story reminder

I’d like to make a quick public service announcement.  Well, it’s about this blog, but it’s open to the public for viewing and commenting, so I reckon the category still fits.

Anyway, I want to remind everyone about the latest free-for-all story that’s ongoing.  I’m going to wrap it up soon, because the progress on it has slowed to a snail’s pace (and they are notoriously slow at writing stories).  So if you want to contribute anything to it, jump in.  It’s open to everyone, even if you’re a first-time visitor here.  Just read through it before writing, so you’ll know the rules and be familiar with the characters.

Here’s the link: Are you talking to me?

Also, if you didn’t know, there have been two completed already, viewable under the free-for-all stories category.  They both turned out well, in my opinion.  They’re definitely random, and you won’t guess all the plot twists, for sure.  They are somewhat long, so if it’s too much for one viewing, you could print it out and use it for reading material in the bathroom or as a bedtime story (which could potentially lead to some crazy dreams).

new ratings feature on comments

I’m enabling a new rating feature on comments.  For each comment, you can choose whether you like it or don’t like it.  If it doesn’t move you significantly either way, don’t bother clicking on either.  This will enable readers to see the best (and worst) comments on a post at quick glance, which could be helpful if they don’t have time to read them all.

Where I see this being interesting is on the caption contests.  This way you can vote on which caption you like best.  You can vote on multiple entries, so if you can’t pick just one, pick several.  So for those of you who participate in the caption contests, you can come back to it at the end of each week (because that’s typically how long the comments roll in) to see if you won.

This post doesn’t say much, so I added a picture.  Hopefully the image of Hillary Clinton doesn’t ruin your day.  She approves the use of the thumbs up symbol.  In this photo, I imagine she saw how well her husband William Bill Clinton used the thumbs up gesture, so she figured two would be even more convincing of her sincerity before the great unwashed masses.  Unfortunately (for her), her attempt at it makes her look insincere… and constipated…

new features at Buffet o’ Blog

Today I’m going to tell you about some of the recent upgrades here at Buffet o’ Blog.

You may have noticed the new check-box next to where you leave your comments.   If you check it and leave a comment, you will receive new comments on that post via e-mail.  That way, if there’s a post you want to follow but don’t want to check back at the blog all the time to see if anyone has written on it, you just check the box and you’ll get an e-mail when someone writes a new comment.

If you are a regular reader here (or want to be) and you want to receive all the comments in your feed reader or by e-mail, we now have that option.  With the e-mail options you will receive one e-mail per day containing all the comments on the blog from the past 24 hours.  If there were no new comments, there is no e-mail.  The instructions for subscribing to this is explained in detail on the new “Subscribe” page.

And of course you can receive the new posts via e-mail or in a feed reader.  I’ve mentioned that before.  Those instructions are also on the “Subscribe” page.

Todays ‘Bonus Post’ – A Fairy Tale

While tirelessly perusing the ‘interweb’ as I oft do, I stumbled upon ‘A Fairy Tale’ truly worthy of sharing…  so without further ado, I give you today’s ‘bonus’ post.

A Fairy Tale

One day, long long ago……

there lived a woman who did not whine, nag or complain.

But this was a long time ago……

and it was just that one day.

The End.

free blog stats, concurrent users

Last month I added an free stats package to the blog, so you can see how many people are currently on the blog.  There’s an icon in the sidebar with a number in it.  Click on the icon in the sidebar, and you go to the stats page for this blog, and it shows graphs based on how many users are here at the same time.

But wait, there’s more!  If you click in the next 30 minutes, you can also see a global map of where our users are from.  That’s pretty cool, but if you click on it, you get a larger version with more detail.  You can see that Buffet o’ Blog is popular all around the world!    Putting your mouse cursor over a star will reveal where it’s located.  There are also some other map modes you can play with.

And FYI, on the history page, it’s showing the number of concurrent users, with max and average stats.

This is for those of you who are curious about such things (like me), or for people who somehow got the false impression that this blog is obscure.