Well, dear readers, I hope you are reading these here notes. Last night, while they changed out some equipment having to do with firewalls, whatever the HELL that is, they took us offline – of course since last Thursday it’s been a lot of hiccups on the site and I have been promised too many times it would all be fixed. But I can’t tell what’s real and not real anymore. Are we changing servers or is it faulty firewall equipment? I frankly don’t care anymore and am completely fed up with this stuff. When we made the move to this new company for both this site and Kritzerland, we were promised everything would run smoothly, which it did for quite a while, until they went to some new data center. When that change happened, we had many problems for several weeks, then they got sorted out and we’ve been mostly fine, save for sporadic hiccups, which they have, thankfully, dealt with very quickly. I was promised that today this would be fixed – not the server change, but the firewall equipment problem. But our fellow didn’t even arrive there until seven o’clock last evening, and I knew that was going to not be a good thing. At that point, I could still get on the site and it was working at least reasonably well – and perfectly for some, and not at all for others. But within the hour things would not load properly and I began sending a lot of text messages. At around eight last night we were completely off-line. I kept texting and was told they were working as quickly as possible. I told him that I was not about to have another night where I got no sleep because of this nonsense. I was told the new equipment had been installed and he was writing something called “network rules” and was hoping we’d be up in an hour. That hour was up thirty-five minutes ago and I haven’t had a response to my latest text. I thank all of you dear readers for your extreme patience and no how frustrating it is. We will get it sorted out shortly and for good or I will simply move us elsewhere again.
Other than that horse manure, I had a fairly restful Monday, which I really needed badly. I got nine hours of sleep and didn’t arise until eleven-thirty. Once up, the helper came by, then I went and had a sandwich and some onion rings, then came back home. I did some work on the computer and then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a few things on Netflix, starting with a motion picture entitled Puppylove from Belgium, I believe. An okay movie about a young girl’s coming of age. The lead actress was very good, but in the end it just wasn’t much of anything. Then I watched a documentary entitled Still Alive about songwriter Paul Williams. I am a big fan of Mr. Williams. Clearly he has had a fascinating life, which was clearly filled with highs (of all kinds) and lows. Unfortunately, this documentary is “written” and directed by Steven Kessler, and he seems to forget who his documentary is about at just about every turn. It is more about the director, who is unfunny, stupid, and obnoxious. That Mr. Williams simply didn’t pull the plug is amazing. There are some good clips and some interesting stories, but Mr. Kessler’s ego (he is a director with a non-career) is raging and his film, because of that, is an embarrassment. But it does succeed in one thing – showing that this director is a complete ASS.
After that, I watched a motion picture from New Zealand entitled Felony. It was advertised as a “thriller” but, of course, was anything but. It was a slowly paced drama about a good cop who makes a bad decision. The acting was good and the writing serviceable, and the direction was okay. I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it.
I then began watching another documentary, this on the man who founded the National Enquirer. I watched half of it and will finish it tonight, but it’s pretty interesting.
Today, I think I’m meeting up with Lanny Meyers for a meal. Then I will finish casting and get the remaining people their material (the three people who are cast have all gotten their songs). I have a lot of catching up to do, liner notes to type and our next release to prepare – a really incredible release that will be of special interest to you dear readers.
The rest of the week is meetings and meals and writing and doing and going, then on Thursday night we’ll have a speed-through of our show, then we resume performances on Friday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe have a lunch with Lanny, hopefully pick up packages, write liner notes, finish casting and maybe even relax some more. Today’s topic of discussion: When you were a wee bairn, when you were asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, what was your answer? And if it’s not what you ended up being, would you still like to be it? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as I wait for the new equipment and firewalls to work so we can be back online. These here notes should have been up nine minutes ago. We’ll see when they actually bring us back so I can post them.