I’ve finished the first draft of the December Rymellan story. This was a tough one to write, not because I had writer’s block or anything like that, but because preparing The Salbine Sisters for publication and dealing with the numerous details around that squeezed my writing time. Then, when I did have a chance to sit down and write, it was hard to turn off the “publisher.” So I’m glad the first draft is done and I can move on to the editing stage. The story ran a little longer than I expected, but it contains a key turning point for one character. It’s also the last story that will go into Rymellan 2.

Since it’s Friday, I’ve included a silly animal video that had me laughing yesterday. It starts out with video clips of cats, many of which I’ve seen before. Then there’s a funny Monday/Friday comparison (you might be able to relate to the Friday clip today!). But what really made me laugh was the skateboarding dog. It’s the dog, it’s the people wondering “WTF?” It’s the dramatic background music that made me dig up one of my old ELO CDs and rip Fire on High to my computer so I could listen to it again (I hadn’t heard that song in years). Just one of those clips that makes you giggle no matter how many times you see it. Truly a dog that lives life to the fullest.

Have a great weekend!

For RPG gamers: Check out RPGWatch. This is a great site that compiles RPG-related news from around the web. No more visiting multiple sites to find out what’s happening with your favourite and most anticipated games. I like this one so much, I’ve added it to the Resources page.

For animal lovers: We’ve all seen the terrible images of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. What happens to animals when a disaster of that magnitude strikes? Fortunately, animal welfare groups like IFAW, WSPA, and others send teams to the affected area. To learn about the work going on in Haiti and other areas, visit the WSPA Animals in Disasters blog. The following short video about Haiti is on its front page. Caution: the video contains images of injured animals.

For web developers: I’m running a nifty distribution package called XAMPP, so I can test scripts before I put them onto a live site. Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL separately can be tricky. More often than not, they won’t work well together unless you move these files there, edit this config file and rename it to that, and twirl around three times while patting your head and groveling to the technology gods. XAMPP makes it all easy. It installs everything you need and it just works. The distribution includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, Mercury, and Tomcat, all of which can be individually started and stopped. Great for testing purposes.