Overnight the blog was overwhelmed by loads of spam, and I don’t know why the spam filter didn’t detect it all. I’ve removed it all now, but in response I’ve made a slight change to my commenting policy. Basically new commenters will have their first comment moderated by me before it will show up. I’m online a lot so it shouldn’t take more than a few hours or so to be approved.

If this proves unpopular or impractical I may opt for a captcha plugin, but I’d rather not as I hate using them on other blogs.

Let me know what you think.

Update: I’m trying something else, a system which should block the majority of spammers. So there’s now no excuse for anyone not to comment.

People don’t change. Only their costumes do. ~ Gene Moore

I got fed up of seeing all that grey when I looked at this blog, so I decided to change it to a dark green. I also spent some time on tweaking functional aspects of the site such as the top menu and the styling of comments.

I’ve also switched domains to recluse.me as I felt that it was more reflective of what I’m about, and easier to remember. If you used to link to my previous address, I’d really appreciate it if you could update your blogroll to the new one. In the meantime anyone who navigates to the old address will be redirected here.

My rss readers needn’t be concerned by these changes, as I’ve retained the same feed address.

I’ve still got a couple more things to do with the blog before I can relax (e.g. sorting out my categories and tags), but I’m happy with it so far.

Please let me know if anything looks strange (stranger than normal), and include your operating system and browser info. If you love it, tell me that too!

It doesn’t happen too often, but I like when it does. I come across new blogs every week, but it’s quite rare that I like the blogger’s writing style and content so much that I want to explore the archives and/or subscribe to its feed.

The other day Writer Not Reading left me a comment, and I visited her blog (as I often do when people comment here). I was so impressed by the quality and accessibility of her writing that I ended up bookmarking several of her posts for further study. Her blog is a wonderful resource for writers.

Sometimes I also notice when people (usually male) enjoy visiting my archives and leaving me sweet comments. I remember before our feud (which is currently on pause in a tentative cease-fire) J.D. was very enamoured of this blog…

These cute toothless kids are celebrating the fact that I’ve had 50,000 unique visitors to this blog.

I wasn’t expecting to reach this total for another couple of weeks, but then someone stumbled an old Thursday 13 post from last November and sent more than 3000 visitors there since last night! It’s all too bizarre really.

Anyway, I just wanted to use this opportunity to thank you all for visiting, whether you’re a regular commenter, lurker, subscriber or friend.

Hey dudes! Three bodacious babes, A.Writer, Liane Spicer and Ms Canterbury Soul have each awarded me the Excellent Blog Award. Another accolade to add to my mantle-piece.

I’m supposed to pass it on to another 10 bloggers, but as I’ve got three awards I’m going to give it to 15 instead:

Nicholas
BMT
Semaj
Becca
SamuraiFrog
J.D. (in his case it’s E for eejit)
Ben V
Me ole China
Capt. Incredible
Westcoast Walker
Evil Spock
Journeying
The Korean Lady’s Boy Toy
Dr M
Splotchy

Party on, dudes!

Source

My twenty-thousandth visitor was from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and visited at local time 10:28:35 pm on 25 December. He or she found my blog via a google image search for this pic of Lindt chocolate from a post about chocolate withdrawal…

Cool, eh?

Thanks to all of you for visiting.

Your eyes are not deceiving you, it’s definitely snowing here! (Well it is, as long as you have javascript on your computer.)

I’ve gone all festive on here, with the fancy tree and the snow; don’t you just wanna grab a handful of the white stuff and throw it at some hapless passerby?

And to celebrate, here’s an interesting video clip of the original Die Hard movie set to Dean Martin’s performance of “Let it Snow”.

BV has tagged me to do the 8 meme again. I’m not going to tag anyone, but feel free to do it if you wanna.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. Eight is a magic number. Not three.

1. After I’ve had a good experience, especially with a guy, I count time back to the event. For instance, 2 hours ago he kissed me. 12 hours ago… a day ago…

2. I’ve read 82 books so far this year. I’m hoping to make it to 100 by the 31st. A while ago I realised that I’ve surpassed the goal of 50 books that I’d set for myself earlier in the year.

3. I rarely wear makeup, but I like to buy lipsticks and lipglosses.

4. When I finished secondary school (aged 16) I put on bright red nail polish, just because I could. My strict Catholic girls’ school wouldn’t let us wear makeup or wear much jewellery.

5. My parents aren’t married, so the tabloid newspapers would call me a love-child instead of that other word…

6. I have a half-brother and sister on my dad’s side, who I’ve only met once. I’m also an auntie, but I haven’t seen my niece since she was a baby. She must be about 10 years old by now. I wonder how they all are but I don’t know how to get in touch with them since they moved house.

7. I’m watching Judge Judy right now. I watch her every weekday in the evenings after work, and I watch Divorce Court in the mornings before work.

8. I’ve just decided that I have too much stuff. I need to get rid of all the extraneous objects in my life and focus on what’s most important. I’m sure I’ll discuss this issue in more detail another time.

and live forever as a benevolent goddess of amusement, mythology and storytelling, geekery and cool design.

Yes, I’ll write that in my will. Instead of freezing my head/body cryogenically, inject my mind into the net and free me from the constraints of mortality.

Is it a gift, or is it a curse? I don’t know. (more…)