Fantasist's Scroll

Not one of mine for a change, though.
Nope, this would be Faith In Fiction, which is a blog run by a fiction acquisitions editor at a Christian publishing house. He looks at the fiction publishing world from a view few of us get to see. And, he talks about good fiction, faith and how the two can work together. Really, it’s an interesting idea for a blog.
One of the things I found interesting was that Christian authors deal with all the same issues that non-religious authors do. You don’t get a “free pass” just because you’re writing faith-based work. Of course, I knew that, but I don’t think a lot of aspiring Christian writers think about that. Generally, I get the impression that they think the message should be enough and editors should work out all that details, like grammar and spelling. And plot and characterization. You get the idea. So, it’s refreshing to see someone encouraging Christian writers to write, but to write good fiction, not just anything. I’m sure part of the idea is to cultivate a decent source of publishable talent, but I still like the idea of targeting that particular audience. Hmm, maybe I’ll even try writing for that market segment.

Well, there’s been a bit of a problem with some of the word generators.
Apparently, one of them has been sucking up too much memory on my webhost’s server, so I’ve temporarily disabled it until I’m home from the road and cna deal with it. (Damn! That was one long sentence!) I’ll get it straight sooner or later, but it’ll take a bit.
Sorry for the inconvenience!

Okay, so it occurred to me that there had to be a better way.
Yeah, sure, I could talk about the evils of free porn until I’m blue in the face. I could even rant about how terrible it is to manipulate searchengines. Instead, I’m going to try and do it. Again.
Yes, again. I did it once back in 2000/2001 to get my other site ranked so highly on Google for the search terms “CNE resume” that it was the number one hit. I did all sorts of crazy things, not the least of which was start a blog, incidentally. One thing I did was look at both the Google Zeitgeist and the Yahoo Buzz Index and try to use those terms in my site. So, for instance, according to Google’s Zeitgeist, I should talk about: how I felt about the Golden Globes and who won; the fact that Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day; what Teri Hatcher was wearing at the Golden Globes; who Teri Polo is and what she wore at the Golden Globes; what NASA has thrown into space lately; what “naughtiness” Prince Harry has been up to over in the UK; detailed specs on the iPod Shuffle; the super-model antics of Naomi Campbell; the fact that Mariska Hargitay also won a Golden Globe; and how the movie “Elektra” was doing in the box office. As you can see, that first hit, the Golden Globe Awards, was a really popular one, since it was repeated in, or was effected by, several later searches.
Last week, I should have been talking about: Amber Frey, the adulterous whore who was banging Scott Peterson; the terrible damage done by the tsunami in India; how terrible it is that Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching; Delta Airlines for some reason; the Weather Channel coverage of that tsunami in India; Heidi Klum, because it’s always a good time to talk about Ms. Klum (and she got married to Seal); NFL player Randy Moss, presumably because he sprained his ankle; the Orange Bowl, because it’s still football season; the fact that Brad Pitt is single again; and all the cool concept cars at the Detroit Auto Show. Crazy stuff, right?

Well, according to Yahoo Buzz Index, I should have talked about some very different things this week. If I wanted to get Yahoo hits, I should have talked about: OJ Simpson’s daughter, Sydney Simpson, getting arrested; Playboy Playmate Alicia Rickter, for obvious, pornographic reasons; those nuts over at Jibjab, who made another hit animation; Enter Location, because, uh, people were travelling a lot?; actress Elisabeth Harnois, possibly for the Golden Globes again?; O.J. Simpson, because his daughter got arrested, of course; the fact that Julian Ozanne got married to Gillian Anderson and no one knows who he is, but everyone knows her from the X-files; anything and everything about actress Lucy Liu, just because, she’s Lucy Liu; the Tennesse-based music and arts festival, Bonnaroo; “How We Do” almost anything, from the sound of it; eating “Breakfast and Brunch”? Or is that more travelling stuff?; how cheap Costco Wholesale pricing is; soap-opera star Annie Parisse, most likely because she moved on to something better; the fact that Japan had another big earthquake; and Jimjab.com, which is most likely a mistake for “jibjab.com”.

Wow, those are totally different things, aren’t they? Are people who use those two different searchengines that different? Have I been losing out by optimizing for Google?
Oh, I don’t know, but I think I’m going to go have a bit of a lay-down. This whole experience has been exhausting.
(And, yes, I’ve posted this same thing on my other blog, the Diary of a Network Geek, for the same reason as the last post.)

WHAT?!?
What the devil am I doing talking about free porn on this very non-adult blog? Simple, talking about free porn is the fastest way to get hits. Sad, but true. In fact, John Dvorak has written an article about this called Free Porn Magic For You.
I used to think that the Internet had improved with age, that we’d finally gotten past all the free porn, or “pron” if you’re one of the hip, out-of-work webdesigners from the 90’s, and had moved on to something more meaningful. I guess I was wrong. If you read the article, you’ll see that what holds true from the earlier days of the Internet still, sadly, holds true today. People are looking for free porn on the Internet. Now, the hits I generally get via searches on Google, and company, aren’t filled with porn terms, movies, or “performers”, so I’m not really expecting a lot of traffic boost, but, well, it can’t hurt. Can it? You know, I’m already starting to feel a bit slimy with all that.
Damn, how else can I boost ratings on this site? For pity’s sake, I know hundreds of people hit this site on a daily and weekly basis, but I have only one sad, lonely Bloglines subscriber. Just one. Did I mention that Bloglines is a free service? And they have nice, FREE tools that let you keep up with your favorite blogs? (Aw, c’mon, subscribe to the Fantasist’s Scroll with Bloglines!) Oh, I suppose I could always just produce more content here. Yeah, that might work, too. But, well, I’d rather go with the sure thing. So, for those of you who are websurfers that got here looking for free porn, I apologize. I was just using you to drive my stats up. I hope you don’t hate me too much.
(And, yes, I talked about this on my other blog, the Diary of a Network Geek. So sue me!)

Did someone take my idea?

Or is it just so, so lame that more than one person thought of it? Okay, let me explain. See, I’ve had this idea for a fantasy fiction setting that I called the Five Kingdoms for several years. In fact, I’ve been talking about it so long that I don’t even remember how far back it goes. But, the other day when I was looking through some stuff on CafePress, I found a book called The Sorean, which has, right on the cover, a reference to “Tales from the Five Kingdoms”. I laughed so hard I almost ruptured something. The whole thing just totally cracked me up.

I knew that, sooner or later, this kind of thing would happen when CafePress started selling books. Of course, I figured that there’d be plenty of folks selling books that they’d taken from Project Gutenberg, and there are, but some of the other stuff surprised me a bit. A pleasant surprise was the Ethereal Press Language series. As someone who’s “into” constructed languages, these books were really interesting to me. I’m not sure that I’d ever buy one, but I think it’s great that someone is making them.
I also found more “serious” books, like The Book Of AisthC*tikos, which advertises itself for the “serious student of the occult”. So, all you lame posers can piss off! This book isn’t for you!
The other thing that was fun to browse through was the CafePress music offerings. Now, to be fair, some of these are probably really, really good, but undiscovered bands. On the other hand, some of them are just funny. My favorite “WTF” music cd was Shut Up The Devil by King MC. The devil is totally whack, yo!

And, of course, there is my very own Ye Old Wizard’s Shoppe, now with more panties. It’s really almost a joke, but if anyone ever buys anything, and I mean anything, I might just pay for a “premium” shop and do more with it. Anyway, I guess I may just be forced to give up on the Five Kingdoms and move on. After all, I wouldn’t want to infringe on any market right that The Sorean might now have. (Yes, I’m kidding.)

The new trend in cars?

Smaller than a Mini-Cooper and more fuel efficient, too, the Smart line from Mercedes may be the next wave in car technology. According to this article on Wired News, the Fortwo is a new breed of car that is not only high-tech, but “cool”, too. Made from primarily recycled plastics and designed to be super fuel-efficient, boasting up to 70 miles per gallon. The car itself is tiny. In fact, it is almost literally half the size of a Hummer and two Fortwo’s can park in a regular parking spot quite comfortably. You can squeeze in three, if you park sideways. Is it the car of the future? Possibly. Of course, we won’t know in the US until sometime in 2006, which is when they plan on breaking in over here. Hmm, can I wait that long? Well, in the mean-time, go take a look at this what Wired News has to say about the Smart Fortwo.

Wow, there’s been a lot of space-travel news lately.

And, that’s a good thing, I think. It means people are talking about it and doing things about it. Yesterday, I posted a story about India’s moonshot and last week I mentioned a couple of things about the X-Prize and SpaceShip One. Well, now I’ve read about Bigelow Aerospace and their work on inflatable space modules. The article is over at Spaceflight Now and is worth the read. One of the things that is mentioned is that Robert T. Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, says that he’s planning to announce a new $50-million space launch contest called America’s Space Prize. That’s five times the size of the current X-Prize.
What I think is cool about all this is that it’s about private industry working on getting into space. It’s something we really need to do. We’re slowly choking this planet and pushing her resources to the limit, so we need to find more room to expand. And, before everyone starts sending me nasty e-mail, that will also teach us conservation and better resource management. How? A space mission has to use its very limit resources extremely carefully or everyone dies. The improvements in technology will spill over into the private, non-space, sector, just as they’ve done since the first launch.
Also mentioned on the same page as the article is a book that looks quite good: Moonrush: Improving Life On Earth With The Moon’s Resources. It certainly seems like an appropriate topic based on all these news stories. All you budding science-fiction writers better bone up on this stuff!

Space tourists.

Well, if Richard Branson is as spot on as he’s been, we may be flying Virgin Galactic into space for our vacations. Okay, so, maybe that’s a little “forward thinking”, but, according to this article on Wired News, he’s made a deal to to build an “aircraft” based on Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne craft. (Mr. Rutan, and company, is a contender for the X-Prize.) Apparently, Branson’s plan is to start making regular “flights” into space, one assumes with profit in mind. So, in spite of the flamboyant and sometimes downwright strange stunts he’s pulled, Branson may just fullfil the promise of the X-Prize: regular, commercial space-flight.

Cool.