YaoiCon was a lot of fun. The big news, for those of you who haven’t heard already (presumably from someone who updates more than once a month) is that DMP (DMI, whatever they’re calling themselves this month) is taking over (read: probably bought) the convention. In order for them to keep a closer eye on it, they may be moving the con to Anaheim next year. I spoke to someone on constaff who said it was “as definite as can be without being official”.

I am… not a happy camper about this. A big part of the reason that I continue to go, despite the cross-continental trip, is that I have a lot of friends in the San Francisco area, and I take the excuse to stay a few days extra and visit them. At the same time, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Before I found out that this was a thing, I thought to myself that the con has lost a little bit of its magic for me, and unless something major and positive changed for me, I would stop after my tenth visit (YaoiCon 2013, for anyone who cares). DMP’s intervention might be a positive thing. Color me pessimistic, but more than willing to be wrong.

That said, Café Verführen was wonderful, as always, and I will have my annual review and addition to their storyline up… soon, I hope. This may take a little while, because I’m trying to avoid touching the current site database as much as possible.

I’m doing a reboot.

When I started 1000Gears I had a more complicated vision for it, more of an archive and less of a blog. I wanted it to be more of a shared space (I built it largely as a refuge from the Great LiveJournal Ban-A-Thon of 2007). The software I chose was easy to work with, but not really the best choice for that. The site was also a learning experience in web design, and there are a lot of mistakes I need to correct.

So, in that light, I’ve been rebuilding the site to use software called Drupal, with a new, (I hope) easier-to-navigate design and a stronger emphasis on the fiction. I hope to bring new features in, too. Drupal is powerful.

As tiny as this little corner of the Internet is, I’ve been getting a couple hundred spam messages a day lately. Until it blows over I’ve turned on some moderation features on the website. If you’ve replied to me before, you should have no trouble posting, but if this is your first time, expect it to sit in the moderation queue for a little bit while I catch up.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Thank you for staying with us.

Always,
~Catboy

Originally I wanted to show you all how to make a nice dinner, but… it has not gone as planned. A wonderful artist named Barlee drew a picture of the ensuing chaos.

Adrian has unpacked from Fanime and is now immediately repacking for a short visit to Florida, land of humidity and alligators. Please join me in hoping that he is not eaten.

Also, we are conducting a small experiment with the moderation system. It should let new first-time comments in much faster than before. We do see all of the comments, even the ones held for moderation, so please do let us know if you have problems.

Thank you,
~Catboy

Right now my goal is “by Valentine’s Day, even if I don’t sleep the whole weekend.” We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I have been meaning to keep this site more active. I shouldn’t expect you to come back to the same page for six weeks running, and I feel badly about that. On the other hand, when I started this site, I made a very simple promise to you:

2. No filler.

We will not post unless we have things to say. 1000 Gears should be interesting even if you have no idea who we actually are.

Primarily I was concerned with “What kind of X are you?” quiz-memes and similar minutiae that is only actually interesting to the person taking the test. It’s very easy to slip into a routine of posting for the sake of posting, and I like that even less than silence. So, stuck between these two urges, I have a question for you, as my readers. If I were to post, once a week, sharing a small handful of interesting bits I’ve discovered online, would you consider that to be “content” or “filler”?

Traditionally, the computer running 1000Gears has lived in Adrian’s closet. Lately there have been some problems with this living arrangement, so we have moved the website to another computer, which does not live in Adrian’s closet, but does promise to be much more reliable. So far it looks like nothing was broken in the move. It is possible that we still have a few bugs scurrying around, though. If you notice one, please let us know. I will try to find it and hit it with a stick.

Thank you,
~Catboy

Track him down and say hello!

(Hint: He is usually sheathed up to the neck in black and wears a lot of leather. Also, he has kitty ears with purple fluff!)

Please do not dry-hump him without asking for permission first. It perturbs him.

So, I thought to myself, “Self, why not make the special logos take people to different parts of the website? You could make more logos sometimes and show people around.” This sounded like a really spiffy idea, so I opened up the back panel to the website and started taking things apart, fiddling around, and putting them back together again. It turned out to be a little bit more complicated than than I expected. I think I broke the site once or twice, but it should be fixed now.

Please let us know how you like the change!

Always,
-Catboy =^.^=

I suspect, much to my disappointment, that there are no plans for further issues. It’s been about a month since I emailed Anne, and I noticed that her contact information has been locked at the YaoiCon site.

This doesn’t mean much, if anything, for Tybalt’s future. The past two Anthologies have paired me with Tammy Lee, and I don’t think we have very good creative chemistry. Tybalt remains one of my favorite (if most demanding) characters, and I’m sure he’ll continue to slink into my writing life whenever he has a story to share.

For now, I’ve been sidetracked by an interesting little experiment (you can expect it in time for Christmas), and First and Last and Always will go back to the top of my stack once it’s done.