Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Blue Whale Adventure

Dolphins!The Condor Express left a little late on July 26th, a calm Saturday morning. We waited about 10 minutes for the last pair of passengers that called ahead to say that they were running late. And run they did, across the parking lot of the Santa Barbara Marina to join the eager passengers already itching to get out to sea.

The water was calm and glassy as we left the harbor. It also seemed oddly empty. Besides the half a dozen California Sea Lions on the buoy, there were no bottlenose dolphins near the sand bar as have often sent us off on our deep channel voyages.

So we pressed on, heading straight towards Santa Cruz island and the famed Painted Cave.

Sure enough about 30 minutes into the trip with the continued glass calm waters were some common dolphins. It didn’t look like much of a group, perhaps 20 dolphins that appeared to be feeding. But as soon as we stopped, it became apparent that they were only a small part of a larger pod feeding in that area. About 300 or so, surfacing, milling about, diving and splashing. There were a few that we could spot zipping around near the boat, chasing fish up and out of the water on several occasions.

Mama and baby dolphinOthers were cow/calf pairs. Some of the babies (sometimes called footballs) weren’t more than a week or two old, still almost all gray and with slack skin that needed filling out with rich milk.

After delighting and interacting with them for at least a half an hour or literally running circles around them, we pushed on towards Santa Cruz Island.

As we could see the land off in the distance, I was talking to Bernardo Alps and we both turned to see a Minke Whale surfacing nearby. In my experience with Minkes (and one in nearly the same location last year) I figured that’d probably be the only look we’d get.

Instead this Minke surfaced again and again, in regular succession. Then turned back towards our boat, coming about thirty feet from us and turned upside down, pushed with its strong flukes and came up and out of the water for a moment. It looked a lot like those common dolphins chasing down bait fish earlier - only instead of being six feet long this one was about sixteen. (Still a very small specimen.) We got a good look at his white belly, striped flipper and even the narrow and pointy chin as he lifted it out when surfacing.

After a few more cycles another Minke surfaced nearby, much larger, and possibly the mother of our unusually exuberant one.

Whale Watchers aboard the Condor ExpressWe continued to spot dolphins for pretty much the rest of the voyage, sometimes stopping for a few minutes to enjoy them.

We pushed on to Santa Cruz Island to have a look at Painted Cave. It’s an interesting opportunity to look at the sea birds that skim the waters near the rocks and perch there.

Part of the reason for the early look at Painted Cave was the hope that the fog would burn off out in the Channel. Alas, little luck with that, so we pushed on, into the fog to see what we could see.

After putting a photographer on a research vessel from the University of Oregon, they told us of a blue whale in the area. Even though visibility was poor, probably not more than fifty feet, Captain Mat slowed the boat and ran in wide circles. Eventually someone heard one of the blows and there it was a huge blue whale. It was strong and much meatier/fatter than ones I’ve seen in past years.

Blue Whale TailFor the next three or four hours the fog slowly fizzled away and we saw more and more blue whales. Most were in pairs and often we’d have four or five in view at any given moment. The UoO vessel was in sight most of the time as well, though we were rarely on the same whales.

Unfortunately I had a bout of motion sickness about the time we spotted the first whale which lasted for pretty much the whole afternoon. This leads to a lot of internal admonishments about bringing medicine or maybe just not going on the full day trips in the future. As the wind picked up though and the air cleared I felt much better and enjoyed our last few sightings. (Though I took fewer pictures towards the end.)

What’s become clear is that the Santa Barbara Channel has become host to a vigorous group of Blue Whales and the prospect of seeing other creatures like Minke and Humpback (none this time) and of course the many species of dolphins makes this a world class destination. Just 90 minutes from my house. Now I just need to conquer sea-sickness.
More photos here.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:32 am     Whale Watching

Monday, March 24, 2008

Really, I don’t make this candy

As is always the way after a major candy holiday, the emails have started.

Most are complaints or specific comments about products:

I purchased four 375 g containers of the Hazelnut Chocolate for my kids for Easter. Two of the containers had 30 chocolates & two had 29.

Is this normal?

I don’t even know what that is!

I’m not a store, I’m not a factory. I’ll do my best to help you, but please be specific. (“Can I still get the coconut creme eggs?” is not specific enough when that’s the entire email.)

It’s not just me, there’s a good article at the Washington Post about the guy who owns donotreply.com.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:53 pm    

Sunday, January 27, 2008

My favorite thought of the day

imageFreestyle Snowmobile is like dressage with elephants.

Photo: Trevor Brown, Jr. via X-Games

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:52 pm     Curious News

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Please Confirm

image

I don’t know what sort of proof they want. Will they just take me at my word? Will I have to click something else later? How often will they check in with me.

If I check that, will facebook tell other people that I said that it was true?

This facebook world frightens and confused me [1].

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:58 am     Curious News

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Fundraising for NaNoWriMo

I’ve never actually talked much about the financing aspect of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I donate every year (even though I work for them, too), but I’ve never made an appeal on my blogs for others to donate.

DSC04267rFor those of you not familiar with it, NaNoWriMo challenges ordinary mortals to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. No experience necessary! Tens of thousands of writers have not only participated since 1999 but dozens have also been published. The goal isn’t necessarily to get a book out in front of the public, but to start by getting it out of your head. 2007 marks my seventh year participating and will be my seventh novel.

Why do I do it? It’s a great writing exercise. I’m always surprised at what I can come up with when an absurd deadline is put in front of me. I enjoy the socializing on the forums (which I moderate) and I love the thrill of watching other writers find out what they had inside them. I’ve also met some of my best friends through the website. Yes, those crazy internet people ended up being really nice in person!

Here it is ... my appeal:

Please support me in my goal to raise $500 for National Novel Writing Month by November 17th ... that’s the night of our first write-a-thon, called The Night of Writing Dangerously.

You can donate by going to my fundraising page at FirstGiving, which operates as an intermediary to track donations made in my name. The money goes towards the program which is not only the website for adults to tackle that novel they’ve always wanted to write but also the Young Writers Project which creates in-school programs for students to tackle free-writing as part of their curriculum.

For every $5 you donate via my FirstGiving page, I’ll enter you in my Limited Edition Candy Drawing! Just leave a comment here and I’ll hook it up with that drawing.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:59 am     NaNoWriMo

Saturday, August 04, 2007

A tale of two laptops

Twenty years ago this month I bought my first computer. It was a Tandy, model 1420LT. It was a laptop. It cost $1,600. Which was a lot of money back in 1987. A lot for me ... considering that I lived on about $5,000 a year while in college.

It wasn’t a great computer, but it served me well for five or six years. I ran a bootlegged copy of WordStar and wrote at least fifteen plays on it and my graduate thesis.

It was supposedly a laptop, but it rarely left my desk. It weighed 14.7 pounds.

imageSince that time I’ve had two other computers that I’ve purchased for myself. My desktop, which was a refurb from Dell, and then five years ago I bought my second laptop, they one I’m typing this on right now.

Today I bought a new laptop online at Dell. The model? 1420. Yes, twenty years later and I’ve stumbled onto the same model number as my first laptop.

The biggest thing I did when purchasing this computer was opt for some style. My laptop has become an accessory, and since it is often found on my lap, I thought it should look good. I opted for an upgrade and chose a colored case ... “Espresso Brown”, which I’m hoping I can tell people is called “70% Cacao.”

Where my first laptop had 640K of ram (and only a dual disk drive, no hard drive), this one has 2 gigs of ram. These sorts of advances don’t make my writing any better, but it sure helps with the digital photos. And of course I’m not bootlegging my software any longer.

Oh, and the price this time ... $1,600 (give or take a few). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:02 am     Curious News

Monday, July 30, 2007

Blue Whales in Santa Barbara

This was a fabulous trip for several reasons. We had lots of company (The Man’s brother, nephew and his girlfriend from Florida plus two friends from LA joined us). And of course the weather cooperated and we got to see some whales!

First thing we saw were several small pods of Long Beaked Common Dolphins. What fun, they came along and swam with the boat for a while.

The morning was rather gray and I was hoping it would burn off quickly. It was certainly not as dim as the previous trip, but still, as we got out to the prime Blue Whale zone, visibility at times wasn’t more than 500 yards.

We did come upon a pair of blue whales though and this time in addition to taking photos, I tried for a little video (mostly because I think that’s the only way you can get the scale of these creatures).

Later Captain Mat excited threw on the boat brakes to have a look at this. It’s a Basking Shark. The sharks themselves are probably rather common, but seeing them off of Santa Barbara and close to the surface like this is quite rare. The video isn’t that impressive, really, the distance between the dorsal fin and the waggling tail fin is probably 6-8 feet, so the shark is probably only about 12-16 feet. (They can grow to be 30 feet.)

Most importantly we saw the blue whales so clearly, following along with the first pair for quite a while.

Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Common Dolphins Common Dolphins Common Dolphins Common Dolphins Short Beaked Common Dolphins Short Beaked Common Dolphin Basking Shark Basking Shark Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Blue Whale Common Dolphin out of the water Short Beaked Common Dolphin

I was very, very tired when we were done, but of course I want to do it again. No new species to add to my list of cetaceans, but the basking shark was certainly special.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:57 pm     Whale Watching

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I’ve got an idea forming in my head

I haven’t been working very hard on coming up with something for Script Frenzy. I know I don’t usually work very hard at NaNoWriMo, but with plays I actually think A LOT about what it’s going to be ahead of time.

At first I was going to do my tornado/miracle play. (Don’t ask.) It’s not really a work in progress, as I’ve never typed any of it up, just a few notes I wrote to myself on an airplane a few years ago in a notebook I don’t think I have any longer.

This play is inspired by this article in the NY Times: Victim of Climate Change, a Town Seeks a Lifeline by William Yardley.

But that’s just what inspired it. I have no idea what it’s going to be about, I just thought there was a whole play right here:

“I don’t want to live in permafrost no more,” said Frank Tommy, 47, standing beside gutted geese and seal meat drying on a wooden rack outside his mother’s house. “It’s too muddy. Everything is crooked around here.”

I’m planning on setting the play in another village that was just mentioned in the article called Shishmaref because it’s on the Chukchi sea, which is the summer ground of the Gray Whale. (See how all these things come together?)

I’m starting on Saturday!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:04 pm     ScriptFrenzy

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Santa Barbara for Whale Watching

imageAs tired as I’ve been from work the past few weeks, I still managed to get my butt up at 4:30 AM yesterday to get to Santa Barbara for an 8 AM cast off at Condor Express. The American Cetacean Society had their first full-day Humpback Whalewatching Trip of the year.

We tried something new, kind of geotagging the adventure. The photos aren’t precisely located on this map, but I don’t suppose anyone can argue with me since they’re within about a half a mile or so. (Maybe ... I have no clue.) You can see my whole set of photos grouped by where they were shot.

Here’s a brief chronlogy of our adventure.

4:30 AM - Wake, shower and make lunch.
5:30 AM - Depart for Santa Barbara
6:10 AM - Stop for coffee in Westlake Village
7:45 AM - We boarded the Condor Express. The trip included a continental breakfast, so I had some coffee and a half of a naked bagel.
8:05 AM - Depart the dock - conditions were calm, but a very thick marine layer kept it rather dark and didn’t give us great shooting conditions.
8:35 AM - Encountered a small but active and agreeable pod of Dall’s Porpoise. They were certainly zipping around, but kept circling back and seemed to be involved in feeding (probably deeper than we could see, as we didn’t see their prey).
9:35 AM - Encountered our first two whales of the morning. They were feeding rather deep (Captain Mat made mention of bait fish at the 300 foot level). They came up and displayed flukes quite faithfully. As I was standing there watching the second cycle I caught sight of a good size pod of dolphins directly behind the boat. I called to the naturalists and they confirmed them. After a few minutes the boat was underway to intercept the dolphins about a half a mile away.
DSC011319:45 AM - We caught up with the pod of about 100-150 Pacific White Sided Dolphins. They were circling around, also in a feeding mode. White Sided are rather common dolphins, though not as common in the Santa Barbara Channel normally. However the water temperature was 54 degrees, just inside their range. The past two trips I’ve taken in the SB Channel I’ve seen Common Dolphins, so this was a treat. The sassy black and white is of course rather similar to the Dall’s Porpoise, though more muted along the sides of their bodies. After about 15 minutes with the group we were still within sight of our other pair of whales and we went back to them.
DSC0123810:40 AM - Another pair of whales, this time it was a Humpback female and a young calf. The behavior, while interesting to watch, wasn’t so much to photograph. What was remarkable was the difference in size betwen the two. The wide mother and the narrow and short calf displayed quite a bit of back, with the baby breathing three times for every two the mother did. Mom fluked a couple of times and stayed down for a while. They stayed in the same area as well, leading us to believe that she was feeding while the calf stayed closer to the surface. We watched them for nearly a half an hour before heading off to the deeper parts of the Channel in search of the large masses of whales sighted earlier in the week.
DSC0115211:30 AM - While we zipped along, The Man and I had a little lunch. I made hummus and chicken wraps on lavash bread. The seem to do really well as a picnic lunch. Some pretzels and a bit of water to wash it down.
12:10 PM - Another pair of whales, but they were really long period, down for over four minutes, so we moved along to find better “behaviors” that we could observe.
1:30 PM - Another pair, this was a mother and calf again. She had similar markings - white inside an otherwise all black fluke, but even less white (so we knew it wasn’t the same pair). We watched for a while and then moved along to tuck in close to Santa Cruz Island.
2:20 PM - Watched another whale (long diving) for a bit closer to Santa Cruz Island.
2:35 PM - We tugged along close to the shore and then had a close look at Painted Cave. There were lots of birds hanging around, including Oyster Catchers and Pigeon Guillemots.
3:10 PM - We stopped at Prisoner’s Harbor to pick up some campers. That took about 10 minutes so we were all looking sharp to see if we could spot the Bald Eagles that have colonized the island. No luck. We saw pelicans though ... yeah, quite notable.
3:20 PM - I saw something that looked like a huge dolphin off the port and called out to the naturalists. It was quite close to the boat, about 30 yards, so we swung around and I pointed out the position. By my description, Alisa determined that it was a Minke whale. I’d never seen one before. They’re known for not swimming in a straight line and sure enough, we saw it three more times but it was vexing, even doubling back once. I never got a decent look at it beyond its dorsal fin, smooth back and then it was down again. No perceivable blow. We were due back at the dock at 4 PM and we were 12 miles away, so the Captain turned us back towards the mainland.
DSC013074:10 PM - There was another pair of whales straight ahead so we stopped to watch them. Strange whales. They came up, dove with flukes, then came up pretty much in the same spot and just sat there. They’d come up, sink down a little bit, bob up and blow then sink a little, but still their back was showing. This went on for about three minutes, then they went down and we were off for home.

I was fabulously tired and about five miles from shore we finally got some sun. But at least there wasn’t much wind or waves. Good trip. Good trip. I want to do it again later this summer.

We got good looks at about 12 whales and saw about 18 total (if you count distant blows). I can tick two species off my list - Dall’s Porpoise and Minke Whale (though I wouldn’t mind getting a better view).

See all photos on Flickr in my set and of course check out The Man’s.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:02 pm     Whale Watching

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Join the Frenzy

I’m planning on writing a play, start to finish next month.

This comes as no surprise to anyone, as I do this kind of stuff all the time.

But I’m asking you to join me.

Join ScriptFrenzy and write a screenplay or a stageplay in 30 days.

image

Just like with NaNoWriMo I’m heading up the forums and community building there. And just like with NaNoWriMo I’ll be copiously documenting my wordcount and progress right here.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:17 am     ScriptFrenzy

Thursday, April 12, 2007

MySpace Bans Photobucket (but can I get them to ban me?)

I can’t tell you what sort of bullshit this is, but I’m going to try:

MySpace has removed all hotlinked photos and slideshows (delivered in flash) hosted at Photobucket because they contain (sometimes) paid advertising. The advertising in question is a teaser campaign from Spiderman III. Here’s a bit of the story from PCWorld:

The block came in response to an ad-sponsored slideshow that Photobucket recently began running and that it encouraged MySpace users to post in their profiles, violating MySpace’s terms of service, the social networking site said in a statement.

Basically, only MySpace can junk up its pages with gratuitious advertising. MySpacers aren’t allowed to advertise other things. Well, they’re allowed to solicit sex and promote their albums and movies ... but they’re not allowed to hotlink to other advertisements.

Whatever.

My issue is that MySpace has been letting its users abuse my site for years. Yes, I’ve contacted them. I’ve contacted them. I’ve emailed them. I’ve even talked to folks I’ve met socially that work there. They don’t give a crap. It’s my problem their users don’t understand hotlinking is like making collect calls.

It turns out that it is possible to selectively block hotlinks from one domain. Halleluiah!

But now I discover that all I’d need to do is employ some .htaccess magic and have those thousands of hotlinked photos (yes, last month was 230,000 hotlink hits, the majority from MySpace according to the IP addresses logged) into some sort of ad that MySpace would feel threatened by. See, all this time I was thinking I had to put P()rn up there. Turns out that’s not what would catch their attention. Ads for, I dunno, something owned by some other media conglomerate might work.

Only problem is I can’t afford to host whatever image that might be (230,000 hits even at 10K each is kind of sizeable).

Wait a second ... I think I’m onto something here ...

I can sell the adspace! I can find someone who’d like their ad served up to 230,000 impressions in one month all over the web (though pretty much on MySpace).

The sale of that might cover the extra bandwidth I’d have to buy on my hosting plan.

So either I get my domain banned and don’t have to worry about bandwidth drains in the future ... or I make money with the ad impressions!

Here’s a bunch of articles:
Los Angeles Times
SFGate

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:02 pm     Curious News

Monday, April 09, 2007

Sperm Whales Run Deep

I have a Google News alert set up for Whale (and one for Dolphins, but I get a lot of sports news on that one).

Today’s report featured news that there was a Sperm Whale that washed ashore in Santa Barbara.

Here’s my favorite quote:

Sperm whales are the deepest divers of their species and can descend to more than 3,000 feet. Experts said it’s unusual to find sperm whales close to the coast.

Yeah. So anyone else see anything wrong with the first sentence? It’s not like there are a lot of different kinds of Sperm Whales out there, like dolphins.

I’d say the second sentence is kind of funny, too. Yes, it’s very unusual to find whales up on the beach. Except, you know, when they beach themselves or wash ashore.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:26 pm     Whale Watching

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

a friendly chat with verizon

The battery on my little LG phone has been behaving poorly, and since the phone and the replacement batteries are no longer made, I decided to get a new one. It’s been three years since I signed up with Verizon, so I qualified for their “new every two” program. I picked out a new phone on their website. It was supposed to be $150 but they gave me a $100 credit plus an additional $50 instant rebate.

I put the phone into my cart and went to check out. The total was $0.00.

I confirmed my billing address as my shipping address, gave them a phone number (it’s a fedex delivery) and hit purchase.

Then I got another screen that wanted a credit card. It said that I owed $0.00, but still wanted my credit card. Say what?

And why my credit card anyway, I’ve been paying my bill for three years ... we have a business relationship, they can send me a bill and all that.

I was frustrated. I didn’t want to somehow be charged for something else, and I don’t like putting my credit card into websites for things like “guaranteeing a reservation” or “trial offers.”

So I clicked on the little icon to talk to a Verizon Sales Rep.

Here’s my little ditty (this is the actual transcript I cut and pasted ... all names are real, or at least the ones really assigned within the chat window).

Chat InformationPlease wait for a Verizon Wireless sales representative to assist you with your order. Thank you for your patience!
Chat InformationA Verizon Wireless online pre-sales specialist has joined the chat. You are now chatting with Alexander

Alexander: Hello. Thank you for visiting our chat service. May I help you with your order today?
Alexander: Good afternoon, how can I assist you today?
You: I’m getting my “new every two” phone today
You: and I selected one that’s free
You: but the site is asking for my credit card info at checkout ... even tho there’s no balance due
Alexander: Okay, congratulations on your new every 2, are you curious why you need a card?
You: yes, why do I have to enter it?
Alexander: This will clear things up, please read the following:
Alexander: The checkout page requires a credit card even if you have a zero balance. After you enter your billing address on the checkout page, your state may bill you for taxes based on the full retail price of the phone. After you enter your credit card information, the next page will show you if any taxes are due before your order is processed.
You: why can’t you just bill me on my, um, what’s it called? bill?
Alexander: Unfortunately, in order to purchase online and to take advantage of the discounts you must use a credit card, I have no control over this I apologize.
You: who does have control over this? I went into the store to get this phone ... would I have walked out of there without showing them a credit card?
Alexander: I am not sure as their policies differ from ours.
Alexander: Would you like the number to customer care?
You: can I get this phone over the phone without giving a credit card and still get it for free?
Alexander: I am not sure, as they will most likely not be the same prices and discounts that are available on line.
You: so, it’s a gamble
You: just as giving you my credit card info is a gamble should there be a security breach
Alexander: Our site is heavily protected, so only you and verizon will have that information.
You: So, if there is a breach ... ever ever with any of the data centers that Verizon has, I can come and talk to you?
You: Even though you have no control over whether or not I need to submit this card info for a total of nothing
Alexander: Sure.
Alexander: Does your state not charge taxes for online purchases?
You: You are the site that sells things, shouldn’t you know that?
You: Perhaps you could tell me if California does.
Alexander: I actually do not, I am here to help navigate through the checkout process and answer your questions and direct you if needed.
You: You don’t have access to information about states sales tax charges, but know (ephemerally) that they exist?
Alexander: Yes, I do.
You: How would I find this information out?
Alexander: Once you enter in your credit card information it will notify you if your state does and how much the taxes will be and you will have the option to continue and cancel the order.
You: but then you’ll have my credit card information
You: you already know where I live
You: why isn’t the site programmed to recognize this charge BEFORE I complete the checkout procedure
Alexander: No, I actually won’t as I can’t see what you are entering and I don’t have access to your account.
You: I mean “you” as in “verizon”
Alexander: Okay, what would you like me to do?
You: I’d like the site to be reprogrammed to be more intuitive
You: can you pass that along?
You: you have big meetings where they ask you, how can we make the customer’s experience better, right?
Alexander: That is correct, and if you would like that to be sent straight to them I would actually recommend leaving a comment on the site after this chat has ended as there will be a survey.
You: I’d appreciate the help from your end.
You: Thanks for the info
Alexander: But I will also let my boss know of your concern.
You: thank you
Alexander: And apologize for any inconvenience, and your welcome and I will.
Alexander: Would you like to complete your order or would you like the customer care number?
You: I’ll complete the order and take my chances, I’ve come this far!
Alexander: Alright I understand, do you need any additional help?
You: nope - thanks for covering it all
Alexander: Your welcome and have a nice day!
You: you too!
Alexander: Thank you for visiting Verizon Wireless, I look forward to speaking with you again. Have a great day!
Chat InformationYour chat session has been ended by your Verizon Wireless online agent.

At the end of the chat, sure enough, a little feedback window popped up. I gave them my comments as Alexander suggested:

My issue today is with being asked for my credit card information BEFORE my total is available. When selecting a “new every two phone” I was under the impression that it was going to be free. The page where it asked for my credit card DID NOT MENTION that I “might” be charged sales tax.

An improvement to the site might be to have the Sales Tax calculated BEFORE asking for the credit card info, after all, you don’t need the card info if the balance is zero.

I like the credit card to be the LAST thing I enter on online orders, not the middle thing.

It would have helped if the online chat helper could have definitively said that my state DOES have a sales tax charge even for free devices ... it shouldn’t be that hard to provide that info to them, should it?

Thanks for your help.

So, I get to the end of this tale to say that yes, California does charge sales tax for the RETAIL VALUE of the phone. They say that this phone sells for $288.99 (yeah, right, I wouldn’t pay that much for it!).

I ended up owing some $23.92 bucks in tax. Whatever. The point is, why couldn’t they calculate that BEFORE I had to input my credit card, and why didn’t they mention that’s why they were asking for a credit card on a null total on the ACTUAL PAGE.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:02 pm     Curious News

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Go Away Hotlinkers!

So I’m looking at my server stats this month (I’m close to my bandwidth max again). There are a few big bandwidth hogs on my site, one of the startling ones is search engine bots. At least three of them rack up over 1 gig in bandwidth every month. About 7 gigs total among them.

Another sobering thing in my stats are the number of hotlinks to Candy Blog. For March so far the tally is over 370,000 hotlink hits to typetive.com. Yeah, my site is popular, but I DO NOT have 370,000 visitors per month.

I do have an htaccess file that limits hotlinking, so the images don’t show up elsewhere (except for a few permitted sites like bloglines). But I know where my images are going ... they’re going to myspace and forum posts and other blogs.

I know how they get here too, they come via the Google Image Search. I tried a few different ways to foil this but still get the new traffic, but to no avail. Not only is it an issue of hotlinking, but the photos I’ve taken of candy are ending up in all sorts of places. It’s one thing to put a candy photo in your blog post on your site that gets a couple hundred hits a day. It’s another entirely to be an Amazon store or eBay auctioneer and take my photos to sell candy I’m not here for other people to make a profit. I’m not really interested in junking up my pretty photos with watermarks.

So, I’ve now forbidden Google Image Search. It took a while to get it going. I put in the appropriate info in my robots.txt file, but for three weeks I still saw the traffic (about 15-20% of those people who come to typetive.com come for the images). So yesterday I put in a prompt with Google to remove my site from the image search. As of this morning my site traffic is down by 15% and I haven’t noticed any referrers from Google Image Search.

I know it’s going to be a blow to my traffic. But I’m more interested in readers than traffic. I hope my readers feel the same way. I hope my advertisers feel the same way.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:11 am     Curious News

Monday, March 26, 2007

Never Enough Time

People say a lot of things about me. I write a blog and people talk about it sometimes on forums and chats and even other blogs. The say I have too much time on my hands.

It’s not like they say that just about the whole candy blogging thing. I see it in reference to many of the participants who write novels in November.

I see the same thing bandied about when people take on quirky challenges, like walking the full length of a street, like Sunset Blvd. or when they create new and wondrous expressions of art.

“That person looks like they have too much time on their hands!” They chortle, as if it’s an insult.

Of course I don’t have too much time on my hands. I have a full time job. And a couple of part time jobs. And volunteer gigs. And blogs. I still manage to watch the FDA recommended doses of television. I travel. I have friends. I brush my teeth and manage my personal hygiene. In fact, I have a huge list of things I want to do!

I don’t know if this statement of other people “having too much time on their hands” is somehow supposed to make that person feel better about their lack of productivity or to make us sit down and stop being active and provocative. Yes, some of the stuff I create with my productiveness is useless and probably even counterproductive. But I’m exploring my world. I’m living in it. I’m not sitting around commenting on the worthiness of other people’s pursuits. (Unless their pursuit happens to be going around declaring how much time on ones hands is too much.)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:32 pm     Curious News

Friday, January 26, 2007

Evil Evil Scrapers

I just thought I’d share my latest experience with Candy Blog content being “stolen.”

I found, purely by accident, that Candy Blog posts were being republished in their entirety on another blog called simply “World Food” (I’m not going to give you the URL). My posts were in there among other food blogger posts about things like fruit, recipes and personal food experiences. I counted three other victims of this scraper blog.

The amalgam blog had no contact info, no advertising, no real purpose as far as I could tell, expect perhaps to buoy the entire domain in some way with content that search engine bots would find.

I did a domain search and located the owner of the domain and sent an email. Surprise, it bounced.

So I did a search for who hosted the domain and sent an email to the host at the “abuse” email address listed on the lame-ass site. That bounced. So I sent another set of emails to all the other email addresses listed on the site (sales! support! tech! help!). No response, but at least no bounces.

I also contacted Feedburner, who burns the Candy Blog feed with their service (basically they take my single feed and convert it to just about all the common feed formats). They said they were unable to discretely block a single user even if we knew what IP they were from.

After no response I started doing some more digging and came across the excellent blog resource called PlagiarismToday.com. Jonathan just so happened to be writing about Feedburner feeds.

With some more digging and some assistance from him we tracked down the actual host (the host I contacted was actually a reseller of hosting plans) and I sent out some more emails. No response so with Jonathan’s help I also sent out official DMCA notices to the host via email and fax.

Lo and behold a few days later I got a brief email back from the host saying that they removed the domain from their servers.

I know some people say that I should be flattered that people are taking my content. But I don’t think I should be flattered. They’re not taking it becuase it’s good or they like it, they’re taking it because it fills up their site with content with lots of keywords that people search for. There are lots of sites that republish digests of my feed and I have no problem with that. But when they take the whole thing (including photos) with no link back to the site, claim they wrote it and are republishing it under a CC free-for-all license, I have a problem.

Now if I could just solve my hotlinking problem.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:05 am     Curious News

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Watery Word Choices

Last night at whalewatching class was a presentation on “Threats to Cetaceans.”

The big threats, as you can imagine are whaling, pollution and loss of habitat (because of climate change or loss of habitat).

But it got me to thinking about whaling.

Why do we call it whaling?

When you go out duck hunting, you don’t go ducking (well if you go with Dick Cheney you might want to).

Of course when you go out fish hunting we do call it fishing.

Why are the words for hunting things in the water like that?

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:47 am     Whale Watching

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Whale Watch Training 12/26/2006

image

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:45 am    

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Tagged Meme: 5 Things

GreenLAGirl tagged me with this meme: 5 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me.

As I’m not sure who reads FastFiction, I’ll just go with some obscure things:

1. My nickname in my family when I was a kid was Bill.

2. I rode a camel once, in Tunisia.

3. I haven’t ridden a horse since I was thrown when I was six.

4. I had only three wisdom teeth, not the usual four. All have been removed.

5. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 11 years old, but three years later I joined the high school swim team when I was a freshman.

I’m not tagging anyone.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:04 am     Curious News

Monday, December 04, 2006

Finally Rejected

Sometime late in 2003 I sent my rather successful collection of one act plays, The Parking Lot Plays, to “my publisher” for consideration.

Today, approximately three years later I got a reply:

On behalf of Doug, Jonathan, and myself, thank you again for submitting your work to Playscripts, Inc., and for your patience during our evaluation process.  We’ve completed our review of “The Parking Lot Plays,” and have concluded that the Playscripts catalogue would not be the best fit for this particular work. This decision is not a judgment on the quality of your work; rather, we regretfully find ourselves limited to a finite number of great new plays that we can most effectively publish and promote.

Even though we cannot publish your play, we genuinely appreciated the opportunity to consider your work, and thank you for sending it our way!

I want to reiterate how much we appreciate your patience during this admittedly lengthy review period.  We started Playscripts, Inc. just a few years ago, with the belief that a publisher should keep its doors open to a wide range of submissions.  The resulting influx of scripts led to much longer review periods than we or any playwright would have liked, but we remain committed to keeping the door open.

At first I was irritated that it was taking so long, especially since those writers who were already published by them were given “priority”, but then I thought it was pretty funny.

I admit that I am disappointed, mostly because I believe that they are ideal for the college market, which was what I was led to believe Playscripts was angling themselves for: modest staging requirements, flexible casting and interesting parts.

I kept hoping that they would pick them up so I didn’t post them on my new website as I had with The Redeemer. Now that I no longer have to worry about pulling them, I’m seriously considering self-publishing (via LuLu.com or something) or just some sort of Creative Commons license that allows folks to read them and distribute them all they want and they only have to pay a royalty if they produce them.

I’ve been so out of it in the theatre world for the past few years I have no idea of folks are already doing it. But it’s a goal for the New Year.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:19 am    

Saturday, December 02, 2006

How This Novel Was Different

This year I had no idea. I had confidence that I could craft something as the month went along. I’d never really done that before, I’ve always had rather fully-formed ideas in my head before I sit down to write.

In September I went to Oakland for a staff meeting for NaNoWriMo and in the car from the airport I asked Chris Baty what I should write this year, as I was pretty much stumped. He said, “I should be about candy.”

It sounded like a solid idea.

I came up with the idea for a character who liked all the candy. Really all I knew about her was that she had a normal, low-key job and she liked the kinds of candy that I don’t like, just so people wouldn’t think it was autobiographical.

I came up with an opening line: Natalie woke up with a lollipop stuck in her hair.

That was about it. I went into November with those two things and just went for it.

The plot was slow, not that there wasn’t stuff going on in the novel, none of it had much of an overarching point.

Then I found a groove and started crafting a story that could not only make a worthy novel (I felt) but in my super-human confidence, I’m convinced I’ve created a new genre: Confectionery Fiction.

The reason that I mention all this is that I’ve been writing these novels for six years now. Each novel is different, different styles, different genres and POVs, different plots and characters explored. But they were all stories that were already in me.

The Exchange (‘01) was an idea I’d been trying to figure out a format for earlier that year, but set it aside after about 16 pages of a screenplay. It wasn’t visual so I abandoned it, only to find that it was perfect to explore as a novel.

The Russian Watercolors (‘02) was a great idea I’d been mulling as a screenplay as well, and thought I was never going to get around the screenplay so I should at least write it in novel form. I diverged from my original plot rather early on, but was actually pleased with some of the things I created.

The Saint of Runaways (‘03) was a grand attempt at a feminist thesis sort of novel. It was a play idea I’d been toying with for about 10 years. I wanted to explore the life of an obscure saint that I’d decided was the basis of one of the Grimm’s fairy tales. It didn’t exactly do that, but I was glad I worked on it.

An Alphabetical Order (‘04) was the first novel I went into without a plot but a pretty strong idea of themes. I started with the title and the simple idea of a woman detained by airport security and held for 72 days because of some really contentious argument she gets into. I was so pleased that I was able to get so much out of such a scant idea that I adapted it into an unfinished play.

Heap (‘05) was based on another screenplay idea I’d failed to do anything with for almost ten years. It’s nothing like the movie it would have made and I consider it one of the worst things I’ve ever written.

This year was different because I wrote a novel that I didn’t know I had in me. All the others were there for years. It was really surprising to find ideas that hadn’t been “thought to death” and it gives me hope that I can keep doing this, that I will always have stories to tell if I just look.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:32 am     NaNoWriMo

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 10

I did this last night, but I’m just logging it here now.

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
7:30 PM…..47,544…......529…...35.27
7:45 PM…..48,114…......570…...38.00
8:00 PM…..48,714…......600…...40.00
8:15 PM…..49,296…......582…...38.80
8:30 PM…..49,732…......436…...29.07
8:45 PM…..50,227…......495…...33.00

35.69 words per minute average
3,212 words for session
1.50 hours

And that concluded this year’s novel. It’s the first time I didn’t actually bring it to a close.

The good news is that I intend to make something of this novel, so it’s not like I won’t have an ending for it eventually.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:42 pm    

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 9

I went candy shopping today. I’ve been participating in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) over on Candy Blog, which in addition to the novel writing, the photography assignments, the travel, the forum moderation, the day job and the family commitments, well, I’m a little drained when I sit down.

I needed a little candy recharge for the blog. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got lots of candy in the house, just nothing I feel like writing about at the moment. So off to Walgreen’s in Echo Park. At that point it seemed silly to drive all the way to Hollywood, especially since parking is usually problematic at Sabor y Cultura today because of the Holiday Parade. So I went to the Silverlake Coffee Company.

I sat next to the drink cooler, which people would open and close and it would blow cold air on the back of my neck. I plowed through though and wouldn’t leave until I got at least 6K.

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
1:00 PM…..41,545…......712…...47.47
1:15 PM…..42,049…......504…...33.60
1:30 PM…..42,589…......540…...36.00
1:45 PM…..43,102…......513…...34.20
2:00 PM…..43,716…......614…...40.93
2:15 PM…..44,080…......364…...24.27
2:30 PM…..44,384…......304…...20.27
2:45 PM…..44,773…......389…...25.93
3:00 PM…..45,305…......532…...35.47
3:15 PM…..45,755…......450…...30.00
3:30 PM…..46,333…......578…...38.53
3:48 PM…..47,015…......682…...37.89

The plot is going along. The writing isn’t terribly inspired, but I covered a lot. Natalie recovered from her food poisoning. Gary decided to rally his sisters, who just so happen to have the perfect skills. Fiddy is a paralegal who will help with the legal parts of forming their own company. Rachel is a graphic designer who takes a stab at the wrapper designs and names for the new candy bar line. And eventually Nickie will come back and handle the wholesale accounts for the candy bars. Gary, who works by day as an adhesives technician for a feminine napkin factory will handle the production concerns.

Natalie is pleased as punch and tries to put the whole possible lawsuit behind her by offering to send all the wrappers back to Roger at the ABCandy factory. Gary, of course, thinks that just contacting him was a horrible idea legal-wise. We’ll see.

I need to start tying things up. I think I was planning that the candy would end up being manufactured by Roger in a sub-contracting deal, but I just don’t see that happening right now. I only have 3,000 words and about 10,000 more plot points. This is my usual position around this time of the month.

34.34 words per minute average
6,182 words for session
3 hours

And of course I’ve been forgetting “this day in history” this month:

2001: 42,589
2002: 35,482
2003: 34,512
2004: 35,175
2005: 36,008
2006: 47,015

Wow, I’m WAY ahead of where I have been historically. Which leaves me plenty of room to write another 10K to bring it to a close.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:21 pm     NaNoWriMo

Saturday, November 25, 2006

This Day in NaNoHistory

More mindless statistics.

Here’s where I’ve been historically on the 25th.

2001: 35,025
2002: 35,482
2003: 34,512
2004: 35,175
2005: 29,714
2006: 34,141

So this year isn’t as bad as last year, well, except that last year the 25th was a Friday, not a Saturday and I still had two more days in the weekend to write.

But otherwise things are remarkably consistent. I’m remarkably consistent.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:34 pm     NaNoWriMo

Novel Update: Writing Day 8

I’ll probably beat myself up tomorrow, but I just didn’t feel like writing today. I got a little laundry done and gave the dog a much needed bath and didn’t head out for writing until 2:30. I figured earlier this week it would only take 8K each day to get my word count.

It’s not that I can’t or haven’t had 8K or more days. But they’re very tiring, both creatively and bodily. The idea of having three back to back is especially draining. I can manage it on the weekend because I’ve had a full week to build up things in my mind, not just the big picture stuff, but patches of dialogue and images and all that. Though it rarely comes out like I have it in my head, it’s a pretty detailed map. (I just looked it up and found that I had a couple of 8K+ days in ‘04 ... what the hell was I doing?)

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
3:00 PM…..34,661…......520…...34.67
3:15 PM…..35,400…......739…...49.27
3:30 PM…..36,040…......640…...42.67
3:45 PM…..36,388…......348…...23.20
4:00 PM…..36,931…......543…...36.20
4:15 PM…..37,449…......518…...34.53
4:30 PM…..37,967…......518…...34.53
4:45 PM…..38,458…......491…...32.73
5:00 PM…..39,029…......571…...38.07
5:15 PM…..39,619…......590…...39.33
5:30 PM…..40,264…......645…...43.00
5:45 PM…..40,833…......569…...37.93

The good news story-wise is that my characters have stopped fooling around (well, they’re still fooling around, I’m just not devoting any text to it) and Natalie not only made another batch of Splodio bars, she sold half to a friend of Gary’s sister and the other half she’s put up for auction on eBay. At the end of my writing session she gets a rather disheartening voice mail from the guy at the candy factory explaining that he’s having her auction pulled because she’s misrepresenting her candy bars as the real thing. Legal papers will follow when I do the research to figure out what sort of papers she’d get.

Of course Natalie doesn’t take this well and is devastated. Well, that and it seems that her celebratory brunch with Gary has given her food poisoning. She never should have tried the Eggs Benedict. Writing about vomiting doesn’t make me feel so hot either.

34.32 words per minute average
6,692 words for session
3.25 hours

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:20 pm     NaNoWriMo

Friday, November 24, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 7

Sabor y Cultura - my usual Mexican Mocha with an extra shot and a plain croissant.

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
1:30 PM…..26,456…......410…...27.33
1:45 PM…..26,860…......404…...26.93
2:00 PM…..27,490…......630…...42.00
2:15 PM…..27,875…......385…...25.67
2:30 PM…..28,496…......621…...41.40
2:45 PM…..28,955…......459…...30.60
3:00 PM…..29,549…......594…...39.60
3:15 PM…..29,968…......419…...27.93
3:30 PM…..30,474…......506…...33.73
3:45 PM…..31,053…......579…...38.60
4:00 PM…..31,564…......511…...34.07
4:15 PM…..32,399…......835…...55.67
4:30 PM…..32,923…......524…...34.93
4:45 PM…..33,545…......622…...41.47
5:00 PM…..34,141…......596…...39.73

35.98 words per minute average
8,095 words for session
3.75 hours

The content of the novel is mired in sex. While this seems to be good for the word count, and possibly the relationship between Natalie and Gary, I’d really like to get on to the rest of the plot.

My wordcount is almost back to normal. I did over 8,000 words today, which I’m hoping to do again on Saturday and Sunday (which will pretty much bring me up to 50K, but I fear that I won’t have the actual plot I’m hoping for ... there’s always that not-mentioned-yet asteroid careening towards Los Angeles that could come into play).

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:32 pm    

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 6

Today was a stealth writing day. I didn’t announce my writing session on the forums as I usually do. Not so much because I didn’t want company, I just didn’t know how long I would be there or if I would stay.

Back at Sabor y Cultura. It wasn’t that busy before 11 AM but I took my regular table, which was still there this week. Sometimes they move the tables around and I have to swap them out so I can have a larger one that’s a little lower than the others. When I’m sitting there for three hours straight an inch of height can make a difference in ergonomics.

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
11:15 AM…..19,857…......562…...37.47
11:30 AM…..20,345…......488…...32.53
11:45 AM…..20,952…......607…...40.47
12:00 PM…..21,330…......378…...25.20
12:15 PM…..21,743…......413…...27.53
12:30 PM…..22,325…......582…...38.80
12:45 PM…..22,845…......520…...34.67
1:00 PM…...23,349…......504…...33.60
1:15 PM…...23,958…......609…...40.60
1:30 PM…...24,536…......578…...38.53
1:45 PM…...25,088…......552…...36.80
2:00 PM…...25,522…......434…...28.93
2:15 PM…...26,046…......524…...34.93

In the novel world I figured out some plot stuff during the week and had a pretty good sense of what to do today. I always feel better when I have at least the first three thousand words for the session worked out in my head.

I sped through some things in an effort to give myself more story, character development and plot for the rest of the month. Natalie finished the birthday gift for Gary and presented a full dozen on the home-made Splodio bars in the original package to him at his birthday dinner.

They went over great, not only did they win Gary’s full devotion, but his sisters are pretty impressed too. Just for giggles I tried my first sex scene (or start of it) today. Never done one of those before, but I’m a grown woman and it’s about time.

What’s more important is that I know where to go with the next 25K. Or at least I think I do. Tomorrow I’m angling for another 7K to get me close to my weekend goal.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:04 pm     NaNoWriMo

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

A Brief Family Guy Interlude About Noveling

It’s NaNoWriMo HaWaDa (National Novel Writing Month Halfway Day)!

Here’s a little something to keep you typing:

Link to Google Video

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:58 pm     NaNoWriMo

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 5

Back to Sabor y Cultura with TWO writing partners, Russ & Celia.

I managed to crank out some stuff, but I’m kind of stuck as I’m resisting the easy plot I’ve laid out and now my character has decided to chuck my plans for her candy recreation birthday present and give him a poster instead.

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
3:30 PM…...16,781…......513…...34.20
3:45 PM…...17,171…......390…...26.00
4:00 PM…...17,222….......51…....3.40
4:15 PM…...17,390…......168…...11.20
4:30 PM…...17,802…......412…...27.47
4:45 PM…...18,169…......367…...24.47
5:00 PM…...18,391…......222…...14.80
5:15 PM…...18,946…......555…...37.00
5:30 PM…...19,295…......349…...23.27

22.42 words per minute average
3027 words for session
2.25 hours

I’d hoped for 6K today to bring me close to the halfway mark, but it’s probably better that I hang back until I’m able to figure out the direction here.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:15 pm    

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Novel Update: Writing Day 4

Ah, another afternoon out at Sabor y Cultura in Hollywood. Besides the initial 1,700 at the Staff Writing Session, I wonder if this novel will be written entirely there?

time…...running tally….words…words/minute
11:00 AM…...11,035…......672…...44.80
11:15 AM…...11,542…......507…...33.80
11:30 AM…...11,813…......271…...18.07
11:45 AM…...12,307…......494…...32.93
12:00 PM…...12,819…......512…...34.13
12:15 PM…...13,331…......512…...34.13
12:30 PM…...13,877…......546…...36.40
12:45 PM…...13,877…......BREAK
1:00 PM…....13,877…......BREAK
1:15 PM…....14,280…......403…...26.87
1:30 PM…....14,700…......420…...28.00
1:45 PM…....15,330…......630…...42.00
2:00 PM…....15,876…......546…...36.40
2:10 PM…....16,268…......392…...39.20

32.81 words per minute average
5,905 words for session
3.5 hours (including 30 minute break)

Today there wasn’t much plot, but many, many words.

Natalie was woken by her cell phone ringing and the head of production of the Altadena Bernardino Candy Company (ABCco) offering her some help in finding her Splodio stuff. He bids her to come down to the factory to see what he found.

She tours the factory, which never made Splodios, for a 5,000 word passage where she sees the entire production line of the popular ABCco product, Orange Paradise Balls (orange flavored coconut spheres covered in milk chocolate). I have no idea if that’s how such a thing would be manufactured or not, but it sounded good to me!

She left with a case of wrappers from all the old varieties of Splodios and has now resolved to make her own at home, thinking that the list of ingredients on the label should be the same as a recipe. (Little does she know.)

The further I get into this novel the more I wonder if it’s novel worthy material. I’m able to write it just fine and maybe I’m underselling it because it’s not been a particularly difficult novel to wrestle from my brain.

Tomorrow I’m back to Sabor y Cultura to try to get another 6K.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:54 pm     NaNoWriMo

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During November it's all about me writing a novel. Sometimes it's about whalewatching. You know, and then there's other stuff.