The reason I mention this is that finally I have read a decent YA novel. After quite a long time, it seems that all YA these days is supernatural and has to include a vampire or werewolf or witch.
I suppose it is ok but if I wanted that I’d read Stephanie Meyer (yawn), there doesn’t seem to be any originality anymore. I want something new and exciting. Something real and gritty.

This is what Dreamland gave me and now I’m kind of bored with everything else I have. My unread titles have one pre war title and one post war title… I’m considering re-reading my older Dessen I’m addicted again.

What do you suggest for a YA lover who wants something new and thought-provoking?

Today, however, situations have changed and it would be nice to have a bit of spare cash down the line so I logged into an oldie payperpost.com to see what they could offer me. Of the 100+ available only 2 were open to me. TWO! With a total value of $2.50 between them.

I wondered why this could be, have things changed so much since I last did this? Well, something has changed. The one thing that paid bloggers care about most…

… Google Page Rank! Oh my! I remember fretting that my PR was going to drop from a 3 to a 2 and wondering what I could do to push it up to a 4! A dilemna many bloggers face. Today though, its worse! Today my Page Rank is 0. I never thought it could be but then I neglect my blog and barely vear off course of my usual sites so perhaps it is time to put in more effort.

I kind of feel like one of those people from the charity ads though “I’m just one lowly blogger, what can I do?”. Looking at the competition out there I’m sure I could do a lot! I learn so much from other blogs but I’m sure everyone else learns very little from mine. That being said, do I want you do to learn? And secondly, do you want to learn from me? Or is it easier just to go places like Melly.me or jemjabella.co.uk or, my personal favourite Intensify.org. Rachel may not teach me web savvy but she teaches me other things like the randomness of a want to be surgeon The beautiful randomness.

I’m sure you don’t. And I’m sure anything I have to teach has already been said and in a more understandable way. Maybe I’ll aim at giving you a piece of my world and be happy with that.

For generations, the Cave family has been marked by scandal, madness, and violence. But after earning a reputation for bravery in the army, Horatio Cave, the new Viscount Darien, has come home to charm London society and restore the family name. He means to start with the lovely Lady Thea Debenham.

The magnetism between them is immediate, but can Thea trust the dark, sexy “Vile Viscount”? And will Thea’s brother Dare-the most dashing member of the Company of Rogues-believe that Horatio does not deserve the cursed Cave reputation?

I think it was mainly that one of the main character names was Darien and that he was vile that I picked it up and into my library bag it went. Only once I got back home and indulged in a little Lady Beware did it click that it was a romance novel! – The fact that it says “Historical Romance” on the back cover didn’t ring any bells apparently – Usually I stay right away from trashy romance novels but now I’m wondering why… well, other than that Thea is a stuck up princess of course, because Darien is wonderful and I imagine he looks like Tuxedo Mask. Can’t you hear that Rose flying through the air?

So yes, I’m somewhat hooked. As I write this all I want to do is dash back to the couch and snuggle up with Darien and, a little more reluctantly, Thea (she totally doesn’t deserve him!) and hope they live happily ever after…

… ok I hope for more scandal but do these types of books ever end that way? Is a happy ending inevitable? Were all my bad wishes towards Thea a waste of time?

And the answer to all three is most likely a big yes! *sigh* but I don’t care.

I moved! Yes, I’m am in a secure spot for another 12 months. Hopefully longer this time because moving really is a pain in the arse! I’m happy that it’s just the 2 of us again though, I guess we’re just not housemate kind of people.
The new place is smaller than the old (obviously) but we don’t need 3 bedrooms now do we? No, we don’t AND our bedroom is roomy. I can’t remember the last time we had a bedroom that was big enough where you could put the bed in middle of the room! Yep, we’ve had it shoved up against a wall for some time now. It is ever so lovely
The only thing we’re missing just this moment is a table at which to eat. We haven’t had one in a while though so it’s not big deal but it’d be nice to not eat off my lap while on the couch (even though watching TV while eating dinner is good heh)

Anyhoo, this was just a bit of a ramble to say that YES I’M STILL AROUND but hope for a better post in the future

Ohh, and I watched Episode 1 of Glee on Friday… I want it all RIGHT NOW! It’s so corny and delightful

After 2 weeks of being with HostCrave they decided the server they were on wasn’t stable enough to stay with so transferred all of us over to a new server/host. I had no issues they were doing all the hard stuff while I only had to update the nameservers… piece of cake!

Unfortunately, Lazily’s nameservers are still in Rachel’s name from way back when I won Lazily.org in a competition (well, I won a domain name in a competition and chose Lazily.org). Up until recently it has worked quite well as I haven’t had need to change nameservers so I just pay her the annual fee. The last 3 months I think I’ve had her change them 3 – 4 times and this time she was flat out and didn’t get the chance so, yes, Lazily down time.

Then, the nameservers changed – YAY – and I assumed it’d all look as it did, but it didn’t my databases didn’t like me but cpanel said they were a-ok.

I, just now, realised that somehow in the transfer everything except the database user had come over so, obviously there was no connection to my database!

I learn something new everyday lol.

Anyhoo, Lazily is back up! Hurrah! And *fingers crossed* there won’t be anymore changes for the near future.

That being said, last week I was feeling a bit ill and wanted something to help with my burning throat so I took a trip down to the local shops. On the way out of the shops as I was starting my trip home some guy called to me from his car and asked if I could give him a hair band or hair pin (yes, he said hair pin, cute!). I gave him a ‘huh’ look and said that no, I didn’t in fact have either.
He was, however, persistent and requested that I find one (I know, right?). Generally, I think at this point I would normally be turning around and walking away but for whatever reason I indicated that well, I could find one but it was in fact in my hair. Unfazed, he asked for it.

And? Well, I pulled it out of my hair and gave it to him. He seemed happy, commented that I looked better with my hair down (yes, smooth my friend, smooth) and claimed that I was a life saver. However strange this all was to me he seemed content with my hair band that most probably still had hair in it. Good deed done for the day.

This was when I thought ‘woah, did I just give some guy my hair band?’ and wondered why people do these strange but nice things for others.
I still can’t quite work it out… do we do it because we are nice people or do we do it because we want people to think we are nice people?
Maybe, like I said. I’m just not nice people.

So it turns out that my first ‘hosting me’ experience was less than ideal. Initially, the support was great and I felt so at ease going with Parade Hosting. Unfortunately, being so excited about the idea I didn’t investigate enough. I didn’t take the time to find out the owner was passing Parade over to someone else or what their reputation was, I just jumped on in!

I signed up and was told 24 hrs and an invoice I’d have… but I didn’t. Everything just took so. long.
So I was finally a member of Parade and transferring everything over and getting it all sorted out and everything was working and then it went down… and came up and went down and up, down, up, down and oh my how painful!

I got banned from accessing my own Cpanel, I couldn’t add additional domains and when logging a ticket I received one word replies. It was so disappointing to see the lack of support Parade had considering the community the forums appeared to have.

Then I found out more about Jonno, the new owner. Jonno who had multiple jobs and other hosting companies and more other responsibilities than I can count. Every time Parade went down another job or responsibility was revealed but they were never excuses… never! How could we ever think that? How could we ever think anything other than perfection about Jonno? For he had lovingly taken over Parade and kept the support forums even though he detested support forums! Should we not bow down to him?

Apparently we should. All of the mods on the forum do. Here is just a few of the replies I received when questioning the service or getting frustrated with its unreliability:

@Everyone else: What people fail to realize is that Jonno is human, too. And unless we replace his brain with a computer and install some sort of satellite internet access in his body, he can’t possibly be online 24/7.

If the service isn’t satisfactory, you can leave when you wish. No one is forced to stay with services they’re not satisfied with.

Either stick it through until services are repaired or go on your merry way. I’m so very tired.

I believe it’s down.
:O
Nobody’s complained, so I doubt he knows.
Closing the topic, to prevent complaining.

I felt so supported! There is so much bias over there! No talking about other hosts, no negative comments about the service, no complaining… unless you’re Jonno of course. Jonno can complain about everyone else and how they’re being so very unfair to him because he’s just so very important and so very, very busy!

I dealt with most of it time and again with promises of a better service and a new server and this and that but they never came.

Then, the last straw, the site was down and as advised by the mods I email Jonno and receive no response. The site is down for hours and yet, nothing. I leave it be and come back the next morning and the site is up! But the SQL server is down again… for days but I should be patient. Just be more patient! No, I don’t think so.

Thankfully, I was noticed by rival hosts and Brad from HostCrave gave me an excellent deal and helped endlessly to get me transferred over as fast as possible! Less than 24 hrs and everything was changed! However… the SQL server was STILL down over at Parade and I had to play the waiting game.

Finally it came back up and I backed up my database as fast as I could. Phew, especially considering that Parade is down again and has been off and on for the last few days apparently… and where has the fearless leader been? Missing.

All in all, what have I gotten out of this experience? Do more investigation of your host! And especially? don’t go with Parade!

The issues I found were:
1. Comments worked (YAY!) but I got spammed (BOO!) and then Akismet saved me (YAY!)
2. My feed broke and I really am not sure why but it’s working again (I think… the link works anyway) so +1 to me

Lazily is back! It’s been days and days since it’s been up but now we are and hopefully for good!

I have transferred the database over from ParadeHosting so everything should be where it was. I have had some issues with different tables and copying and the like so there might be errors. Please please PLEASE let me know if you run into something weird.

I’ll go more into why I left PH and what the future is now but my head is pounding and I think I want a nap so I’ll leave it for another time.

I will say though a big thanks to Brad from HostCrave for helping me out with the change over and saving me from the sinking ship of Parade Hosting! Phew, here’s hoping for a long and fruitful relationship

Also, thanks to the other people who offered me hosting! It was really appreciated.

Anyhoo, I’m off… here’s hoping the teething is done

The ad shows little kids touching super soft rabbit ears and snuggly blankets to demonstrate just how soft these tissues are. People wrapping themselves in blankets and just loving the silky softness of these new tissues.

Well, from someone that has used a 100 or so today the the ads are wrong!

Which makes me come to my point. The annoyance of misleading advertising. Especially if it’s blatantly incorrect.

Recently, I’ve been watching more commercial TV than normal (because Wipeout is just too addictive!) and I’m just so over the repetitive advertising. One such culprit is Kmart and their ‘new’ price promise. Which is just price matching other stores. When did this become new? And why do these annoying people seem so surprised that Kmart is Price matching? It’s been that way forever! Right? The ad gives you the impression this is something new and fancy but it’s the same old thing. They’re not more leniant than any other store they just word it so you’ll think it’s true.

The other ad? KFC. Yes, KFC and their ‘best chicken ever’. Seriously, they think they have the BEST chicken because a cook comes in and seasons it everyday – or so they say – in a lovely kitchen with ripe tomatoes all over he place. Yes, wholesome fun.

There is an exception to this ad saturation. One ad I love and could watch for possibly ever. It is the LG Plasma TV with Time machine… with ze mountain climb.

^ My first embedding video, woo! – yes, it deserves it. I’m actually linking to an ad, can you believe it? I just love it that much. It just goes to show how good  (and bad) advertising can really be. It just depends how you go about it. I wish there more of the good kind though than the lying kind!

My host is having issues lately and what with only 1 support person it’s getting a bit annoying. Especially, seeing that said support person isn’t as dedicated as I’d like. The plus side is some people have left said host and I think it’s been a bit of a jolt to the system for them because FINALLY they’re hiring extra support people. To say I’m pleased is an overstatement.

When I first joined I had excellent support from the owner at the time so I was pleased with the decision but the company changed hands and the new owner got busy with other things and kind of pushed us to the side. Luckily, there are some great members on their forum who are as helpful as they can be (without having any backend access) when you have a problem.

I actually got an email from a rival company (Rerun Hosting) trying to poach me! Isn’t that neat! I kinda thing that’s neat lol. I’m evil that way though. In some ways I wish I could go but I don’t want the fuss of changing all over again so I will wait out the changes and see how it pans *fingers crossed*

So if the site is down, I apologise, my host being down is probably the reason.