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The Stupid 365 Project, Day 23: Curtains?

October 23rd, 2010

Could this be the end?

Today I learned from a reader of this blog, Bonnie Riley, that the guy who manages this site, and who has apparently dissolved into a cloud of subatomic particles for all I’ve heard from him, has not renewed the domain registry for the site, and that tomorrow is the last day the domain will remain registered to me. Since the web-guy handled all the startup in the first place, the people at Dreamhost, where the site is registered, don’t want to hear from me about anything. Even though the name of the site is timothyhallinan.com and my name is Timothy Hallinan and this is the very site whose address is printed on all those tens of thousands of books with not only my name but my picture on them.

I’ve e-mailed him and his boss, a friend of mine who founded a site some of you probably know, Fictionwise, but haven’t heard anything back from either of them. So it’s possible that no one will ever read this blog because the site could literally disappear tomorrow, taking with it all my hopes and dreams and hard work and all those images I pirated.

On the other hand, I won’t have to finish “Spirit House,” and you’ll never get to know how marvelous it was.

“Seam-rippingly good” — Stephen King

“Scared me onto the path of righteousness.” – Dean Koontz

“This is the story I was trying to write.” — Edgar Allan Poe

And if this disappears, old Everett won’t be able to mutter about how I’m using up yet another post to talk about that [brilliant] story. Awwwww. I’ll miss that.

Well, here’s my promise to you all. If the site vanishes, I’ll keep my commitment to the letter. A piece a day, complete with occasional seasonal short stories, honing the blade of my intellect on the hard whiteness of the blank page. Honest. You won’t be able to read them, of course, but wherever you go in the world, you’ll at least know that somewhere a lonely writer is laboring in obscurity, turning out great stuff you’ll never see. For you.

Cross my heart.




This entry was posted on Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 at 9:41 pm and is filed under All Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

25 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 23: Curtains?”


  1. Gary Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 12:51 am

Quick! Get Everett’s advice on how to download and save the whole of your site. Then when you find a new hoster you can just upload it all again, and voila!

Quick!


  1. Gary Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 1:30 am

$50 software:

http://www.inspyder.com/products/Web2Disk/Default.aspx

Good for regular website backups too.



  1. philip coggan Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 3:38 am

Just to let you know that someone read it. Surely it can be transferred to another host? Blogger, WordPress?

  1. Susan Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 5:17 am

NO, No, NO!!! This just can’t be! I just discovered your blog and, not too terribly long ago, you through your Poke books. Is there someone I can write to or call to help out with this problem? Please let me know if there is. I’ll do what I can.

Susan


  1. fairyhedgehog Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 7:54 am

Oh my word. I do so hope you can sort this. You can’t just disappear!

And your wonderful advice to writers! That’s pulled me through many a writer’s block.

This is really, really bad.


  1. Peg Brantley Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 7:58 am

Well here it is, Sunday October 24th.

Nice to see you’re still around.

For now.


  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 8:53 am

Well, this is embarrassing. We’re still here. My friend Scott Pendergrast got hold of my erstwhile Web guy, who learned that the credit card used to guarantee renewal of the site had (ummmm) expired. So thanks to Gary, Philip, Susan, Fairyhedgehog and Peg, who hung in for the Last Days. It’s good to know who the core constituency is. But now I have to finish “Spirit House.”

  1. Beth Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 9:51 am

I’m here as well, Tim.

I suppose we common folk can take some comfort in learning that people with important things to protect do as poor a job of it as those of us who post daily drivel.

It really would be a shame to have this end; it is just too good. Would it be inappropriate to send it out too the people from whom you have email addresses? That would be even better than the monthly newsletter – thirty of Tim’s views versus one. No brainer there.


  1. Kari Wainwright Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 9:52 am

Thank goodness it’s the credit card that expired and not your blog — nor our chance to read the upcoming deliciously frightening and scary Spirit House so admired by dear Edgar.

  1. EverettK Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 10:05 am

VERY sorry to hear this!

Just a quick note to everyone who follows Tim, his site and this blog: if it goes dark, don’t lose hope. I’m sure Tim will be back eventually. So just keep Googling him periodically (or email him, or even email me), and eventually you’ll get linked back up when he gets his shit back together. Ummm… I mean, gets his website up and running again.

But hopefully things will get straightened out, sooner rather than later!


  1. Phil Hanson Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 11:18 am

Kinda leaves you feeling all hollowed out inside, doesn’t it, Tim, thinking that your site could go down at any moment? When my site went down a few years ago due to confusion over where the invoices/reminders were going and where the payments were coming from, it took an act of Congress, a majority vote of the UN, and a unanimous vote of the Intergalactic Council on Cyberspace Affairs to get the site reinstated, but that’s only because I was able to prove that I’d payed the annual domain name registration renewal fee on time. It could have been worse. Life’s a bitch when you don’t own your domain name.

While it looks like you’re good to go for another year, just in case this wonderful blog goes down for any reason before you get to Day 365 of the Stupid (but delightful) 365 Project, you can e-mail your daily random ramblings and miscellaneous musings to me for the duration.



  1. Bonnie Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 12:21 pm

See, Tim tricked a blog post out of me with this, too. Though I’m preaching to the choir in here, apparently, this is what I was inspired to post a link to on DorothyL — lest, heaven forfend, this happen to any other favorite author of mine! http://pixeledplums.blogspot.com/2010/10/oh-dear-is-it-october-already-off-topic.html

P.S. My captcha words should inspire *someone* to write a short story: vicers granted



  1. fairyhedgehog Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 12:29 pm

Can you get the site backed up so that we don’t have this scare again? It really is a very good site and I’d hate to see it go dark.

  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 2:03 pm

Hey, Beth, thanks for hanging in. We seem to be out of danger for the moment. I don’t know about e-mailing these things — my monthly newsletter goes out to about 2500 people, and most of them put up with it but I think I’d lose a ton of them if I sent them a blog a day. Especially as the quality begins (or continues, depending on your perspective) to drop.

Hi, Kari — well, the domain name had expired, too, and the problem was that they couldn’t renew it because of the credit card. That would have been terrible for this site, but arguably even worse because it would have cut off my contact with readers — I get a LOT of mail from people who read the books and go to the website on the flap. It would be really the sh*ts to have that line cut, and even a similar-sounding site still wouldn’t work. There are probably 50-60,000 books out there with this URL on them, and another 100,000 if you count e-books. Yikes. And it was really hard to get that quote out of Edgar.

I’m here, Everett. And tickled pink to be here. Really would have been awful. Thanks again to Bonnie Riley who spotted the problem and to both Bonnie and Everett, both of whom made emergency backups of the site.

Phil I wish I had your connections at the Intergalactic Council. I’m going to take over ownership of the domain name and make sure that the card the auto-renew is keyed to is still active by making it my Amazon card. I know the INSTANT something happens with my Amazon account, and I’ll be able to fix it and go immediately to Dreamhost.

Bonnie – da HERO!!!!. Although that “tricked me” line could use a little work. Why do I sense a certain amount of skepticism about this enterprise when I’m working my fingers to the bone for you?

FHH, it is/will be backed up. The real problem is the domain name, which I have to keep active because of all the books referred to above.

Glad y’all are still here. Glad I’m still here.


  1. Gary Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 4:37 pm

“It is/will be backed up.” And it is/will be done regularly from now on.

Won’t it?

When a man is about to lose his website it concentrates his mind wonderfully.


  1. Sylvia Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 5:01 pm

Well, dammmit, come to the old hands if you get in trouble!

Seriously: I’ve bitten my tongue about redesigning your blog (I dream of the day when we could actually browse back to see previous posts) but if it comes to being worried about losing your domain – please email me! Because you shouldn’t have that kind of stress and domains aren’t that hard to keep hold of (once you have one. I’m not suggesting you can grab bangkok.com)

And wtf – my word ver is Seditte Committee. I am saying nothing more.


  1. Laren Bright Says:
    October 24th, 2010 at 6:37 pm

Well, I for one am glad that this is all straightened out now. It would have been tragic to have lost those scintillating and fascinating words, And I am referring to reCaptcha.

  1. Larissa Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 6:51 am

Ha. It sort of drives home how temporal the whole “internet” thing really is, dudn’t it? We get to used to having “our” blog, but really it’s 1′s and 0′s that pretend to act as we want them to act…and then we forget to pay for the things or we don’t have our login information *Slap on the wrist* for that Tim! You should always, always, always, have your own login information so you can FTP your stuff over….I’m sure I’m going to get a clever comment about FTPing anything but yeah…yes you pay Joe Schmoe for making the website…but…but…but…(c:

I’m glad you’re still here. What else would I do when I’m bored at work?!?! I mean…on lunch…ahem.



  1. Chester Campbell Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 7:04 am

Glad to hear things have been cleared up, Tim. I’d been meaning to drop by and check out your Dumb 365 Project (Sarah won’t let me use the “S” word) but had neglected to until I read Bonnie’s post on DL. You are, as usual, absurdly entertaining. Keep up the good work.

  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 9:16 am

Wow — the lesson is clear. You want attention, develop a cough. On the other hand, it’s pretty obvious that there are those who run to the cougher’s side with vitamin C and cool compresses and those who simply sneer about people who haven’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain.

In the sneering faction we have Gary (big surprise) and Laren (even bigger surprise), and the old wrist-slapper, Riss (although it’s redeemed by “dudn’t,” which I’m trying to work into “Spirit House”). Chester, thank you for dropping by and aligning yourselves with the Nightingales instead of the Whipsnades, and Sylvia, thank you for the offer of help. Thanks again to Bonnie Riley for calling my attention to this, making an emergency backup, and averting the whole thing and to Everett for making his own backup, just in case.

And I reread Beth’s post way, way up there and think I should rename this project The Daily Drivel.


  1. Larissa Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 9:32 am

hehe…I’m sorry! I repent! Though it looks like I’m in good company over here with the…what’d you call us? Whipsnades? I love it. hehe. In fact, maybe I’ll just stay on this side of the fence. It could make my sweeter side seem all the sweeter in the end. (c:



  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 10:50 am

Riss, while I love you dearly, your sweeter side goes only so far.

  1. Larissa Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 11:55 am

hehe. Seems I’ve heard that somewhere before…once or twice…ahem. Well, I’ll try and keep an even balance of things ’round here. (c:

  1. Cynthia Mueller Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Um….you have a monthly newsletter? And this how I find out? Not by opening my email and finding it there?

captcha: 317. manknop

Oh, I thought it said ‘knob’ and it made me wonder if you’d gotten a new sponsor for your site.


  1. Timothy Hallinan Says:
    October 25th, 2010 at 3:36 pm

Cindy — you’re on the mailing list — I just checked. I sent you the October one anyway and put you on again. You may get two, but they’re easy to delete.



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