News & Views - September 17, 2006

[dude]

Hi Gang ?

Still working to improve the appearance and navigability of AwesomeDude... First of all the colors between AwesomeDude the site and AwesomeDude the forums have been reconciled ... and to make it official our site title/masthead has been done up using our original Halloween orange logo in flash technology along with a scrolling list of our AD authors. Many thanks to Camy for his efforts on this. It's just about the level of 'pizazz' with which I feel comfortable. Looking around at sites of comparable traffic, I am quite pleased with how easy it is to get around AwesomeDude... our general appearance and the welcome absence of advertising. I realize we could double our traffic by having 'gay' in our site name or by trading ad space on the site with Google ? the ubiquitous search engine... but, hey... that's not what it's all about. The story's the thing... and the authors.... and yeah, the readers.

Back in April ? we lost a talented member of our AwesomeDude Forums, and indeed our writing community, a young man of 22 who wrote under the name of Green. He died following an automobile accident. He was the fellow who wrote A Hero in The Hallways and other neat stories. At the time... I remember hearing he was in hospital and not expected to live and even though I was awash in my own personal grief at the time... took the time to say a prayer for this young man. Green maintained his own mini-site over on the free Geocities service. I went there last night and had a look... and it brought tears to my eyes all over again. Green and I corresponded soon after he had started A Hero in The Hallways and I asked him to post on AwesomeDude back in 2004. He agreed conditionally, saying it wasn't yet good enough for AwesomeDude ? but said he was going to have it edited and that I should look at it again. We sort of fell out of touch although he often visited and sometimes posted in the AD Forums. Now to why I'm telling you all this.... I have downloaded Green's entire site and want to kind of memorialize his writing with it's own mini-site here at AwesomeDude. My quandary is I want to make his writing available to many who may never find it over at Geocities but I don't want to give the appearance of exploiting him. On the contrary... the idea is to pay tribute to him... albeit too late for him to appreciate. So I'll leave it up to you, dear readers for your opinion. If you'd like to take a look at this visually pleasing little site you can preview it at http://green.awesomedude.com. If you think the whole idea is tacky, just let me know. If that is the consensus.. I'll drop the idea. If not I'd like to put it up permanently. I just believe that Green wrote some nice stories and that they should be as widely read as possible.

Some stuff for you to read this week:

Phil's Story ? Stars and Dreams by Ryan Keith ? Ryan has come up with a side story based on Phil ... one of Kayden & Zac's classmates. It stands alone as a short story... but it is really much better within the context of Kayden and Zac, Ryan's long-running serial novel. Be sure to read Aaron's and Ryan's notes on this one.

The Scrolls of Icaria by Jamie ? Book 2 Chapter 13 ? Some surprises as we find out more and more about a newly introduced character... and how Charlie helps Jamie plug the holes in his memory.

Free Fall by Codey ? Chapter 4 ? Brian and Tim reunited in urban Chicago... where Tim now has 'homeys' instead of friends.

The Garden by Nevius ? Chapter 20 ? Things may be looking up for lonely Pete.

Someday Out of The Blue by LittleBuddha ? Chapter 24 ? Connor gets an earful at Toby & Cody's door!

A reminder of Dude's Story Picks for September ? Leaves and Lunatics by EleCivil and Josh's Sunrise by TR.

That's about it. Be sure to check out the AwesomeDude Community Blogs and avail yourselves of our Live Chat as well. Sometimes when I see one of our members is ON I'll shoot him a quick PM and ask him to meet me in the chatroom. Nothing could easier.

Have a great week of reading and see you next week.

[Trab]

I don't think it's tacky to have that site: not in the least. It is a wonderful thing for you to do, something he would have been pleased with, I'm quite sure.

However, the "I regret to inform you" is horridly like a pronouncement by an insensitive surgeon. Maybe, "Sadly" would be a bit less harsh.

Also, I don't like the word 'indefinitely' in this context. It gives the impression we'd better download the material right now, because it may be gone by next Wednesday (or whatever). Maybe some word that shows an intent to keep it up as long as AD is on?

Bart

[DesDownunder]

I agree with Trab, it is a most honourable thing you wish to do for Green.

I enjoyed his A Hero In the Hallways.

One of the problems of the Internet is that sites and resources disappear and if AwesomeDude can manage to stop some of that happening then that would be ...err ... awesome.

I don't mean you should have a Dead poet's page or anything just host or link those pages / sites that have significance and might otherwise not be available, or that we might not know about.

I think the whole idea is truly wonderful and not the least bit "tacky".

Come to think of it what would be so wrong with having a Dead Gay Poet's page?