26 2025-05-31 12:19:37
Topic: Saturday morning cartoon: (0 replies, posted in Cartoons & Animations)
27 2025-05-03 12:02:34
Topic: Saturday morning cartoon (0 replies, posted in Cartoons & Animations)
13 minute Road Runner compilation:
28 2025-04-24 20:55:57
Re: IBM memo on replacing mouse balls (4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Naturally, there was no casual Friday back then. Goldman Sachs, being the uptight bunch they are, had a seasonal casual Friday only. Not a year-round thing while I was still working there. I was never more happy to get laid off from a company. Management's favorite mantra was "Our people are our strength," which oddly, they never used amid rounds of layoffs. Can't imagine why. :-)
...because they have mouse balls.
29 2025-04-18 05:56:41
Re: About the Do-Over contest (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hi all, 500 words is the maximum according to the contest rules. Keep it at 500 words or below.
Whatta, did you email me? I'll have to check. Sorry if I didn't respond. I get a lot of email and I might have missed it.
Hi Sol. I emailed you with the addy I have from long ago when I rejoined. The one I sent recently was to the contact@thenextbigwriter.com.
No matter, I got my answer. Thanks.
30 2025-04-16 12:09:20
Re: About the Do-Over contest (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
And btw, thanks for your involvement in the point system makeover. It was overdue.
31 2025-04-16 12:05:29
Re: About the Do-Over contest (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I think you need to ask Sol that question. It's never come up (publicly) for word-limited contests I was in. Do you have a connection with Sol? If not, his user id is SolN (find him using the white search field at the top of screens on this site). You can also try emailing contact@thenextbigwriter.com. I don't know which one he checks most often (he checks this forum too at times).
Have you posted it yet? I had to get real good at trimming words for previous contests, so I may be able to spot a few things to tweak/remove.
Not sure how Facebook comments tie into/relate to the site, but I don't think they're intended for support.
Thanks Dirk. I have Sol's email but when I rejoined the site I sent him a note and he never replied. I haven't posted the story yet. I get that the simplest thing to do is to just find 11 words to cut. Sounds easy, right? But after cutting it from 520 words to 511, I stopped to wonder about leeway. I'll try emailing contact@.
32 2025-04-16 03:32:16
Topic: About the Do-Over contest (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hi. I tried asking this question on the Comments section of The Do-Over Writing Contest page (used 3 different browsers) and it didn't work.
If my story is 511 words, is it ineligible? Any leeway there? Do I need to hunt Sol down and ask him?
33 2025-04-16 03:24:10
Re: Away from my desk (4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Sounds like fun. We'll miss you.
34 2025-04-14 12:57:42
Re: Points adjustment and new writing contest (9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Yes. I looked at some of my earlier posted works, and they now pay more. My Uniquorn story was a contest entry with an upper limit of 3000 words, and it now pays 3 points, which is consistent with my earlier post about the new points math.
Sweet. Thanks.
35 2025-04-14 01:42:51
Re: Points adjustment and new writing contest (9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Does this change the points received for work that's currently published?
36 2025-04-05 03:01:53
Re: using color in the chapter notes or content summaries of books? (4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
<body>
<p style="color:#FF0000;">
A pop star runs from her life in the spotlight.
</p>
</body>It works in my Jules summary.
Cool.
37 2025-03-17 13:51:31
Re: To set the stage... (1 replies, posted in Cartoons & Animations)
Saturday morning cartoon, Tales from the Far Side:
38 2025-02-26 18:51:58
Re: Bugs & Maintenance Requests (135 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Dirk B wrote:Hey, Sol. Any ETA as to when you'll reduce the ratio of words reviewed to words posted from 5 to 1 down to 3 to 1? Right now we have one of the most onerous ratios of workshop sites I know of.
Thanks
DirkI'm in a lot of writing groups and would love to push this site (in fact, I just did today), but the ratio is a huge turn-off and why I left the first time. I had 136 points which is why I'm back now.
What other writing groups can you recommend? Sol doesn't seem to be in a hurry to adjust the ratio.
39 2025-02-25 21:52:46
Re: Bugs & Maintenance Requests (135 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hi Mitch. Yeah, it's a bit aggressive with the new lines. It's a very old bug, but everything should still be readable. Not sure if a fix is available.
Dirk
Weird. Stupid computers.
40 2025-02-25 03:54:06
Re: Bugs & Maintenance Requests (135 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hola. What's with all the forced returns in the Content Summary section (can't get rid of them splitting sentences into a new line)?
41 2025-02-22 02:35:17
Re: Bugs & Maintenance Requests (135 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hey, Sol. Any ETA as to when you'll reduce the ratio of words reviewed to words posted from 5 to 1 down to 3 to 1? Right now we have one of the most onerous ratios of workshop sites I know of.
Thanks
Dirk
Good point. If I didn't already have 261 points from the last time I was a member, I don't know if I could have stuck it out to publish a 69 chapter memoir here.
42 2025-02-22 02:31:03
Re: My Book is Now Available (9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Excellent. Sorry I missed reading it here. Congrats!
Mitch
43 2025-01-27 12:25:16
Topic: Cartoons & Animations Group (0 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I have a tradition since I was old enough to turn on the old kind of black and white (but more green and gray) tv. Cartoons, that is. Now, decades later, they include everything from Ignatz and Betty Boop to Family Guy, Simpsons, Far Side and Adult Swim animations.
Several WhatsAppenin’ groups I belong to enjoy my posting of one every saturday morning. After a few years, I’m running out of material. If you (still) enjoy cartoons (who doesn’t?) and want to periodically refresh your memory, post some here.
On a psychological level, they’ll help you feel young (or is that just me?).
(Just to define: I consider anything animated to be a cartoon. That includes single-frame claymation and anything of the Adult Swim sort [animation with dolls]. Some classics are full length and some are compilations of more recent shorts. I try to keep them between 5-7 minutes long.)
Sample here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI9w9yNbrcM
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=deskt … 1cCkt7lZz4
And:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GGrPZPc6S-I?app=desktop
Post away! Or tune in to watch and feel like a kid again. And, you won’t have to wait for your tv to fire up because the tubes are going bad.
44 2025-01-25 13:38:05
Topic: To set the stage... (1 replies, posted in Cartoons & Animations)
I have a tradition since I was old enough to turn on the old kind of black and white (but more green and gray) tv. Cartoons, that is. Now, decades later, they include everything from Ignatz and Betty Boop to Family Guy, Simpsons, Far Side and Adult Swim animations.
Several WhatsAppenin’ groups I belong to enjoy my posting of one every saturday morning. After a few years, I’m running out of material. If you (still) enjoy cartoons (who doesn’t?) and want to periodically refresh your memory, post some here.
On a psychological level, they’ll help you feel young (or is that just me?).
(Just to define: I consider anything animated to be a cartoon. That includes single-frame claymation and anything of the Adult Swim sort [animation with dolls]. Some classics are full length and some are compilations of more recent shorts. I try to keep them between 5-7 minutes long.)
Sample here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI9w9yNbrcM
And:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=deskt … 1cCkt7lZz4
And:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GGrPZPc6S-I?app=desktop
Post away! Or tune in to watch and feel like a kid again. And, you won’t have to wait for your tv to fire up because the tubes are going bad.
45 2025-01-23 21:11:31
Re: Ukraine (3 replies, posted in We're All Ears)
Marilyn the Wise wrote:I refuse to allow him on my TV or in my head anymore.
My mother despised the younger President Bush while she was still alive. Every time clips of him appeared on TV, she'd say she could just kick him in the face. :-)
She lived long enough to see Biden win in 2020 and probably thought, thank God that's over!
The period from 2016 through 2024 could never get made as a fictional TV movie because it's too far-fetched to be believed.
Bush looked like Alfred E Newman. What, me worry? It's a MAD world.
46 2025-01-23 04:05:02
Topic: Ukraine (3 replies, posted in We're All Ears)
I should say that I do follow some news, specifically Ukraine. Bots only know if what I see on the internet is true or clickbait, but it's been fascinating to learn about how warfare has changed, drastically, since this war began. There's also a lot of talk/conjecture about Russia's economy and internal state of affairs. I just saw a vid showing a Siberian separatist movement intent on becoming independent. This is major stuff, all of it.
The drama of man beating up on man continues ad nauseam -- growing, evolving, forever in our faces. Civilization? Bah. No such thing.
Some change, however, is good change. Seems like I've been saying this all my life but, "we'll see" is kinda running out of time as far as I'm concerned. I can only hope my granddaughter (3 yo) has time to see what real humanity and civilization looks like.
(Sorry for the rant above.)
Anyway, I want to make clear that I'm not totally disconnected from the news, just US news.
47 2025-01-21 17:20:30
Re: The Day They Drove Miss Liberty Down (33 replies, posted in We're All Ears)
Hi. I've been ignoring politics since precisely Nov. 6th at 3:30 am when I saw the news. Haven't touched it since. I'm too old and retired to be bothered by America's ignorance any more. I worked my entire life, practically, with that trickle-down bullshit. Yeah, I'm a little pissed at my country, NOT the Greatest Country the World Has Ever Known, as many like to lie. So I sat here and read Sideman's "Who Stole the Dead Guy," did some gardening on a gorgeous, Summer day, then made my expresso, added kahlua, vodka and a splash of 7 yo rum, filled my flask with more 7 yo rum and went to play pool and watch the Ohio/Notre Dame game with a happy crowd of visitors to the community. Got staggering drunk, walked home, had a chicken empanada and about 200 pistachio nuts and went to bed.
This is my life now. I'm bowing out of political news for at least two years until the mid-terms. Maybe I'll check in then.
Good luck, America.
48 2025-01-09 16:33:17
Re: To all those I still owe reviews (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
As you can see above, the cognac has begun to kick in.
Ha. Told ya.
49 2025-01-09 13:27:58
Re: To all those I still owe reviews (24 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Well that sux. Don't you hate being sick? I find that whining a lot helps the mental state, though Babe doesn't agree with that (don't know why). Curse the gods! Grumble and spit fire! Oh, and self-pity is soothing. Why me, dammit? I don't deserve this! If your partner shies away, complain to the cat (they probably deserve it).
And cognac helps. You can't taste it with covid, allowing for bigger shots.
I feel for you, really. Just remember the immortal words of Inspector Dreyfuss: "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v30HUOx6SYk
50 2025-01-06 13:22:17
Re: Bugs & Maintenance Requests (135 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Hi all,
Happy New Year!
I'll look again at the points ratio. It should have been changed but clearly not.
I'll also take a look at Whatta's account. I remember him from the old days.
Sol
ok so Yay! I think I got it figured out. I had the Publish setting wrong. Operator error, as usual. GIGO.
Carry on.
