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dude

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Everything posted by dude

  1. dude

    Dude's Picks

    OK, as promised here is the new address for authors/readers to submit suggestions for future Dude's Picks from the past. Just send it along to picks@awesomedude.com and we'll consider it. There are so many good stories on the site. let me know which ones you'd like t see featured again. Thanks Mike
  2. dude

    Dude's Picks

    First of all, let me tell you that I've finally landed at a place I can call home after bouncing around from place to place for nearly a year after breaking my hip on 9/11 last year! I appreciate all your expressions of concern over my health and your good wishes . With my life now much stabilized, I feel comfortable moving forward with doing some of the things I've wanted to do for a while at AwesomeDude. For many years Dude's Picks from the Past has been an integral part of our site. In fact it's right up and front and center on our home page. There are many, many great stories at AwesomeDude that have never been read by many of our readers, even some of you who have been with us for several years. Dude's Picks from the Past was designed to bring attention to those stories and improve newer readers' enjoyment of the site. Now that I'm settling into my new home, I'll be adding a new AD Forum in which I'll further curate the Picks List by posting thumbnails of each Pick for the current month to give you a better idea of what the story is about and why I've added it to the list. To begin with, we'll continue our current practice of choosing three novels and four short stories to feature, but that may be expanded as we go along. All this will begin on the US Labor Day weekend, Saturday September 2nd. Readers who would like to recommend will be able to nominate a favorite story from the past to be shared with other AD readers by emailing me. As we approach our 20th anniversary next Spring we have hundreds of great stories I'm sure you'd like to read. I hope this new feature will help us bring them to your attention. Thanks, Mike
  3. dude

    Still Alive

    Hi gang, Just a note to let you know I'm OK. Was admitted to a large California regional hospital and spent two weeks -including April 3rd - AD's 19th anniversary- undergoing tests to find out why my blood pressure drops from normal when I'm on my back by 20% when I sit up and a further 30% when I stand. I' back in the rehab home. Got a medication tweak and folks here are monitoring me here now. Needless to say this puts a crimp in my Saturday competing on the local derby team! 😜 I sincerely all the love and support I've received from you all throughout this ordeal and for your continuing support for the site. I promise to check in more regularly in the future. Best. Mike
  4. I came across this disturbing documentary. The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. It runs about 52 minutes.
  5. Some announcements about where AwesomeDude is heading in the New Year. · Stories and Authors AwesomeDude plans to welcome new authors and novels, novellas and short stories in the New Year. We will, however, strive to maintain the quality of the fiction for which we have become well known. If you are a writer never before posted on AD, we invite you to send us your stories for consideration to submissions@awesomedude.com. Guidelines for submissions are viewable from a link on the AwesomeDude main page labeled “Submissions.” We’ll also be contacting many of our current AD Authors to urge them to submit new stories as well. · Site Appearance Upgrades AwesomeDude.com will turn nineteen on April 3rd of this year. When I started the site in 2004, my coding skills were minimal at best. About ten years ago we were fortunate enough to have Alien Son join the team with his considerable coding skills as Design Editor and the site took a real upswing appearance-wise. All new stories posted now are easily readable on tablets and smartphones as well as in computer browsers. However, despite efforts to go back and recode stories posted before 2013, the sheer volume of stories for the two of us was daunting. Just before the end of 2022 we were fortunate again to acquire the assistance of Rurabaga, one of our long-time AD Forum members who is skilled in coding and who volunteered to go back over those early stories and do makeovers on their appearance. We thank him and everyone who has joined in this ongoing effort to upgrade the entire AwesomeDude site. This is a major project for us in 2023! · Allow Auto-Registrations to AD Forums For the past few years we have limited joining the AD Forums to those who registered with a follow-up email to me for my manual approval. Instructions to that effect were periodically posted in the Forums. The reason for this was high numbers of attack by Russian-bloc spammers which took a lot of time and attention to police. Improvements in the Forums platform software have made such attacks more difficult to achieve and somewhat easier to control. So, beginning about the middle of January we will be accepting automatic self-registrations. The exact day we enable this will be announced in this (Dude’s Desk) Forum along with more details. We want to bring in as many readers as possible to be part of this AwesomeDude Community. On a personal note, I want to express my appreciation to Alien Son for stepping in and picking up the slack during my recuperation from my accident in September of last year. I have just recently regained my ability to use my computer and am writing this from my bedside table in my medical facility.
  6. Everything should be be working on the CodeysWorld website now, except, possibly, for the webmaster. We'll be making an announcement about the future of CodeysWorld site soon in the Dude's Desk section of the AD Forums. Mike
  7. dude

    I'm Alive!

    Thanks, everyone. Yes, the hero here is certainly John. He picked up the ball and ran with it. I realize now the poor planning on my part that left so many unposted chapters of stories on my computer and therefore nowhere for John to easily access them. The backtracking he had to do with authors was extensive. I've learned my lessons and will institute new rules upon myself to keep from burdening him that way again. More later, Mike
  8. dude

    I'm Alive!

    Hello everybody! I’m writing this from a medical rehabilitation facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California where I am recovering from total hip replacement surgery and a fractured shoulder. The injuries were sustained while taking a morning walk on September 11th (yep, 9/11) near my son’s house in Adelanto, California where I had been living since January of this year. While the broken hip was the most serious injury, the (left) shoulder proved to be the most troublesome as it has precluded my being able to do updates and coding at AwesomeDude for the past couple of months. Fortunately, AD Author and Design Editor, John (AlienSon), was willing and able to step up and keep the site running in the interim. For that, we all should be grateful for his efforts. Despite my being able to type with both hands for short periods again, I estimate it’ll be the first of the year before I’ll be able to resume my coding duties at AD. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our authors and readers for their expressions of support for AwesomeDude.com and for me throughout this ordeal. Now that I have increased use of both arms I’ll try to get caught up on my correspondence. It is gratifying to see all the great love and support we have after all these years. April 3rd will mark our 19th anniversary on the web. I will be back in a few days to tell you about plans for AwesomeDude and CodeysWorld in 2023. Best regards to all, Mike
  9. That scene brought tears to our eyes when my 13-year-old grandson and I watched it on the evening news. Mike
  10. I agree that we sometimes fall behind in updating Author pages. I've often asked the authors themselves to remind me to do so. Many have but others have not. Due to my personal living situation changes at the first of the year certain problems have appeared in maintenance of the site, but those have been mostly resolved and I will be more attentive to the regular housekeeping of the site. Reminders from readers are welcome as well. Mike
  11. Nigel's Memories will begin posting fortnightly beginning with the Inrdoduction and Memories One in the AwesomeDude Short Stories List on August 3rd. They are fascinating. Mike
  12. Merkin wrote "Damien has always been my favorite character." Yeah... a charming "little fooker" 😇
  13. Popular AwesomeDude Author Michael Arram presents Hide and Seek a re-serialization makeover of his Son of the Chav Prince. We're re-serializing the update of the story while Mike puts the finishing touches on a new novel. I'm sure you'll invite both! Dude
  14. A nice "Porcine Present" from Alan.😀
  15. Amazing... and this is all happening miles from where I am living!
  16. Yep, back to normal. Every time Invision Power updates the forum platform software, it requires an update of the theme software people IPS Focus. When I updated the IPS software, I promptly download the corresponding IPSFOCUS updated theme xml file. Unfortunately, when I tried to upload the new theme file, the system refused to accept it. So after about 48 hours or so, the theme software people - IPSFOCUS - were able to upload it properly and voila! These things don't normally fix themselves it required my pushing both the software providers to help. " I am no programmer" I told them and I imagine few of your community customers are." That seemed to do the trick and the result is what happened. I am sorry if some of our site visitors were inconvenienced. Another note: On April 3rd, our 18th birthday, I had planned to lift the ban on self registration at AD Forums which has kept Russian bloc spammers and unfortunately many innocent potential forums members from getting in to our system. I won't be doing that until that bastard Putin is convicted of war crimes at an international tribunal and sent to the gallows, then we'll re-evaluate the Russians. If you want to join the forums, go through the registration process then email me here at dude@awesomedude.com and I'll manually let you in. Mike
  17. We're experiencing some problems with the current AD Forums Theme. We updated the forums software and downloaded the corresponding theme from the theme provider. Unfortunately there seems to be a mismatch. We're trying to resolve the problem but apparently the forums platform provider, InvisionPower.com no longer provides technical support. I'll be spending the day today (04-07-2022) trying to get help. Sorry for any inconvenience. Mike
  18. dude

    Are you OK?

    James, I have access to my same account in webmail, so I'll go back and look for it. Sorry. Mike
  19. dude

    Are you OK?

    Steve et al, I'm OK but super busy adapting to family life, living with my son and his family. It has been an interesting transition, which I promise to discuss at some point. With two teenagers in the house, I find I have to do my AD work while they are away at school or in the middle of the night. Sometimes both. I'm still working on answering to the name Grandpa, however.😝 Steve, I have received no emails from you recently, so I wonder where they are going. My email address is still dude@awesomedude.com and my alternate gmail account is still working, as well. Thanks for the emails of concern to all of you. Other than battling my eyesight problem, I am alive and well. Mike
  20. Then 12 year-old Cole honors gay musical icons, Elton John, Freddie Mercury and Queen
  21. Total agreement and your tastes mirror mine!
  22. Cole, I'll agree that there are some great young musicians in the US but our culture doesn't give them much notice. I stopped listening to KUSC Los Angeles a few years back as their programs featured so much "movie music" from "contemporary" composers such as John Williams. The station is heavily funded by Hollywood studios so it tends to play "movie themes" instead of "classical music" That's why I haven't listened to From the Top in a long time.
  23. I had been disappointed that most excellent young performers were not Americans. This lad restores my faith in the future of American youth! Seven-year-old Paul Petrescu played classical music for more than two hundred kids at the "Back-to-School" event. Location: Pleasant Hill, San Francisco Bay Area, CA, US September 21, 2021
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