hmmm its gone now after i logged out and then back in... weird though, cuz at first i thought everyone was reppin my sketch in their Sig'! lol

For reasons involving pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows, I've been wondering whether that show was worth checking out. It comes on at like 5 in the morning, but I could still theoretically record it for later viewing. Would you recommend it?

I'd like to let everyone know that the next (and final) installment of the "Fisco's and Jackie's Most Excellent Adventure" series is fixing up to be longer than Two Bullets and a Pocketful of Hate by a fairly large margin.

You have been warned.

And in order to whet your appetites, I have provided a teaser below! The following is a direct excerpt:



Thank you, that is all.

@_@
Can... Can you cut a deal with everyone so that when that beast goes up for vote, it's the only thing that week? Please?

Please?

I have just now decided to put whatever portion of War of the Wheel up for vote on whatever week Ruwin and Orcish put up their behemoth. It seems only fair...

Abso-damn-lutely!
It's fantastic. And somewhat surprising to have gotten through the censors so unmarked. There's some amazing fact that it even managed to air on the Hub to start with.

For you? We'll make it happen.

I'll co-opt a Boston tradition and just stick a folding chair in the parking space that week as a space saver.

I mean, sure, it's public property and all that. But I put a gee-dee folding chair there, so it's mine now. If you move the chair, I will key your car, and it will be your fault.

* * *

If you like Ruwin's teaser, then I dare you to consider this excerpt, taken directly from a scene which turned out to be one of the most difficult things I have ever attempted to write.



I know you're all excited, but please refrain from discussing the obvious implications of this snippet for now. Or, if you must, please spoiler block it?

Actually maybe we should talk about coordinating when stuff goes up for vote a bit better. Maybe a limit of works per week? Would that be feasible or would we end up with a bunch of stuff waiting in the queue? I think we've had a few slower weeks that could balance out weeks like this when there's a whole bunch of stuff up...

@OL:

Ah, I remember the days of living in a city with limited parking...

Strangely, I don't see a lot of that happening in Toronto. Maybe because it's a big cycling town? (Maybe because Canadians are just more polite?)

I don't want to discount the natural politeness of Canadians, but I believe there is one other big variable in play: how good is the city's snow removal?

I'm guessing that snow removal in Toronto is pretty good, since (a) it snows a lot in Toronto and (b) Rob Ford strikes me as an on-the-ball kinda guy who wouldn't let that sort of thing slide.

In Boston, municipal snow removal is gawdawful, despite the fact that, you know, it snows here all the freaking time, so maybe we should have seen this coming by now?

The space saver as a cultural phenomenon is inextricably linked with snowstorms. Whenever the forecast calls for more than a few inches of snow, you see people start to stick their space savers out in front of their apartments. Then, after the snow finishes, they shovel out the parking space they saved, and put the space saver back in the now-shoveled space. It has been explained to me by native Bostonians that moving someone else's space saver to park in their spot is akin to relieving yourself on their mother's grave, and that socially acceptable retaliation includes keying the car or letting the air out of the tires.

Now, as a Midwestern transplant who grew up in a place with good snow removal and Canadian-esque levels of politeness, this phenomenon blew my mind. I had to have the locals explain it to me.

Me: But wait, it's a public street. How can you "save" a parking space on a public street?
Local: Easy. I put a folding chair in it.
Me: Well, sure, that's *how* you do it. But, I mean, what gives you the right?
Local: Hey, I shoveled that space out. Why should someone else get to park there? I should get to park there.
Me: But obviously you weren't parked there, since you left a folding lawn chair in place of your car.
Local: Sure. But I might want to park there later.
Me: Isn't it harder to plow the streets if they're full of folding chairs?
Local: Sure, I guess.
Me: This can't be legal.
Local: Well, not technically, no. But everyone knows how it works.
Me: Why don't the police just remove the space savers?
Local: Are you kiidding? The police know how this works.
Me: There are some things I will just never understand.
Local: Have fun back in flyover country, then.



My concern about having a limit is that we'd have people racing to get their stuff up as fast as possible in order to claim the spots, which would lead to active threads getting buried beneath the next week's threads.

I think we can just use the shop talk thread here to coordinate as needed. If people have a lot of content, or really big content, which is in the pipeline, they can just give people a heads-up, and hopefully we can coordinate everything on an ad-hoc basis.

Similarly, I wonder if it makes sense to sticky the active voting threads each week, so that they stay at the top of the forum?

Brilliant! I can easily do just that, too.

Yeah, that would help a lot.

Ok, ad hoc coordination it is.

Alright, then! COORDINATE THIS!!!

*Cough*

Sorry, this really isn't so dramatic.

Production (read as: me typing furiosuly at my computer) of the fourth part of "Fisco and Jackie Snark Each Other to Death: The Series" has completed. It needs to be checked over a few more times, but I am confident that I will be able to post it sometime next week - or sooner, depending on the circumstances.

Having said that, I usually put things up for vote a week after I post them. Knowing the sheer size of the work (it came out to 57 pages in google docs) I must pose this question to you:

Would you like me to POST it, and wait an undetermined amount of time to put it up for VOTE, or would you like to to NOT POST it until such a time that we have a little more breathing room, and then put it up for vote naturally a week after that.

I'm alright with either idea - I've already read the story after all! >:]

Let me know!

I would say post it, and we'll see what happens. I don't have anything I plan on putting up for vote this coming week, but I can't speak for anybody else. But I don't think delaying the initial post is the right call, because even if we hold off a week longer than usual, that's another week we'll have had to go over it.

I guess it depends on what else folks plan to post next week. We've got a couple worldbuilding threads (which I haven't looked at yet) and Barinellos has one thing up for vote...

The thing I'm working on will prooobably take a little longer to get together unless I have a sudden rush of inspiration and can get the draft back to my collaborator right away, so I won't be adding anything on top of that story.

What's the final word count, out of curiosity? And is this the final part, or just the NEXT part? (Or would that be spoiling? )

Anyway I think I'm in favor of posting it.

Word count came out to 20,149.

And yes, it is the final part of "I'm Beginning to Run Out of Interesting Things to Call This Series: Fisco and Jackie WWE Smackdown".

...Interestingly, Blood on the Tracks was supposed to be a part of this story as well, but uh...

Well, you can see why we split it up.

Wow. That's almost double To Call the World to Heel o_o

You guys are prolific.

I work in a 200 square foot store in an Air Force Exchange. They provide me with free wifi and I'm allowed to bring my laptop to work and do whatever I want, because I have no supervisors.

Prolific, yes - but I also have WAAAAAY too much free time. You're so busy all the time it's a wonder you get to post anything at all. That's a bit more impressive than me taking a break from painting miniatures and dealing with racist customers to write a few paragraphs.

Hey are any of you going by a MUP named Zatnik now? Because a user with zero posts named Zatnik like... randomly created redirect pages for Lia, Fisco, and Illarion, and it's weirding me out a little. I mean it's helpful and harmless but it's also weird and it makes me jumpy.

...Explain to me what a redirect page is?

Uh now when you link to [[Fisco]] it automatically takes you to [[Fisco Vane]]

Also yes that does help explain why you can write these massive epic stories