Commenting

I've decided to switch back to the embedded commenting style, which allows embedded comments. I turned this off originally because if someone blocked third-party cookies, then they would not be able to leave comments. However, it is customary these days for browsers to be able to set individual sites to turn off the blocking. So, if you want to leave a comment, you need to either

• Have your browser set to allow third-party cookies.
• Temporarily change your browser to allow third-party cookies, then change it back.
• Or use the browser specific method to allow third-party cookies for blogspot.com.

Note that if you have two browsers installed, such as Google-Chrome and Firefox (among others), then you could set one of them to block third-party cookies and mostly use it, while setting the other to allow them, and only use that one for a few sites where it is reasonable.

Still working

I haven't posted in the last few days because I've been doing some reading and working on something unrelated. I do have the next scene from ENE about half finished, although I was struggling with it a little. Hopefully I'll have it ready to post in a day or two. It will feature female-Ranma.

New Poll

I've added a new poll, as well as rearranging the sidebar a bit. The tag cloud is now located at the bottom below the posts. The poll closes after July 21 (on my browser, at least, it's hard to read how many days are left).

Comment Change

I am experimenting with temporarily changing comments from embedded style to "full page", where adding a comment uses a link which takes you to a separate page. This avoids the problem of needing to have third-party cookies enabled in order to post comments.

The main problem I can see is that comments are no longer threaded. That is, they are simply added in order, with no ability to place a reply immediately following the comment to which it applies.

I'll try it this way for a while and, if it it proves to be a poorer choice when advantages and disadvantages are summed, then I'll switch back.

Comment Problems

So I've recently learned that there's a problem with trying to post comments to my blog because I'm using the "embedded" style of comments. If your browser is set to block third-party cookies, then you cannot post a comment in this form - when you attempt to do so, the comment you've put all that effort into typing simply disappears. I couldn't even comment on my own blog, since I started blocking third-party cookies (or rather, to do so, I had to temporarily enable third-party cookies).

The other alternatives are full page comments - where there is a link to add comments on a separate page - or a popup comments window. The latter seems likely to be even more of a problem since I, like many people, prefer to block popup windows. Which means the only feasible alternative would be full page comments.

Would anyone like to give me feedback on whether they'd prefer I keep the style of embedded comments, or change the style to full page comments? Note that, for the moment, in order to leave feedback you need to allow third-party cookies when you load the page. (You can disallow them again immediately afterward.)

5 More Months

Sorry to disappear again so soon after my last reappearance. What happened was, almost immediately after my previous post last October, I was laid off and fell into a severe depression. I spent a score of years at that fucking job, before they tossed me aside. Of course, I understand why. The company was moving in new directions, and didn't need as many people maintaining the existing parts of the business. And getting rid of me meant cutting a pretty large salary out of their costs. Yay, loyalty.

I can't afford to retire yet, but at my age it's not so easy convincing someone new to hire me. I'm still looking. I'm not digging into previous investments yet, they at least gave me a decent severance package so I've got a bit longer to go, and I've got some prospects. But you can understand the depression.

Anyway, I wouldn't go expecting to hear too much from me in the near future. Of course, if anything does turn up, you can be pleasantly surprised. I have been working on a little project lately, but inspiration is very much a come and go thing at the moment.

Sometimes it's hard to remember those heady days when I was first writing MV, putting out chapters rapidly. So much shit has happened since then. Here's hoping life gets better again someday.

Minor Poll Blip

If you looked at my blog earlier, for a brief time you might have seen the alleged results of the latest poll. That was my goof. My new polling widget doesn't automatically close the poll at a specified time. For some reason I thought tonight was the night I said I was going to close it, but it's tomorrow. So I closed it and posted the results. After I realized my mistake, I reopened the poll and removed the results.

Oh well.

I won't be posting anything else tonight. My evil wife brought home a recently published book from the library that I was planning to buy after it came out in paperback. And I'm anxious to get back to it.

If I were writing (or reading) a "Groundhog Day" style story without lemon bits, I think it might be interesting to force Nabiki to live through Ranma's and Akane's attempted wedding, over and over and over again. With it dissolving into disaster in as many different ways as possible, even when she herself actively conspires to keep all of the crazies ignorant. And she'd be informed by some kami just before the first repetition - or maybe after a couple of dozen - that she can't break out of the loop until she figures out some way for the wedding to be carried off successfully. I can just picture Nabiki going crazy as she tries to do something good for once in her life, and can't figure out a way to keep other people from screwing it up, again and again and again.

Poll removed

The latest poll is completely screwed up, so I've removed it. I'll find some replacement tool to use instead before putting it back up.

New poll

I'm giving the poll widget another chance, this time with the opposite side of the question — which males would one enjoy acting as dominants? Unlike the month I gave for the last poll, I'm going to cut the deadline to two weeks for this one.

If Google screws it up again, I'll look for some different tool for including the polls on my site.

Sandy

It looks like Google managed to recover the poll! One more day in which to vote before it's closed.

We survived storm Sandy more or less intact. We lost power briefly, and the house sustained some very minor damage which should be easy to repair. A few people in the neighborhood weren't quite as lucky, but no one seems to have suffered truly major damage.

I also managed to get through the OS upgrade with no more than the usual amount of headaches and hair pulling.

Hentai Art Sites

I've added a page of links to hentai art sites. See the "Links" tab at the top. Feel free to let me know about any other sites which you feel should be included here.

Construction complete

The redesign of my blog's appearance should now be complete. Please let me know if you have any issues with it.

Under construction

My blog design is under construction. Some parts may be difficult to read for the moment.

Whiney

I think one reason I haven't been posting much is that my posts lately have tended to take on a whining tone. Poor, pitiful me. Yeah, I may have had a rough patch lately, but overall I've had a pretty damn good life, and even now there are lots of people who are a hell of a lot worse off. It disturbs me to hear myself being so whiney. It doesn't fit my self image.

So, while I want to keep my readers informed if there are reasons why they're not getting new material, I want to keep it simple and straightforward.

And by the way, who the hell decided that we should go straight from autumn to spring this year?

Visiting Browsers

Got an email from Blogger mentioning some of the recent features they've added, so I decided to check out the "Stats" page they mentioned. Encountered one curious point there. It turns out that just over half of the people reading my blog are using Firefox as their browser, while only a quarter are using IE. This made me look up some statistics on browser usage in general - I hadn't realized that Firefox had gained so much ground on IE, although still behind IE by most people's counts. I wonder if there's any reason other than statistical anomaly for the lower percentage of IE users coming here?

For those who are curious, the next three most common browsers were Chrome, Opera and Safari, at roughly five percent apiece.

No Progress

I want to apologize to my readers, but it looks like I'm not going to get much writing done in the near future, unless I get really inspired. I tried today, but I only managed to churn out a few paragraphs, and they felt forced. I just couldn't get the feel for it. I also tried starting a different (short) story, but no luck there either. In the end I am forced to admit that I cannot write unless I have the right mood, and that mood is rare these days, let alone coinciding with free time to write.

I definitely do want to continue writing at some point - I want to recapture the way it felt when I started writing MV. I'll try to keep this blog updated from time to time, to let people know that I haven't given up, and to report on any progress which might come to pass.

Chapter 24 Posted

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Comments and Cookies

Something unfortunate that I've learned about blogspot. If you have your browser set to prevent third party cookies, you may not be able to leave comments. Which isn't to say you definitely won't. But if you have trouble leaving a comment to one of my posts, and you're willing, you might try enabling third party cookies for the duration of creating the comment. That's what I'm doing. Damned silly nonsense, if you ask me.

Introduction

Hello. H.Saotome here. I've set up this blog to have a place to keep people informed of what's going on with my writing, to provide an anonymous place where people can comment and ask questions outside of reviews, and to give me a place to respond to reviews without adding reviews myself. For that matter, people reading my stories on asstr don't have a place to see reviews.

I've also been working today on chapter 24 of Moxibustion Violation. I hope to get a good chunk of the chapter written, although I doubt that I'll get it completed. But if I can get close, maybe people won't have to wait too much longer for the chapter.