Masters of Horror

The Ides are nearly here. Time just seems to be flying. It's only next week that the next issue of the magazine is unleashed on all too expecting public. Despite that I don't want to focus too many entries of this blog about Killing Time - Horror E-Rag(TM), and the newly renamed www.spleen-mart.com I must. There was a technical issue that affected the file size of E-Rag. After some work and recoding I have rectified the problem and the store now has the slimmer version. Nothing was changed visually or text wise, only the download time was seriously impacted, or if you want to put the E-Rag on a thumb drive or what have you. Still, for those that wish the smaller file please email me from the account tied to your PayPal and/or send me the transaction ID and I will reissue you a new download link. The new file is not quite half of the size of the one you already downloaded.

The problem arose due to an error in a third party bit of software that I use to convert web pages into PDF pages. The error itself is most likely tied to my having moved from the beta of Internet Explorer 9 to the Release Candidate. To work around it I used an obviously inferior replacement, which while printing visually identical pages, created pages that were actually eight times larger. While this did get compressed down when all of the pages were put together and the rest of the work done to them, it didn't help much. Honestly, with a release compared to a beta there shouldn't have been an issue. The fix itself to make the original third party program work again was in itself ridiculous and didn't involve said company at all, just me and some recoding. The moral of this story is that when you sit on the bleeding edge of technology prepare to do some bleeding now and again.

Music: Prowler by Iron Maiden.

It's time for the annual hiatus where I do all sorts of coding stuff and post very little. I will be back here on the 20th with the regularly scheduled Killing Time post for Issue 3-5. I will see you again then. Thanks.

P.S. There will be no interruption of the new On Dark Rhoads(TM) blog tomorrow and the rest of the Saturdays.

Music: Love Token by Brian May.

I am back from my hiatus. So, what did I accomplish? Well... not much of what I had intended; I can tell you that. All the background bits that no one notices until they aren't complete are only caught up to the end of February and I already had January set to rights before I took the time off. As you know, Killing Time - Horror E-Rag(TM) Issue 3-5 was unleashed upon a partly suspecting world. Work of course is well under way for the big third year finale. I started, in May, with the back cover because I had an awesome idea. In fact a big chunk of what I did get done was to complete a large number of art pieces. I also set up the web pages for most of them. There are still some pages to be done before I upload them all though, or I'd be showing those off right now. On that front there is some more news, but I will be a tease and leave that for when I'm done and ready.

Throughout the break the posts have continued from Joshua as he deals with this haunting. I ran a two-part interview with photographer and jewellery maker Amanda Norman in "Grave Photos with Amanda Norman" and "Amanda Norman's Gothic Jewellery Box". That pretty much up sums up what has gone on. What about the future? Well... that is a fine question. The undone work will have to come about whenever and however I can manage it. The blogging has gotten off to a slow start, but will resume its normal schedule. Again, there are projects, plans, and announcements that I will only dangle and you will just have to wait for them to drop. So stay tuned.

Music: Hero of the Day by Metallica.