You’ll be seeing a few changes to the site over the next few… uh… weeks? Months?

It’s been sort of long-neglected, for a handful of reasons, which I’ve already gone over in the past but which include: Being just incredibly busy with work and personal projects and trying to squeeze in some time occasionally to relax and hang out with friends; being burned out on politics and religion and kind of crushed by the futility of screaming against certain brick walls until they’re painted in the blood I’ve been coughing up; being generally depressed and lonely (until relatively recently, for some reason, and I think it has to do with feelings of fulfillment from the aforementioned personal projects, or maybe some other psychological thing is going on).

Now that I’m feeling a bit better and realizing once again that I don’t necessarily need to have all my content in the form of giant, well-reasoned essays, I’m going to try to put up at least one update a week.

But that’s beside the point.

The point is, there’s going to be a bit of a repurposing and redesign going on here. The redesign is mostly going to be a visual thing — at least when viewed from the front — but it’s going to simplify the layout a bit. I’m a fan of minimalism, and, well, if you look at that menu over on the left, that’s pretty far from minimalism. Too many categories and too much shit. Behind the scenes, I’m going to be building some interesting new shit. The way Dissections work will change, hopefully resulting in more frequent updates to those.

As for the repurposing, this site’s going to become sort of an aggregator for all the things I’m doing, pulling in content from my other sites and from my Twitter feed and etc, which will result in far, far, FAR more frequent updates. You’ll also get previews and information for things like iPhone apps I’ve just recently started developing, other projects and content I’ve been working on, a photo stream, a better way of serializing novels… and all of this with a simplified, intuitive interface that’s not like this huge list of semi-redundant shit and poorly-thought categorization. This site’s been kind of a beast (which, I guess, lives up to the “Jabberwock” name), which also contributed a little to my avoidance of it, but its rebirth is going to be great.

For right now, I have a few technical decisions I need to make, but you can expect the changes to begin within the next month or so. Especially the visual redesign, which is already underway.

Stay tuned!

Jabberwock

I find myself here having to apologize once more for infrequent updates. You know I love you guys, but everything’s been so busy and crazy and I think I’ve gotten into another of those lulls where I feel like my rage meter has sort of become all overwhelmed and stopped working properly. I still get really fucking angry about a number of things, but before I can think to write about them it just kind of bursts and sputters out and I can’t bring myself to give a shit about them. There are only so many times you can read about, for instance (among many), people for whatever reason earnestly defending insurance companies before your brain just kind of shits itself and says “fuck it, just play some video games or something for a while, I can’t do this right now”.

This has happened before, and passed, and I feel like this time it will as well, but while it persists my updates here are going to be relatively infrequent, and I’m sorry.

In the meantime, I’ve started a new webcomic that captures at least a portion of that anger. It’s incredibly lazy, and is all basically transcripts of conversations I have (mostly — and all to this point, at least — with my friend Tom who you may have seen in Rocket Man) throughout the day that I basically just copy/paste into the database to be spat out as a sort of pseudo-comic. It takes about three minutes of my time outside of the conversation itself, which would be happening anyway.

You can find it by visiting Human Mammal Dot Com or basically clicking on that link right there. There’s so much content that it’s going to be updated daily simply because if I didn’t I’d get this tremendous backlog of material that would necessitate me eventually putting up like eight posts a day or something just to keep up.

I want to keep providing you guys steady content, but it’s hard when I have to sit there and write out some long essay on top of everything else. So while I muscle through this terrible lull amidst my general existential angst and depressive issues, you can check that out. It’s still in beta and I know there are a bunch of bugs, and I’ll be adding more functionality soon, but it’s there and it wants you to look at it so please do.

MORE TO COME!

-The Mgt.

Jabberwock

Sorry for lack of updates of late — I recently got a new job and started a new relationship and am basically just extremely busy in a number of different (but pleasant! for a change!) ways.

There are a couple new Chick Dissections in the pipeline, though, and a handful of other things.

Stay tuned, and sorry again for the update infrequency.

Jabberwock

So because I’m a total egotistical whore, I created a fan site for myself on Facebook. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you can find a link to it down there, just below the intentionally obnoxious ad for my Twitter feed.

Become a fan! Feed my gluttonous, high-metabolism ego! Maybe something fun will come of it. Or maybe not. You’ll never know if you don’t join up.

Jabberwock

So I received a rejection letter from Tor[1], and since it was one of the shittiest in what seems to have been an almost nonstop string of rejections in nearly every element of my life over the last seven months, I took it kind of hard at first.

It’s not that I was naive enough not to expect it and it’s not that I can’t take rejection, but in the context in which it came, well… this was one of a dwindling few things I had left to really hope for. While everything else crumbled I retained the hope that maybe when I got word back on my manuscript it would be the thing to turn it all around. And I was wrong. I figured if nothing else, the statistical likelihood of all this general crappiness has been like flipping a quarter a hundred times and having it come up tails every single time.[2]

Anyway, I was depressed. Even more so than usual. But then I ended up coming up with an entire young adult book series, the first installment of which I hope to have written relatively soon. I won’t get into details, but it’s going to be “Twilight for boys”, basically. Only, y’know, well-written and -thought, with an actual plot.[3] I’ll keep you posted.

It’s weird though because it seems like the shittier my life gets, the more my brain generates these great ideas for books and things. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Thanks to some guidance and inspiration from friends[4], I’ve decided to take the John Scalzi approach and release my book online in serialized installments as I make an editing pass through it. (Keep in mind that I still consider it a rough draft, so please leave suggestions (as some of you have already been doing — thanks!). It’s definitely helpful and I’ll be making another editing pass again when I’m done.) I may self-publish on Lulu when I’m done with the next edit but I’m not sure. The publishing market is really weird right now.

A part of me is hoping (though not naively enough that there’s any genuine expectation) that the right person might end up reading the book as I’m serializing it on the site and offer me a book deal. Mostly, though, I just want a lot of people to read it regardless of who they are. But there’s one thing that’s going to have to happen, here, in order to accomplish that: You are going to have to tell your friends.

Look, I’m not doing this for the money.[5] If I were, I wouldn’t even consider putting this up online. I mean, it’d be nice if I could make enough money from it that I could do it exclusively since I have so many ideas that I’m not sure I could really get them all out if they had to constantly compete for time with other activities, especially ones that can take up massive portions of a person’s daily life.

But I write — hell, even this website, which I’ve been maintaining with relative frequency since I started it back in 2002 — because I want to inspire people. I want you to like my ideas and roll them around in your heads and maybe even go on to write or draw or sing or sculpt things of your own, even if only tangentially inspired or related. I want to have an impact on people. And while I really appreciate all the readers I already have, I need more.

If you like my ideas and want me to be able to get even more of them out — all the ones I have in my head — you’re going to have to help me out a little. I figure it’s at least worth the few breaths required to prod your friends into checking out the book.[6] So please, if you like it, spread the word to everyone you know who you think might like it. Blog about it, link to it, Twitter about it, scratch the URL into a bathroom door — whatever you want to do. Just get the word out. (And I’m still working on those marketing opportunities I mentioned before.)

Thanks in advance, and I really do hope you’re enjoying (or will enjoy) reading Machination.

By the way:

(There are some interface issues on the site in Safari — it doesn’t like some of the Javascript for some reason so I’m going to have to figure out why, but I’ve been too busy to work on it. It’s been working flawlessly for me in Firefox. Also, you can read it on an iPhone but you can’t interact with the menus and the menu bar doesn’t stay at the bottom like it does in every other browser. Let me know if you have any major issues. There’ll be an FAQ page up soon.)

Footnotes:

[1] One of very few publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts. The other of the relatively bigger names in scifi publishing with a similar policy is Baen.

[2] I’m starting to lose my faith in cliches like “it can’t rain all the time” and “it’s always darkest before the dawn”.

[3] And not about vampires. It’s really awesome though — promise. For those counting, this means I’m working on at least three books simultaneously (excluding Machination, which I’m just editing). The other two are also awesome, but in different ways. And then there’s this weird experimental project I’m working on that’s sort of House of Leaves meets American Psycho meets Infinite Jest with multi-level footnotes that eventually loop around to reference the original text, but that’s kind of a back-burner thing right now.

[4] One of whom reminded me that many publishing houses are firing massive amounts of staff and are therefore very probably unwilling to take chances on unknown authors right now. So diverting this into a typical EtJ politics rant, you may have that fuckoid Bush and his “hey, banks, do whatever you want!” policies to thank in part for my novel not getting released. Hooray!

[5] Though you’re welcome to donate if you’re so inclined — I’ll set up a PayPal button for it. No suggested amount and no obligation, just whatever you think you want to give. And I’ll remember you, and if the book does end up getting published formally at some point I’ll do something special for you.

[6] I mean, if you’re trapped in a sinking submarine or you have to blow out a candle before it lights the fuse on the TNT in the elaborate trap you’ve been placed in by some kind of spy villain, please use those breaths more wisely.

Jabberwock

I’ll be putting the first installment behind a cut, due in part to it being much larger than future installments will be. It’s longer because I’ve already released this portion as a preview in .rtf format, and the reason that was as long as it was is because I felt it a good length to introduce all the characters.

Future installments will be displayed in bigger chunks and cut after a couple weeks.

You’ll be able to view the complete book as it’s released at This Page, which is currently under construction but I’m working on it. The menu bar at the bottom will be better-looking and better-integrated, for one thing, with a few additional options, and there will be a title at the top and such.

I’ll explain my motivations for releasing it this way later but for now I just want to get this ball rolling.

(more…)

Jabberwock

So, if you’ve received one of those “malware warning” reports, I honestly have no clue what’s going on with that. Someone reported that they were getting it on one of their computers but not the other, and that it showed up once but then went away the next time they visited. It’s totally unreproducible — I’ve never seen it, try as I might — and thus impossible to debug.

I’m running the latest WordPress and a friend and I have scoured any custom files for anything suspicious and found absolutely nothing. You’re welcome to view the source of this page and take a look for yourself, but the only scripts are from Google and Twitter.

In fact, McAfee’s web scan thing found no problems, and I’m sitting here on Google’s Webmaster Tools site and it’s saying it’s clear as well, so I have no idea at all why people are getting those warnings and honestly it’s getting just a bit frustrating. So, well, if you see those errors, I’m going to say just ignore them because it’s apparently some kind of false alarm, as verified by Google’s very own damn analyzer even.

By the way, here’s what Google’s site checker has to say as of right now:

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for www.enterthejabberwock.com

What is the current listing status for www.enterthejabberwock.com?

This site is not currently listed as suspicious.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 6 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-05-25, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS30496 (COLO4).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, www.enterthejabberwock.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

Next steps:

* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google’s Webmaster Help Center.

Baffling.

- The Mgt.

Jabberwock

For some reason, I just threw together a rough page for Some Kind of Advice Column or something. I seriously cannot fathom why I just did this, and can only vaguely remember even putting it together (I think I may have finally gone insane), but go ahead and ask away! I’ll try to help you with your problems! What the fuck?

Jabberwock

So, who here has interesting or entertaining stories about dealing with religious kooks of one variety or another? Did your parents join a cult? Have you gotten into a heated and serious argument with a fundamentalist only to find out to your embarrassment that they were actually schizophrenic? Were you ever forced to go to one of those “Gay Cure” camps? Did your religious friends put a bucket of holy water above the door and keep a priest or pastor handy so that they could baptize you when you walked in? Ever find a Chick Tract rolled up inside a condom? Any Catholics out there ever need the Heimlich because you choked on the communion wafer?

Well, I want to hear about it.

The best, most amusing (and most believable — and trust me, I’ll probably be able to smell bullshit when I read it) stories will be featured as posts (with all due credit, of course, plus a link to your website if you have one or a sketch of your favorite pony or whatever you want to accompany it). And, as with FMyLife and other such sites, don’t be offended if your story doesn’t make the cut.

For right now, e-mail them to me using the “Contact” page over on the left (or if you have an account on the site, log in and submit them as posts) — I’ll try to have some kind of form up by the end of the week.

Tell your friends. Seriously this time. I know some of you actually are, and I really appreciate it, but you other guys… it takes thirty seconds. Only slightly more time than it takes to *cough ahem* click an ad on the side of the page and then close the browser window *choke cough ahem*.

Speaking of telling your friends, only TWO MORE DAYS to the END OF MAY 5TH, the HOG CALL DEADLINE. I’m still 249,879 Twitter followers away from my goal! Let’s get on this shit!

Jabberwock

If I get over 250,000 Twitter followers by May 5th, I’ll go out and actively try to catch swine flu, documenting my experience along the way. I might even go to Mexico! (The deadline is, after all, Cinco de Mayo.)

Tell your friends to subscribe to Twitter user jdcrowley. Details, logo, and marketing materials to come.

LET’S DO THIS. Only YOU can make this social networking/information distribution experiment work!

Current Twitter follower count: 102

Only 999,898 to go!

4PM Eastern Update: 105 Followers

4:16 Update Lowering the goal to 250,000 after it was pointed out that not even the great and powerful Sockington has 1,000,000 followers.

8:00 Update We have a logo of sorts! See how the body kind of forms an “H” and the head forms a “C”? Hog Call! It looks a lot better larger, but I can’t save it as anything but .png without losing the transparency and I can’t save .png at too great a dimension without it being enormous, file-size-wise. I’ll work on it.

Still only 105 followers — come on, people! Spread the word!

Jabberwock

By the way, I have a Twitter, for all zero of you who give a shit:

Click the obnoxious ad to go there! Follow me!

I also have a fake Twitter account for giving horrible stock tips: Stock Guru.

In other news, I plan on having a new video up this weekend, so stay tuned. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I think this one’s going to be particularly awesome.

Jabberwock

So, I made another video. I’ve been inspired of late to write scripts for sketches, and I’m hoping to write at least two and film at least one a week. I’ll have a post about all of this sometime in the near future, explaining my realization that I’d generally become too serious and angry as a person over the last eight years, but for now, just enjoy this video that I made with my goofy, questionable acting and such. And if you like it, tell your friends.

If you have trouble with stuttering and such with the video, you’ll want to click the little button on the right of the video (when you mouseover it) to turn HD off. If that still doesn’t work for you, I’ll have a YouTube link up at some point in the near future, though I’ve noticed their compression seems really lossy, especially when it comes to audio, so I recommend Vimeo for the full experience, if your computer can handle it.

Anyway, here goes:

Jabberwock

Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few weeks, everyone. I’ve been dealing with some personal issues that have sent me into kind of a depressive low wherein it’s a pretty great day if I manage to get out of bed on the third or fourth try. Things will hopefully be back to normal soon.

In the meantime, if anyone’s interested in writing anything for the site in the interim, register and e-mail me your username and I’ll upgrade you to contributor status. I’ll skim through for articles every couple days and put up the ones that most catch my interest.

-The Mgt

Jabberwock

We had some server issues over the last couple days. Apparently, there was an Apache upgrade that somehow went wrong, and etc. But thanks to Djur, we’re back up and running, and all’s right with the world.

More updates to come, and hopefully a Chick Dissections soon.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a ten-episode run of an online-only TV show, which will hopefully begin filming sometime in early November. Each episode will run roughly eight or ten minutes. To stay updated on developments, check out the Unfair Dinkum Production Blog, and sign up for an account.

-The Mgt.

Jabberwock

There’s a new video up at Unfair Dinkum for you to check out. The production blog there has the details.

Jabberwock