If you’re trying to launch any sort of online service, take a look at the WordPress terms of service and privacy policy. Both are good examples of such documents and, best of all, they have been released under Creative Commons license. Nothing worse than getting sued for plagiarizing a document meant to define the limits of privacy and plagiarism, eh?
Saturday: new garden. visit parents. lots of work done on blog and ideas. made and canned mulberry jelly for the first time ever, and it was awesome.
Sunday: more work done in writing. ate amazing jelly and home made bread. nearly went into sugar coma after coming down from high of eating nearly half jar of jelly. saw imogen heap live (freakin’ awesome! will post pics soon)
Monday: more work done. planned and made maps for paris trip. planned out week for real job. paid bills and started on next year’s budget. distracted by plans of saving for house. drove around to look at houses. determined that houses are freakin’ expensive, but we’ll probably be able to find an ok place. long and depp conversations about hopes and plans. decisions reached. plans somewhat made.
Now it’s time to get some sleep as real job happens in the morning.
Any readers who happen to be in, or planning to visit, Norfolk, Virginia should consider paying a visit to The Belmont. Its a quirky restaurant / bar at the intersection of 21st Street and Colonial Avenue. A bit pricy, but they have great special deals.
For example:
Today I had a bill of $0 for two sprites and a quesadilla appetizer.
The reason?
Fridays are 2 for 1 appetizer day and a friend had also ordered an appetizer. (Technically I think I owe him a beer or something for taking the fall by having ordered the more expensive, and thus only paid, appetizer, but still…)
The Belmont also seems to support designated drivers as the waitress assumed I was the DD and didn’t charge me for my soda. (Friends were drinking beer, I stuck with sprite as I had to drive to Lowes and haul bricks after the meal).
I first heard of Amanda Palmer when Neil Gaiman started writing short stories for her. Then started paying attention when Neil and Amanda started dating.
I can’t stand much of her music at once, but a song or two at a time… whoa. Utterly, insanely, intense and awesome.
If there is one thing that I cannot stand, it is apathy and lack of intellectual curiosity. Looking back at my work today, I saw a few errors of my own (be firmer, stutter less, don’t get flustered)… but the primary flaw that I saw was in my clients. They made no effort to even look at the material presented. Sure, a 60 year old Ray Bradbury story isn’t an action movie slam packed with bare breasts and explosions, but it is delightfully eerie and full of delicious descriptive language.
But here’s the problem: YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY READ IT! The book isn’t going to jump up and bite you on the nose! You need to open your eyes, look at the paper (or screen), and read the story. The number of clients who spent 2 days in my session and had not even read the assigned material was just staggering.
You pay me to present this to you! You come into my session with the idea (supposedly) that I am going to enrich your life with literature… but then you refuse to put forth any personal effort. Disgusting.
Went to Barnes and Noble with the wife tonight to try and find books on starting small businesses. Ugh, it all seems dreadfully complicated.
We got a couple of books on the basics, such things as: do we even need to start a business to do what we have planned?
The biggest question will likely be with the local city. I really need to carefully read the Norfolk regulations and figure out what they require for a simple, two person company that focuses on small-scale printing and web publishing.
Lots of things going on these days. SOLs are done (for me) and now I’m busy keeping the students enthralled with literature. Or trying to.
Projects currently underway:
Lengthy post about SOL testing in Virginia (should probably wait until I’m done with it before posting).
Reformatting my game to print on cardstock, while trying to find some other way to print it…
Optimizing (and rebuilding) the digital version of my game…
Launching a new website… expect the single-author version in about a month. Not sure if I can get the social networking element worked out by then (ah, the perils of knowing just enough about all of this web platform stuff to be dangerous).
Looking into the intricacies of starting a small business in Virginia. (Don’t want to jump into it, only to find out I’ve screwed up my taxes).
None of these are good excuses for my failure to post every day recently. I mean, come on Observ3r! If all else fails you have WordPress mobile on you iPhone!
Oh, add to that list that I need to fix my theme. The drop-down navigation has been fubared since I tried tweaking my AdSense code a few days ago. (Trying to move ad from side to top).
I spent some time in my old game code tonight, hunting down bugs in established code rather than learning how to make bugs of a whole new variety.
It was a bit disheartening.
At the core, I still believe in my game. I think it is a lot of fun to play and will definitely be writing up all the rules and fully securing my copyright… Then pushing the thing out as far as possible. Not sure about when I will have a physical version made of something more substantial than card stock though. Printing costs are just so high and the market for board games is unpredictable.
Which brings me back to the disheartening code of the digital version.
I think it is time for a re-write.
Think of it as a second draft…
I may release the current (incomplete) version for people to pound on, then begin a full-on rebuild of the code. There’s just this feeling whenever I go to hunt down a bug that the flaws in my game run deep into the core logic.
Anyone out there at all interested in hammering on my though-child and giving some polite feedback?
