The Earplug Adventures began life on this blog – right back in 2014. So I think it only right that (following their dismal showing in their own blog) they should return here: the home of earplug fiction. Henceforth all the stuff that appeared on the accursed failed blog will (as if like magic) reappear in these hallowed cyber-pages. Stuff like this…
Following uncounted millennia in suspended animation, a newly-formed ocean reanimates ancient aquatic earplugs upon Mars. Here Arthur and Millicent find their way to the surface for the first time. From Haunted Mars Volume Two. Fascinating factoid: The bubbly surface of the new ocean is actually semi-melted sound deadening material. The earplugs aren’t embedded in it; instead they have had their bottom halves excised – giving the impression that they are partially submerged. Well that’s the idea anyway. Did it work?
I suspected as much, when I first began my countryside photo-blog, that it wouldn’t last long. What has surprised me though, is the reason for it’s demise. Okay, it didn’t attract many views, which is probably quite a good excuse for calling it a day: but it wasn’t that which made me quit. It was the difficulty in choosing which pictures to include on the blog. There was only so much room in the memory – one gigabyte – and just so many pictures to select from. Simply put, I have too many photos in my library: whichever one I choose, I then think I could have chosen a better one. It’s maddening. I wasn’t enjoying it. And then when the ‘faves’ stopped…well it was all the excuse I needed. The blog is toast. Perhaps if there were two of me it might have been easier…
Whilst browsing my Flickr account I noted that the latest picture that I’d posted on it had fallen from 15 ‘Faves’ to 13. This isn’t unique. I’ve often wondered why people bother to re-visit a picture, only to (effectively) tell the photographer “I don’t really like your picture after all.” So I thought, “Well the photos aren’t that popular anyway, why do I bother?” – and duly deleted the account. Now it doesn’t matter if people change their mind, coz the pictures are gone. What a relief. This action then took my mind to this blog. It seemed to me that viewing figures have been dropping lately, particularly since The Veil of Shytar reared it’s handsome visage. So, (sometimes) being a logical creature, I considered deleting it also. But just to make sure I wasn’t being a tad premature, I checked out the Seven Day stats. Guess what: comments were down, but…
Although figures are far from promising, what is though is the percentage rise in all three remaining categories. Enough to keep the Veil of Shytar running. So prepare yourself for the next episode.
Following a near three-year hiatus, my favourite on-line author, J.B Chisholm is once more composing fabulous P.G Wodehouse-like tales upon the Internet on the Vasa and Ypres site. The third book in the series is titled The Little Matter of Montreal, and follows directly on from this book…
I want to know: if there are over six billion potential readers of this blog in the world, why didn’t just one of them log in during the first ninety minutes of Jan 4th 2022?
Maybe they were washing their hair. Yes, that would be it.
Or maybe its one vast conspiracy. Perhaps there aren’t really six billion of us at all. Perhaps we’ve become almost extinct, and our lizard overlords are feeding us fake statistics. Yes, I think that’s more likely!
If you are a lizard overlord – I didn’t write this. I’ve obviously been hacked by one of the remaining three hundred and fourteen humans left on Earth – if we really are on Earth, that is.
…but the serialised version of Haunted Mars has had to be removed. Not enough room on this blog for it and anything new that I might create I’m afraid. Bit of a shit, I know: but the last thing I’m about to do is pay money for a space upgrade on a platform that is failing me miserably. For example, I thought I’d spend a quick half-hour doing a bit of site maintanance. I planned to clear out some really old stuff that no one looks at anymore. But could I navigate to it? Could I fuck! And slow? I’ve seen dog crap on the pavement move faster. It took me hours. But just to get access to the old stuff, I had to delete newer stuff: otherwise the system just ground to a halt and quit on me. Some stuff got deleted because the system couldn’t keep up with my fevered mouse clicking. I’d click on a particular photo or file: WordPress paused (to think about it?), then deleted an entirely different photo or file – or didn’t react at all. In the end I thought “Bollocks to this”, and deleted willy-nilly. I was just glad to rid the system of my stuff so that whatever program was trying to carry out my requests had a bit of wriggle room and maybe it’s best speed might better a moribund crawl – before stopping entirely of course. But, on the brighter side, space was created, so I can continue ranting on like a miserable old bastard in the future, and perhaps display a few pictures of my arse in the process. Also Haunted Mars hasn’t disappeared entirely: you can still read the whole thing by clicking on the book covers, which will bring up a PDF copy of the e-book version for you to either read or download – or both. The possibilities are endless! Rant over.
There I was, Googling myself, when, hey presto, I discover that I’m one of those wise asses who expound their opinions and display spurious knowledge upon the Internet. I wrote this, upon someone else’s blog, in 2014…
“No two writers are alike. I’m not sure that one writer (however successful) can really teach another ‘how to do it’. In the end we all find our own voice.”
Have you read my stuff? Earplugs and hamsters, for heck’s sake. How pretentious can I get?
Oh yes – that pretentious!
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Tooty Nolan: Languishing Somewhere Between Clever and Stupid 