Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I’ve had a bajillion domains registered at GoDaddy for years, not because I particularly liked them, but more because it was easy. After my friend Dave died, I inherited all his domain names, and they were all on GoDaddy, so for ease I just transferred them to my account there.

But given their recent support of SOPA, plus their half-hearted retraction of same when they realized their posturing was not winning them any friends, was pretty disgusting. They backed down, but they won’t actively denounce SOPA. And they should.

So I started the process today to move all 46(!) of my domains to another registrar. (I inherited a LOT of domains from Dave!) But you can’t transfer a domain if it’s set to expire in the next seven days, so I had to renew six of them through GoDaddy before I could move them off. Here’s what happens when you renew domains on GoDaddy:

Click any of these for full size versions.

The first upsell. Notice all the disclaimer marks at the bottom.

The second upsell. This is just the part above the fold; about one third of all the “Special Offers” I had to scroll through before finding the “No Thanks” link.

LOLWUT??? I tried to renew ONE domain – faerytrail.com – for $8.99, and it tacked on 32 extra domains for a total of $293.44. Neato! All six domain names I tried to renew had at least one extra one tacked on that I didn’t want. This is, at the very least, highly immoral.

Last, but not least, the final upsell, after I winnowed out the chaff and bought the renewals for the six domains I wanted.

So, there you have it. Why GoDaddy sucks – and it’s not just because of SOPA.

A puzzle I made for ARGTalk. Click it to see the animation.

This is a project that I initially worked on with Dave Szulborski and did quite a bit of writing for, but eventually it was reorganized and I’m not sure if any of my pieces made it into the end result. The project itself was a training scenario for military joint task forces. Of course, there was a classic Szulborski twist in there regarding a mysterious illness.

January ??, 2008

 

To the members of the Joint Task Force:

 

Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Major General Thomas Wooley, U.S. Army.   I am the Commander in Chief of the Joint Task Force currently assigned to aid Puerto Rico – a task force of which you are now a member.

 

You have been selected to play a key role in providing assistance to Puerto Rico after the devastation of an early morning tsunami on January 8.  As you know by know, the damage from the tsunami has been extensive, leaving hundreds of towns decimated and many citizens dead, injured, or homeless.

 

As part of this response team, you will be not only setting up humanitarian aid and assessing damage, but you will also be looking into what appears to be a growing biological threat.  Reports of civilians suffering from nausea, fatigue, cramping, and vomiting have been steadily growing in number.  In addition, patients have been diagnosed with basophilic stippling, which is normally a symptom of elevated blood lead levels.

 

Although our people have not yet been able to confirm that there is a widespread outbreak in the general population, the number of cases with similar symptoms is concerning.  This concern is two-fold: both from an epidemiological standpoint and from a logistical one in terms of providing aid and security while attempting to keep both our people and the tsunami victims from contracting the disease. You in the Joint Task Force will be investigating the disease reports while you work on peacekeeping, damage assessment, and humanitarian assistance.  As your CiC, I will do my utmost to provide any and all support that the JTF will require during this process.

 

Our first meeting will be on January 15, 2008 at 1100 EST.  Telephone details will be provided to you shortly.  Make every effort to attend this conference call.  Your participation is of paramount importance.

 

Welcome to the group.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Wooley, CiC, JTF

From ARGTalk, Dave Szulborski’s Fairy Tale Trail which served as the game finale and starred yours truly as a screaming meemie. At the time, my children thought that Mama screaming in the basement was the height of humor, and they spent that whole evening imitating my poor cries of distress.

P.S. If you wanna cheat, the Unfiction thread can tell you how to solve it.

A logo I made for Chasing the Wish 2, for a bit of the game that never saw the light of day.

The Dread House character brief as originally posted by Dave Szulborski:

Ron Daubert: Ron’s World, Puzzle Cards; current webmaster for TT; lives NYC; found the CDs that Vargas left behind, gets involved in the intrigue from there; becomes suspicious that TT is spying on him; goes underground

 

Charles _____: Cambridge Mental Hospital webmaster. Father was caretaker, then he was. born 1942. Took over CMH 1963. Has disturbing memories, gets confused; his garbled messages spur Ron and Nicole to going to CMH to figure out what’s going on

 

Ed Vargas/Amanda Graves: old TT webmaster, put messages in autoresponders; webmaster for UM; put encrypted directories from DH files on CDs

 

IAI webmaster: male, journalist, ends up connecting TOD and IAI killer to same person; eventually connects to CMH; is at CMH for finale; waits outside to stand guard

 

Dr. Karl Shoemaker: b1940; lives San Francisco; developed DRP

 

R. Weaver/Nicole Teals: DH webmaster; starts out pretending to be male; is researching the DH fiasco because her brother was on the show and disappeared; found some evidence at CMH; outs ronsworld.org; meets up with Ron halfway through and they go from there; receives dream messages and undergoes DRP

 

Reed Singleton: DP webmaster; grandchild of Ann Starling; collected & published the DP content

 

Tara Hutchins: owner of GMH & webmaster; dislikes the negative STF article; uses haunted past to stir up current business; survived an attempt to kill her and her mother because she was not the 7th son

 

Tomorrow’s Talk characters:
CEO/ President – Mark Robinson
VP of Production – Joseph Silver
VP of Operations – Randall Thomas
Director of Corporate Communications (Press Inquiries) – Lucinda ‘Lucy’ Jenner
Director of Human Resources (Employment) – Sandra Brown
Talent Coordinator (Casting) – Lisa Roman

 

Dr. J. David Richardson, M.D., Ph.D: webmaster of godmind.com

 

STF webmaster: publishes an e-zine online with articles on bizarre events

 

UH Webmaster: runs the website for UH

 

SS Webmaster: conspiracy theorist

 

FH webmaster

 

TU webmaster

 

BW webmaster

 

TOD webmaster

 

BOS webmaster

 

non-active characters:

 

Michael: Nicole’s brother, contestant in DH; her motivation for researching what really happened; house destroyed by fire; 7th of 7 sons

 

IAI/TOD killer: actually members of the seventh sons society, many related so similar in appearance; used same alias to further the illusion

 

Old Todd: former custodian on CMH, lives in the ruins, hermit

 

Ann Starling/Beatrice Doe: communicated with the dead and was sent to an asylum; channeled the DP content via dreams

 

Alexander Steward: one of the original GMH owners; was being badly used by SS to breed 7 sons; killed the daughter born in place of the son he wanted

A stalker’s image from the notorious ARGTalk ARG. I did the scrawl and the poem in the lower right. The ARG itself got a lot of bad press for two reasons – one deserved and one not. First, people felt duped when the supposedly legit news site was actually a rabbithole into a game. That was to be expected, and ties in well with many things that people say today about being honest about what is game space and what is not. Back in 2005, however, the water was a lot muddier and people did not want to see anything that took them out of the game, so this was an experiment down that kind of road.

The second reason people dissed the game (and the undeserved one) was the poor production value in the trailhead talk show. That was by design, which people would have realized had they stuck around to figure out how the story worked out in the end. Instead, they left at that point and ridiculed the “Attack by bubblewrap.”

A proposal for a game leading up to a live event that Dave and I made. It never happened, although I hope someday they decide to do some sort of a transmedia campaign. Which is why I hacked all the names and identifying graphics out of there and it looks so ugly!