So I’ve been busy the last week, not with work (well, I’m always busy with work-a-day work, but you know what I mean). I’ve been busy writing, because Harper Voyager announced this, and I’ve got a half-finished novel that’s at about the 60K word mark and if I bust ass I might be able to submit it by deadline and have it not be shitty.

I’m going to try and maintain the regular posting level for the next few weeks, but if things drop off, things drop off a bit. Sorry, guys. If it looks like I won’t make deadline I will ease off the throttle.

It’s about that time again: ask me anything/requests for post topics.

Hey, remember the “Internet Nice Guy” post from 2007? Well, it still gets traffic and the occasional comment, and I felt I should share this one, from “doesntmatter” (although I added some paragraph breaks to his wall of text):

So funny how everbody jumps on the bandwagon an the females aplaud the author for being totally one sided and saying exactly what they want to hear, while he totally disregards the other side of the story, that some females indeed are bitches who just use males when they are in the need, e.g. if their asshole boyfriend dumped her again (because he just wanted sex and nothing more, and that was clear from the beginning for everyone except for her), perfectly knowing that the guy they are using is loner who wants a girlfriend (and sex, of course) and will do pretty much anything for her, and instead of saying “You? Never!” or just talking to another person they just throw him away after use and forget it.

TL;DR: There are always two sides to a story, and it DOES matter if you are in a relationship and can talk down to people who are not, or if you are part of the folks which are not in a relationship and try like crazy to get into one only to see all their efforts crumble to dust. A rich man can lightly say that money does not really matter in life, while the poor man will certainly say the opposite. So don’t be so fucking full of yourselves because you were lucky and others were not.

Have fun with it, everybody!

Last week’s pledge drive went very well, covering about 90% of my IP renewal cost, so I think it’s time for another requests post. What would you guys like to see? Standard caveats: no “I Should Write” requests, no requests for “more original comics” unless you’re willing to be or find an artist for me, and nothing about oysters. (I just don’t like oysters.)

So I just received a comment on the Star Trek: DS9 alignments post as follows:

congrats!

You grabbed the number one google ranking for “DS9 character alignment” and Star Trek character alignment” from me.

This was followed, of course, by a link to said person’s webpage, which was presumably their page which previously had the number one Google ranking for those things. (Link has since been edited so it is no longer an active hyperlink.) Curious about their SEO desperation, I followed the link…

…and found my own damn alignment chart there.

This is why I watermark all my stuff now, even if I don’t always like the aesthetic thereof.

So once again it has come time for my yearly “spend the money to continue having hosting.” And honestly – I’m hoping that by this time next year I won’t have to hold out the hat for your spare change but instead be so flush that the money will just be a little bit of nothing, much in the way that other people purchase a pair of skis. But, right now, in the midst of paying down my not-insignificant student loans and having to lay out cash for malpractice insurance and Law Society dues, I am relatively cash-poor.

So I request of my readership: please do click that “donate” button. It makes my life a little bit easier, and you continue to get what I would humbly submit is entertaining content with exactly zero ads, and I can keep clicking “report as spam” on all those emails from “freelancers” asking to submit posts that would, just coincidentally, have links in them to sites where you can purchase things! (Or are possibly malware sites. I’m not sure which; I never check. I just report the emails as spam.) Because I like that this site never asks you to spend money. Except when I ask you to spend money, and I do so as rarely as possible.

So, after four years, over twenty-three hundred posts, over forty-four thousand comments (seriously, you people), twelve guestbloggers, sixty-three pages of my very own comic, at least five interviewers expressing concern over the content of my blog and how it might affect my work performance, and god knows how many hours of coming up with all of it, here we are.

I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

It’s been a couple of months since I last took requests, so… have at it.

Usual caveats apply: no “I should writes,” and if you want to request more comics – well, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

I’m still burned out from last night’s debate coverage so it’s time for another one of these: what would people like me to write about? (As usual, no requests for “I should write X.”)

Additionally, if anybody has any old Battletech miniatures lying around that they don’t want, email me and we’ll discuss ’em: I’m getting back into the game.

James, in accordance with a request made in the AMA thread, has installed both search and comment-link functionality on the site.

I would like to point out that he did this without having me even ask, so, as usual, I will reiterate how awesome it is when people hit up his wishlist.

I’m getting a bit bored just posting images during my study hiatus, so: ask me anything. About work, not-work, Al’Rashad, my other stuff, the blog, what I had for breakfast yesterday, whatever. Answers will be next week’s posts.

(Well, not anything – I’m not going to give legal advice, for example. But most things.)

It looks like we’re not going to need to put in a captcha/registration system after all – not even one that uses cute kitties and doggies – as James has brilliantly managed to fix the WordPress theme problem that was causing the various spamblock plugins to fritz out, and they’re working excellently now.

This is the sort of you-wouldn’t-know-if-I-didn’t-tell-you thing that James does on a regular and totally volunteer basis to keep mgkdotcom running smoothly, which is why I reiterate my request from last week – if you can spare a little goodwill, hit up his wishlist, since among other things his rework on the site’s caching is what makes reading the comics that I’ve been putting up here with my various collaborators possible.

In the next couple of days I’m probably going to be installing a captcha system of some sort for commenting, simply because spam comment traffic has grown so intense that I’m literally killing 100-200 spam comments a day at this point.

I don’t like the idea of having to do it, because captcha is a pain and I doubt any of you like it any more than I do, but I really, really hate the spam comments. If I’m not going to turn a profit off my site then nobody will, dammit.

EDIT: Note that this is still a “probably,” since I am holding out hope that the new build of Akismet will take care of things. But it hasn’t yet.

It’s my birthday today, and thirty-five is not one of the great birthdays: it feels sort of milestoney because it divides evenly by 5, but unlike a “divides by ten” birthday it doesn’t feel impressive in any way, and unlike 25 it is not an awesome number. It is just sort of there, blandly saying “well, you’re in your mid-thirties now, and no mistake.”

Plus, having your birthday be right in the middle of the workweek is exceptionally unfair and I wish to complain to management about that.

Anyhow. Those interested in giving me presents (surely there are some of you) – what I’d hope people might do is also consider buying James Young something from HIS wishlist, since James has done a lot of thankless heavy lifting behind the scenes to keep this blog running smoothly despite configuration issues that make Rube Goldberg machines look like inclined planes in terms of ease of use.

Alternately, you can always consult the Paypal button or my Amazon wishlist. Service resumes as normal tomorrow.

So my annual “pay money to keep site alive” time has passed, and I am significantly poorer because the type of hosting you need to keep a site up and running when you get Farked or similar (which happens every so often here) is pricier than average. I’m happy to pay it, because blogging is What I Does and I’d pay it even if you weren’t all here making the experience thoroughly more enjoyable.

However, as I am relatively poor (yes, I’m working now, but not for a glorious salary, and also there is the enormous law school debt I’m very, very slowly paying down), I’m more than willing to ask that people, if they are inclined/able, chip in by using the donation button at right.

In the meantime, requests for post topics in comments, because it’s been a while since I’ve asked.