Wednesday Birthday Wibbles

It’s not only Mrs. Fetched’s birthday, it’s also Towel Day! You know what that means: today, she’s 42 again! She was supposed to get dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant tonight, but Big V dumped Skylar on us so we ate leftovers and watched Dawn Treader.

Since I haven’t had any new followers since last week, I get to skip that part. I do love the followers I have though!

Sometimes, taking a stroll with the grandkid has side benefits. I found this sign lying in the grass not a quarter mile from the manor, complete with bullet holes. It must have been lying there for longer than I’ve lived here, over 25 years now, because it was never standing along this road. I took a steel wool pad to it to get it to the state you see here (it was pretty grimy). Mrs. Fetched thinks I should give it to either the county or the state, but I figure they just tossed the sign aside — they haven’t used that particular wording for a long time.

A “Pass With Care” sign came with the manor; I want to hang it in the bathroom.

Mason’s second cousin Skylar (yes, with an “a”) has been spending a lot of time at the manor. You can think of him as a half-time boarder if you like at this point. He and Mason play together like two near-toddlers do: when they’re not trying to kill each other, they have a lot of fun. Skylar is four months younger than Mason, but has the in-laws’ genetic heritage that has already made him a bigger kid.

Having Skylar around has reminded me about Mason’s rather well-developed sense of personal space. Mason has a definite bubble, and if another child gets into it uninvited he can get more violent than absolutely necessary. For example, I’ve had to pull Skylar away to stop Mason from methodically whacking him over the head with whatever toy he has in his hand. But bedtime isn’t twice as difficult, because they wear themselves out chasing each other around the dining table, and they’ll chatter with each other in the morning instead of demanding to be let out right away.

The upside is that Moptop hasn’t been around near so much. M.A.E. reached an agreement with the baby-daddy, where they each get her a week at a time. To make matters better (for us), Moptop was sick and someone else got to take care of her. But she won’t be our problem much longer: Mrs. Fetched tonight texted The Boy, Lobster, and M.A.E. to let them know they have until June 1 to find new lodgings. We’re basically done with letting them use our space without much of anything in return.

We’re going to see Mom in North Carolina week after next. Brand X is graduating from high school over Memorial Day weekend, so Mrs. Fetched is videotaping that, and I got tagged to preach this Sunday. That means the creative energy I’d be putting into a #FridayFlash will instead go toward a sermon. Such is life.

But with the deadwood out of here, it will at least be a quieter life!

I’m Versatile!

I haven’t received one of these award things in a while, but Angela Kulig broke the drought. Thanks much, Angela! Angela’s one of the bumper crop of indie writers that have sprung up in the last few years. Her YA urban fantasy romance, Pigments of My Imagination, should be out soon. She was kind enough to post the first chapter.

You know the drill: admit to seven random facts about yourself, pick five more people to receive the award, let them know they won. So… here’s my magnificent seven, so to speak:

1. Despite the hassles, I’m enjoying raising my grandkid. Don’t tell Mrs. Fetched!
2. On my bucket list: produce two documentary films, one about chicken ranching, the other about fortune tellers and their customers. Both as unbiased as I can make them.
3. I enjoy most forms of electronic music, including hard/Goa trance, drum&bass, ambient, and others. I also like Christian hip-hop and metal. Yes, I’m in my 50s. Why do you ask?
4. The reason I have a motorcycle is to save gas. Little Zook gets around 60 miles/gallon. It, like TFM, is versatile: it has off-road suspension, so I can take it pretty much anywhere on the in-laws’ farm if I’m careful and the ground isn’t muddy (street tires).
5. I fully intend to have an anthology of short stories, and White Pickups, available on various eBook outlets by the end of the year. At that point, I’ll have to put the pen name “FARfetched” aside.
6. It’s more than a little spooky how events in FAR Future (see the Pages listing) are already happening. No rolling blackouts or $8/gal gas (in the US) yet, but the Pat-Riots are teabaggers by another name. Keep in mind, I was writing that part of the story in 2007.
7. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I firmly believe that people are essentially good and want to do the right thing.

Now comes the fun part: who are the lucky five? I pass this award to:

• Patrick Hester, for being highly versatile as well. He writes, produces podcasts, blogs, and holds down a dayjob.
• Marijan, who raises an autistic kid and still has time to write and express her particularly sarcastic sense of humor.
• Beth, who has the ability to pack up and go anywhere her desires lead. Funny how I envy her footloose life, and she envies my ability to put down roots.
• Helen, who writes and reads… the Tarot.
• John Wiswell, because he can write about just about anything.

Whew! That was more work than I thought…

Wednesday Wibbles

Pull up a chair, pass the bottle around, it’s chit-chat time!

A minor milestone, but a milestone all the same: 50 followers! What a nice sixth blogiversary present! Let’s all welcome the newest visitors to the free-range insane asylum:

• Jason Coggins, aka @JaseCoggins on Twitter. More below.
• Rexcrisanto Delson, aka @igorotdo on Twitter. He has a book coming out next month!
• Michael Tate, aka @Michael_A_Tate on Twitter. He’s a physicist and novelist (now how cool is that? Really!)
• Helen, aka @helenscribbles on Twitter. Writer, Tarot reader (another slice of coolness), and follower #50! And a writer of cool stuff. And a lady.

Alright… I’ve been devoting these wibble-posts to people following me. What about me? What am I following, besides a near-novel’s worth of #FridayFlash stories every week? Let’s have a look… first, the serials:

• Bloggin' Brimstone by Jason Coggins. I found it at the end of the “first season,” and it freeking blew me away. Now the second season is underway. Think “cyberpunk Hell” with a really sarcastic main character, and you’ll get the idea. Just read it.
• Meanwhile in Space… by Xanto Jones. It’s space opera, of course it's a fun read!

If you’re looking for more, check out the Tuesday Serial site. I might have started FAR Future and White Pickups before there was such a thing as #TuesdaySerial, but there’s plenty of material to choose from these days! (Speaking of which, have you been following The Gods of Evergreen?)

That’s some of what I’m reading at home. In the car, I listen to podcasts. With an hour to and from work, I have plenty of opportunity to listen to stories, interviews, and whatever-ness:

• Star Trek: Defiant — I started listening to this a long time ago, and during my 3-year podcast hiatus they kept producing a new episode each month. So now that I’m listening again, it’ll take a while to catch up.
• Escape Pod — a science-fiction magazine, in podcast form. There’s a new short story every week, some original material and some “reprints” of stories that originally appeared in print magazines.
• Podcastle — the fantasy sister to Escape Pod.
• ShadowCast Audio Anthology — a horror podcast. I submitted something to them last night, so keep your fingers crossed. One of the nice things about the smaller markets is that if they do reject your story, they take the time to tell you why.
• Functional Nerds — media, technology, and gadgets. Hosted by my blog-buddy Patrick Hester and musician (and Twitter pal) John Anelio (who posts sci-fi songs on his blog every week or so).
• SFsignal — author interviews, hosted by the Functional Nerds gang. I was wondering earlier how Patrick does it: he has a day job, does two podcasts every week (huge time sink in my experience), writes, and blogs. Then I realized: he isn’t married!

There’s more, but that can get its own post tomorrow. It’s another blogiversary present.

Six Years Later

Wow, six years!

Some days it doesn’t seem that long, other times it seems almost an eternity. A lot has happened since then: The Boy hasn’t grown up much, but gave us (literally) a grandkid; Daughter Dearest starts her senior year of college in a few months; I’ve finished two novels(!) and plan to indie-publish them and an anthology of short stories.

In the previous year, I’ve kind of let the fiction take over the blog. Many weeks, that’s all that appeared here. I hope to have more of a balance this coming year — yes, there will be plenty of strange fiction, but I hope to bring you more of my strange reality as well. It will be up to you, dear reader, to figure out which is which.

Thanks for reading — and I do appreciate all comments. Except spammers, of course!

Goings-On

Friday the 13^th was pretty long, what with Blogger “routine maintenance” turning into an brownout lasting over 36 hours. All the posts were there for the reading, we just couldn’t add new ones and you couldn’t comment on the ones that were there. That made it a little difficult to post my Friday Flash, but it was more than a little weird anyway. They finally got it fixed late Friday afternoon, but tending a drunk brother-in-law meant I wasn’t able to get to the computer anyway.

Thursday evening I spent out at the Backyard Retreat, straightening up the sides of the excavated area, then stacking the rocks to make a little retaining wall (shown here). Amazingly enough, I ran out of rocks before I ran out of excavation. Oh well, lots of things grow well on Planet Georgia, but rocks grow best of all. I’ll find more. I also smoothed out the surrounding dirt and built up the corner that needed it.

With the work done, I took my Kindle and a flashlight, gathered up some of the scrap wood around, and got a little fire going. It was a warm enough night that the fire wasn’t strictly necessary, but it was nice all the same. I smeared myself up with lemon balm and had very little trouble with bugs. Turns out the floodlights out back give enough light to read a Kindle by, so I didn’t even need the flashlight. We all went out there last night; even though it rained in the morning the chairs were already dry. Mrs. Fetched had a long list of things she would have done different (i.e. that I did wrong) but still liked it. It will be shaded all afternoon through the summer, which will make it pretty nice for evening chill-sessions. It was cool enough that a fire was welcome this time, and we sat out there until sprinkles sent us inside — naturally, after we went in, it cleared up and the moon was bright enough to make the surrounding sky blue.


I’m getting ever closer to the day when I just tell everyone who isn’t Mason, Mrs. Fetched, or Daughter Dearest to find different lodgings — immediately. It appears that The Boy is possibly getting back together with Snippet — AAAAARRRRGHHHH. The Boy had a bunch of friends over, and then blew us off when I relayed commandments from Mrs. Fetched about everyone leaving by 11:30, then… oh, this is good.

I have a view of the driveway from where I sit at the computer, and this one car would pull in, then back out again — then did it again about half an hour later, then again. Around 11p.m., I saw another car pull in — with cop lights. Forgive me, but my first thought was Drug bust time! and I went out to see who was going to win a free trip to the Cinder Block Hilton. Turned out she was here because Snippet parked her car in the middle of the road. Someone called, the cops checked things out and found check stubs with this address on it, and Snippet hustled away to move her car… to Big V’s. She parked it there then walked back to the house. I told The Boy again to get everyone out, and he left with Lobster and Snippet — leaving at least one friend in the garage to sleep there all night. Idiot.

Meanwhile, Lobster is smoking pot (I smelled it one evening) and is still having sleepovers with the not-exactly-divorced woman, both of which could bring trouble to FAR Manor, and he never seems to have money to pay the room and board he agreed to. M.A.E. is just becoming useless, spending all her time on Facebook or on her smellphone and not doing anything to help out around the manor. Enough with the leeching, already.

Mason had a stomach virus that made life for all concerned rather miserable (I had to change clothes twice last week after he barfed all over me), but seems to be getting over it. He’s learning new words all the time, and getting more aggressive with his insistence on doing things himself. He can feed himself pretty well now, gets mad if we don’t let him buckle the strap on his booster (and he has to re-buckle it several times after we unbuckle him when he’s done eating). As always, he loves going outside. He’ll ask to blow bubbles (“Bubboosh?” which is just too cute) but once outside he gets distracted by rocks and plants.

Speaking of plants, a weed called prickly lettuce has gone berserk around the manor this year. Seeing as it’s edible, and has some medicinal qualities (although there’s some dispute about its soporific attributes), I’m inclined to let it go where we don’t want something else. I’m going to have to make a salad of some of it and the wild garlic that grows along the roadsides. Too bad the wild carrots (aka Queen Anne’s Lace) come around later in the summer, or I’d add some of it too. The blackberries are looking pretty plentiful this year; I might be able to get a gallon or two within 100 yards of the manor this year.

Tomorrow… TFM turns 6. That’s a ripe old age for a blog.

Wednesday Wibbles (on Thursday) w/Poll

I was MIA as far as the computer was concerned last night, so I’ll change tackle my briefs this evening. As always, let’s welcome the newest followers to the free-range insane asylum…

• MJ — writer
• Kate Robinson — editor and writer

Something cool: the full-length (1300+ word) version of The Philosopher’s Stone is going to be published on Hogglepot next week! I’ll put up a permanent link when I get it. Oh, and it’s under my real name, so I’ll be somewhat “out” as of next week. I’m still going to keep the FARfetched moniker for a while though.

M.A.E. passed her driver’s license exam yesterday — bravo! Now if you can find a place to live…

Daughter Dearest is done with her junior year, except for a “May-mester” class she’s taking so she can finish in four years (typical music education major finished in 4-½ years). Funny, they have a flash fiction writing course available during May-mester as well.

Mason was pretty cranky this evening, and noisy through the afternoon — makes me wonder if he’s coming down with something. It’s going to be a rough weekend if he is. He zorched out in my lap this evening watching Word Girl.

Between dealing with Mason and picking up M.A.E., I haven’t had much free time in the evenings lately. There’s things I want to do, and nobody seems to give a flying flip. It’s not like I’m supposed to do anything but support all these people, huh?

Oh, the poll. My latest Friday Flash, Immortal Curse, set a personal record for hits and comments. It was very well-received, which makes me wonder whether I should consider submitting it to the Best of Friday Flash anthology instead of Assignation. So once again, the polls are open. Give each of them a read if you don’t remember them, and let me know in the comments which one I should go with.

Wednesday Wibbles

Wow, I haven’t done one of these in a few weeks. It’s been the usual crazy here, I suppose that will have to serve as an excuse. In fact, I’ve finished posting White Pickups (at least Book 1) since then. Big milestone there! I’ve done some light editing, the heavy editing begins soon — then I can continue working on (and starting to post) Book 2. The working title for Book 2 is Pickups and Pestilence, just to give you an idea…

Okay, let’s say hello to the newest visitors at the free-range insane asylum since the last wibble:

• G.P. Ching — check out her book, Soulkeepers, it’s in my “to read” pile too
• Laura Eno
• Fake Steve Ballmer
• Kevin Pees
• Marijan Graeber

Thanks for following! I’ll get follow-backs going when I get a chance.

And do you think I’d miss a chance to post a Mason pic? Here he is, with his dad (The Boy), hunting Easter eggs on Palm Sunday.

He filled his bucket with eggs, and is doing a lot better in general. Mrs. Fetched took him to the doc’s, and he’s just congested. April brings tornadoes and Pollen Overload; we haven’t had many of the first but the second more than makes up for it. He got a prescription that clears him up pretty quickly and makes him sleepy, so he gets it at bedtime even though he can have it four times a day.

Wednesday Wibbles [UPDATED]

I’m going to get this done. It might be Thursday when it posts, but I’m going to get this done.

First, the weekly welcome to the free-range insane asylum! All three are writers too, go check ’em out…

• John Xero (he runs like five blogs, so I just linked to his profile)
• AidanF
• Shannon Mayer 

Speaking of writing, I’ve not been doing nearly as much as I’d like. M.A.E. is trying to get financial aid to go back to school and improve her job prospects — which would lead to her getting independent and moving out of FAR Manor, so I can’t exactly kick her off my computer. I’ve continued to edit White Pickups offline using my Kindle, but not as much as I’d like. Then there’s the minor detail of the sequel. At least I have nothing pressing to finish… at the moment. I got an idea for a horror story at 5 a.m. this morning while tending to Mason (no, it’s not about him), so I need a chance to finish writing that down.

[UPDATE] I forgot to include this last night. Since we downgraded from the iPhones, I’ve gone back to using my old 5G iPod (aka iPodicus) to keep the tunes coming while I’m at the office. I bought a nice leather and spandex case for it at the same time I got the iPod, but the cover over the screen and click wheel has always been a sore point with me — they obscure the screen and make the wheel a lot less sensitive than it should be. I finally got tired of the wheel cover earlier this week and took Mrs. Fetched’s sewing gear to it. I found the seam ripper was good for breaking the first stitch, then a stout needle let me pull out the rest. Before and after pics…

My only regret so far: I didn’t do this years ago. I might do the same with the screen cover, but haven’t decided yet. It’s not as waterproof as it used to be, but so far that hasn’t been an issue.


Mason seems to be going beyond Epic Bed Hair these days. The hair on the back of his head has decided it will play by its own rules and do what it pleases. Usually, it’s pleased to stand straight out from the back of his head. He’s 18 months old now… wow. His checkup went well, and we’ve got him on our insurance now. With spring continuing to bring nicer days, he gets to spend a lot of his weekend outside, either at the park or running around the manor. Mrs. Fetched and I are talking about setting up an enclosed play area for him, which is suddenly feasible now that my yearly bonus has arrived. (I haven’t told her yet, shhhhh!) We’ll probably connect it with the patio/deck project that I’ve been wanting to do as well. I’ve also ordered a few trinkets (things I’ve wanted for a while) from Amazon; maybe they’ll arrive this week. Probably next.

Shannon (see above) has invented the Blog Flog. Anyone following the blog gets to post a comment describing his/her blog, which “obligates” that person to run their own flog. I’m planning mine this weekend, so tidy up and think about what you want to say…

Hey, it’s only 11:30 p.m. Still Wednesday here!

Pulling Up, Welcome, Writing

Things have improved quite a bit in the last two days. The HR person went into the database and could see from the transaction history that I had tried to add The Boy, so she went ahead and fixed it. I came home to find both Skyler and Big V here at the manor, but they went home after a while so it was all good. I still find myself with very little free time, and end up staying up much later than I should. On the other hand, Moptop is back… none the worse, nor better either.


One thing I’ve been wanting to do for a while is say hello to new blog-followers and welcome everyone to the free-range insane asylum. Since I haven’t done this before, I’m going to go back a couple months. From here on, I’ll list those since the last shout…

• Lace — Survival Suburbanite Style

• Clifton Hill — artist, writer, book reviewer

• Craig WF Smith — author of Zoolin Vale and the Chalice of Ringtar

• John Anelio — musician specializing in Sci Fi Songs

• Icy Sedgwick — aspiring author and great photo prompts (see Click, The Philosopher’s Stone)

• Apple Ardent Scott — writes horror and cool flash fiction

• Cathy Webster — fiction and life, it’s like TFM without the angst

• Mari Juniper — “stories, reflections, and pretty things”

• John Wiswell — anyone with the guts to call his blog The Bathroom Monologues is worth reading!

• Laurita Miller — and I seem to have lost her blog…


With the last few episodes of White Pickups waiting to be posted, I’ve been going back into the story and doing some preparatory work on the eBook version. The primary thread, how Cody becomes the person everyone looks to, is (I think) in reasonable shape. I need to work on some of the supporting characters, and these last few episodes are setting the stage for the sequel without really supporting the current story lines. Kind of sloppy, but that’s what happens when you just start writing sometimes. Without them, the ending felt kind of abrupt, which is why I didn’t just move them to Book 2.

I’m working on defining the framework for the two books now, which is probably a good idea because the second one is already about a third written.

Meanwhile, the Accidental Sorcerers series is already done — easy enough, since it’s only four parts — and the next three parts come out on successive Fridays. As in, part 2 tomorrow. Stay tuned…

5 Years of Blogging

Once again, I let the blogiversary slip by! Then again, I seem to have forgotten it completely last year. Last time I did this, I commemorated it with a video, so I’ll do it again…



Someday, we’re gonna rise up on that wind, you know
Someday, we’re gonna dance with those lions
Someday, we’re gonna break free from these chains
And keep on … flyin’

The Boy, by the Numbers (v2.0)

With this week’s TB02, I figured it was time to update the error codes. Here’s a link to the old error codes.

TB01: Left home (again)
TB02: Came home (again)
TB03: Said he’d be home, stayed out, hasn’t returned
TB04: Had a tantrum, broke something
TB05: Caught in a lie, insisting on his version of things
TB06: Talks about getting a job, no follow-through
TB09: Blames everyone else for his problems
TB21: Spent all morning in bed
TB22: Got drunk
TB23: Talks about quitting smoking/drinking, no follow-through
TB24: Talks about getting his own place, no follow-through
TB25: Band is about to be signed (again)
TB26: Not checking glucose/taking insulin
TB27: Said he'd help, disappeared/kept sleeping
TB28: Calls us at 3 a.m., emotional meltdown

Code TB07 (GED talk) was retired as he actually did get his GED. TB08 (band signed) has been replaced by the more accurate TB25 (about to be signed).

And in interest of fairness, Snippet deserves her own collection of error codes:

SN01: FATAL ERROR: Lobbed F-bomb at Mrs. Fetched or Daughter Dearest
SN02: Asked to sleep for “10 more minutes,” still in bed an hour later
SN03: Caught in a lie
SN04: Drinking (claims to be allergic to alcohol)
SN05: Blames other people for the friction in her life
SN06: Spent all morning in bed^{Note 1}
SN07: Says she'll help, no follow-through
SN08: Says something monumentally weird
SN09: Says she wants to get her GED, no follow-through

And finally, some error codes take two to tango:

TS01: Abandoned Mason to us with little or no warning
TS02: Had a fight
TS03: Brought some weird friend to the manor^{Note 2}

Note 1: Implies SN02. Often occurs in conjunction with TB21.
Note 2: Some of Snippet’s weird friends are pleasant to look at, but I wouldn’t want to keep them…

I expect that TB21, SN02, and SN06 will happen so often that it won’t be worth mentioning most of the time beyond just flagging the codes. On the other hand, they’ll be the ones getting up with Mason through the night, so I’m just a little inclined to cut ’em some slack there.

[EDITED] Ch-ch-ch-change

Note: the comments link is now at the TOP of the posts. I've been fiddling with stuff but haven't figured out how to move it to the bottom yet. Just look up instead of down, you’ll see it.

I was recently mulling giving TFM a makeover, then Blogger Buzz helpfully posted an article to Spruce Up Your Blog.

After devoting a whole ten minutes to it, two styles jumped out at me:

Abrasive, by btemplates.com

Inove, a converted WordPress template from deluxetemplates.net

For anyone who’s interested, I was using Thisaway Blue, one of Blogger’s standard templates.

Thoughts? iNove is a nice clean look, while Abrasive does a good job of representing the general deterioration of an older house that I must constantly combat, and I like the way lists look. If anyone has other suggestions, I’m all eyes.

Honest? Me?

While on vacation, I was awardified by my bud Wooly:



Kind of nice, actually. The easy part is the acceptance speech: I have to say 10 honest things about myself. The harder part is picking out 7 other people to pass the award to — I mean, my blog-buddies are all an honest bunch, how do I pick? Oh well, first things first.

1) I don’t let it all hang out here because my family (mom, dad, daughter, etc.) read it.

2) I don’t feel like I’m 50. I have to agree with Stephen King, who said, “I can’t feel like this, I’m still 19!”

3) I’m a little vain about my hair. Even if it is mostly grey and starting to thin out. I like to grow it a lot longer than Mrs. Fetched likes it.

4) Often, I have trouble finishing things. I wonder sometimes if I’m afraid to succeed.

5) My idea of a perfect day is walking/sitting/wading on the beach, otherwise doing absolutely nothing. I’d probably look for something to do on the second day, though.

6) I am both appalled and excited about the prospect of a grandson. (see #2, see also below)



7) I consider watching TV to be a complete waste of time. Of course, I spend a lot of time online, which is only a 90% waste of time. :-)

8) Living next to a farm has taught me that chickens & cows are evil creatures that deserve to be eaten. And yet, it wouldn’t bother me much to not eat meat.

9) I will spend more time getting my computer to do something for me than I would if I did it myself. On the other hand, the second time around I don’t have to expend much effort at all.

10) I have to constantly remind myself to not obsess over stuff I can’t do anything about.

OK, now comes the hard part. Seven people? Tell you what, if you’re not listed below, you get the award anyway. I did the work, I get to pick. :-P

Beth doesn’t shy away from the low spots in life. We want to have each other’s life. ;-)

Nudge has an opinion, and she ain’t afraid to express it. Gotta love that.

Move Atlanta Motorsports Park wasn’t successful in their effort to stop a Complete Waste of Effort, but they gave it their best shot.

Family Man tells many stories, old and new, all true. He definitely deserves this one.

Joe Vecchio chronicles his struggle with both trying to find decent (honest) work that will allow him to support himself, and trying to understand the nutbars on the far right.

Jen deserves this too, even if she shut down her blog. I learned a lot from her rants.

Finally, you get the nod. Enjoy!

Polls, Jobs, and Other Incidentals

If you hadn’t noticed yet, I’ve put a poll in the sidebar (just below my picture)… just curious to see what comes back. Lurkers, regulars, drive-bys, please go hit a checkbox or three and then feel free to expand on your thoughts in a comment here. I’m going to let it run through the end of March.

The Boy… are you sitting down? … got a JOB!!! In (wait for it… wait for it) a poultry processing plant. ROFL — we can’t get away from the dang chickens, can we? He had his first day of training today, one more tomorrow, then he’ll be working the night shift. His job entails hosing down the equipment to keep it clean & mostly sterile… think of The Boy in waterproofs next time you eat chicken, OK?

Meanwhile, things got a little weird at my job today. It really started last week, I suspect, when I was working at home shooting some pix for a new product and found that the mounting holes were spaced ¾ inch too far apart. There was a scramble to fix that problem, especially since time is running out, and the payback came this morning. First, a picture on a quick install guide (for a different product) said “750” instead of “760” — which might have been an issue, if the text in question was large enough to see on the printed version without a very strong magnifying glass. They had to open the PDF and zoom waaayyyy in to see it… and of course, this was suddenly a critical item. Also critical, after not being even noticed for about a year, is that the picture of the yellow Ethernet cable is “too green.” I ended up borrowing DoubleRed’s desktop PC to use for the “connect to computer” shots… of course, it doesn’t have an Ethernet card, but I was able to stick a card in and make it look right. I’m pretty sure this was Revenge of the Engineers… they have their little freak-out dance they do when things get tight, and I don’t have to watch Dancing with the Stars because I see this performance all too often.

We’re supposed to talk with the dean of the music department tomorrow. Daughter Dearest is planning to transfer to the college just up the road next year, and the dean wants to try talking us out of it. There have been some issues… the dorm rooms have been plagued with mold (absolute hell on a music major), and the food has been somewhat short of edible at times as DD claims to have found a loogy in the salad once. Quite frankly, we would expect better from a private college with a good reputation. At least we’ll be able to afford next year.

The SXSW festival has their entire musical showcase available on BitTorrent. It’s a 6GB load, in three parts, and you’ll have to wade through it to find what you like. The torrents are organized only by artist, so you have to slog through it all. I’m still listening to part 1 (while helping to re-seed all three parts). At least I got my ratio back over 1.0 now. Fortunately, I’m fairly easy to please, so I’ve been throwing every tenth song or so into iTunes for further listening. Sometimes, a tune I’m not fond of at first will grow on me; sometimes, the opposite happens.

After I brought Big V home from the hospital on Saturday, she went right back in first thing Sunday. She may have a heart issue or a blockage; either way, it ain’t a good thing. At least she escaped the last hospital with her foot still attached. I just hope she starts doing a better job of taking care of herself. She’s getting on Mrs. Fetched’s nerves, big-time, so she isn’t in that bad of shape.

Mrs. Fetched’s mom planted four rows of potatoes today… sounds like we’ll be picking them up by the tractor bucket-load again this year. I’ve got to start my yellow pear tomatoes and get some spinach planted. And I need to plant myself in the bed…

Late-season Lilies

We’re all tired of looking at the chicken houses this week. Fortunately, they were renditioned last night, and they should all be Good Chickens by now… in your local grocery or on the way. No more looking at broken breakers, no more piles of feed caused by a malfunctioning system, no more die-offs in power failures.

For a couple of weeks, at least.

Something a little more pleasant to look at showed up earlier in the week — some lilies decided to hold out for a month and gave us their own version of the Late Show. You know, that allium never did really bloom out — it’s making little seeds already. Maybe it was a short show and I missed it.

FAR Future is set for the next two Mondays — the upcoming episode ran huge, so I split it up. That gives me a little cushion, and I don’t intend to waste it.

Three. Two. One…

Stand by for Snippet launch!

The Boy didn’t believe we’d follow through. He, Snippet, and even her mom have been trying various tactics, but it looks like she’ll be gone tomorrow. She’s already been bumped from the guest bed: M.A.E.’s aunt has come up to see the new baby, and she’s staying with us. Snippet’s staying on the couch tonight. I don’t know where she’ll be tomorrow night, but it won’t be FAR Manor.

I’ve gotten sort of busy in meatspace, trying to get the manor ready for all the family coming to Daughter Dearest’s graduation — so of course I’ve suddenly become unblocked on FAR Future. What little free time I’ve had, I’ve been writing. The next two episodes are already up in scheduled posts for the next two Mondays, and I think I’m pretty clear on the next three episodes after those. I’m gonna write while Olga’s crackin’ the whip, so if I’m not around much you’ll know why.

Farf the Guest-Blogger

I’ll be guest-blogging tomorrow at Eat4Today — Katiebird is under the weather and asked me to post the regular “Just 4 Today” feature and whatever else comes to mind tomorrow.

If you haven’t been to Eat4Today, and are interested in weight control and personal health, it’s well worth making the daily stop. Katiebird’s philosophy is that weight control is more of a daily commitment than a matter of “just” diet and exercise. As she puts it: “Before, I was looking for a program that I could follow for the rest of my life, now I’ve got a program that only has to work for today. Just today.” That also means if you blow it, you’ve only blown it for today. You can make a fresh, stress-free start tomorrow.

So drop by tomorrow and say hello. If you like what you see, leave a comment — better yet, bookmark it and keep coming back!

Going dim

I probably won't be online much through the evenings this week. Check my Twitter box from time to time, though; I'll be “tweeting” from my smellphone. If I have a while, I’ll post something out of my phone, and if I get a couple free hours I’ll post the next episode of FAR Future this week.

All a-Twitter

You may have noticed that I’ve added a Twitter box to the sidebar… the site seems to be pretty slow this evening, so if it doesn’t load right away it’s not your connection. If you’re on Twitter, let me know and I’ll add you to my “follow” list. (I’m FARfetched58 if you want to “follow” me.)

I reserve the right to jump to Jaiku, if I decide I like it better. ’Course, I won’t be able to make that decision until Google sends me an invite…

Alienating Customers in Two Easy Steps

The butterfly effect: when I first got interested in blogging, I was a pretty die-hard Yahoo! user, so I went to see if they had anything. They didn’t, I wasn’t able to find any other blogging services at that moment, so I went on to other things. Some months later, I found Blogger, started TFM, and the rest is history — only later did I learn that Yahoo! had opened Yahoo!360 about a month earlier. If I’d looked at Yahoo again, or they had opened 360 up earlier, Tales from FAR Manor would have been a Yahoo blog. As it was, during that rough patch where Blogger was flaking out a lot, I was getting ready to move the whole shebang over to 360 anyway. But then Google fixed the problems and I’m still here… except that I started a work-related blog, under my real name, at 360.

Like most beta software, 360 has had its share of growing pains. Some less than well-executed moves by Yahoo, however, made things worse — for example, after buying Flickr, Yahoo decided to migrate Yahoo Photos to Flickr. The transition did not go well for many people, and (perhaps reflecting the older crowd on 360) the change was not well-received in any case.

Things came to a head in the last month or so. Whenever the 360 team added a new post to the product blog (might only be visible to 360 members, not sure), people raised the same issues: problems with the photo transition, blog-stalkers, disappearing posts or entire blogs, friends being deleted — over and over, and no recognition from the 360 team that the problems were being worked on or that they were even reading the comments. Then the communications pretty much dried up completely after a post on August 10. Rumors started flying, especially after Jerry Yang included 360 in a list of items that were being de-emphasized during the conference call (following 3rd-quarter financial reports).

Looking for any way to get Yahoo to notice the issues on 360, many users took to posting on Yahoo's Mash feedback forum. (Mash is a new social-networking site, owned by Yahoo and apparently targeted to a much younger demographic than the typical 360 user.) The Mash folks responded, at least, even if they deleted 360-related posts, but the volume must have gotten a bit much because Darrell Jones posted something for the first time in two months: Yahoo! 360º Questions? Let’s Talk (Uhhh, Right Here). The title was taken by some to be rather condescending — after all, there had been no communication for two months and the post content still contained no recognition that they were paying attention to the problems people were having… then over 1600 comments, with no response again, infuriated people even more. Darrell’s new nickname became “UHHH.” Some people found Darrell’s 360 blog, which hadn’t been updated since February, and started leaving “Quick Comments.” After a couple days of that, Darrell simply turned off Quick Comments with no other response.

Finally after nearly a week, Matt Warburton (they at least saw that Darrell was toast with the users) posted The Evolution of Yahoo! 360, which (yet again) was short on specifics, only promising “that Yahoo! 360 will transition to a new universal Yahoo! profile that will be closely tied to other relevant services across Yahoo!, and will include improved blogging capabilities.” Many 360 users took this to mean that Mash (which, like Myspace and Facebook, is profile- rather than blog-oriented) would be the new way forward — of the over 900 comments posted so far, many of them boiled down to “If I wanted Myspace, I’d be on Myspace. Just fix the bugs.”

But it may be too late. In the “Evolution” post comments, many are threatening to leave if 360 becomes Mash'ed up, others have said they’re already leaving. It’s probably true: Bloggers Anonymous has reported falling membership due to people leaving 360. According to the comments in the “Evolution” post, many are leaving for Multiply.

It would be a shame to lose 360. There are several nice features that Blogger simply doesn’t have, or exist only as third-party add-ons. First, the “Blast” lets bloggers put a brief banner message (with an optional link) at the top — it’s like an integrated Twitter. Quick Comments, which I mentioned earlier, is a built-in shout-box. And the “friends” and “groups” lists are something we have to do manually here on Blogger. Of course, there are also things that 360 is missing that Blogger has, like drafts and the ability for non-members to leave messages. It will be interesting to see if Google’s Orkut re-launch (coming next month) will add some social-networking aspects to Blogger. I’m sure a lot of 360 users are wondering about it as well.

So Yahoo has shown us how to alienate customers in two easy steps:

1) Let problems languish for months with no action or response.

2) When forced to respond, be condescending and don’t respond further.