... [ dusts off OOC comm ]

ANYWAY. Next weekend, we're going to have our ever famous MOE NOTE!! Hyperspeed summary: Troll uses notebook that makes people fall in love and writes down pairs. Fun times for everyone! Your troll for this event will be Hyobu.

Do I really need to expand on Moe Note at this point? It's an event that makes two characters fall hopelessly in love, no matter who. (Though how strong the moe note effects are are up to you, but they must be present).

REPLY HERE WITH THE CHARACTER YOU WANT TO SIGN UP AND FIND PAIRS, GO GO.

[It's just another day at our lovely, cracky island: blue skies, chirpy birds, naughty monkeys...and Atsuro being dragged along the beach by a large demon dog. To his credit, Atsuro is trying his damndest to stop said dog, but apparently Cerberus is really, really into nice long runs at the beach.]

Hey, ow, wait, I said stop already! I didn't even say to run yet!

[And then Cerberus suddenly stops, sending the computer nut flying a few feet forward. ...His landing is graceful, really.]

Owowow...! [ oh the sandy pain; brb getting self off the ground ] Geez, he didn't have to pull that hard! You'd think they'd at least give warning, but no, he just had to start running...

--Okay, I think this will the last time I'm ever going to try to walk him. Or any other large, menacing dogs. I think I've had enough of all that for a lifetime.

[One day quite a while ago (like say, before Halloween), one mini detective decided to explore a little farther then she ever had before. Of course, she did mention she would be out for a while...but didn't specify how long she would be gone.]

...Ah, I appear to be right back where I started.

[...Apparently she came back from said exploration trip for science just now.]

[Out on the beach where the few shops have been erected, one of the ones that's been finished and in business for a while his getting some changes to it's sign.]

[A Rabi is searching all over the shore. She looks distressed]

Oh...It has to be somewhere. I could have sworn it landed here.

Don't panic, Rabi~en~Rose. You'll find it. It couldn't have gone far.



You'd notice a keychain with dice on it easily, would you?...Even on the beach?

[Help?]

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Lalalala laaaaalaaalaaaaaa lala~ ♪

[A certain fallen angel is kneeling on the ground in front of Laharl's hut, hard at work! What is she doing? Why, planting (well, transplanting) a bed of flowers!]

Ah, they all look so beautiful~ It's going to be wonderful to wake up every day, look out of my window and see them all!

Hmmm, let's see... Maybe I'll add some more pink ones.

I guess I shouldn't have to worry then. If I can't find her even after seven days passed by then that just means that she probably returned home... it's no big deal. Really. Ah... messed up another one. It's not too bad... going home that is. Maybe she'll be back one day and hopefully after her, Aurica and Misha sang together. Ergh... messed up again. Starting a new one.

Still. I guess it will be kind of weird without her around now... I was so used to being her guard and escort when she arrived here. I guess this means I have a lot more free time now that she is away then.

... ... Ayatane, take care of Lady Shurelia for me. I'll at least help protect Mir in your place the best way I can.

I don't think I'll get much work done here if I keep messing up on these grathmelding attempts. Maybe I should call it quits to today? I'm losing my edge when I normally make something... still, what is there to do anyway?

Can anyone tell me how to be more sociable?

...

... ah. My lollipop fell.

((Time for school! I'll tag back when I get home.))

EDIT@08:16 UTC/GMT. Wow. That was ugly. I expected it to go for 30 minutes and have maybe 1 minute of broken connectivity. Instead it lasted over 4 hours and we had 10 minutes of downtime directly related to the load balancer upgrades and then another 5-10 minutes of downtime when our primary Pingback database server crashed and the secondary couldn't take over; which could have been indirectly caused by the network upgrade missing a self-VIP.

Anyways, we're up, we're working, the load balancers are barely breaking a sweat right now and I need some food and a shot of whiskey. I don't even *like* whiskey!!

Thanks mhwest and dnewhall for helping out!

---

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

I regret signing myself up for this. But if it'll keep her mouth shut, it's a small price to pay. Besides, it's not like it'll work like a real one, da ze~ That's just asking for trouble, and that's just plain stupid. ku ku kuuuu~ Not that she'll know that.

... Why am I putting so much refinement in the outline? Eh, whatever. HEY! YUI PHOOEY! Get over here and get your honorary alien badge symbol.... thing. It'll only be around for a limited time and after that, I'm trashing it. It also makes a decent cellphone charm, da ze~

... Maybe I should have went with red instead.

Hey, guys? The chances of someone coming back here a third time is pretty low, isn't it? At least, coming back and still remembering everything from their first two stays? It's just a random thought, aha...

I-- this isn't the time to worry about that. It's going to be a very busy night, I hope Kyon-kun and the others won't mind if I don't get to make dinner tonight. I wonder if I can clean it all today?

[she is armed with a lot of cleaning supplies, and is about to go clean the Devil Bats' HQ aka where the Eyeshield people used to live]

[ You may have noticed someone's carved out a huge message on the beach. And by huge, I mean it encompasses nearly the entire beach. ]

Hm... I actually feel like eating some human food today if you know what I mean! It's been a while since I've had my fill. I wonder if I should try my hand at cooking something if you know what I mean.

... Huh. Is the island doing this if you know what I mean? I've been saying the last part every other sentence. Oh, I guess not every line. That's a relief if you know what I mean.

...

How awkward. If you know what I mean.

[The 'if you know what I mean' fragment will be transferred from her to your character whether you like it or not 8| IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN Threadhop if you want o/]

Have been rather non compos mentis thanks to illness and high workload and a stupid stupid sleep schedule, so this is sort of declaring a retroactive hiatus which I'm only just coming off of. In other words: I'm not dead.

(Just.)

Auuuuugh.

Man, why is it when somebody I want around shows up they up and vanish on me? I feel denied. Really denied.

I barely even got to practice with him... Dammit! I just wanted to clash swords with Master and have a heated training session. Is that too much to ask for? I mean Guy is great-- I mean, amazing and all, but it's just not the same.

Tch... Hey, does anybody have some good sword training tips? None of that 'swing it a lot' or 'clear your mind of doubt' crap either, that's useless.

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

[You find an uninvited guest in your home, drinking your tea and eating your food]

Hn. Sluuuuurp~

[ YES YES I KNOW I JUST POSTED WITH HER FOR THE EVENT but that was a spam post so--! Anyway, Lambdadelta is chilling on her front porch in a sun hat with a pitcher of lemonade \o/ A goat-kun is mowing her lawn and tending to her garden.

... wait, what ]

...So! Who else misses October?