[X] My Assistant

[Freejack]

So with Yahoo closing down Geocities later this year, are there any Shadowrun fansites that need to be retrieved before they disappear?

Of course I'm thinking of the ones that might be abandoned.

Carl

[Wounded Ronin]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

I never finished my Geocities pages from back in middle school.

I wanna surf the web using Mosaic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[ravensmuse]

But where am I going to go when I find out what color Sephiroth's hair is while I listen to a midi version of One Winged Angel??? MY LIFE IS OVER!

[paws2sky]

'tis a sad day for the internet.

-paws

[Wesley Street]

We should start a charitable fund for all of those orphaned Geocities sites. Maybe we could put them up with Angelfire...

[Bull]

Damn. WIsh I could remember what the address of my old Geocities account is... WOuld be amusing to check in on it, for nostalgia's sake. It's only been 10 or 11 years since my last update (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Stahlseele]

damn it, i might actually have some important and/or shadowrun related stuff in various geocities accounts . .
TO WHICH I NEITHER REMEMBER THE PASSWORD, NOR THE FRIGGING NAMES -.-

[Wesley Street]

Guess it wasn't that important now was it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[ravensmuse]

Aw man, my old Everquest guild site was on Geocities. I just thought about that. Losing it will be kind of sad.

Not enough to get me to play Everquest again, but I mean.

[Wounded Ronin]

Some part of me regrets in a small abstract way not getting into Gemstone back in the day. I used to play DikuMUD a lot in middle school, though.

[Phylos Fett]

I guess I better update the link in my sig then...

[hobgoblin]

from what i understand, someone i working on saving the whole of geocities...
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/27/2252227

[Heath Robinson]

Good riddance. At least modern content publishing systems gently lead you away from terrible design.

[paws2sky]

from what i understand, someone i working on saving the whole of geocities...
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/27/2252227

Pure, undiluted, uncut... w1n

-paws

[Wounded Ronin]

Good riddance. At least modern content publishing systems gently lead you away from terrible design.

If by terrible design, you mean "true way of the jedi way the internet was intended before the corporate bandwith-wasters lead us away from the true path", you would be correct. Otherwise you're evil.

[Wesley Street]

I would not equate blinking text and animated Hamster Dance .gifs with the true way of the Jedi.

[Zaranthan]

What do you think was displayed on the inside of those blinder helmets?

[PhishStyx]

Wayback Machine anyone?

http://www.archive.org/index.php

[Zombayz]

I have an important SR site all of you should check. Yeah, the last time it was updated was 2004, but the fiction on it is still masterful.

http://www.geocities.com/nightskysr/Fiction.html


No, I did not write this, but it is one of the things that got me to to start playing SR.

[Wesley Street]

Ah, fan-fic. That's something I could never get into, usually because it's chock full of silly "said bookisms" which I find peevish as a writer.

"No," Nightsky shrugged. "Nothing."

In dialogue, always use "says" or "said." In this case: "No," Nightsky said, shrugging. "Nothing."

Now that I think about it I see direct-to-paperback writers do it as well and it makes me want to throw the book across the room. Craft is as important as ideas.

[nezumi]

In dialogue, always use "says" or "said." In this case: "No," Nightsky said, shrugging. "Nothing."

You have a source for that? Because I've read quite the opposite.

[Wesley Street]

Do a Google search for said bookisms and you'll see plenty of railing against the practice. It's common for writers to feel like they're using the word "said" to much and they start substituting. However, readers don't notice the word said or asked. So you end up with writings that look amateurish when you start using chuckled or sighed.

I'm certainly not perfect. I'm the king of the long sentence. I always have to hack up grammatically correct but unpleasant-to-read phrases into smaller ones.

[nezumi]

You're confusing rules. Said bookisms means don't use another word in place of said for the sole purpose of not saying 'said'. That isn't the same as using another verb in place of said if that other verb is more appropriate. There is no rule saying you MUST use 'said' for every time we attach a name to a quote (otherwise, why would we have verbs like 'shouted', 'whispered', etc. "Jump" Bob said as he shouted"?)

In the cited example, you need to include the word "shrugged" - it's the action. In this case, you can drop the word 'said' altogether because its purpose is already addressed - we know it's said (quotes) and we know who said it (Nightsky, because it's attached with the 'shrugged'). The 'said' is redundant and therefore is best dropped.

If you have a source saying we should ALWAYS use said, please do quote it.

[Wesley Street]

In your example of Bob, one way to go about it would be to write, "Jump," Bob said, shouting.

In the example I pulled, "shrugged" is actually the second action in a compound sentence. Unless Nightsky can manipulate his muscles into creating words by shrugging there's no way the word "No" could come from his body without him saying it. Another very common one I see is "Jump," Bob laughed. It's impossible to laugh and speak at the same time.

The fan-fic writer could have gotten away with writing, "No." Nightsky shrugged. The statement is broken into two sentences but it's clear who the speaker is by the line break.

If you're looking for rules that state said bookisms are grammatically incorrect, they aren't out there because technically they're not. But if you're looking for reasons why they shouldn't be used, here are a few articles:

The Seven Deadly Perils of Style - #8 Said Bookisms
"Stop Using Those Said Bookisms," the Editor Shrieked: The Use and Abuse of Dialogue Tags
Wikipedia: Far-fetched substitutes are known as said-bookisms. Some said-bookisms are, in fact, impossible...
Five Worst Said Bookisms

[hyzmarca]

In your example of Bob, one way to go about it would be to write, "Jump," Bob said, shouting.

That's probably the single most awkward line I've ever read.