Tabula Rasa lj

It's been an odd day for the New York Times website. At the moment it features a large piccie of a platypus top and centre (for Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too), and earlier they had Steampunk fashion.

I don't think there is any particular correspondence between those two subjects, but it did lead me circuitously to this.

In other news, I've given up on my trial of Project Wonderful for ads, and given google adsense a go. It's looking good so far, since that I have made almost a third of my total PW earnings in 24 hours. That's not a fair comparison, since I only put the PW ads on my comic pages, and the google ads are all over the shop -- but having to specify different ads for different sections (as I would like to do) would not make PW worth my time.

So now I have google working out which ads to run, automagically. From my brief scan, it doesn't seem to be doing too bad a job, among some embarrassing examples (apparently there is a new Pamela Anderson movie). My favourite so far accompanies the interview with Will Elliot (author of Pilo Family Circus), advertising a clown for children's parties -- though associating A Clockwork Orange with Classic British Comedy is an interesting interpretation. 'Death Poetry' to go along with Neil Gaiman is nice (the result of clicking on that may be entirely different).

The saddest bit about the PW experience -- where you have to manually approve all advertisers -- is how many blogs I found that were about nothing other than how to make money by blogging. So I better stop now.

Thanks for all the comments on ads. Am still considering, although the consensus seems positive. Another point is that this guy who contacted me appears to be a middleman who pays people like me upfront, and then presumably tries to make his money back (and more) via the clicks. It's a strange business.

As you may be aware, we have a pretty large website with lots of articles, interviews, reviews and such. It gets quite a few hits, and does pretty well in search engine ranking. Now, someone has come along and asked us if we'd run advertising.

I haven't got all the details yet, but basically it's 'non intrusive' text ads that would link from Vampire Mythos to, say, 'gothic' costumes, or The Inquisition to a Lego Crucible(!)

I don't mind text ads in gmail and the like (though enthusiastically recommend AdBlock to remove the graphical sort whilst browsing). Hosting the site does cost money, and I think clearly labeled ads in the right place can be informative and useful (if only because they decrease the likelihood the ads will be inserted surreptitiously instead).

But, I really don't know. What do you reckon?

Jason Vey, my co-writer on All Tomorrow's Zombies, has just released his latest project: a Doctor Who netbook for Unisystem (the rpg engine for Buffy, All Flesh Must be Eaten and similar games). It's huge, and contains lots of information on the program (through all ten Doctors) with background and game stats, plus a suggested campaign with new characters.

He asked me to write a story to introduce the book, so that's included as well. As befits the nature of the beast, it's basically an excuse to get multiple Doctors and companions together, and maybe spark ideas for a different type of campaign.

All this is to be found on Jason's Doctor Who RPG page.

(I was particularly interested in reading through the summary of all the New Adventure books. Although peripherally involved at the time, I lost track of the big picture so I liked this succinct coverage.)

If I did start reading web comics, this could be it: Batman by Josh Simmons (as found in a review on the ever-interesting seancollinsblog).

Now Kyla's desk is up on Creative Space.

My study has appeared as part of martinlivings' Creative Space project. Arguments about whether or not this constitutes a mess, and how many books can be identified, will no doubt ensue.

This is a beautiful thing, and artbroken explains it neatly: Book Autopsies by Brian Dettmer.

In other news, my current position at work has been extended for another two years. That makes things a lot more stable — recent contingency plans have been put on hold for the moment. I'm sure Melbourne real estate agents are devastated, but they may get their chance yet.

Somewhat late to the party, I have just read Graham Joyce's Requiem, and excellent it is too. Reminds me somewhat of Song of Kali, but about Christianity.

(I got an email a little while ago, upbraiding me for recommending Song of Kali, despite its unfavourable depiction of the goddess.)

The AHWA has a chat with Ellen Datlow coming up.

Insanity: They're remaking Near Dark. What next... Strange Days? (those Y2K parties were wild).

The NY Times is abandoning its pay-for-content tonight. Back to reading the op-eds for me.

My MySpace page is back, recreated thanks to Google Desktop -- except for little things like a friends list and such. So sign me up, y'all.

Still haven't figured out what to do with FaceBook, possibly because I'm not sure I trust all those cute little apps people have.

In the meantime, I still have a week off and am researching again. I had a great (if tricky) idea for a book a while ago, and conversations last week convinced me it was the thing to focus on. Now I just have to confirm it is viable.

Kyla's interview is up.

(This will all be easier to follow when the interviews are put on a single site in the next week or so, but in the meantime, it's snapshots all over.)

Tansy's interview with me is up, as part of the 2007 snapshot.

Sometime in the last day or two, my MySpace account appears to have been deleted. Does anyone know why this is likely to have happened?

The inimitable Rob Hood now has a blog, which I have syndicated here: roberthood_rss.

Looks like we'll be in Melbourne for a bit come early September, so it would be good to catch up with people. Doesn't look like we'll be able to get to Conflux though, alas.

And I have restricted comments on the journal, just for a bit.

I'm still doing the LibraryThing, though have slowed down somewhat. I am having a slight problem in that although I think it is a useful thing to have this information (it has already proved so), the aspects most useful to me aren't necessarily what I want public.

But I still have a strong urge to provide a reference to things which might not be as well known -- the same urge that created my Australian Comic gallery. So I have scanned in the covers of all my local titles, if they weren't already uploaded, which is a good enough substitute for my long-delayed plan to do an Australian Horror gallery. And the social aspect is nice in theory. We shall see.

In the meantime, I scanned in some other covers that the world has a deep need to know about. Like this one:

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Right?

Despite the icon, there was no Ravenloft tonight. With two missing people, we played Vampire: Prince of the City instead, which confirmed its status as a game of nasty manoeuvring and backstabbing. Good stuff.

We also sort of had a discussion about trying to make the roleplaying flow better. It has been my experience that Meaningful Discussion always ends badly but, only halfway through the story of my life, we shall see.

Otherwise I've been, well, cataloguing. Eek.

My review of The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod has just been put up on ASif. Just in time to be added to my nascent LibraryThing page. Be afraid.

Since I've only recently managed to add The Arrival to my comics gallery, it was about time I did this one too: Wormwood Gentleman Corpse. Good stuff.

As you may have noticed, the gallery is somewhat scattershot in its inclusion of various things, particularly local creators in overseas markets (and much else, I'm sure). I was even taken to task by someone for not including them at one point. Oh well, at least they were watching.

Speaking of such things, I only wander into google analytics occasionally, but apparently 70% of my traffic to the TR site as a whole is from search engines. Not sure if that's normal or not. I guess that is still ~300 real people a day.

(Hey, these reports are kinda interesting. On May 30 we had 79 people visit because of Chris Pritchard, up from about 1 or 2 a day. Who's he? A murderer whose crime was blamed on roleplaying.)

For those who are interested in the new journal Call My Agent (as seen on HorrorScope), I've set up a feed: callmyagent_rss