Comments were turned off

Sorry if any one was wanting to comment the last week or so.  I had changed my template to advanced in Typepad and it took away the widgets. So the Intense Debate widget wasgone and I had no comments on the bog.  So sorry about that.  I have reinstalled it on the advanced template so they should work again. If it doesn’t work email me at dwelch-blog at yahoo dot com.

Update to the blog

If you haven’t noticed, I decided to change the blog around again.  Hopefully this will be the last time for a while.  I wanted to get rid of some of the clutter that was on the main page.   So I decided to make a few extra pages with some of the stuff I had on the side bar.   You can go and see them on the pages list on the sidebar.

• Blog Stuff
• Blogrolls
• Forum
• Fred Thompson
• GOP
• Military and War on Terror
• RIP Skipper

Take a look at them when you visit, but that is where I am going to put stuff from now on.   I left the ads and the pictures links to all the blogrolls I am on, but the blogrolls will be on the blogroll page, and all the stuff for Republican news and such will be on the GOP page.  Military and War on Terror page is exactly what you would think it is  and Fred Thompson is the same thing.  Blog Stuff is various things that used to be on the sidebar that just took up space.   Such as all the topblogging and blog rating systems.   And the forum is just that.  It is a forum for everyone to use and get a conversation going. 

And of course the RIP Skipper will be left up on the blog

Hope you like it and tell me what you think in the comments or email me.

I have reached a milestone

I have surpassed the 50,000 marl on my sitemeter.  If you looks at the sidebar I am at 50,038.  I want to thank all of you that have come by ans looked at my little bolg here.  It is amazing that I hae that many so far.  It is probably more, because I didn;t install the sitemeter until after the blog was up for a while and also from my my original blog.  Again Iwant to thank all of you that have come by and checked this blog out.   I would like more peoploe to come by and vomment, but if you just come by and lurk that is fine also.

If you have any questions, comments or anything else leave it in the comments or email me.

thanks again

Stix

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Cassandra will be missed

Cassandra at Villainous Company has said that she is going to retire form blogging.  This is a sad day for the blogosphere, she is a great writer.

She will be missed.

Goodbye

For once in my life, I am going to keep this short. The only thing I
regret about leaving, is leaving all of you. That has been the hardest
thing, and putting it off will not make it any easier.

So many people have told me the real world is out here. But for
almost four years I found a group of people, perhaps for the first time
in my life, that I truly felt comfortable with; people who were
interested in the same things I was, who got my stupid jokes, my love
of Shakespeare, my Friday lyrics (or who at least didn’t mind them too
much :), who seemed to understand why I am passionate about certain things, who could take a silly idea: a game, story blogging, a poetry slam, and turn it into magic.

Many writers foolishly come to believe a blog is about them; about
what they have to say. This is not surprising. It’s easy to be taken in
by the generous things people say, to get a swelled head, a false sense
of importance. But Villainous Company was never meant to be about me –
hence the name. I had always hoped one day VC would become a group
blog. Sadly, I was never able to make that come to pass. I was
thrilled, and very grateful, when Pile agreed to be my co-blogger but I
never did convince anyone to write here regularly.

But in a larger sense, VC felt like it belonged to all of you
anyway. I know that each day when I was looking for things to write
about, it was your faces – real or imagined – that flashed before my
eyes, and I was always absurdly pleased when I was able to find
something you’d mentioned in the comments section. And it was you –
your wit, your ups and downs, your thoughts that made this place
special. This is what I have always thought blogging was about: a
conversation between the writer and readers. And as John Donovan said
to me the other night, VC had the best set of commenters in the
blogosphere. It made for a great conversation. When VC worked, it was
all you – every bit of it 🙂

Being with you all made every day an adventure and a joy.

I cannot tell you what these four years have meant to me. Blogging
has changed my life in so many ways, mostly for the better. There were
aspects of it that I found deeply painful, but mixed in with even the
bitterest moments there has been, also, a piercing sweetness.

I would not have missed that for anything.

I know there is a real world out there. I never lost sight of that, for all my clowning around. But there was a real world here, too,
and I will never forget it, and you. Thank you, from the bottom of my
heart, for your friendship, for the laughter you brought into my life,
for the joy of your conversation, and most of all for showing up every
day when I got up at 4 am and pounded away at the keyboard like a
madwoman.

It was fun, wasn’t it?

But it is time for me to go.

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Raven has some good pictures of Greece

Raven at And Rightly So! has got some cool pictures of Greece.

Here is my favorite:

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Neopad Chat box

Just wanted everyone to know there is a chat box in the Neopad widget on the sidebar.  If you click on the two faces it opens up the chat box.  So go and try it out. 

Also I got a forum on the sidebar also.  It isn’t much right now, but I am hoping to get some conversations going on over there also.   It is under pages on the sidebar.

Just wanted everyone to know. 

I will leave this up for a while to see if anyone uses them. 

The Anchoress is back sort of

Thanks God that The Anchoress is ok and doing well, at least as well as someone who passed some kidney stones.  She has a post about about her ordeal, but may not be posting a whole lot for a while.  Here is to a fast recovery. 

We all miss her great posts.

Seymour had siblings

Without going into gross specifics, the single rolling kidney stone from the other day became the beginning of an avalanche – as it were – and somehow the start of a whopper of an infection that got very bad, very quickly. I’m pretty good at enduring pain, but this was unbearable…morphine made me feel human, again…

I am a Ham Sandwich

Speaking of the Anchoress, here’s something I picked up at her place.  Not scientific, for sure.  She is supposedly my enemy and that’s about as far from the truth as can be.   And somehow I ended up as the sandwich she thinks she is.  Hope she’s doing OK.  Her blog is high on my reading list and not just because she loves opera as much as I do.   

You Are a Ham Sandwich

You are quiet, understated, and a great comfort to all of your friends. Over time, you have proven yourself as loyal and steadfast. And you are by no means boring. You do well in any situation – from fancy to laid back. Your best friend: The Turkey Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Source:    http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofsandwichareyouquiz/

Julia

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A change in scenery

I will leave this up at the top for the rest of the week.  So yuo can see that I have gotten Intense Debate for my comments now.

As you can see I have changed the blog.  I changed the theme and got rid of a lot of extra stuff that was not needed.  I think that it looks a lot cleaner and will load faster.   

Tell me what you think

Also I will probably be  getting a new comment thingy, it is called Intense Debate.   It is going to be revolutionary for blogs.  You will be able to track comments form one person or a posting on a blog.  It also has a reputation rating, so you can tell if the person is a troll or a spammer. 

Go and check out there website and look around.  They are looking for beta testers to work out the bugs in the system

Well, the new comments from Intense Debate is now installed.   So go a nd try it out and tell me what you think of it.  Also you can go by and tell the good people at Intense Debate about how you like it or what you don’t like.  They need feedback on thier system.

****Update.  I think I am finished with all the changed here.  So tell me what you think. tell me if it is still loading slowly, I think I got rid of enough widgets and other useless junk that was loading slow.  Also I went back to the 1 sidebar and have more space for the text and pictures for posts. 

And I want to thank the huys at intense Debate on helping me out with the new comments and to get my blog to load faster.  I see thast I am getting more traffic now that it is faster loading.

Update**    Comments are down right now.   Working out the bugs.  Accidently removed widget for the Intense Debate comment. Will be back soon.

Update****  The Intense Debate Comments are back up.  Sorry for the delay, but the uys at ID were busy with other stuff.  They were busy with showing off to TechCrunch.

So go ahead ad give it a try and let me know and let the guys at Intense Debate your likes and dislikes of it.

Stix Blog Forum

If you look on the left sidebar at the top, you can see that I have made a forum for my readers.  Come on by and start up a conversation.   Right now I have a Fred Thompson as my topic so far. I will put up more  topics if it gets some use.  So go and take a look at my forum.

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