I have been wondering why my GFC (Google Friends Connect) widget has been showing up as a blank box on my blog and frankly I thought that it was some issue on my end that broke it.  Turns out, and I am sure that I am probably the last person to hear this, that Google discontinued service for GFC if you don’t have a Blogger blog.

Ummm hello?!

Google, you have all my contact information.  You probably have more information about me than any other online service and you couldn’t send out a little email that said that you were discontinuing the service? You sent me all sorts of information about shutting down Wave, but GFC, which I used all the time and lots of my friends used, nothing. Screw you Google, why did you leave me high and dry on this one, the useful service, and give me lots of info about the crappy service?

The real problem is that it was actually a great service that allowed those of use self-hosters to connect with the rest of the blogging community in a very simple and easy way.  Google, you are good at making useful things.  NOw they tell me to use Google+ and make a page and put a widget, so I did, but there is no way for me to get my list of followers back.  Why should I use you? Well, I set it up just in case.

Then I searched the netz and found a new service, Linky Followers.  This is a new follow service that is completely platform independent, so you can put it on your blogger blog, or wordpress.com, or wordpress.org, or basically any other blog/CMS out there.  Of course it is pretty new and it seems to still be in Beta, but I think it has a lot of promise.  Plus it is not affiliated with Google, or Facebook, or a Facebook App, or anything like that.

So, for now, I have included a couple different ways to follow me again, and I hope that some of you will take a moment to re-follow me if you are still interested.  Pick the service of your choice, but give some serious consideration to using the Linky Followers as I have a feeling that it will have the most longevity of any of them.

You may have noticed today that I added a page to my blog called “Geocaching Profile” (under the about tab). You may be asking what this is.  So I figured that I should tell you.

For those who have not heard of Geocaching, it is a global GPS “treasure hunt” where people hide caches around the world and post GPS coordinates online so that other people can find them.  A “regular” cache usually is a watertight plastic container or a .30 or .50-cal ammo can.  A cache always contains some kind of logbook and trade items.  Most of the time trade items are simple things like lapel pins happy-meal type toys, and other small nick-nacks.  Some people also hide larger and smaller caches from 5-gallon buckets to tiny “nano” caches that only contain a small log sheet.

The official Geocaching website is Geocaching.com, but there are a couple other sites that have popped up like Opencaching or even Munzee, which is an odd derivative that involves using your smartphone to scan QR-codes.  Geocaching is by far the most widely used of the services.  Cachers can visit the website and get information and coordinates for the caches they want to look for, and you can even load this information on to your GPS or smartphone so that you can take it with you and not have to print things out.  The geocaching motto is “Get out and play!”

What does this have to do with me?  Well, I was introduced to geocaching by my father back when I was in college.  I did a little bit of caching with my friends while in school, and then it kind of fell by the wayside despite the fact that the old GPS unit that my dad had “loaned” me was riding around in the back of my car for years.  Then, for my birthday this year my in-laws gave me a new GPS unit that makes caching really easy, and it re-sparked the flame to go out and do it.  So, pretty much since my birthday this year I have been trying to get out every day and find at least one cache. As of this writing I have a string of 54 days with finds.  I don’t know if I will ever be able to put together a streak of finds that is longer than the 2115 days of slump, but that isn’t really the point.

What is the point? Well, it really is just to get outside and have some fun, which I certainly have been doing.  There are some challenges that cachers can complete.  Some caches require you to solve puzzles or complete challenges in order to find and log the cache.  Basically the game is based around goals that you set for yourself.  There really aren’t any big prizes, no one can win the game.  I suppose if you found all of the millions of caches around the world you could say you won, but there are new caches every day.  For me it is just something fun to do.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was asked to read and review Socialpunk, a new novel by Monica Leonelle. After reading the first 10 chapters in the preview, I anxiously waited to receive my copy of the full text. Thankfully it arrived in my inbox early enough last Thursday for me to load it on my Kindle before leaving for the airport to head to Boston.  I just want to give fair warning that the following review may contain spoilers and plot points, so if you don’t like that kind of thing, be aware.

Had I not fallen asleep for the first hour or so of the flight, I probably would have finished the book on the plane. This is huge change of reading pace from Game of Thrones, which I have been making way through (I am in the middle of book five). I suppose my reading speed didn’t really change, so much as the length of Socialpunk is much shorter.

Socialpunk was a fun read, I didn’t want to put the book down while I was in the middle of it.  I haven’t read any  ”cyberpunk” style books before (that I can think of off the top of my head), but  I did enjoy this one.  It seems to me to be a fairly traditional, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi novel and love story. I can see a lot of parallels to other sci-fi stories spanning the years from Logan’s Run to The Matrix, including an almost verbatim reference to The Terminator movies. I have nothing against formulaic stories, I mean six out of seven Harry Potter books had exactly the same story with a slightly different cast and minor details, but I and most of the world still love them.  Socialpunk follows the line of girl meets boy, boy takes here from the fake world to the real world where she breaks out her shell of a sheep to become the leader who will save her friends and the world.

Ima/Cinder is a great character, I enjoyed watching her story develop.  I thought it was a little unfortunate that instead of really learning to change and growing out of her shell, she is “upgraded.”  That area alone leaves so much room for character development, love story development and just more story.  I realize the characters are supposed to be working under the time frame of something like a week, but still.  She is a character who I found interesting to explore and who I cared about.  I have definitely met characters in other books who I really could have cared less about, but Ima/Cinder was not one of those.

One of the other interesting references that I noticed that seemed out of place to me was one to Jane Austin’s Emma. All things considered, had I not just recently worked on the stage adaptation of the book, I probably would not have got the reference.  I only question if the target audience of Socialpunk (and even the character who makes the reference) would really know Jane Austin.  She wasn’t required reading when I was in school, is she now?

I also noticed a host of little technical issues with the book.  To an avid reader you would probably look at them and go “huh?!” and then figure it out and move on.  They really amount to a handful of typos, some pronoun and name inconsistencies and a few other small things.  My hope is that I was just reading a preview copy that was going to get at least one more once over by the author or her editor before publishing.  It didn’t detract from the story at all, but it is something you don’t expect to see in published books.

The last thing that really struck me was length of the book and the ending.  Amazon says that the paperback edition is 400 pages.  I read it on my Kindle, so pages are kind of meaningless. It took me less than a day to finish the whole book, and then it ended in a place where you might expect your favorite TV sitcom to end.  I realize that this is supposed to be the first book in a trilogy, but given the length, I felt you could probably wrap all the books into one and still be happy.  On the other hand, I guess maybe I am feeling this way because I was attached to the story and I want to find out what happens next.  That is a great way to set up a cliffhanger, if your audience is wanting more!

Overall, I would recommend the book. If you like any of the genres or similar stories that I mentioned before, you will probably like Socialpunk. If you are looking for a fairly fast read (at least until the sequels are ready) then this is also a good book for you. The story has likeable characters with a plot line that is pretty easy to follow, and the story is fun.

Socialpunk is the first book in the Socalpunk Trilogy by Monica Leonelle. Monica Leonelle is a well-known digital media strategist and the author of three novels. She blogs at Prose on Fire (http://proseonfire.com) and shares her writing and social media knowledge with other bloggers and authors through her Free Writer Toolkit (http://proseonfire.com/free-writer-toolkit).

So, it turns out that some people actually notice my blog that I have not been so faithful to this past year (along with some other things that I really should have been). I suppose that is neither here nor there though.

Anyway…. It turns out that last week I was contacted by a young author/blogger because her boyfriend has been by my blog to read about photography. Actually, I almost dismissed the email as SPAM because probably most of the email that I get in reference to my blog is SPAM. However, I took the time to actually look at this one ad reply to it.

The email was from Monica Leonelle from monicaleonelle.com and proseonfire.com, and it was asking if I would be interested in reading and reviewing her new book “Social Punk.” So, me being skeptical, wrote back a fairly skeptical response that was met with an almost immediate response. Made me feel better to know that there was a real person behind the emails.

So, I popped over to her blog, read some of the preview chapters and figured that it couldn’t hurt to sign up for the blog tour and write a real review. I am still waiting on the full copy of the book to read, but I am certainly looking forward to it. So, check back in the coming weeks for a real review of the book and possibly an interview with the author. In the mean time, you might enjoy the following snippet from the book:

After playing God for six years with the world he created, he couldn’t control any of his subjects, none at all. Over the years, he had watched them evolve and become the sum of their own choices rather than the sum of his; and for that, he regretted ever giving them life.

A small, blinking red light from just inside his eyelid reminded him of the news they sent him earlier that morning. The company had cancelled his funding and would shut down his project within three months. According to them, the project cost too much and took up too much space, and the inconclusive results couldn’t be published reputably, now or in the future.

Six years of his work, tens of thousands of lives at stake—and he could do nothing to save any of it. He bowed his head, letting his chin rest on the rim of his breakfast smoothie. The smoothie reeked of powder—crushed pills—but he supposed he had better get used to it. He wouldn’t be able to afford the luxury of real food after they canned him.

He closed his eyes and called up the camera view of one of his favorites, number 3281. She fascinated him; he couldn’t deny it. When he had designed her, her pre-teen rebelliousness lit fire in her eyes. A survivor, he’d thought. He’d meant for her to have it all—to grow up, to get married to the love of her life, and to have a beautiful family of her own someday.

But he had only given her sadness so far. Instead of creating a strict father, he had given her an abusive one. Instead of creating a loving boyfriend, he had given her a friend who could never love her. And instead of creating a strong, proud mother, he had given her a meek one, who watched the whole thing unfold and did nothing about it.

He looked at his last and final creation sitting in the chair across from him—his own son, not awakened yet. The law forbade him to have any children of his own, so this boy would substitute.

But he had done the unthinkable with this creation—he had bestowed on it his own thoughts, emotions, and decision-making processes. He’d given the boy his own mind, his own physical characteristics, his own wants and desires.

He had never done so with any of the others because of the dangers of investing too heavily in any one of his subjects. But who could he kid? He had not stayed objective thus far, watching some of his subjects more closely than others, wishing for the happiness of some at the expense of others. He had become an abomination, a monster of his own doing, who had created subjects only to watch them suffer.

He couldn’t forgive himself; not now, not ever. His eyes lingered on the vial that sat next to his breakfast smoothie, that he’d stowed away for the day when they destroyed all his work, his entire world. He would save it, tuck it away for now, for as long as he could protect them. When things spun out of his control, he would drink it and end himself the way he had ended them.

In the ancient stories, gods frequently gave their sons as gifts. Now, he would give his son as a gift to her, number 3281. So she could be happy in her last months on earth, before they destroyed her with the rest of them.

Well, I am not sure that this really is the right title for this post, but it is the title that came to mind.  If you don’t know what it means, well, you should just brush up on your musical theatre.

I think the text in the image says all I need to say.

So, you may have seen this image floating around the tubes, especially on Facebook.  I first saw it when it was shared by George Takei.  I have also heard that there is a version where Jesus’ second line is “Did I fucking stutter” but that is really neither here nor there.

In any case, the image sparked quite a long comment thread on Facebook, and it really amazes me how defensive people get.  I shouldn’t be so surprised I suppose, given where I live, but it annoys me to no end.  The worst bit is that everyone gets totally defensive for their side and in the process misinterprets things that others have said.

I just want to know how long it is going to take this country to solve this latest bit of equality issues.  We are a country founded on facing equality, from women’s rights to racism, now to sexual orientation.  How many times to we have to re-invent the wheel on this one?  We have proved that people are people and we have made it into law, why do we have to do it again.

I have said many times, at least in the USA we have freedom of religion, but we also have a separation of church and state.  You are free to believe whatever you want in your home and in your place of worship, but out in the real world you have no right to impose your beliefes on me or anyone else.  It also means that religious beliefs should not affect government policy.  Therefore, since in this country marriage is goverend by the state, not by religion, there should be no question as to people who are not heterosexual being married.

That is all, putting my soapbox away for a bit.