All over the world, it’s a new year – 2009 is upon us, and 2008 is, for better or worse, dead. Happy New Year everybody! May the year ahead be full of good stuff, including, but not limited to: good friends, desu, God’s blessings, good movies, gainful employment (or fantastic retirement), delicious cake, desu, new ideas, dancing in the moonlight, moar desu, and successful resolutions.
We’ve got a couple dandy new things here on Alternative-Internet.com to check out, if you haven’t already: posted just a short while ago, in December – Mike Little’s review of The End is Not the End by House of Heroes; posted on the Eve of the New Year, The Galactic Misfortune – the latest instalment (number nine) in Alexander Kecskes’ Beyond Horizon series; and finally, posted last night, my review of Off with Their Heads, by the Kaiser Chiefs.
So go check out all the cool new stuff!
As a last lil’ note: it occurred to me yesterday, as the new year sunk in (with it’s usual lack of effect on me), that Alternative-Internet.com has been around, in some form, since November of 2003 (back then we were hosted by a now-defunct free hosting service, and the site was designed in Microsoft Word) – check it out:
The Earliest Copy of the Home Page I Could Find – Circa 2004
The Guestbook – With Posts from 2003 to 2004
The Second Version of The Main Page – 2004
The Third Version – With Sidebar – Still 2004
The 2005 Announcement – We Moved
That’s right: Alternative-Internet.com has been around for over five years now. Look at how far we’ve come, too. Pretty neat. At least, I thought so. Here’s to a great new year for all, and another great five for Alternative-Internet.com!
-Patrick J. Simmons, Webmaster
Well whaddya’ know – a capital letter in the title of one of MY posts. That’s a new one, ain’t it? But then, I really didn’t have much choice: after all, it’s a special occasion. Namely, Christmas! So, Merry Christmas everyone! (I refuse to play along with the silly politically correct game of saying “happy holidays” or some nonsense to encompass all of the silly celebrations taking place at this time of year – I’m a Catholic, and I celebrate Christmas. However, I’ll give in that dreidels are totally awesome.)
To celebrate Christmas (and also because I’m home from college and thus and not loaded up with work), and because, to be honest, I miss Alternative-Internet.com, I’ve made a couple lil’ change/fixes. First off, I finally got around to fixing the main page so it now works in Internet Explorer again. The problem that took me this long to find, for you web geeks out there, was a misplaced closing div tab. I had something outside a div when it should have been in it, so it was all floating wrong. Anyway, it’s all good now, so no worries. Yay.
I also made a couple adjustments to the navigation bar and search box – moving the bar up to above the logo area, and shrinking the search box slightly to accommodate the move. In addition, I’ve re-merged the “Poetry & Songs” section back into the “Stories” section and slapped on the new name “Prose & Poetry,” which sounds way fancier, in my humble opinion. (There is a reason for this: I’m working on finally getting the “Articles” section, for articles and editorials – other than music reviews – and opinion columns and what not, online. After all, the staff here at DDS/AI are some pretty opinionated peeps, so we’re sure to have nonsense to blab about.)
Now I want to make a special tip of my hat to good buddy, fellow DDS/AI member, and all-around-great guy Alexander Kecskes, who had posted not one, not two, and not even three, but FOUR new instalments of his fantastic Beyond Horizon series – episodes five, six, seven, and eight:
Beyond Horizon V: Aspirations
Beyond Horizon VI: The Earth Defence
Beyond Horizon VII: The Star Spire
Beyond Horizon VIII: In The Wake Of The Enemy
If you haven’t already read them, be sure to do so – and if you haven’t read any of Beyond Horizon yet, now is a great time to start! Check out the Prologue to get going, or go back to the four part Origin of Crisis series for the backstory before jumping into the main tale!
Anywho… that’s it for the moment – but there is more on the way! Stick around, as always – and have a very merry Christmas! Cheers!
Guess who watched Gladiator tonight? Not me, actually (it was last night), but in the end it doesn’t matter anyway, because the title of this post is only half-accurate. While there are updates on the way – the first shall hopefully be tomorrow – another update has already happened. A brand new poem – a haiku, to be precise – by guest author Anna Egan: Ode to Spam – be sure to check it out.
Now, as for the upcoming updates: yesterday I found a problem with the main page. Namely, it appears as one column in Internet Explorer, rather than two. I don’t think this should be too hard to fix, and hope to have it worked out by Sunday night.
In addition to that, this Tuesday I’ll be adding a new feature to the AI Forums: weekly discussions, lasting from Tuesday until Friday evening (tentative – it could last till’ Saturday evening), on a set starting topic, but with plenty of room to wander, ramble, and digress. The first topic will come, again, this Tuesday, so be sure to be around the forums then!
This week will also mark the return of 58 Carson Street – my webcomic – to Alternative-Internet.com. I don’t have a day picked yet, but I plan to restore the original bi-weekly schedule.
Of course, beyond all that, there are plenty of other goodies in the works – from music reviews, to stories, to News of the Future (we’ll release the first episode of season three to coincide with the release of Duke Nukem: Forever), to… well, other stuff.
So stay tuned! Just because the past 15 days or so have been uneventful, doesn’t mean we’re dead (Mike, Alex, and I are just settling in to college and university – Grant’s already busy with college stuff – and Quezon is busy being too awesome for you to even comprehend without 3D glasses for your mind).
Today is August 15th, 2008. I’m sure a lot of really interesting famous things happened today in history, but, to be honest, I don’t particularity care about them: it’s Grant’s birthday!
So please be sure to drop by the forums, or use the comments on this post, or get in touch with Grant in person (if you are lucky enough to know him and be near him) and wish him a Happy Birthday! You deserve it, man!
To celebrate Grant’s birthday, I’d like to look back on two of my favourite stories he’s written: first, the immensely clever, and (thanks to some fantastic footnotes) equally funny Old in the Gold – a fantastic tale of elephants, ogres, rats, pirates, and, of course, a guy named Old and a chest of gold – and second, Inflato-Man Part 2 – the second in a currently four-part series of classic super-hero stories featuring a hero with a slightly strange, but surprisingly useful power.
So be off, read, and, again, wish Grant a happy birthday!
Grant: You rock!
‘Ello all, this is Alexander Kecskes. It’s been awhile since I have posted on AI, but let’s save the mushy stuff, and get right down to business.
Commander Dolgere has returned in an epic prequel, Beyond Horizon. The title, Commander Dolgere has been changed to Beyond Horizon due to plot issues. For those of you who are not familiar with Commander Dolgere, it is a sci/fi fantasy series I have been writing for years, and I plan to publish them as books someday. But for now, You, the browser, have the benefit to read parts of Beyond Horizon now, exclusively on Alternative-internet .
As for what I have posted, I have 5 brand new episodes of Beyond Horizon. They are a prequel to the story, Commander Dolgere. They tell a story of how Klanferos Dolgere obtained his reputation and rank as commander in the Earth Defense Unit armies. So enjoy, and please to comment them and tell me what you think. Constructive Criticism is welcomed. There will be more episodes to come, so stay tuned.
You will find BEYOND HORIZON in the action/adventure genre in stories!
-Mizor aka Alexander Kecskes
