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Perhaps I should have named him Mazda ("zoom zoom") instead. He gets a serious case of the zoomies at night between midnight and 1 AM. I didn't realize it previously because I originally kept him locked in my office until I could make the rest of the house cat-safe. At the time, I figured his nightly escapades were just him being frustrated at being locked in the office, although it's huge and has become a cat paradise.

Once I let him out into the rest of the house, I saw his first zoomie. He yowled and took off for the opposite side of the house. When I called him, he looked back, and because I had most of the lights off, his eyes looked completely black (from widened pupils), which freaked me out for a moment. I wondered if I was adopting a demonic cat. An angel by day; demon-spawn by night. There may be a short story there. :-)

And for those who don't know, carnivore poop stinks to high heaven. If he goes at night in the litter box in the bathroom, I have to get up and deal with it right away, otherwise the whole floor stinks. The cat litter the shelter asked me to use (since he's still their cat for the moment) is environmentally friendly and pet friendly, but it's not very good for masking #2. Yeesh!

Having now briefed you all on my cat's bowel movements, I'll allow you to proceed with breakfast. Bon appetit! :-)

Below is what I posted regarding points when Sol made the change in April to pay more points (there was no change to how much it cost to post). I tested those numbers. I never did get around to updating the linked post with the points math for poetry, though....

https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/forums … ntest.html

I'll have a look at your numbers for you soon.

We needed to incentivize existing members to read the work of new members, hence the new member bonus. It really shouldn't be necessary to incentivize people to read new material since the author will no doubt ask you to do so if you review something old. Also, new stuff appears on your home page as they post it, so we tend to default to those unless we're still reviewing something old for them, assuming they still need the feedback. If in doubt, ask.

And you have several options for dealing with old stories in your own portfolio. When I finished writing the first draft of "The Rise of Connor" and wanted to stop new readers from starting to read it, I simply deactivated a bunch of opening chapters and added a note to content summary, steering them to v2.

I didn't want to take the whole thing down right away because some of my reviewers hadn't reached the end. That's still the case in a couple of instances because members come and go as life dictates, so I'm leaving it up for when some of those folks return but I moved it to the end of my portfolio.

Funny thing about Booksie. That's Sol's other site, which is where most of the new development goes.

That's hilarious!

We have a winner: Gandalf the Beige

You folks have some cool cat names. And the sheer number of cats you've owned or own is impressive.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.
Dirk

P.S. Saw a video last night of a cat running up a screen door. Another tried running up a wall. Those are some serious zoomies! Things to look forward to.

Mine got the zoomies, although he went into hunting mode and started stalking/pouncing on non-existent prey. This is after I thought I had worn him out with a laser pointer. He went nuts for the little red dot.

>>when he’s hanging from your curtains like Spider-Man at a crime scene
That sounds like Gumdrop, the cat I originally intended to adopt until he wore me out in a fifteen minute meet and greet. LoL. I would have had to rename him E=mc^2 because his energy level was so crazy high it was bounding, leaping, shedding proof of Einstein's equation. Oddly, though, Gumdrop regularly defied the laws of gravity.

Your ditty could be considered offensive to animal lovers.
Glass houses, George... ;-)

In English? Pffft!
Canis!

You and Marilyn should compare notes if you haven't already. She's probably had dozens of cats over the years in her animal sanctuary.

This reminded me of a song I learned in kindergarten fifty-five years ago. I never knew the name, just remembered one verse. I fed it into Gemini, and it said, "That's a classic!" and went on to name the song (The Austrian Yodeler) and explain some of the history. I'm so glad to be retired and not have to worry about competing with AI. Yeesh.

In Canada it would be A-eye-eh. Sounds like a refrain from "Old MacDonald had a Farm." :-)

Hi Sol.

Having access to an AI directly from the site would be great as long as people can find it easily. In addition to wherever you place the button or menu item to make it generally available, I'd suggest also making it accessible from within the Post/Edit wizard with a label or tooltip suggesting people run their writing through the AI to eliminate the trivial stuff so they don't waste their reviewers' time. As reviewers, I think we should make it a default expectation. If the AI is good and clearly hasn't been used, I'd tell them to run it, fix their mistakes, then post again.