Altivo

Some of you long time followers may recall The Clydesdale Librarian, my furry review site. It was launched on the beta Google sites, and collapsed when Google changed the code and structures so much that I couldn't keep up with the necessary revisions. Of course, it was beta after all, so what could I expect? Still, it was discouraging enough that I let the site languish for several years.

In the last couple of weeks, I've been receiving notices that Posterous, a blogging and image sharing site, is going away. I had an account with Posterous, but only used it to follow others. Nonetheless, they keep advising me that Posterous will be shut down (as of today in fact) and I should back up my content and move it elsewhere. I requested the backup file of all three of my posts, which has never arrived.

Anyway, Wordpress was suggested as one of the platforms to which Posterous material could be moved. I've meant to look into Wordpress for a while, and this gave me the needed nudge. The end result is that I spent most of Sunday manually rescuing content from the Google sites edition of Clydesdale Librarian, and translating it bodily (textually?) to a new Wordpress site. I completely deleted the old Google sites pages, which means that various links in Google are now dead. We'll see how long it takes them to catch on and update to point to a non-Google site.

The new URL is http://hossification.wordpress.com and the title is Exposterous Hossification: The Clydesdale Librarian. The first new content went up this morning, a review of Howard L. Anderson's Western-style Australian adventure novel, Albert of Adelaide.

Forecast keeps flickering between "less than an inch" and "one to two" for tomorrow. I say bring it. I have nothing to go out and do this weekend, it's fine with me. I can stay home and read or paint, or weave for that matter.

Read because I just got Kyell Gold's new novel, Shadow of the Father, in today's mail. This is a continuation of the Volle/Argaea stories, with Volle's second son as protagonist, and promises to be quite good. I haven't been much excited by his other recently published work, but the excerpts for Shadow definitely are back to the things I do like.

As for painting, Argos has more to say about that.

Weaving? I've still got rugs on the loom and need to get them off so I can rethread for the coverlet block exchange, of which Argos has also given the details.

Then there's Tess, who is obviously feeling neglected. She's bored and wants attention. Unfortunately, the back fields are all ice and snow, not suitable even for turnout at the moment and certainly not for riding. I used to go riding in the snow when I was young and foolish, and even took a couple of spills that way, but now I know too much to do it. The risk of injury to Tess or myself is just too great. I can, however, groom her and make a fuss over her. She seems to enjoy that provided it doesn't make her stand tied for too long. I could saddle her and walk her around in the arena a bit, but I think we both find that rather boring too.

FurRag is back up and running after its move, as I think I've mentioned. I found myself entangled in the first drama I've experienced there since being made a moderator last year. A newly signed writer posted a story, properly tagged as "erotica" and I have no real issue with that, but he gave the story a summary with explicit sexual descriptions in it. Readers can block out "adult" content on the site so that they are warned and can avoid viewing it, but that doesn't keep them from seeing the summary for new material that's posted to the front page. I wrote a polite message explaining this and asking that the summary be revised accordingly. (I could just edit the summary myself, but I prefer not to be quite so high handed as that.) The ultimate consequence was that the writer completely deleted his stories, complaining that I was trying to make him write something other than what he wanted to write. In the process, he made the statement that "FurRag is an adult site" which is, simply, wrong. FurRag is a writing archive for writers and readers of all ages. Nowhere does it call itself an "adult" site, though it does accept erotica. Once again, I see in this the implied assumption that all things furry are of necessity pornographic. I disagree with this notion, but it seems to be very deeply entrenched now. Never mind the fact that the whole notion of furry fandom finds its roots in works like The Wind in the Willows, or Bambi, or Disney's fox Robin Hood character, none of which are in the least bit "adult" or pornographic. Today "everyone" knows that furry means porn. Grrr. It's enough to make me lash out with my hooves even, except there's never anyone to hit. It's like fighting with marshmallows. I don't know where this idea came from, but it's very widespread now.

I've established an account at GreatestJournal.com under the same username. Henceforth, I'll be cross-posting to both places. If I decide to completely leave LJ, then I'll probably go over there. If you're already on there and want to friend me, please feel free. I'll return the favor.

For those who don't know the site yet, it runs on the same basic software as LJ does, so it will seem very familiar. Membership is free, and I don't think they have any "paid" levels. There are no advertisements (at least, not yet) and there are starting to be a fair number of furry fans over there. SixApart is showing all the signs of willingness to stomp on any group or fandom if some loudmouth screams enough about how "perverted" or "disgusting" that group is. There has been no fairness or opportunity to defend offered to those groups they have already trampled upon with their jackboots. I don't expect furries would be treated any differently if someone runs to 6A management with the stupid CSI episode and the Vanity Fair "exposé".

Consequently, I think we need to at least be prepared to move somewhere else, and GJ appears to be a likely candidate. Certainly it's more likely than facebook or myspace or one of those other godawful "social networking" sites.