudden realisation — I think last Tuesday — when I realised that *again* I wasn’t making any headway with my writing; the ultimate reason I now work for myself. However, this was soon solved by my decision to take two days out of the working week for writing, editing and working on the Daisy Donnie blog, and the other three for “work” work. I’ve got enough work to justify this level of commitment, and while at this point, Daisy Donnie isn’t paying me anything, it will long-term.

So, I hope you will give the site a visit and (hopefully) enjoy the stories on some level.

Click to visit The grand adventures of Daisy Donnie – indie/alternative online fiction with a twist of quantum!

Art versus Graffiti versus tagging: http://ping.fm/zRlni

2-6: Fear is the best reason to try: http://ping.fm/vYT5M