All purpose, re-usable political message. One-size fits all!

I just found the following news story on Yahoo:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals. The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

It's been bugging me for a while, but I just can't seem to get things into writing lately. In fact it's taken me over a month just to get this little ramble into writing. I wanted to be nice and let all the readers of Their Worst Nightmare - My Dream Come True know why I haven't posted part 3 yet, well it is all ready and complete and looks great; the problem is it's all in my head and I can't get it out! AAAAAAHHHH!!

Update May 27 - The qnez4u server is up again. The Gallery looks to be intact. I'm not certain what the exact cause is/was but the logs show a possible hard drive problem. I've made a backup of the Gallery so we haven't lost anything and moved a copy of the backup file to one of Erin's other servers.

Bob Arnold

Beware of large North American pungulates. :)

In Erin's thread about use of tenses, the writing of explicit thoughts (expressing what a character is thinking at a specific moment in a story) came up.

I'd like to advocate a specific style for indicating that text in a story represents explicit thought. I think I first saw this used in some of Bek Corbin's stories, but Angela and I used it in "Peaches," and I've convinced Itinerant and a couple others to use it.

Finally Did one in color I like. :)

I'm off to spend the night with Mom and fix her breakfast in the morning. :)

I'm feeling hugely better after sleeping a great large amount, thanks to everyone who inquired.

I've got some catchup tasks to do on the site and there may be a couple of MAJOR changes in the planning ahead.

I've been sick the last three days and it's worse today. Aches and pains and an incredible lethargy. I've slept about 24 hours of the last 48 and I'm still tired.

I'm having weird dreams, too. In fact, I've dreamed a very nice long-term plot for IWaTACL, if I can draw some of the characters. :) The Alley Oop musical I dreamed is right out though. :)

Painfully obvious...

I hope you've all seen a lot of old movies. :)

Last night and today, it was very hard to draw. Sorry for the poor quality of the art.

It will probably happen before the movie comes out. :)

Have you ever wanted to visit the world of Bobby's Rainy Day Adventure? Ask someone a question? Then join me in this experimental journey.

It takes a lot of talent to be a frog. Zook demonstrates in Frisky Business. He's cruising in a manner of speaking. :)

- Joyce

The new Beastly Thoughts is up. And the first story page of [I Was a Teen-age Cheerleader] is pencilled, written, and lettered. :) Looks like Saturday is a go for that one.

The newest Beastly Thoughts is up at Number Please. The guy in the foreground is a drawing of my roommate, Adam Sanford. When you read the cartoon, you'll know how appropriate that is. :)

I've resurrected my old comic strip, Beastly Thoughts and have been posting the old cartoons with a few new ones intended for the mix. It's at Beastly Thoughts. Take a look and make a comment. :) This is what I was doing last night and why I slept so late this morning.

I've had some questions about it so this is a few brief notes on how I've been processing images. I hope it will be useful for anyone who wants to caption images or do photo stories but has never tried anything of the sort before.

Alistair 2 Zook gets sporty at the Diamond-by-the-Pond. Take a look here or here and leave a comment, please. :) Beginning of a short story arc.

New A2Z up, here.. I keep trying new things, so give me a clue how they are working. :)

- Joyce

Oh, and I'm seriously thinking of "I Was a Teenage Cheerleader" starring Walter Buffle. :)

For those that remember me mentioning this earlier--my roommate Griff and I developed a webcomic together called, "Alistair 2 Zook". Griff is now in the middle of getting degrees in sociology and no longer has time to do any cartooning. So, I took a try at it.

Our new server seems to have had some problems, it's been up and down several times today. The techs at the ol' server farm suspect a bad power strip, so they moved it across the bay and replugged it in. Hopefully this will solve the problem. Eh-yup.

I just rented a new server and in order to get the best price I could, I paid for a year upfront. That's $2126, quite a hit on my credit card, about $190/month, amortized with interest. Next year it will drop to $1776, equal to about $148/month and I intend to pay cash.

Gallery will be occasionally unavailable while Bob and I figure out why we are having apache crashes during times of peak load at the gallery site.

- Erin

First, anonymous comments have been turned back on but with a spam filter now. This also means that if anyone accidentally posts the exact same comment twice, it will be marked as spam and not appear until I can look at it. You'll get a heads-up notice on screen and I'll get an email to take a look if this happens. Also, comments that contain a LOT of URLs will be marked as spam until I look at them.

I'm very sick with recurring sinusitis and complications. I'm going to bed now, hope to be better in the morning. Got new drugs from doctor.

Hugs,
Erin

From time to time during the day and evening, I check the chatrooms to see if anyone is there. If you want to meet me there, send me a private message. :) I seldom go more than three hours between checking things like PMs and the chatroom so it's good to plan ahead but it should be workable.

My story [The House on Sackett Street] was first written in 1991. It was posted on many sites under my previous pen name of Marcia Stephens. I modified it slightly and republished it the past couple of years. I really like the story and have gotten some very nice comments from friends about it. I have toyed with the idea of expanding this story with additional chapters, both before and after the wedding. I would enjoy hearing what you think about that.

Even though Britain and America both speak the same language, the different usage of words can sometimes cause confusion. One that came to my attention this week is the word jumper.

In UK English, a jumper is a sweater. A thick garment that is worn to keep the body warm. In American English, a jumper is a pinafore dress. A dress without sleeves and collar that is worn over a top or blouse.

BigCloset may go up and down today while Bob and I fight these turkeys off. Please be patient and we should have a few necks wrung soon.

- Erin

This is from Everybody's Scrapbook of Curious Facts, compiled by one Don Lemon and published well over 100 years ago. The author is unknown and the story line alas is not beyond criticism although it could be read as an early manifestation of feminism!

I came across it in a newspaper article by a Robert Richardson many years ago. He remarked that it may lack Maupassant's humanity and Maugham's style, but it is a story in a class of its own.

I think it is quite remarkable and should be known to a wider audience. Judge for yourself. I was reminded of it on reading the alliteration in Jezzi's sparkling 'Bimbo Bread'

Because of a change in directory structure on the server, users may have to log back in. After this, BC will be reachable via http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf directly rather than being redirected to qnez4u.com.

--Thanks, Erin.

We need to have at least one weepy sentimental holiday story. My sister sent me this and I thought I would pass it on. Have a Kleenex handy!!

Always believe in MIRACLES!!

Three years ago, a little boy and his grandmother came to see Santa at Mayfair Mall in Wisconsin. The child climbed up on his lap, holding a picture of a little girl. "Who is this?" asked Santa, smiling. "Your friend? Your sister?"

"Yes, Santa," he replied. "My sister, Sarah, who is very sick," he said sadly.

Santa glanced over at the grandmother who was waiting nearby, and saw her dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

"She wanted to come with me to see you, oh, so very much, Santa!" the child exclaimed. "She misses you," he added softly.

Santa tried to be cheerful and encouraged a smile to the boy's face, asking him what he wanted Santa to bring him for Christmas. When they finished their visit, the Grandmother came over to help the child off his lap, and started to say something to Santa, but halted.

"What is it?" Santa asked warmly.

"Well, I know it's really too much to ask you, Santa, but ..." the old woman began, shooing her grandson over to one of Santa's elves to collect the little gift which Santa gave all his young visitors. "The girl in the photograph ... my granddaughter .. well, you see ... she has leukemia and isn't expected to make it even through the holidays," she said through tear-filled eyes. "Is there any way, Santa ... any possible way that you could come see Sarah? That's all she's asked for, for Christmas, is to see Santa."

Santa blinked and swallowed hard and told the woman to leave information with his elves as to where Sarah was, and he would see what he could do.

jack be nimble
jack be quick
jack jump over the
candlestick
peter peter
pumpkin eater
had a wife and
couldn't keep her
put her in a
pumpkin shell
there he kept her
very well
little jack
horner sat in a
corner
eating his curds and
whey a-
long came a
spider
sat down be-
side...
her?

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!